Break the wood
Text/Zhang Longhui
Whenever winter comes, when the sand and snow fall after the snow, the fields and mountains in my hometown are covered with snow, and the snow presses the mountains, and there is a white expanse everywhere. At this time, I will think of cutting Ling Chai.
Broken lingchai, specifically refers to the fir tree with broken branches, also known as pine tree. When people shave the trees as firewood, they want to get more firewood, so they cut off all the thick branches of the fir tree, leaving a few light-headed twigs like umbrellas covering the tree, and the bigger the snow falls, the snowflakes will cover the fir hairs of the branches, and the fir hairs of the branches will be bent by the snow, and when they cannot bear it, the entire tree top will be broken, leaving the bare trunk, standing on the top of the mountain like a pencil. Fir trees lose their branches and leaves (fir hair), it will end life, unlike other species can also germinate and regenerate, fir tree life is very fragile, broken branches without fir hair is equivalent to like a person without qi, no life characteristics.
Regardless of the size of the broken wood, people can cut it off at will. Thick and straight materials can be left to unravel the board, or used as pigs, cattle pen stigmas, and those who are not well-behaved can chop wood and burn them. Although it is the collective property of the production team, no one will say anything when the members go to cut it, let alone scold.
I remember when I was a student, when I was in winter, as long as it was snowing, we would go up the mountain together, or take our dogs to look for prey in the snowy mountains. At that time, the mountain forest was thinner, hares, pheasants, bamboo rats and the like had nowhere to hide, especially when it was snowy, the land was covered with heavy snow, the food of the prey was relatively reduced, they would go out of the nest to a long distance to forage, leaving traces everywhere they went. In addition, the dog's sense of smell is sensitive, the place where the prey passes has a commotion, the dog will follow this smell, as long as there is a target, chased to the prey behind, the dog will make a sharp bark, which is to indicate that the owner has found the target. We follow the prestige towards the place where the dog screams, and we will constantly issue the command of "rope, rope, rope", which is equivalent to the meaning of refueling, which is to help the dog. While following, I will pay attention to whether there is any broken firewood on the top of the mountain. If so, keep it in mind, after returning home, each of them took an axe, a spoon, a knife and other heads and headed for the mountain, came to the fir tree with a broken peak, and cut off Ling Chai and the two shared one was the most ideal. You can take turns to cut down the broken fir tree with an axe, cut it into a small building by 5 meters away, and shuttle the short building from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the mountain, the roadside is the best when the shuttle arrives, it is best to choose a flat, which is convenient for putting the head of the ji and when (loading) firewood. When chopping firewood, first take a short section of the building and put it horizontally to make a sleeper, avoid the axe splitting the stone on the ground, and lift the truncated short building onto the sleeper, you can split. Some of the trees are large, about 3 or 40 centimeters in diameter, and some are spiral-shaped or scarred, which is difficult to split. First by the main force of chopping wood will be pinched on both sides of the tree dongzi front force, axe to a place to force, generally choose the tree dongzi good split the head of the split, fir tree silk, under the action of external force, as long as two more axes, then difficult to split will also be split, after the tree dongzi split the opening, the deputy with the axe to split the cracks, the strength is not quite large, after going down the gap is slightly larger than the front axe, the main attacker will smash the axe into the wood to pull out, this is called squeezing tip help. Joining hands to rotate hard, the work is doubled, and the axe into the wood has the strength and depth, which will force the tree to explode into two petals in an instant, and the remaining sweeping work will be solved by the deputy. The firewood is split into a scale according to the length of the basket and the size it needs, and after splitting, each is loaded into the basket, and as many as you pick. If the stout part under the tree could be reserved for other uses, he was cut to the length he needed, the firewood was chopped and lighted, and the two of them worked together to carry the tree back home. In order to avoid slippery feet on the snow, before picking firewood and lifting trees, we will pull a handful of straw into a rope like an adult, and tie the shoes from the soles of the feet to the instep of the feet, protruding the ropes. This trick has been passed down from ancient times, I did not study the profound knowledge of this, I think it should be understood as focusing on the rope, the rope hoop into the snow, equivalent to a tooth biting the ground, when walking around, you must not slip!
