#六月生活记录#
Author: Huang Chaowen
There are two walnuts on the writing desk in my study, which were given by a relative twelve years ago, and I heard that the price is not cheap. They are small, cute, hard, and shiny. When I go out for a walk, I pinch it and rub it in my hand as I walk, which feels very comfortable. I heard that walnuts stimulate the acupuncture points in the palms and are good for health. But for walnuts to me, there's so much more to it than that.
About 300 meters northeast from my house is my aunt's house, and there is a walnut tree in front of my aunt's house. The main trunk of this tree is very thick, it needs two people to hug each other, and at a height of more than two meters from the ground, three forks are produced, and then they are repeatedly forked upwards, and the entire canopy is lush and overwhelming, like a big umbrella to keep out the rain and sun. When spring comes, new shoots sprout and new leaves grow, giving off a particularly strong aroma that can be smelled from afar. As the branches and leaves grew, the shade of the trees gradually covered the front of my aunt's house.
Going out from my aunt's house, about 50 meters downward, there is an old ancient well, which is the only source of living water for our three or four families here. When I was six or seven years old, I used to go to the old well to carry water, and occasionally to rest under the walnut tree, and my aunt was very hospitable, and when she saw us coming, she invited us into the house and found us something to eat. She always took out some walnuts from under the cabinet and gave them to us, and they tasted bad, and I don't know how long they had been hidden, and even my aunt herself couldn't remember what year it was, so her family was reluctant to eat them, so they hid them for us to eat.
In the shade of that tree, we ate walnuts and looked up at the green walnuts on the tree. The tree has a high seed setting rate, and the branches are full of fruit, and the branches are bent downward. Among them, there are single only children, twin births, three births, and a few four-child clusters. We looked and counted: one, two, three...... Two hundred and twenty-four, two hundred and twenty-five, the same as Xiao Zhang Heng counting stars.
I have a vague impression that my aunt is shorter, slightly fat, with a round face, a deflated mouth, and bright eyes. She was the eldest of her siblings, more than ten years older than my father. When my father was only seven or eight years old, my aunt had already met my uncle and started a family. This is the old house that my uncle's family has held for generations.
One day, we went to the shade under the walnut tree again, and suddenly we saw a dense wound on the trunk, horizontal and vertical, obviously chopped out with a machete. Some wounds are slowly healing, others are new wounds that have been added not long ago, and these wounds are long and deep. Despite the severity of the injury, it is still lush and fruitful. I'm amazed at who is so ruthless as to chop it up like this.
Later, I heard from adults that walnut trees need to be chopped every year, and sometimes they have to spray thin rice soup on the wounds. Only in this way did it grow better and bear more fruit, and later, when I saw other people's walnut trees like this, scarred all over my body, I suddenly realized.
So, I guessed that the walnut tree needs to release dross, such as toxins, through the wound, and at the same time, it needs to absorb some mysterious substance, such as nutrients, from the outside through the wound. In this way, it can grow more luxuriant and give more fruit to people. In order to protect China's territory from infringement and to maintain world peace, the heroes on the battlefield of resistance against Japan braved the rain of bullets and bullets, and although they were covered with scars, they still held their positions and made sacrifices for the tens of millions of Chinese people. Their spirit is truly admirable.
I heard from adults that the fruit does not ripen until half of July. So, just after nearly six months, we coveted the walnuts on the tree every day, and we didn't have the heart to do anything. That day, we went to carry water again, and after scooping the bucket with water, we found that the wind and waves outside my aunt's house were calm and silent, so we quietly dived under the walnut tree. The tree was too big to climb, so we circled around the trunk a few times, and finally found a branch hanging down diagonally, and a few walnuts hung on it. Jumped up and reached out to grab it, but out of reach, I found a stick with a hook, and finally hooked it. In this way, he took off five or six, and when he saw that there was no one around, he stuffed them into his pocket and ran away.
We lifted the bucket, ran back in three steps and two steps, and as soon as we entered the door, we put down the bucket and ran out of the door. There was a big stone on the west side of my house, we put the walnuts on the stone, and found a fist-sized stone, and while smashing it, we put the walnuts on the big stone and grinded them, and after working for a long time, we finally got rid of the green shell outside. Because it did not grow long, the shell did not harden, and the green shell was broken open, revealing the white walnut kernels inside. We pick open the walnuts, gently peel off the outer layer of skin, and feed them straight into our mouths. I didn't eat a little aroma, but there was some bitterness and astringency, and the taste was weird. After eating, we looked at each other for a moment, oh my God, the mouth, hands, and cheeks were all black and black, hurry up and find water to wash it. Fortunately, it was not discovered by adults, otherwise, a stick would never have been able to escape.
