In the deep mountain summer pasture, the days are getting longer and longer, and the afternoon time is getting more and more farther away. We wrapped ourselves in coats and took a long nap, always feeling like we had slept for three days and three nights. When I woke up, I sat on the felt one by one, not knowing what to do.
Zakbai's mother spread out the cloth and gave us tea. The movement of salt dissolving in the tea is discernible from afar, and the taste of food being chewed in the mouth is deep and steady.
In Usai, our station is very high and has reached the clouds. When the clouds were still far away, they were so bright that they seemed to sound when they were knocked. But once it moves nearby, it immediately boils and stickies.
It's a rainy June and there are several rains a day. Even if there is only a small cloud, it may rain for a while. And it's always cloudy early in the morning, and it's endless. When the overcast sky released its power, the sky immediately cleared as if it had just been replaced with a new battery, the sun immediately shone brightly, and the temperature immediately rose. As a result, the wet earth was lit by the sun, and a large amount of white water vapor rose in abundance. This water vapor collects in the sky and immediately turns into a cloudy cloud full of rainwater...... The cycle is endless, exhausting.
When the rain first stopped, the clouds in one corner of the sky cracked through a huge gap, and the sunlight cast huge pillars of light from there. Where the light shines, the water vapor surges, and the excitement is enthusiastic. Beyond the pillar of light, the sunless places are gloomy, clear, and cold.
I've been coughing for half a month now. The cough will always get worse at night. Everyone lay in the dark and listened quietly, and my mother sighed softly. During the day, I always wake up with a violent cough during my lunch break. When my grandfather, who was passing by our cabin from afar, heard a cough, he would turn around, stand at the door, look at me, and ask, "Child, are you okay?" ”
I was always dressed thick and round, and I was always reluctant to leave the stove. Zakbai's mother had to keep adding wood to the stove.
At this time, Gaina ran over, barefoot, wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt, and bare arms. Mom pointed to her and lifted my coat to Cassie next to me: a warm fleece jacket, a thick fleece shirt, a thin sweater, a thick sweater, a cotton jacket, a thin wool pants, a thick wool pants, and jeans. There is also a puffer jacket wrapped around the outside. Everyone shook their heads and sighed.
The weather is cooler and the pastures are more abundant. After coming to Wusai, the cows produced significantly more milk than Donkur. Every morning at half past three, Cassie and her mother had to get up and express their cows. I got up at four o'clock, chopped wood, made a fire, boiled water, and prepared morning tea. The firewood was always too wet, the stove was cold, and the first fire in the morning was always not lit for half a day. Smahuli was almost five o'clock before he was willing to leave the bed. When he came, I quickly folded the quilt and cleaned up the room. No sooner had they cleared the wooden bed than Mom and Cassie came home with three buckets full of milk. I quickly set up the table and made hot tea for everyone. After the tea, Smahu drove the sheep, Cassie drove the cows, I shook the separator, my mother boiled the milk, and kneaded the casein that had been pressed yesterday. By the time the siblings got home, the new casein had been drained out. It was often past 10 a.m., and everyone finally sat down together for tea again. And then...... Go to bed. By that time, everyone was so tired.
It began to dawn after three o'clock in the morning, and it was not dark until eleven o'clock in the evening. The heavy work spread out into such a long day is not so laborious. It's just that they all don't get enough sleep.
But every day before napping, everyone is already very sleepy, and they are still drinking tea slowly. It seems that he is still waiting for something, and he seems to know that there will be a long rest in the future, so he is not in a hurry.
When you really lie down and start sleeping, it's not as comfortable as carrying a drowsy on your shoulder. The ground under the felt is not very smooth, and no matter how you turn over, there is always a bone that is blocked. Whenever I am sleepy and drowsy, but I can't help myself, I really wish I had weighed 200 pounds, put on a thick body of fat, and bring my own mattress......
In addition, it is always rainy, the air is wet and cold, and there is no quilt cover (no one unfolds the quilt to sleep during the day, which is too ugly), so you can only wear a coat. I wish I had weighed two hundred pounds, and it must have felt like I was in a sleeping bag.
It wasn't until July, when three children turned into little bald heads, that I suddenly realized that it hadn't rained for several days! Summer is really here, it's July after all.
At noon on the warmest day, little Gayna even put on a skirt. When I came back from a walk, I found that Mother Zackbai and Sarah Guli had also changed into dresses made of light and bright chiffon.
In those days, I also took off my thick wool pants and thick sweater, and I felt relaxed. When I went out for a walk, I went even further and went to several places that I had never been to before. I used to be reluctant to go with Cassie to herd cattle and sheep, and I was tired and couldn't help much, but I couldn't resist her warm invitation. Now that he was finally interested, as soon as he saw her go out, he quickly asked, "Are you driving cattle?" Let's go! ”
The warmer weather makes the lunch break much more comfortable. So I can sleep in the dark every day, and I don't know what year or month I wake up.
