There are too many fields in the family, and I remember that since I was five years old, I started to help my mother with farm work, and my sister did the same, she did more farm work than me.

The first time was to go to the field to help my mother step on the threshing machine, then to the field to pick up rice ears, hand seedlings, and then as I grew older, cut rice, transplant seedlings, and finally tidy up the farmland, carry the burden, and learn all the eighteen kinds of martial arts in farm work.

At first, when we were doing farm work, my mother would let us play, and then I liked to follow "Uncle Bisong" who was rolling in the fields, splashing muddy water, splashing water, bringing a piece of crucian carp to churn and jump, chasing and grabbing at the same time.

After the rice is harvested in autumn, the water is drained and raised for the winter. The benefits of farming are great, such as the ability to die of thirst and freeze to death of pests, as well as the eggs laid by pests, which can make the soil more fluffy and permeable.

Some families will also plant safflower grass, bury it when plowing the field in the next year, can be made into fertilizer, and some will plant rapeseed, which can not only improve the soil through the rape root system, but also harvest rapeseed oil, and the mother is industrious, and will plant a large number of rapeseed every year.

Oilseed rape is planted after the autumn harvest. The fields that have just been harvested with autumn rice are dug into a strip of ridges, and small holes are pointed out in a dense manner, rapeseed is put in, and then buried with soil, and after a winter, it matures just before spring ploughing.

After the autumn harvest, the countryside officially enters the leisure time, and the mountain people who are busy in spring, summer and autumn are relatively idle at this time, and generally only do some scattered farm work, such as trimming farm tools, cleaning up cattle pens, pig pens, chicken coops, cleaning their own latrines, making farm fertilizer, going into the mountains to cut firewood, and so on.

Compared with paddy field work, it avoids direct exposure to the scorching sun under the sun, avoids long-term bending over and suffers, and does not need to grab the season and grab the weather like harvesting and planting rice, which is more casual and leisurely.

My mother was too hardworking, and after the autumn harvest, she planted a lot of rapeseed, which brought us more fatigue than other children. The adults are idle, the children have little to do, they are all playing happily, and we are engaged in planting rape.

Cleaning poultry pens and latrines is not only good for hygiene and cleaning, but also the best fertilizer for farms. The manure of latrines and chicken coops is generally used to fertilize vegetable patches. The manure in the cattle and pigsty not only leaves coarse fibers that cannot be digested, but also mixed with straw used to pave the way for them, which is not conducive to the use of vegetable fields.

There were too many rapeseeds, and there was not enough manure for the cattle and pigsty to be cleaned, so my mother took us to make farm fertilizer. The usual practice is to find a wasteland, hoe the turf piece by piece, wait for it to cool naturally, and then pile it up and burn it.

The grass is burned into grass ash, which becomes particularly loose under the action of combustion, and is mixed with plant ash, which is collectively called "fire soil".

The fertility of "fire soil" is stronger than that of poultry manure, and it is picked up in a basket and sprinkled in a small hole where rapeseed is sown, which is called "cover fertilizer" in the countryside. Rapeseed sprinkled with "fire soil" grows very fast and strong, is less prone to lodging, less prone to insects, and is fuller and larger in particles.

The more rape fields, the more "fire soil" is needed, how can my mother be busy alone. Therefore, we enviously watched the little friends in the neighborhood playing happily, being driven by our parents to pick up cow dung and pig manure, picking up the turf and soaking the "fire soil", and picking up the rape field, pit by pit "cover fertilizer".

Buffalo like to roll and trample, pigs especially like to arch around, their pens are not ordinary messy dirty, the weather is a little warmer barefoot, a little cold a little wear rain boots, into the inside is like stepping into the mud.

In particular, the bullpen can be knee-deep and can't even pull out your feet. The straw is stirred in it, it is difficult to clean up, and it has to be waved down with iron palladium to dig it up and put it into the "high pick" to pick up the rape field. There is so much cow dung in the cattle pen that it often takes several days to clean it up completely.

