In fact, the temperament of Mu Zi Tree in my hometown is not like a graceful and charming woman with a tall trunk, but a handsome and stalwart man. It seems to be deliberately tall, handsome and rough. Every winter, he is like a shirtless warrior, throwing his fist at Tianwu's arm, showing off his strong body and his exclusive kung fu. After a hundred years of wind and frost, the thick trunk is like a black dragon tens of meters long, standing between heaven and earth, growing black scales. On the thick skin, the sun and the moon fall, giving birth to moss and bulging strong muscles. It always stands high in the countryside, or at the top of the mountain, or on the ridge, or on the high slope, or in the corner of the house. It will always be the center of the landmark, dragging people's sight, forming a monument and a coordinate. Under the sky, set up shade for passers-by and harvest their faces. I remember when I was a child, two tall sub-trees stood on the river bank outside the trusteeship of the production team. Like two centenarians, they were blessed with geomantic omen, and their crowns stretched, with an outer diameter of 100 square meters and a height of about 30 meters. Every summer, men, women and children of the whole production team will tear corn under those two trees, read newspapers, listen to the work assigned by the production team leader, and listen to the story that the old man (Tujia refers to telling stories) has polished his lips and teeth for a long time. Thousands of leaves selflessly block the strong sunlight with their weak bodies. For example, the Monkey King summoned countless leaves and handed them a breeze to drive away mosquitoes and fatigue. There are young men and women flirting with corn leaves and saying half-truths that only two people can understand.
There are many playful children climbing the branches like monkeys. A tree can ride a dozen children, and the branches become horses under their feet. Let it gallop, waving a wood blade or wooden box gun in his hand, paddling his feet in the air, mumbling "drive, drive", and spitting splashed on the members' heads like drizzle, jumping over the border. People in a production team are used to working and resting under the big umbrella propped up by catalpa trees. This big umbrella looks like Lafayette, wishing the villagers peace and good weather every year. If the production team leader is in a good mood, he will also arrange a collective pot of rice, rice covered with silver (rice mixed with corn flour), potato chips cooked in rice soup and a pot of lazy tofu, which will make people eat three white porcelain bowls, but they are still not satisfied, so the whole team will feel bloated, and it is really better than Chinese New Year to burp across the river. Those two Catalpa trees have been planted in Feng Shui for a hundred years, recording the sweet words of boys and girls from generation to generation. It was not until 1987 that the Geheyan Reservoir in Qingjiang River was flooded that it was cut off by villagers and collapsed in Pingluo River. The villagers cut off the trunk and dug up hundreds of wooden chestnuts, as white as grease and as white as jade carving, and distributed them to all households. According to legend, scooping water with a wooden catalpa tree ladle has a faint sweetness, and some families carry it everywhere, which has been used to this day and has become a keepsake of family heirlooms.
In March and April, facing the wave of spring, Zimu tree grew round leaves, bright red and green, smooth as wax, and countless small hands stretched out and swayed in the wind. In May and June, the branches spit out tidbits, such as the braids made by Zimu girl, which are ten centimeters long and have light green stems dotted with golden pistils, attracting countless hungry bees after enjoying cauliflower. Zimuhua, cauliflower and Sophora japonica are the main nectar sources, and they are the most abundant flower feast after cauliflower, but Zimuhu is unobtrusive, unobtrusive and has no charming fragrance. People are not used to people's noses, and it is difficult for people to smell choking, so they are often ignored, but bees dare to climb high branches. On a catalpa tree, hundreds of anthomaniac often gather and collect crazily without anyone competing for food. Muzi honey is a treasure in honey, and it is the king of anti-oxidation in honey products.
After half a month's flowering, countless youth bean trees have grown on the sub-trees. After the scorching summer sun, the encouragement of the storm, the thunder and lightning showers and the brewing of the moon dew, Zimushu held Qing Zi tightly in her hand and exercised with the wind, awe-inspiring and unyielding. Trunks and branches are flexible and strong. They absorb and transport nutrients from soil cells. Until the cold dew season, the leaves were dyed by autumn and drunk by frost. The seeds as big as soybeans show their fists to the sky like soldiers, breaking the hard shell and revealing the pink innocent jade body. Affectionate birds have flown away from the branches, vying for the fragrance of jade grease. By this time, the production team will arrange a skilled male worker to shave the sub-wood, using a thin bamboo pole more than ten meters long with a razor on it, with the razor blade facing up. The person who shaves the hair of Zimu will climb the tall Zimu tree, not only with strength, but also with eyesight, and hold the tree tightly. If you are not careful, you may fall from a tree tens of meters high and have an accident. When shaving the hair, arrange female workers to pick the wood, concentrate it in the storage room, and hand-pick the fruit of the wood and sell it to the supply and marketing cooperatives as the collective income of the production team. In the season of picking children's trees, there are children's trees there, which is a paradise for children. After school, as soon as their schoolbags are put away, they will run all over the mountain with small bags to pick up the fruit missed by the production team. At that time, the production team did not hand over the particles to the students to pick up the sub-wood, but let them sell them themselves to cover the family's expenses of eating salt, lighting, pen and ink, and prevent a sub-wood from falling into the wilderness.
After being acquired by the supply and marketing cooperative, Zimu was concentrated in the whole commune and sent to the squeezing mill. The white wax on the skin of Zimu fruit is made into skin oil (white wax oil), and the inner core is squeezed into rosewood oil. Leather oil is transported to other places and used as the main raw material for processing fat and aromatic products, while stillingia oil is used as the raw material for lubrication, paint and rust inhibitor. The cake after oil pressing is a good original ecological and pure natural fertilizer, which lays a foundation for the countryside, accelerates germination and feeds crops. Mu Zi Tree, for the sake of autumn scenery, has painted the cheeks of autumn with Yan Yan fat, sewed brilliant red fashion, dressed autumn enchanting, beautified and moistened people's lives with all its bones and muscles and blood, silently contributed to the kindness of the land for decades and hundreds of years, but never asked for anything in return.
More than forty years have passed, because the oil of Zimu has been replaced by new chemical materials, and Zimu is useless. But on Zimu tree, jade-like seeds are still produced every year for birds to snack on, and no one picks them, crushes them, rusts in frost and snow, and falls to the ground to become mud. This tree is gradually forgotten by people. Some of them grow old silently in the years, and some move to the city to decorate the streets in autumn, so that the city people can play cards under the trees to entertain themselves. Some of them were cut down to make firewood, and joined hands with homesick kitchen smoke to greet the sunrise and chase the sunset. In my hometown, I can no longer see pieces of sub-trees, but in my heart, they are birthmarks and fossils of my hometown, stored in the depths of my memory. Whenever the tentacles of my dream stick out from my hometown face, it is still scarlet. ...