The fir tree pieces of firewood that were picked home were uniformly placed on the tail of the firewood by the side of the fire, stacked, and all the firewood was picked up, and one person went upstairs to collect the firewood, and stacked it on the kang in an orderly manner, and the other person handed it up one by one downstairs. After the fir wood is placed on the kang and smoked for ten and a half days, the moisture will naturally dry out and become black and yellow dry firewood. Broken Ling chai is not blindly necessary to go to Kang, if you need to use wet wood, do not go to Kang to set fire to lay feet for backup. For example, smoked bacon at night, or having something to go out, etc., have to be mixed with wet wood and dry wood to cover the hot ash fire hall, and the wet wood keeps smoking under the action of hot ash, because the smoked bacon kang cannot interrupt the fireworks. Wet firewood is burned and placed in a fire hall so that people can sleep soundly at night and rest in peace; or have enough time to do other things. Fir tree wood has fir oil, easy to burn, strong firepower, no less than mixed firewood, especially the smell of ointment emitted when burning, people like. Fir tree block firewood is a good fuel for toasting wine and making alkali, as long as it is a doorway to catch fire, the owner will choose fir tree firewood; the fire is laid to make rice and eat soup, and people also like to use fir tree firewood. This kind of firewood soot is less, and the flames float up and warm up, making people feel enjoyed and comfortable. In particular, the smell that emanated from the chai was the memory that we could not forget when we walked out of the mountains.
Nowadays, real life makes rural youth go out to work or live in the city, almost all of them are far away from the countryside. Most of the people living in the countryside are frail and sickly elderly. The fewer people living in their hometowns, the fewer people who burn firewood, especially those who feed cattle and sheep now, are not as popular as in the past, ploughing and planting land are mechanized alternatives, mountain forests are not trampled by cattle and sheep, and chai mountains naturally grow well. In addition, daily life uses electricity to boil water and cook, the man-made damage is small, and the mountains and forests are uniformly sealed and managed, no one to cut down and destroy, the mountains and forests gradually become bloated and obese. Aoka, Chestnut and other miscellaneous firewood grow a few people tall no one wants, not to mention the shaved fir tree branches still have to climb the height, no one is willing to climb, the fir tree branches grow strangely big crotch, even if it is now pressed by heavy snow, the fir hair of the branches will not be completely broken. Therefore, Broken Lingchai may never appear again in the future, which may be the embodiment of changes in the human environment.
I love breaking lingchai, she evokes my childhood memories and nostalgia. The land of my hometown has nurtured my growth, given me a lot of imagination space, and there are many good memories in my bones, including the shadow of Broken Lingchai. I am grateful for the warmth that Broken Lingchai once gave me. I am also grateful for this land of affection and strong nostalgia and affection.
Hometown is the beginning of my life and my eternal memory.
Zhang Longfei, born in 1968, college education, party member, hunan Xinhuang County, worked as a farmer, served as a soldier, went to school, worked as a worker, through business, is a typical representative of workers, peasants, businessmen and soldiers, enlisted in the army in 1987, served in the 52891 soldiers' military band of the Beijing Military Region, participated in the 1989 Central Military Commission in the Bayi Auditorium to award the rank of lieutenant general and major general of the Beijing Military Region, in October of that year and participated in the National Day Gala held by the Ministry of Culture in the capital gymnasium to celebrate the 39th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Won four commendations, one collective third class merit; in 2019, he was awarded the honorary title of "Outstanding Communist Youth League Cadre of Xinhuang County" by the Xinhuang County Committee of the Communist Youth League; in 2000, 2003 and 2017, he was awarded the "Top Ten Excellent Correspondents" of the Xinhuang County Committee of the Communist Party of China and the County Propaganda Department, and more than 600 manuscripts were flashed in people's dailys, Hunan Daily, Chinese rural magazines, Guizhou literature, Beijing literature, Shanghai literary circles, Xiangchu literature, Huxiang literature, etc.; in 2017, he was awarded by the organ committee of the Xinhuang County Economic, Scientific, Commercial and Grain Bureau of the COMMUNIST Party of China" Honorary title of "Outstanding Communist Party Member"; in 2019, he was rated as "Excellent Trade Union Cadre" by the Xinhuang County Federation of Trade Unions; the literary work "Perspective on The Rock" collected and written in the same year was awarded the "First County Literary and Artistic Excellence Award" by the Propaganda Department of the Xinhuang County CPC Committee; in 2020 and 2021, he was twice rated as an "Excellent Member" by the Xinhuang DongXue Research Association; in 2020, he participated in the Poetry Culture and Art Festival of Xiang, Hubei, Qian, Guizhou and Yu provinces and won the first prize in the prose essay photography contest "Anti-epidemic Resumption" moving China (Huaihua). At the same time, he won the first prize of "People's Memoirs" of Huaihua Daily; he is a member of the Huaihua City Writers Association, the deputy secretary general of the Xinhuang County Literary Association, and the secretary general of the County Writers Association.