Section 2 The joy of the harvest

In the blink of an eye, the harvest of seed rice began.

Early in the morning, all the breeding team members went to the field. Work in pairs and start harvesting the ears. Cutting a handful of ears and putting them in a sack feels very awkward and troublesome. Because the stubble left behind was knee-high, the water in the field was not completely cleaned, and after stepping on it, it was rotten, and after a while, the sack was wet and covered with mud, and all of them became big faces, and their bodies were covered with mud.

After the sack is filled with ears, it is first carried to the roadside ridge, and then pulled by an ox cart to the cement yard at the entrance of the dormitory to dry. When the ox cart was too busy, everyone poked the mouth of the sack with a bamboo pole and picked it back one by one.

Breakfast and lunch are also eaten in the fields, with vegetable soup and boiling water, and rest while eating.

At the end of the day, everyone was so tired that after returning to the dormitory to wash up, I lay down in bed and didn't even want to eat.

"How many acres have you harvested today?" Qi Moxiang leaned at the head of the bed and asked weakly.

"Twenty acres at most. Ma Linxi picked up the enamel tea jar and took a sip of tea.

". It will take a week for the harvest to end. Fan Guangjie interjected.

"How many days will it take to thresh?" Qi Moxiang asked.

"Threshing, where do you see a threshing machine?"

"How do you fight? Qi Moxiang seemed to ask, and it seemed to be talking to himself.

"What is impossible. The local people are not all harvesting in the fields. Malinsi said.

"Don't worry about you, the leader is more anxious than us. Xing Yiyou said unhurriedly.

Sure enough, as Xing Yiyou expected, the situation of the next day's labor was completely different from yesterday, which surprised them very much. There were more people harvesting rice, and the liaison officers came, and more than 40 members were dispatched, which was twice as many as the members of the breeding team. In this way, there is no need for a breeder to cut the rice, but only a special person is responsible for transporting it, carrying the sack full of ears to the edge of the field, loading it onto an ox cart, and then turning over the empty sack that has been replaced.

The ox cart is an extended set of cars with a flat car and a fence, and the full car can be filled with twelve sacks, and there is no need to stack too tightly, slightly use the hemp rope to pull it together, and then, sitting on the bar, leisurely drive the old ox back and forth back and forth.

At first, there was some backlog, and they didn't pull it as fast as the harvest in the fields. By the afternoon of the next day, I was able to calmly wait for the loading of the truck.

The harvest was surprisingly fast, and it took only three and a half days to finish.

The most exciting thing is the threshing scene. Because, this is an unheard of and unseen mix of people and cows.

The ears of rice pulled back from the ground are packed in sacks, and after being removed from the ox cart, the ears of rice are spread on the cement field, layer by layer to the thickness of the knees, and after half the sun, they are turned over and continue to dry. When the sun was about to set, the whole threshing floor was bustling with activity.

More than a dozen ploughing cattle in the production team were led to the cement field covered with rice ears, and the heads and tails were lined up in three concentric circles, and a black-faced man wearing a melon skin straw hat walked in the front, holding the reins in one hand and half a branch in the other, and kept shouting in his mouth, and from time to time he twitched on the cow's buttocks.

Although it was pumping, it wasn't very hard, it was just some kind of symbolic hit. Because the cow that was smoked did not react, it was still buried in its head, and the saliva in its mouth kept flowing outward, and after a while it sneezed, or howled, and twitched its long ears to drive away those pesky flies, and circled the field unhurriedly. The cattle in the back and inner circles are guided by it to step in circles on the heads of the rice ears.

On the periphery of the herd, there are three layers of people on the inside and three layers outside, members of the production team, liaison girls, breeding team members, and children joining in the fun.

Everyone followed the footsteps of the cows, centered on the herd, and stepped on the heads of the rice ears. This scene of spinning and stamping, if you look down from a high place, must look like a rotating nebula.

After half an hour of trampling, the knee-high ears of rice quickly became shorter, only seven or eight inches thick, and most of the grains on the ears had fallen off.

It is said that this threshing method is an invention of the Hainan people, which is fast and will not damage the rice husk. Although there were also threshers in the area, they were afraid that the damaged seeds would not be able to germinate, so they gave up mechanical threshing.

"Everyone, everyone. Please pause. Deputy Director Ji Xuebin, who was standing on the sidelines and commanding, shouted loudly: "Now turn over the rice again." ”

So, the cattle were led to rest in the grass north of the cement field, and everyone turned over the ears of rice with their hands, turning over the heads of the rice ears that had not been stepped on below.

"All up, all up. Deputy Director Ji said as he ran over to correct a member's movements: "If you don't turn it all over, how can you take it off cleanly if you press it underneath?"

The member smiled embarrassedly and continued to work.

"Alright. Let's go. Wang Changsong said.

"What a walk. Step on. Marlinsi corrected.

"Rui Yingna. You seem to be afraid of stepping on rice. Jiang Sigui made fun of Ke Ruiying on the side.

"You're scared. Don't you see that it's not good to step on?" Ke Ruiying said, throwing her eyebrows with a smile, holding Ke Naying's hand, and slowly following behind others like dancing, while chatting with Ke Naying about some jokes. Ke Ruiying wore a crisp white shirt today, which was particularly conspicuous in the crowd and the rice field.

"Accountant Gao, what do you think of our seed production?" Xing Yiyou asked Gao Xiaojing beside him.

"Needless to say. Gao Xiaojing raised her eyebrows.

"Then come to us. Xing Yiyou smiled and made her happy.

"Okay. I'm afraid that none of you will dare to ask for miles. Gao Xiaojing said.

"Yes. I'm going to. Accountant Gao, I'll take you away. Jiang Sigui said with a smile.

"Come on. I'm afraid that you have a thief's heart but not a thief's guts. Gao Xiaojing replied.

Everyone burst into laughter.

"Hey, everyone, stop and flip through again. Deputy Director Ji greeted everyone loudly again.

After stepping on it for about an hour and a half, Deputy Director Ji took out the straw from under the bottom and looked at it again, and saw that there was indeed no full rice on it, so he announced that he had entered the next process: "Clear the grass." ”

The so-called weeding is to remove the straw that has been stripped of the grains. The first time was rough, the straw was held aside, the rice was separated, and then the people on the field were divided into two groups. Some people use dustpans to lift the grain, while others clean the straw little by little, shaking out the grains caught in the straw. These two things are done very carefully, for fear that a seed will be missed.

After three or four times of repeated cleaning, the straw was piled up and the rice was cooled.

The next day, the rice ears were still being turned over during the day, and in the evening, people and cattle were trampling again. A week before and after, the 200 acres of seed rice were harvested and threshed.

Immediately afterwards, they were all busy with drying, clearing, bagging, packing, marking, labeling, numbering, and weighing.

In the past few days, it has been the most nervous since entering the island, and before the sun is out, I got up early, and began to get busy after washing up in a hurry.

The three meals a day are not as regular as usual, because they have to work, and they have to watch sparrows and prevent livestock from ruining the seeds, and they can hardly leave people, and the lights are bright at night, and everyone's body is like falling apart, and they fall asleep at night, and sometimes they doze off during the day, and they are sunburned all day long, and their skin is tanned, and their bodies are blistered.

Despite this, the breeding team members in Hexi County are still very optimistic and live quickly. They cherish this place where they have lived for half a year, and they are nostalgic for the mountains and rivers, grass and trees. When I am a little idle, I will always unconsciously look around a few more times, and greedily ingest everything I am familiar with here into my heart and remember it in my memory.