In the blink of an eye, July and a half have arrived, and my aunt's house is about to harvest walnuts. Because there were many walnuts in the trees, I needed a few helpers, so I asked a few of my brothers to help. The elder brother and the cousins had a clear division of labor, cooperated tacitly, climbed the tree alone, and kept beating with a long bamboo pole, and the walnuts fell to the ground. A few others were on the ground, picking them up and putting them in bamboo baskets, and we little naughty ones stood in the distance and watched the strangeness. Finally, they stacked the walnuts on the field outside the door to dry.
Except for a few on the high branches that could not be reached, the rest were basically knocked out, and there was a lot of them on the ground, at least three or four hundred catties, and my aunt gave us some. After five or six days, the walnuts will automatically leave the pit, pinch them with your hands, or knock them with a small hammer, and the green shells will easily fall, and they will come out with round, smooth and clean walnuts. After peeling off, there were still one or two hundred catties, and my aunt gave us some more.
My aunt was generous and gave us walnuts again and again. At this time, my heart was deeply disturbed and ashamed, and I felt extremely guilty for stealing walnuts earlier. From then on, I washed my hands and never ate my aunt's walnuts again.
My mother hid the walnuts my aunt gave her, saying that she kept them for the New Year. One day, I was home alone, and on a whim, I rummaged through the cabinets, but I didn't find the walnuts. Mother really used her brains to hide it so secretly. Forget it, don't look for it, when the time comes, there will naturally be something to eat, so I look forward to the New Year every day, and when it comes, the walnuts will come out. Of course, there were times when my mother miscalculated, and once, seeing that the Chinese New Year was coming, my mother went to retrieve the walnuts she had hidden, but she didn't find any of them. Prevent the greedy child, but ignore the mouse that steals the mouth.
The New Year is finally here, according to the customs of our hometown, Chinese New Year's Eve is not sleeping, the elderly squat at home all night to roast the fire, and the children run around to play. In those years, there were distinguished guests at home, and there was no other delicious hospitality, only walnuts. When we arrived at my aunt's house, my aunt hurried into the back room, and came out again in a while, holding a large gourd scoop in both hands, which was heavy, and filled with walnuts. My aunt gave us a handful of walnuts, and each of them got a handful, and the cousins and cousins only got two or three each, and I thought to myself, this is too unfair, and she can't bear it in front of her own children. Six or seven of our cousins gathered around the fire, happily, chatting over the fire and knocking on walnuts to eat, which were fresh that year, and the taste was fragrant and pure. During the Chinese New Year, housewives naturally have a lot of things, and my aunt is busy going in and out for a while, and when she sees us eating very well, she smiles happily. My uncle also hurriedly got up and went outside to bring back a few wooden lumps and put them in the stove, and a raging fire suddenly ignited.
Soon after the year, my aunt fell ill, because of poverty, remoteness, traffic blockage, and because of the backward medical technology conditions at that time, my aunt did not go to the hospital for a day. It was not long before my aunt passed away at the age of fifty, and it was with great sadness that we saw her off. At the end of the nineties, my uncle also left. Forever remember my aunt and uncle.
In the next few years, several cousins moved to other places one after another, and since then, the entire courtyard of my aunt's house has been empty. The adobe house was unsupervised and repaired by the wind and rain, and soon collapsed, but the walnut tree remained standing.
After four or five years, when I went back to my hometown to visit relatives, I went to visit the walnut tree and found that the bamboo forest next to it had spread over, basically occupying the territory and airspace of the walnut tree. After another ten years, the walnut tree was cut down, and only a thick old stump remained, and after another ten years, the old stump was gone.
In the dead of night, crawling at the desk to work, every time I see the pair of walnuts on the table, the childhood memories of fifty years ago can't help but come to my eyes: I went to the old ancient well to carry water, I went to my aunt's house to steal walnuts, my aunt gave us walnuts to eat, my uncle moved wooden lumps to light the fire, and my cousin accompanied us to sit around the fireside and talk about walnuts...... It's something you'll never forget.
2024/06/27 in Yunxi.
About author:Huang Chaowen, male, from Yunxi County, Hubei Province, is a teacher in Yunxi County No. 1 Middle School, and has been engaged in high school biology teaching for 35 years. Hobbies: hiking, music, table tennis, raising flowers and writing.