The dustpan used by the mountain people is made of bamboo strips, in the shape of a bucket, and the top is open and the bottom is closed, so the mountain people call it "Tuodou", which is a paraphrase, has the meaning of pushing things in, and is generally used to collect the rice in the "drying mat".

The word dustpan is preceded by the bamboo character, which may be because of its origin. The bamboo dustpans made of people in the mountains are completely different from the dustpans you see now. Now the dustpan we are talking about is not only no longer made of bamboo, but also only used to sweep garbage.

The mountain people also have special containers for garbage in their homes, also called "toots", which are somewhat similar in shape to bamboo "toots", but they are made of wood, and there is a half-enclosed baffle at the opening above, and there is a wooden handle on the baffle, which is similar in shape to the dustpans purchased in the market today, but the materials are different.

There is a similar shape tool, but it is made of stronger bamboo strips, the bottom is deliberately curved and concave, and the upper opening is flanked, and four bamboo chips are added to simmer into an arch, which is placed on top of it as a handle. There is a strange name in the mouth of the mountain people, called "撘", which is generally two for a pair, and it is carried forward after loading things.

There are two types of "high" and "short", and "high" is usually three or four feet high, while "low" is much smaller, only about one foot high.

The handle of the "high" is installed with a rope buckle, which is directly pierced and picked up with a flat shoulder, and the "low" is provoked with a flat hook. Press the thick brown rope on both ends of the flat rope, and the hook bent into the steel bar on the brown rope is the flat hook.

The reason why there is such a distinction between tall and short is because of different uses, "high" can hold more and heavier things, such as chopped firewood, seedlings in rice fields, and cow dung in cattle pens, all of which are heavy work, and are generally used by adult men.

Normally, as long as you see a peasant woman, she must have a "pick" on her arm, or a "pick" clothes, and go to the river to wash or return. Either carry an empty "pick" to the vegetable field to pick vegetables, or pretend to "pick" vegetables and return.

With the flat hook, the "low" can pick up more things, especially in the summer when the vegetables grow most vigorously, you can see a peasant housewife, carrying a full of two "picked" mustard greens, home to dry "salt tho", pickled "kneading vegetables".

The finer the bamboo silk is woven the more delicate things are, and the mountain people, housewives, and girls to be married generally have a tray for needlework, and the weaving is dense. In their leisure time, they often have a tray on their knees, sit under the sun, or sit around the "fire cage", stitch and thread on the soles of their shoes, or sew clothes, needlework, soles, and clothes, all in the tray.

Some fragile items such as thermoses, and some easily scalded items such as water bottles made of tin or aluminum, will be woven into sets of bamboo wire, and they will be sleeved together, which is not easy to break and will not burn.

Bamboo baskets are made of bamboo wire, there are also bamboo strips braided, the countryside is generally made of bamboo slivers, and now the market can still see the sale, then most of them are made of bamboo wire, the use of bamboo baskets is more extensive, and even the achievement of a proverb, "bamboo baskets are empty".

There is also a container called "bamboo bowl", which can also be made of bamboo strips or bamboo wire. The "bamboo bowl" is generally made into a circle, with a concave bottom and a rim around it, like a bowl, hence the name.

"Bamboo bowl" is also an indispensable thing in the daily life of mountain people, vegetables and fruits can not be eaten, it is a pity to rot, the intelligent mountain people, they think of drying or roasting, making a wide variety of "dried radish", "dried gourd", "dried beans", "dried chili", "dried pumpkin", "dried winter melon", "dried cucumber", almost can be dried in the sun.

The intelligent and industrious mountain people store these things, not only to avoid waste, but also to prepare for emergencies, but also to add a special delicacy to the dinner table.

Compared with other immigrants in the same village, my mother was born and raised in the mountains, and she is particularly good at making these dried products. The deepest memory is the "dried chili peppers" made by my mother, which were salted and salted in a crockpot after drying, which was spicy and salty, and especially delicious.

The way of storage, in addition to drying and pickling. For example, pickled ginger, cleaned and soaked in aged vinegar, sprinkled with salt, sour and salty, and some will also put some sugar, so it has a sweet taste.

There are also "kneading vegetables" and "salt tho", which are the local dialects of the mountain people, both of which are taken from mustard greens. They must be boiled in boiling water first, and after the "kneading vegetables" are cooled, they are sprinkled with salt layer by layer and sealed in clay pots, which are very sour after cooking, which is very similar to the pickles sold on the market now.

