At that time, children in rural areas not only had to study, but also took part in farm work and were busy with farm work. These farm holidays in the village are all related to planting and harvesting crops in Da Chun. For farmers, nothing is more important than planting and harvesting Da Chun. Therefore, in the summer and autumn when planting and harvesting crops in Da Chun, students have three very unique busy agricultural holidays, namely transplanting rice before and after the Long Summer Festival, catching finches in beginning of autumn in summer, and shaking millet before and after the Mid-Autumn Festival. These three busy agricultural holidays are not short, planting seedlings 10 days or so, driving corn finches for about a week, and shaking corn 10 days or so. Although these temporary local holidays in Chuxiong have given us hard work, they have also given us a lot of fun and good memories, and also enriched our life experiences, experiences and knowledge.
We can't remember whether there were any winter and summer vacations at that time, but we firmly remember these busy agricultural holidays, which have been fresh in our memory for decades.
Seedling planting leave is generally issued after the seedling door is opened and the seedling planting is officially started. The primary school is on the Nanshan slope behind Shaxi Village, standing outside the gate and even in front of the classroom window, you can see Shaxi Village, Caijiachong and our Wangjiatun Dam, and you can also see a large area of cultivated land, Yuanshuqiao, Xiejiahe and Zhuangdian Village outside the dam. Students and some teachers can see it on the way to and from school. Moreover, at that time, the leaders of the brigade attached great importance to Shaxi Village Primary School and had a good relationship with primary school teachers. The leading cadres of the brigade are basically farmers in these nearby villages, and their families also have children studying in the villages. The brigade attaches great importance to running small villages, and small villages also support the productive labor and busy farming holidays of the whole brigade. At that time, it was basically released every year, allowing us students to go home and help. The battalion chief announced the opening of the seedling gate, usually after the May 4th Movement. Cuckoo is singing, and the solar term is Long Summer Festival. Subsequently, the battalion chief will discuss with the village chief Yang according to the solar terms and the opening hours of the seedling gate, and decide the specific time for the small farm holiday in the village. The battalion chief ordered the Miaozha to be opened, and the Caijiachong Reservoir where the brigade headquarters is located and the Zhuxichong Reservoir further back in our village began to open dams and release water. Our village on the uphill of Caijiachong Reservoir, and a large number of paddy fields in Wangjiatun, Zhuguachong, Nuodaowa, Zhongcun and Zhuxichong are all waiting for Zhuxichong Reservoir to open the dam and release water. Our brigade is on both sides of a narrow small dam or valley. In the middle of the dam, there is a river. On both sides of this river, all paddy fields are used to grow staple rice. On a slightly higher hillside, it is difficult for the water pump to pump up the water, so dry crops such as corn and beans are planted. Some years have been dry, and Caijiachong Reservoir and Zhuxichong Reservoir have insufficient water storage, so we have to wait for Jiulongdian Reservoir to open the dam and release water, and Jiulongdian Reservoir will release water to the downstream towns to plant seedlings. The time to start releasing water and opening the seedling door every year is generally after May 4th.
Fields that have just harvested broad beans, dug or plowed not long ago will soon be watery as long as they are soaked together, and farmers will drive cattle to plow and rake the fields. This is real spring ploughing. Chuxiong comes early every season. Cattle dragging a rake, farmers standing on the rake, raking the ground back and forth, so careful, so excited, so excited, so passionate, just like combing a beautiful woman's hair. Soon, pieces of rice fields were raked by farmers and buffaloes and turned into waxy like porridge. The dam was white, bright and silvery white. In the sun, watery rice fields, like strange-shaped mirrors, twinkle in the wind. Farmers and villagers began to look at the mirror, sowing seeds and embroidering on the earth. Like embroidery, they embroidered a neat, green and energetic "Shuanglong going out to sea" pattern.
Children are happiest at this time, and have a transplanting holiday, so they will dry the harvested early spring crops in rice fields or send seedlings on the ridges. Older children will also carry half or several seedlings with large flower baskets and enjoy the joy of sowing seedlings in the hopeful spring. At this time, the happiness in the countryside is full of hopes and expectations for a year, infecting everyone and our children who are taking a farm break.