Farmers cherish fertilizer, and after the cow dung on the surface is cleaned, the layer of soil soaked in manure is dug out and picked up to the farmland. Therefore, the cattle pens of the farmers are deeply sunken, getting deeper and deeper every year, and can often reach a depth of one or two meters over the years.

It is not easy to pick up turf, and the reason why it is called wasteland is because it really cannot be reclaimed, otherwise it will be reclaimed as self-reserved land. One day when the turf is peeled off, the hands often have to grind blood blisters, such a wasteland is mixed with gravel, if you don't pay attention, a hoe swings, the shock of the tiger's mouth hurts, and even cracks and blood.

In the coming year, the rape is ripe, and when the spring ploughing is coming, before the spring ploughing and sowing are tasted, the sin of harvesting rape will be suffered first. Rape is no better than rice, it grows like a small tree, and it is better to cut it than to cut it.

Harvest the rapeseed, pick it home, spread it on the "drying mat" to dry, the rapeseed pod is dry and cracked, and then hit it with a stick hammer, the rapeseed will all pop out of the rapeseed pod, load it with a basket, take out the free time, and send it to the nearby "oil press" workshop to squeeze into oil, solve the problem of cooking oil for a year.

After the rape is cut, the remaining rapeseed roots cannot be left in the field, and cannot be corrupted in time, which will hurt the feet of people and animals. One by one, they had to pull them out and throw them out of the ground, so that they could make "fire and earth." Because of the cultivation of rapeseed, my mother seems so busy all year round, and it is rare to see a moment of leisure.

After the busy rape, it is already the beginning of spring ploughing. After plowing the field in a hurry, fill it with water and store it for a period of time, so that the soil absorbs enough water and becomes soft, which is convenient for planting seedlings. At this time, a special production tool is used to make the plough even so that the seedlings can be irrigated evenly.

This special production tool, known locally as "Lulu", is made of hard wood, with pedals in front and back, and a runner in the middle, which is also made of wood, and on which teeth made of bamboo are densely intertwined.

When using, people stand on the pedal with their front and back feet, and the elderly pull up to move forward, and roll a few more times in a high place, which can generally level the field. The rotation of "Lulu" can also further mix the soil with water, which is more conducive to planting seedlings.

"Lulu" is the name of the mountain people, why it is called so, I have not thought clearly, maybe onomatopoeia, because "Lulu" in the paddy field when the turn forward, muddy water brought up by this sound.

If the height of the field is too obvious, the "lulu" can not be rolled and smoothed, and the "insertion" is also used, which is also the name of the mountain people, and the process is called planting. The "plug" is also made of miscellaneous wood, and at the bottom is a row of iron bars, on which handrails are made.

When planting the field, the old ox is pulled in front, and the "plug" is followed behind with both hands, driving the soil from the high place to the low place. If you use it too much, the iron bar will turn into an iron spike, which is quite sharp, and if you are not experienced, or if you are not careful, you will hurt your foot.

Oxen are used in ploughing, "purring", and planting fields, which shows how important cattle are to farmers. The reason why it is called an old cow is because before going to the ground, the cow must be taught to be cooked, and the cow that is not taught is uncontrollable, and even will cause damage to the equipment.

First of all, let the ox adapt to the lasso, generally bend into a right-angled miscellaneous tree branch, made into a cow frame, locally known as "cow branch", on the neck of the back side of the horn, the two ends of the cow frame are tied with a strong and thick rope, and after being fastened, it can be fixed on the neck of the cow.

Then use two thick ropes to make a buckle knot, and tie it to different tools according to different needs. This process is to let the cow adapt first, blindly put on, the cow will be frightened, generally will desperately break free, and even jump desperately.

Therefore, it is necessary to let the cow adapt first, and the method of adaptation is also very simple, a person in front of the cow nose tightly on the line, the cow's nose is generally penetrated with an iron rod, tied with the reins, this iron rod that wears the cow's nose, the mountain people call it "nose sword".

The cow's nose is the weakest and most painful place for the cow, as long as you grasp the cow's nose, no matter how much you teach, the cow will obediently accept it. Generally, after a few days of traction, the cow will get used to it, and then let it learn to sense the direction through the reins, and it will become an old cow that can go to the field and plough the land.

