The alternative story of the yellow cake that you don't know
Text/Shao Yanyun
I am a native of Weixian who grew up eating yellow cakes, yellow cakes as a special food in Weixian County, naturally there are many literature lovers in the form of words to describe, I read a lot of articles about yellow cakes, but how yellow cakes from a small yellow cake to the table, no one has written in detail, I will be a personal experiencer, to tell you an alternative story of yellow cake!
The muckles are drought tolerant and mature in about a hundred days. Every year after Children's Day. The corn, millet and other crops in the field have been smiling and covering the land tightly, and Dad will let My Mother find out the stored millet, mix the millet into a large pile of dung that is dried and sieve, and then prepare the dung, the gang, the dustpan and other agricultural tools that need to be sown, put on the carriage, and pull the dung noodles and agricultural tools mixed with the dung to the ground. Millet is sown in the ground with millet grains, and before planting millet, it is necessary to see the moisture, that is, whether the degree of dryness and wetness of the land is suitable for farming. If it is too wet, it is cold, and if it is too dry, the buds will sprout slowly. When the moisture in the field is right, the seeds will be sown. The mule or donkey pulls a ridge of three rows, and the father puts a V-shaped shackle on the mule, and on each side of the shackle is a card slot tied to the rope, and then a rope is used to go around the mule's neck and stomach. Two long ropes tied to the rope, and he held the handle of the rope, and with a roar the mule, he bowed his head and moved forward. In order to ensure that the sowing is in a straight line, there must be a man in front of the mule, and I am often the best candidate, (this work looks easy, but in the already cultivated loose land and the tall mule go as fast as the tall mule, and at the same time listen to my father's command from time to time to the left and right, after a few acres of sowing, the clothes will be soaked with sweat) The wooden spoon is a bucket, which is filled with a large dung noodle mixed with the mule, and the bottom of the bucket has three holes connecting the three pointed iron feet below, and the tip of the iron foot has a small hole. There are two handles on the top of the rope, and the shaky father will hold the handle to keep the depth and direction of the iron foot deep into the ground, which is a technical job, and no one in my family except my father dares to take this job. As the mule moved forward, Dad gently shook the handle from side to side, and the iron foot made a shallow ditch in the ground, while the large dung soil mixed with the mule flowed out of the small hole into the soil. In the middle, the mother would constantly take a dustpan and add the dung mixed with the blackened to the bucket, walk along the long field, and then turn back at the same time, so that the repeated rows of millet were neatly scattered in the land. The ditch after the iron foot was crossed was then pulled and compacted, in order to protect the fortification, which was usually my brother's.
In six or seven days, the furry seedlings will break through the soil, and the seedlings are usually too dense, and there is a proverb that says it well: an inch early, resist the dung. So we have to artificially plant seedlings as soon as possible, and at the same time pull out the weeds in the field, which we call the work of the grass. The grass is not like the crop man hoeing the ground, there is a strength on the line, this work is like a big girl embroidery, you have to use ingenuity, dad will not use ingenuity, when it comes to the millet. It was the hottest season of the year, and the clouds seemed to have been burned by the sun and disappeared without a trace. The tile blue sky hung with a fireball-like sun, the dirt on the ground was hot and hot, and the father of the five big and three thick was lying on the ground, with the bright and dangling sun on his back, looking at his mother who was far ahead, and the sweat flowed vigorously. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't catch up with his mother. Even more terrible than the heat is the rainy day during the season, because the rain is too much, the seedling grows too fast, its roots will also be deeper, the seedling will be particularly difficult to pull, if it encounters even rain. It is too late for the seedlings to be born, and it will affect the harvest. This is the last thing Mom and Dad want to see. The knife in the sky also has to be sprouted, which is Dad's mantra. Therefore, during the period of the millet, the habit of rainy days as the holidays of the croppers will generally be broken, and I have a wetting in the rainy field, when the top of the head is covered with a piece of plastic sheet, the pants and shoes are wet with water, both hands are full of mud, look up at the front, the gray sky is even heavier than the wet and cold feeling on the body...