What makes us more happy is that when we are drying grain on the threshing floor, we can climb the earth wall of the tile house by wooden ladder, dig out the sparrow's nest in the cracks in the wall and the hole at the head of the tile ditch, and dig out the sparrow's eggs for playing or eating. At that time, I was poor, extremely short of food and often hungry. I'm so hungry that my mouth is watering and I'm all skin and bones. Finding some corn and broad beans to eat is more difficult than going to heaven. In late autumn, it is our "regular class" to rummage for the lost broad bean grains in the harvested broad bean fields, the lost wheat ears in the harvested wheat fields and the sweet potato seedlings in the dug sweet potato fields. Help in rice fields and help the village to dry wheat, broad beans and rape, but we can steal broad beans, and adults can't control us at this time. Help the village deliver cooked cowpeas, that is, cooked broad beans, and we can also take the opportunity to steal one or two.
There is also a kind of happiness that children don't have now. At that time, there were many ancient and tall silver towers on the roadside in rural areas, and it was the season of planting seedlings again. Around the Long Summer Festival, it is the season when the silver tower in the countryside is in full bloom. We can also climb the silver tower and pick a bunch of golden and beautiful silver towers. At that time, people in rural areas were particularly poor, and they could not eat sugar or sugar cane. We want to eat sugar, but we can't, so we like to pick honeysuckle and suck the honey in the stamens. Silver Sophora japonica is like a golden and beautiful brush, wiping the country sky clean, like a beautiful hand, inheriting the essence of the country sky rain and dew, like a harmonica that plays beautiful songs in the wind forever. Sophora japonica has more honey and more water. Each bud is filled with a tube of honey. At that time, Sophora japonica was the most beautiful flower, the most romantic flower and the sweetest flower in the eyes of our rural children. In spring, there is a kind of golden and beautiful wild flowers everywhere. Although the flowers are small, they are also rich in honey. We call it honey azalea, but it is probably a small shrub azalea. We like to take it off and suck the honey in the bud stem.
The summer vacation between the solar terms in early autumn was the hardest and happiest one for us at that time. At that time, it was around the Torch Festival, and it was the time for rice to blossom and fill. Sparrows like to fly to rice fields to suck rice slurry at this time. Rice milk is sweet and nutritious, and sparrows like to suck it. However, what they like most is our disaster. The rice they sucked soon dried up, turned white and looked ugly, which made us rural people feel bad. By autumn harvest, the withered rice sucked away by sparrows has turned into withered valleys and empty shells. At the time of heading, filling and flowering, the harvest is already in sight, but at this time, if sparrows are allowed to suck rice pulp, the harvest will soon disappear. At that time, what we often said was to get rid of the four pests, rats, flies and sparrows. Poison can be used to kill flies and mice, and mice can be driven away behind closed doors, but sparrows are hard to kill and have to be driven away.
Adults are busy with farm work, so it's a little easier to drive finches, so I'll leave them to the children on holiday to drive finches.
We are very skilled, we can cut a bamboo pole, cut one end and cut it into several sections. We will hold the other end and stay by the rice field. As soon as the sparrows get close to the ridge of the field or the trees near the rice fields, we shake the bamboo poles hard. At one end of this row, bamboo pieces will knock each other and make a loud crack, which is quite crisp. Sparrows fly away when they are frightened. However, we can't stay at the edge of the rice field all day. Sparrows can fly into the rice field in groups in the blink of an eye. We are fighting a protracted war and psychological war with sparrows.
We can't get to the end, and we can't get to the first place. Every day at dawn, before we get up, sparrows can fly down the rice fields and suck rice slurry.
Sparrows are hiding in the trees beside the rice fields, waiting for an opportunity to pounce on the rice fields. If you don't persist until dark, as soon as you leave the rice field, sparrows will pounce in the blink of an eye. Helpless, we have to adopt strategies to fight a protracted war and psychological warfare with them.