During the period when the water is released to soak the fields, it is spring, when the fish migrate to produce seeds, and the paddy fields in the mountains are connected to the creeks and rivers through ditches, and the migratory small fish will also enter.

Stirred by "Lulu", the fish turned up, some will even be stunned, there are a lot of small fish in the memory, maybe because "Uncle Bisong" hit the field too fast, it seems that only after him, there is this situation, when others hit "Lulu", it seems that it has not appeared, I can't remember it clearly.

Sometimes you can also pick up small turtles, turtles have a long life and are very good to raise, they don't need to be fed to eat, they can live for a long time, there is even a legend in the countryside, someone has used a turtle trench at the foot of the bed, after many years, move the bed, the turtle crawls and crawls away.

Almost every little friend has the experience of raising a baby turtle, after the little turtle is caught, either drill a hole in the hard shell of the tail and use a rope to wear and live, or put it in a glass jar to raise it and become the first pet to add to the fun of childhood.

Sometimes we will pick up the colorful small flower fish, better than the current goldfish, we will put the small flower fish into the glass jar, and the small turtle together, put some stones and aquatic plants in it, put it on the windowsill, the turtle four claws flutter, the small flower fish swim around, it is very good-looking, very interesting, colorful childhood thus added more color.

There are not only good paddy fields at home, but also more than one acre of deep paddy fields, two or three acres of dry land, good paddy fields are convenient for irrigation, and double cropping rice is generally planted, and single-cropping rice is generally planted in deep water fields and dry fields. Dry land has heavy sandy soil, and is sometimes used to grow peanuts or rape.

The deep water field is also known locally as "pangtian", which means that it will sink deep inside. There are many springs in the mountains, and if there is spring water in the col, it will soak the col and become a swamp, and the soil under the swamp will be eroded by the spring water for many years, turning into mud, which is generally very deep.

Perhaps it was precisely because of the large-scale reclamation of the border areas that such mountain cols were reclaimed into paddy fields, and after the fields were divided into households, they were also distributed to each family. Because of the spring water, the water in the deep water field is very cold, and it is not too suitable for rice growth, so it can only be planted for one season.

There is very little dry land, and the farmland with poor water source will be regarded as dry land, and the desertification is more serious, so the sediment content is large, there is no water source for irrigation, and it is often dry and cracked. Only in the spring when there is sufficient rainfall can it be cultivated, and it can only be planted for one season.

My father spent most of his time in school, and in his memory, he only had to plow the fields and plant the fields and other gravity work, and only waited for his father to use the after-school time to complete it, and the other field work was almost all undertaken by my mother alone. Therefore, it was very hard, and we couldn't do it alone, so my parents asked us all to help in the fields.

When we were young, we mainly did light physical work such as harvesting, planting seedlings, and cultivating grass, and my mother would introduce a competition mechanism, with four sisters, each divided into several rows, and whoever finished first rested first.

My sister is the oldest, and the most capable, generally she is five elements, my eldest sister and I are four elements, if the distance is too long, it will be reduced to three lines, the youngest sister, especially taken care of, generally only divided into two lines.

Although I have more points than us, my sister is often the first to finish, at a young age, I don't know how she moves so fast, sometimes I give up being lazy, I want to compare with her, but the result is not comparable to her.

My sister is strict with us, and she also loves us very much, and I feel that she loves me a little more, and after she completes one of her tasks, she often takes the initiative to help us complete, of course, I help the most, as the eldest sister and the younger sister grow up, they are much faster than me.

My father's ingenuity and my mother's special ability have not been inherited, and I seem clumsy everywhere, working in the fields, chopping wood in the mountains, and making toys to catch fish and shrimp.

When chopping firewood, my sister and sister are often ready to go home after chopping, and my load of firewood is still far behind. Catching fish in the stream and turning over the stones, my little sister caught one by one, but I rarely succeeded. The kites they make can fly into the sky, and the saplings they plant can survive, but I can't do the same. Especially planting saplings, the same planting method, how can they plant and live, I often die when I plant them, and I can't figure it out now.