The team planted a large area of alfalfa as feed to feed nearly 100 animals. In early spring, grass germinates and everything recovers. It's also the time when green and yellow don't pick up. Fresh vegetables are very scarce. Unlike greenhouse vegetables, all kinds of vegetables are available at any time. At this time, the first alfalfa that has just emerged is as precious as a pearl. Every day after school, some of our friends take cages and shovels to dig wild vegetables in the fields. Before the wheat turned green, there were few wild vegetables, so we strolled into the alfalfa hut in the team. There is a special person in charge at the scene, and no one is allowed to go in and pout, but that is mainly to prevent adults and children in other villages. The third owner in the door is looking after alfalfa. Sometimes he comes over and says, hurry up and go somewhere else. The tender alfalfa smells fresh, and the bud tip is too small to pout. You can only pinch it with three fingers, picking it bit by bit like a southerner picking tea on TV. Finally, I picked half a cage and a group of children from other villages came. Third Master saw too many people, and he was afraid that the captain would see the deduction of work points, so he quickly drove everyone away. We have to go to the wheat field or the roadside to look for other wild crops. But after all, there are few wild vegetables, so we often play a cat-and-mouse game with Third Master.
When I came back at night, I finally dug a cage of wild rice. My mother fell to the ground and the whole family began to pick it up under the kerosene lamp. If you can eat, put it in a pot, and if you can't eat, feed it to chickens or pigs. Every spring, my mother has to raise a dozen chickens and catch a pig, which is also the basic survival mode of every household in rural areas at that time. Therefore, we children who can't take part in agricultural labor dig wild vegetables every day after school.
Picked the first alfalfa, and it was delicious on the table the next morning. Mother mixed the flour, steamed it into a dish and sprinkled it with oily garlic. The fragrance still seems to be floating in my mouth. Sometimes I dig a lot, and my mother still leaves some in the noodles at noon. In that era of poor material life, Ye Lai spent a wonderful childhood with me.
Alfalfa grows rapidly after a spring rain. In order to survive the famine, the production team sent someone to pout and grow vegetables every day. As a perennial herb, alfalfa grows longer and longer. Every day, the team distributed pouting lai to every household according to the population, so alfalfa became the only green vegetable in every household's pot all spring. If you fry a little leek in the pot with an iron spoon, the noodles at noon will taste better. At that time, the family will eat 20 cents of leeks. The vegetable seller doesn't need to be weighed. In fact, he didn't take the scale, so he divided a pinch with his hand: Here, twenty cents leek! Housewives don't think much of it, so they take it home to choose. While cooking the pot, her father fried it with an iron spoon, and the noodles were rolled and cut. The children ate it and waited for school. Mom and dad are resting and going to work in the production team.
In April and May of the lunar calendar, alfalfa can no longer be eaten by the elders, and it really becomes the feed for the animals in the team. In the meantime, Sophora japonica beside the canal field has become a delicacy on the table of the people. At that time, after school, my friends and I took a long bamboo pole with an iron hook tied to the top to hook Sophora japonica, and we were not afraid of thorns. We hooked a big branch, first grabbed a handful of raw Sophora japonica by hand and put it in our mouth until we were full. Even so, fortunately, we have never had a stomachache.
In addition to these, there are wild Lycium barbarum leaves by the canal, tidbits on paper trees, elms bearing elms by the pond and so on. Nature provided us with a lot of food to spend the famine years, which was undoubtedly delicious at the dinner table at that time. Fortunately, I was born three years ago, and the natural disasters have passed, and I have never experienced the difficult years when my parents were hungry. But I was taught by my parents not to waste a grain since I was a child, and I still remember that a porridge and a meal are hard-won. It is the duty of farmers to always think about material difficulties and be thrifty and housekeeping. Forgetting the past means betrayal. No matter how good our life is now, we can't forget the hard years of the past.
About the author:
Xue Wende, born in Shinan Town, Xingping, 1990 began to publish his works. Published more than 100 poems in newspapers and periodicals all over China, such as Xi Evening News, Shaanxi Daily, Liaoning Youth, Weishui Magazine, china construction news and Xianyang Daily, and signed the original platform of Jingwei Wen Yuan. He has won 12 literary awards, and his works have been selected in Sixty Years of Shaanxi Peasant Poetry. Member and director of Shaanxi Peasant Poetry Society, member of Xingping Writers Association. He likes singing, traveling and holding weddings.