Miao's millet field is like a rural daughter-in-law who washes her head and faces and changes into new clothes, making people love more and more the more they look at it. If there is enough rain, the seedlings will change one day and three days. It didn't take long to grow to the waist of a man, and in three days, the man sat in the shade, and the sweat on his head was also touched. The airtight crop fields are even hotter than steamers, but the parents can't take care of these, because there is a lot of rain, the crops are long, and the weeds are growing wildly. Not allowing the weeds to become climatic was the only belief that sustained them to endure the heat, so bundles of weeds were pulled home by them in a carriage to feed the mules, at the cost of their clothes stained with sweat...
From the beginning of the autumn, it seems that a tense struggle has finally gradually revealed the difference, the field has a leisurely breath from its broad chest, the trees and crops in the four began to sway in the breeze, and the leaves became calm and relaxed. The dew returned, moistened the fields in the early morning and evening, and hung quietly into the fields. Although the sunlight is still bright, it no longer hurts people's backbones, and becomes broad and clear, as if it is finally weak, can not melt the field, and it is reconciled with the field... Autumn is here! The earth is golden, the ripening period of the millet is very inconsistent, the upper part of the ear matures first, the middle and lower part matures later, coupled with the strong graining, the harvest is late, the millet will fall to the ground, and the loss is serious. Generally, the grain at the base of the panicle enters the wax ripening stage, and the panicle grain matures to seven or eight years to harvest the millet. Dad had to sharpen the sickle early, harvest autumn and autumn, if you don't harvest it, you will lose it, especially crops that are easy to fall, a strong wind, a hail can destroy a year's toil, can not let the mouth of the grain lost, August autumn yellow, show girl help, every time it comes to harvest the millet, the family can move the labor force to fight, get up early and harvest the crops greedily. It wasn't until I had cut all the blacks that I dared to straighten my waist.
The bundled yellows were pulled by Dad to the repaired field one by one, and then bundled and unwrapped, evenly spread on the field, requiring the tassels to be exposed, so that the tassels were easy to crush out, since I can remember, most people in our village are grinding the yellows all night long, in the field, the bright and dangling electric lights hang on the high wooden sticks, the mules are pulled out, put on the stakes, the father pulls the long reins to stand in the middle, the moles turn rapidly, round and round and round, crushing, when the tassels are white, It is necessary to turn the straw over, so as to ensure that the millet particles are returned to the warehouse, and these millet straws are crushed and entangled like a pile of hemp, and it is particularly difficult to turn. At that time, I was also a teenager, tired during the day, coupled with the busyness of most of the night, already tired, wanted to sit down and rest, and afraid of my father's scolding, I had to grit my teeth and insist, often not waiting for a large field of stalks to turn over, I was sleepy and shaking, my mother was distressed about me and my brother, so I let us both go home and sleep. Lying on my family's earthen kang, the ear is the rumbling sound of the fan car, (that is the parents they used the fan car to fan the grains and impurities of the fish) The next day when my brother and I were awakened by the sound of my mother cooking, we saw my father come home, and those straws were also neatly stacked together by my father and mother, next to a big push through the fan car to fan out of the round and white dazzling yellow, they did not have much tiredness, and the yellow children would be packed into my family's big grain hoard for a day or two. The yellow cakes piled up in the field let their hearts into the stomach, "the yellow cake is considered to be a bumper harvest in the mouth, and this year there are yellow cakes to eat", which is the father's testimonial after the harvest every year, a simple sentence, containing too many feelings from parents...
From planting to harvesting, each of the processes is not easy, whether it is a hot summer, or wind and rain, in order to have a good harvest, they have no complaints, relying on the indomitable persistence of life, the expectation of a good harvest. Today, parents in their seventies are still cultivating the land, because for their parents and for the villagers in their hometown, the land is their lifeblood, just like the farmers in Wei County, if they don't eat yellow cakes for a day, they will feel empty in their stomachs. When I make yellow cakes at home, the yellow cakes are cooked, and even if there is a little yellow cake on the cage cloth, they will be carefully cleaned up. Because I know the hardships of farmers, I will cherish the hard-won grain even more. But I didn't know how to help them. Writing these words is the only thing I can do for my parents, as well as my fathers and fellow countrymen in my hometown...
About the Author:
Shao Yanyun, female, Han ethnicity, high school education, political outlook, member of the Communist Party of China, born on June 17, 1975, worked in the government of Taohua Town, Wei County, Hebei Province in April 1994, loves literature, is a member of the Wei County Writers Association, and a member of the Wei County Poetry Association.