Every sunny noon, Grandpa always sat on the grass in front of his house and enjoyed his passionate reading time. Mom and Sarah Guli spin thread, Cassie learns Chinese, kids play. After the sheep have eaten and drunk, they quietly return to the top of the mountain. The sheep and the sheep gathered in groups and lay in pairs in the crevices of nearby rocks or in the shade of trees. The child snuggled up to his mother, and his face was exactly the same.
Nowadays, the body of most lambs has caught up with that of their mothers. As a breed of big-tailed sheep, one by one's buttocks have also begun to take shape, round and heavy. When you walk, you sway from side to side, and when you run, you tremble up and down, and the waves are turbulent. Especially when the big sheep fled with his lamb when he heard the wind, the two fat butts who were exactly the same shook violently in unison. Seeing that situation, no matter how many times I felt the prosperity of the summer pasture, I couldn't help but sigh again.
Actually, growing such a big ass is also a trouble. Especially when going down the mountain, if you run a little faster, it is easy to stop the car. The front is light and the back is heavy - as soon as the front pauses, the ass is thrown high, and then the whole body is somersaulted 360 degrees.
I once saw a big lamb with a bloody face, and I wonder if it was caused by a front flip. One of its little horns was about to break, and it must have hurt. Its mother was also covered in a lot of blood. But the mother and son snuggled together, so calm.
By the way, the little lamb looks cute when it kneels to feed. But if you look as big as your mother, and you have to squeeze and kneel under your mother's belly to breastfeed, it looks very wrong.
My hair is already dirty and dreadlocks. In the absence of bright sunshine and no hair dryer, I won't wash it if I am killed. Now that the weather was warm, I boiled water one afternoon and washed it happily. Then sit in the sun and feel your hair shine as brightly as the sun. If I could, I would prefer to walk to the hot springs downstream. The weather was so good that it could be used as a short trip.
I used to eat only one main meal a day in the evening, but now the days are long and leisurely, and occasionally people will shout for pilaf or noodles at noon. The idea is certain, let's do it together. Cassie immediately kneaded the dough, I went down the mountain to fetch water, and my mother went out to carry firewood. I said, "There's still firewood!" The mother sighed and said, "Cassie thinks the firewood is too big, so she has to make a fire." "It can't be helped, we're all working for Cassie.
The weather is warm enough to be happy, and even happier if the calf returns at five o'clock. If you finish expressing your milk early, you can go to bed early.
As soon as the rainy season is over, it is soon necessary to move down the mountain. Then start rolling felt. Rolling felt is a major event of the year. Smahuli and Helati have also stepped up the process of sheep shearing. He also set a date to go to Jekacha to play wool and prepare for the felt-rolling.
Mom plans to sew another mattress. Before selling the wool, she picked out five of the cleanest and softest pieces of lamb's wool and asked Cassie to take to the swamp to wash. This guy went down the mountain with a big tin pot and wool, and he didn't come back for a long time. I went to look for her and saw her lying on the shore resting, waiting for the next pot of water to boil. I also saw that her hands were soaked white.
With the weather warm, her stomach full, and her sleep enough, Cassie was in a very good mood. And I talked a lot. said that Anarhan had been to Urumqi and helped a relative take care of the children for two months. She tried to say it in Chinese, and the original words were roughly as follows: "Anarhan's, February's, Urumqi's, a house's, a Balangzi (child's), my relatives, take it!" ”
She also said that when she was a child, her family was large, and her six brothers and sisters lived together. At that time, the station was very lively. Now, it's just her and Smahuli. And mentioned again how hard Anarhan worked outside, his hands were rotten, but he only took three days off to go to a relative's house in the county town to rest. I felt her distress and helplessness.
The next day, I passed by the swamp on my walk. Most of the plants in the swamp have needles, and occasionally there is a beach with large thick round leaves, which is very rich. After looking at it for a while, I suddenly remembered what Cassie had said here yesterday, and it was like a dream scene. Does the beauty of nature always prevail over human emotion? It doesn't seem to be......
The wet wool was too heavy for Cassie to be washed and could not be transported back to the top of the mountain, so he dried it in the woods on the edge of the swamp. At this point, the water is dripping out and is already semi-dry. I helped carry it back to the mountain. It's heavy! I was so tired that I gasped, and I couldn't help but pour cold water on my stomach when I got home.
When he was in Dongkur, the little book in which Cassie was learning Chinese was still very new. By this point, it was as if it had been used in fifty years of exile, and the first ten pages and the last ten pages were gone. But the little girl's enthusiasm for learning has not changed in the slightest. We went to look for the sheep, and she stuffed the book into her pocket. When I take a break on the way, I take it out and review the words. Reading and reading, he threw the notebook on the grass at his feet, lay down on his back, and closed his eyes. I also lay down next to her. Then the whole world turned to its side, and the sky suddenly enlarged, and the earth suddenly shrank. The world in front of me can put everything down, but nothing. Then turn your head to look at the valley below, and on the opposite side of the valley is the sheep road. The sheep path is slender and wide. Dozens, hundreds, and winding in parallel. The sheep have long since passed, but the bustling scene when the sheep walked is still there.