On the one hand, we made many scarecrows to help us drive away the finches. It's also very simple. Find a bamboo pole and tie some straw or wheat straw to make it look like an adult. The upper body and head are full and swollen. Put it on an old dark blue Dika dress, then put it in an old straw hat or hat, tie it tightly with thread, and take it to the rice field, so that it can pretend that we are standing in the rice field to scare off the birds. On the other hand, we will also make several kites similar to kites with bamboo sticks and old clothes and tie them to the scarecrow. As soon as the wind blows, this kite-like kite flies over the scarecrow's head. Or just hang this kite on a bamboo pole with a thin thread, and let her fly over the rice fields in the wind all the time to drive away the cuckoo.
The Xiaomi holiday is mostly around the Mid-Autumn Festival. Chuxiong is not used to saying "harvesting rice" or "shaking millet", probably because there was no threshing machine before. When harvesting rice in autumn and cutting it with a sickle, you have to shake it on the raft, so it is called shaking millet. A fishing boat is a big bamboo basket, and several people standing around can cook at the same time. Now there are pedal threshers and electric threshers, so you don't have to use your arms to shake the rice.
Shaking Xiaomi is also very busy. Whether harvesting spring wheat or Da Chun rice, everyone is in a good mood after the harvest, but farmers are most afraid of abnormal weather. Suddenly, a hail will hit the wheat and rice in the field, and the harvest will become a bubble in an instant. Therefore, harvesting Da Chun and Koharu is actually a scramble for harvest, and God is also scrambling for harvest. Harvest is related to the livelihood of all rural people. Adults in Da Chun are busy harvesting rice. Children, too, have to work hard and be busy with adults. When the millet shake festival was celebrated in the village, teachers and students all went back to their respective villages to participate in the harvest.
We can't harvest rice with a sickle, it's a matter for adult women. It takes a lot of effort to thresh rice at the seaside. It takes a lot of effort to thresh rice on a pedal thresher and on an electric thresher, which is a matter for adults and men. At that time, our children asked for leave to shake the millet, that is, they went back to the village to help tie a bundle of straw, picked it up, tied it into a lazy and proud scarecrow, and hung it in the harvested and threshed rice fields. We are very happy to do so. Handfuls of rice and grass were tied into scarecrows by us, standing proudly on the dam like a horde marching. This made us think that we were generals who assembled and commanded thousands of troops on the ancient battlefield.
However, we still regret and envy the adults. To experience the happiness of harvest, we should take part in the harvest in person, like my sister, mother and grandmother, holding a sickle and grasping the excitement and happiness of harvest in handfuls, like my brother, father and grandfather, standing on the threshing machine and humming harvest songs, happily laying a golden and full of happiness.
The happiest thing about the rice harvest festival is to catch grasshoppers. Mother and sister-in-law are harvesting rice, standing in rows, passing through one end of the rice field, like an iron wall, and the front line is advancing rapidly. Many kinds of locusts parasitic on rice seedlings began to worry and jumped to the other end desperately. It's really a grasshopper after autumn, and it's at stake. They jumped away sadly, but we felt happy when we looked at them and felt that they were also happy for the bumper harvest in autumn, so we were happier. We ran to mother's sickle to catch grasshoppers. After jumping a certain distance, the grasshoppers took a few breaths, and their mother and sister-in-law caught up with the rice harvest. If they are not cut by a sharp sickle, they must jump further. So the grasshopper jumped into the distance like a wave. Not far in front of us are rows of singing sickles, happily catching grasshoppers. Catch grasshoppers, string them with straw, wait to take them home to play, or fry them. Fried grasshoppers are said to be delicious, but I haven't dared to eat them yet. I just like these lively and healthy little guys. I like to take them home to play, let them bounce on the bare, uncovered ground and watch them look lively and anxious. The native birds at home love to peck grasshoppers. When they catch them and put them in the yard, they will pounce on them at once. At that time, we hated thieves and local chickens, and they raided our grasshoppers. Sometimes, the native chickens will go to the rice fields outside the village and peck the grasshoppers on the rice seedlings themselves.
At this time, the cuckoo birds in the countryside were chirping happily and busily, and the farmers in the village were busy soaking fields and transplanting rice seedlings, so they missed the busy agricultural holiday at that time.