"Salt Tho" is boiled in boiling water and exposed to the sun until it is completely dried and turns into small dark balls. Generally, it can not be eaten directly, because it is too dry and too hard to bite, when eating, it is necessary to prepare fatty meat, the fatter the better, the more the better, and the "salt tho" is placed in the pot and fried, the fat lard is adsorbed by the "salt tho", so the fat is not greasy, and the "salt tho" is soft and becomes very delicious.

This dish is well-known locally, and it still is, and it has a resounding name, "Shio Tho". When I was a child, I would gag when I ate fatty meat, but I didn't know how much I ate "salt tho meat", and the more I ate it, the more I liked it.

In addition, like the aforementioned "baking cage" and "fire cage", there are bamboo silk weaving and bamboo stripping. The bamboo silk is stronger and stronger, and the bamboo strip is more economical.

There are many uses of bamboo, in addition to making utensils, it is also common in daily life, and a "Mao sickle" in the hands of mountain people can do it.

For example, making fences, mountain people raise chickens, ducks, cattle and pigs, mostly free-range, it is very easy to run away, or harm crops and vegetable fields. So it's common to fence off the poultry or fence off the fields so that a year's hard work isn't lost.

Usually, the bamboo of the bamboo is slightly sharpened, sharpened with a hairy sickle, and one end of the bamboo is sawed off with a saw, which can be used as a bamboo pile, and one end is sawed flat because it is convenient to hit. The soil in the field is soft, and when you pick up a stone, you can dig the bamboo stake in.

Moso bamboo is cut into bamboo chips, which are full of toughness, can be twisted and turned, and can even be bent into circles. Control the spacing of the bamboo stakes, and the bamboo pieces alternately pass through the bamboo stakes, and each bamboo piece alternates in opposite directions, so that it becomes a dense and strong fence.

It is used to enclose poultry, that is, the enclosure of poultry. It is used in front of the house and behind the house, which is a simple yard. It is used in vegetable fields, which is a fence.

"One fence" three piles, is because of the need to alternately intersperse bamboo pieces, there is no shortage of trees in the mountains, in order to be stronger and stronger, often use harder miscellaneous wood as piles, the effect will be better, the use of time will be longer.

There is also a simpler way to cut the fence, after cutting it into bamboo pieces, peeling off the tips at both ends, bending and arching, inserting them directly into the ground, and alternating side by side, which can also play a role in isolating pigs and cattle from entering. The range can be used alone, for example, if one end of the field is plugged in, the whole field will be cut off.

This method is generally used when it is temporarily needed, such as when the seedlings are planted or the rice is mature, such as when edamame is planted on the field, and the fields are inserted in rows, or in a circle, or the fields are separated separately.

Exposed to the sun and rain, the bamboo pieces are easy to erode and dry up, without pile support, so the simple fence bent into it does not last long, often as soon as the season passes, it has withered, but it also happens to play a temporary protective role.

In the mountains, there are bamboo branches in front of the doors, some are buried in the soil, and some are leaning against the wall. Take the bamboo of the bamboo slightly cut off, cut off the branches and leaves to leave a section of the branch, used to set aside the bamboo pole, the left and right branches are arranged high and low, do not affect each other.

Therefore, you can adjust the height of the bamboo pole according to your needs, and you can also place multiple bamboo poles to dry clothes, vegetables, and hang many things that need to be dried, which is practical and convenient.

It is said that bamboo is a treasure, because bamboo has a unique use value everywhere, and the value is not small, if it is placed before the reform and opening up, it can be said that the life of the mountain people is completely inseparable from bamboo, completely dependent on bamboo.

Not to mention the weaving of all kinds of daily utensils and production tools, even the hat to shelter from the rain is made of bamboo.

The hat is made of bamboo strips and bamboo silk mixed weaving, sandwiched in the middle of a plant called the basket of leaves, the leaves of the basket are particularly wide, generally made with the length of the leaf as the radius of the bucket, the longer the leaves, the larger the area of the hat shading.

In the middle of the body, it is curved into a round protrusion, which is close to the size of an adult's head, making it easy to wear on the head. A rope or strip of cloth is worn in the hat and tied to the lower forehead, which can be fixed and will not fall, which is especially convenient for working in the rain.

It is a kind of low and clumped bamboo plant, which is particularly easy to grow in the mountainous areas of the south of the Yangtze River, and the leaves are not only wide but also have a certain toughness, in addition to making bucket hats, it can also be used to wrap zongzi.

After the popularization of plastic film in rural areas, the leaves of the hat were replaced by film. However, zongzi is still wrapped in hoop leaves, and it will not be boiled when boiled in water, and only the zongzi wrapped in hoop leaves can be cooked with a unique taste, which cannot be replaced by other things.