The deepest part of the valley is very green and green. How can it be so green? It's so green and sweet, it's so green that itchy...... Only this greenery has not changed at all through the rainy season.
Next to Cassie's broken notebook, in the strong midday sun, three delicate red mushrooms in the grass opened three red lips like three elves.
As he descended the mountain, walking and walking, suddenly Cassie sighed regretfully. As far as she could see, a pine tree had fallen into a bird's nest. I picked it up, and it was empty. This nest seems to be loosely woven, but it is very strong and heavy. It's not easy for birds, how much work and spit it to make such a home. Fortunately, the weather is already warm, and it must not be too difficult to redo it.
When the weather warmed up, I saw many things that I had never seen before. Like a big ant, its body is as thick as a match's head and its belly is as big as a soybean, shuttling abruptly and rapidly on fallen logs. If it's a small ant, it's normal to be so busy. But with such a large physique and running so fast, it looks stupid.
Hail was also seen. In the past, when I encountered hail, I only knew how to dodge, but now I have the leisure to observe carefully. Although the ground is hot and the hail melts when it lands, you can still see their true image in an instant. I used to think that hail was just ice lumps, but now I know it's not. The hail is actually angular and sharp before melting into round, ordinary ice particles. And, just as all snowflakes are hexagonal, almost all hailstones are of the same shape – six sharp edges at the bottom, six lateral edges at the top, and a flat regular hexagonal at the top. In other words, a hailstone is actually a diamond.
And hail is always transparent at one end, and a layer of transparent with a layer of milky white at the other end. Like rock formations of different geological ages, they are arranged neatly and exquisitely. I don't know what kind of power is in the clouds above, endlessly forging this beautiful and crystalline gem, and then throwing it down without regret.
It wasn't until the weather warmed up that we found out that the pants that Jeyod Buick often wore were actually women's, with embroidered flowers next to the trouser pocket, which were about Sara Guli's pants. Others are too thin to hold up, and they are loosely dressed. Cassie had long taken a fancy to these pants. One day he was ordered to take it off, and he tried it himself, and it fit perfectly. So he offered to exchange with him. She dumped all her clothes on the grass and let Jeyo Buick pick them up. But most of them are girls' clothes, and Jayyo has to look at one of Buick, and he is "open-minded". Cassie picks out an old red T-shirt that has been patched up several times and sweetly urges him to accept it, repeatedly pointing out how much the color suits him. But the boy was so good that he was unmoved. In the end, I calmly picked out a yellow-green half-worn T-shirt, a style suitable for both boys and girls. Coincidentally, it was the same one Cassie had bought with the new red t-shirt with sequins I had bought for her in exchange for Suhura. Alas, the more you exchange, the less worth it. This girl is really like the stupid old man in the fairy tale who finally exchanged a cow for a bag of rotten apples.
The two children seriously dispose of their property in the sun. Suddenly, Cassie turned her head and winked at me. I don't know what it means, but it's very moving. There was a sudden silence. The ground was covered with brightly colored clothes, the grass began to pluck its ears, and a large cloud overhead.
Dusk always comes suddenly. It's always like that - coming back from outside, just walking to the door, and as soon as I look up, I see dusk. The world is at its most expansive at dusk, and the sun is heaviest at the moment when it sweeps. As if the sun swept to our isolated island of Linhai, it was no longer able to move forward, and it all piled up near our station. A thousand, a thousand. Walking in it, people also slow down. Mom, Cassie, and Sarah Guli milk the cows in the sunset, and the white milk slows down towards the keg. Children chase calves and play. No one kicked, and the white ball rolled around. It was a scene that had been seen hundreds of years ago, so familiar that one suddenly remembered everything and suddenly forgot everything.
At dusk, my grandfather, who passed by my wooden house, was going to make a bata. Although it was only a few dozen steps away from my own home, I decided to do it at my house. Probably also a blessing to us. Far away, Cassie dropped what she was doing and rushed home to serve him. She poured hot water into the pot and handed it to her, and her grandfather took it and went to the grove behind the house to cleanse herself. Then I went back to the wooden house, stepped on the wooden couch and knelt down and prayed quietly. The children, who had been playing, quieted down. They all knew that Grandpa was doing a sacred thing, sitting on the edge of the bed one by one silently, each doing his own thing. As soon as the grandfather was finished, the children raised their hands together and said the last word "Allah", and then continued to chat and play lively.
At this time, Smahuli shouted outside: "Hurry up, the sheep are back!" Everyone poured out of the hut and took their places to begin the last work of the day.