essay
Li Qingming's Jingle Bells
There are many buffaloes in the water town.
(2) From the time I can remember until I came out of the water town as an adult, most of them were accompanied by buffaloes. Not only do you have to graze buffaloes all day in winter and summer vacations, but even if you go to school, you have to bring a sickle and a bamboo basket every day, cut a basket of grass on the way after school, and go back to feed the buffaloes and take care of them.
(3) As the saying goes, one side of the soil and water will nourish one side. In our water town, it can be said that one side of the soil and water raises one side of cattle. The lakeside of Dongting Lake, which has been silted up for many years, was reclaimed into a water town courtyard. Ports, ditches and ponds are all over the lake, and there are lush reeds, grasslands and wild poles everywhere. These are also good feed for buffaloes. Buffalo has strong vitality and is easy to raise. In spring, summer and autumn, it feeds on natural Artemisia annua. In the winter when everything is dying, you only need a bundle of hay to eat every day.
In the long farming era, buffalo has always been regarded as the lifeblood of farmers. From the day when the calf learned to walk, a string of bronze bells was carefully hung around its neck. Buffalo can be used to plow and rake fields in busy farming season; In slack season, cattle can help pull and grind rapeseed and rice to get edible oil and rice.
⑤ Buffaloes are born to swim, and they are also masters of long-distance swimming. Buffalo swim slowly in shallow water-swimming, not forgetting to eat lotus leaves, grass and wild rice in the water; Once it reaches the depth of water, it becomes extremely fast, with its limbs paddling hard, its head and horns raised high, and it keeps barking proudly. In summer, buffalo became the best "swimming teacher" for me and a group of good partners. Learn to swim with buffalo. First, we drove the buffalo into the river with a wicker whip and grabbed the cow's tail with our hands. When the buffalo crossed the river, we beat the water with our feet. In less than two days, we mastered all the swimming skills such as "cow planing" and "breaststroke".
6. Being with buffalo day and night, we also understand its docile and docile habits. As long as you stand in front of the bull's head, even if it is swallowing grass, it will quickly lower its head and let you climb the horn and climb on its back. When you sit down, the buffalo will shake its head and bark coquettishly, and the cow bell will ring "Ding Rinrin". At this moment, we are wearing a wicker hat, hanging a slingshot around our waist, and holding a wicker whip high in our right hand, just like a general who rides a horse with a sword.
7. Don't look at the buffalo, which is usually docile, but once it comes to fighting, it is extremely brave, especially the bull in heat. When the attack began, the bulls' eyes were red, they reached the arch of their feet, their heads shrank to the middle of their front legs, and they exposed sharp horns and collided with each other. At that moment, the cow bell suddenly rang, and Sha Fei Stone jumped up with a deafening noise. At this time, only by throwing the torch made of hay at the place where the bulls wrestle can they be separated.
Finally, the buffalo is old. Buffalo, who can't even plow the fields, crouched quietly in the cowshed, waiting for their own time. Because they are afraid of losing weight, villagers often slaughter buffaloes in advance. Buffalo tied to a tree by a cow rope will shed a lot of tears when he sees the butcher sharpening his knife. It seems that he has deep sorrow and infinite sorrow. We can't help crying when we stand by and watch the buffalo do the dirtiest and most tiring work with little demands in this life.
In today's water towns, buffaloes are no longer used for intensive cultivation, but directly scatter seeds in rice fields to collect food by the weather. Looking around, only aquatic plants grow wildly on the lake continent, and over time it has become a natural pasture for grazing buffaloes. In spring, buffaloes who are no longer farming are driven to pasture with new marked bells around their necks, and they are not brought back until winter. Along with the bulls and cows, newborn calves were brought back. The claim of calves follows the old rules of the village: drive the calves of each family to a place to see which calf goes with whose calf and which calf belongs to whom.
Today, driven by interests, such old rules begin to face challenges. Every time I hear about a dispute caused by a calf. There are two adjacent families, because the dispute of six calves won't give way to each other until they go to court. One family proposed to take cows and calves to the provincial capital for a "paternity test". Naturally, the appraisal finally solved the dispute, but the sum of appraisal fee, travel expenses and lawyer's fees far exceeded the value of several calves, and became the black humor that people talked about the most after dinner.
After ⑾, most buffaloes in water towns changed from grazing to captivity. With the passage of time, the cowboy's cow flute seems to have become a swan song overnight. Without the vast lakes and the shade of green grass on the mainland, without the swaying and blowing of the wind ... cowbells are still jingling, but they always feel less pleasant to listen to.