The old family has a lot of land and little land, and the per capita land is only three or four acres of land, and a household often has only three or four acres of land. The harvested grain is handed over to the state to keep the collective, and there is not much left, and sometimes it is even impossible to ensure food and clothing.

Since it is a contract, of course, it is necessary to pay rent, and it is generally replaced by grain, which is called "retention" in rural areas. The rural areas have a strong desire to get rich, but the output of the fields is limited, and the responsibility brought to the peasants by handing over the "retention" is still relatively heavy.

For a period of time, collecting and "retaining" is one of the main tasks of rural cadres, and it is also one of the most difficult tasks to do; some methods are simple, often go directly to the villagers' homes, pick up the accumulated grain to complete the task of "retaining", and if the grain is not enough, they will lead pigs and drive cattle, and they can often see chickens and ducks.

In contrast, there are relatively more fields in the mountainous countryside, for example, my family has 12 acres of fertile land, and my mother has also reclaimed another four or five acres of wasteland.

Not only is there little land in my hometown, but there is no wasteland to cultivate, and it is not like the mountain village where I was born, where there are mountains and rivers. There are plains, there are few paddy fields, and the hills have been reclaimed as dry land, and peanuts are generally grown.

When I was a child, I remembered that my parents would always find ways to help my parents when relatives came to borrow food. More memories are that the old family came to chop firewood, and every time the farm was slack, the old family would always push a "big cart" to come, and then start to cut firewood in the mountains.

There is no firewood without mountains, which was also a major event that affected normal livelihoods in that era of small-scale peasant economy. Every family has a small pot and a small stove, and they all have to make a fire to make rice, and if there is no firewood to burn, they can only burn straw. Sometimes the straw is not enough to burn, and cow dung is accumulated and dried in place of straw.

My family, like ordinary families in the mountains, has a firewood stove, and then put in the chopped firewood to produce a strong flame, which is not only convenient for cooking, but also can accumulate charcoal in winter for heating.

The stoves in the mountainous countryside are very elaborately built, divided into two layers, separated by an iron fence. After the reform and opening up, the commodities were greatly abundant, and the farmer's firewood stove would also install a circle of iron pipes to boil water, which we called "filling pots".

When lighting a fire for cooking, pay special attention to the burning of firewood, and constantly knock the burned firewood into the charcoal fire, leaking from the iron fence to the bottom of the stove. These charcoal fires are then loaded into the jar with a specially made shovel and covered with a lid.

When the charcoal fire is cut off from the air, it will be extinguished and become a reserve for heating in winter. The charcoal fire obtained in this way is different from charcoal, and it is called "fire" by rural people, which is vivid and intuitive. In addition to heating in winter, there are many functions of "fire".

Therefore, stockpiling "fire" is a thing that the villagers attach great importance to, because it is very useful. When you need to use it, you pour it into the "fire cage" and ignite it with a lit charcoal fire, which can not only warm up in winter, but also bake things, which is very useful.

It is very common and very practical things in the mountainous areas, but there is no one in the plains of their hometowns, they burn straw and dried cow dung, and they cannot accumulate "fire feces", and the use of "fire cages" is affected, so the plains are more plain and difficult than the mountainous areas.

There are also "fire cages" in my hometown, but there are quite few of them, and such people generally have to find ways to seek "fire", and my father often rides his 28 bicycle and carries a bag of "fire" to give to my grandmother in my hometown to warm up in winter.

When I was a child, it was common for cousins and cousins to sit in front of the stove, send the straw into the stove with one hand, and pull the bellows with the other.

Straw is limited and used as feed for cattle, so picking up cow dung has become a common thing for friends in the hometown, taking a shovel and carrying a bamboo basket. After picking it up, it should be piled up on the wall to air dry while it is wet, and after air drying, it can be used to burn.

The old family also cuts firewood, but there is indeed too little firewood that can be cut in the plains, so it is common for cousins from the hometown to work tirelessly to push a big cart to us to cut firewood.

The wheels made of two steel rings, an iron bar in the middle are connected into a wheel, and the wood is made into a pair of frames, which are placed on it, with two handrails in front and a tow bucket in the back, which is a flatbed car.

The felled firewood is pulled back with a big cart, and in the winter farming time, I often have to go back and forth several times, and I once got their love, sitting on the cart, running back and forth, especially excited, and the memory is still fresh.

My father said that when he was a child, he didn't have any clothes until he was eight or nine years old, and he was bare-bottomed in the summer. When I went to my hometown when I was a child, I found that they not only ate worse than us, but also dressed worse than us, which is why I prefer to be at my grandmother's house rather than go to my hometown.

It's not necessarily a good thing to dress well, about four or five years old, my parents were afraid that I would freeze, so they bought me a pair of velvet pants to wear.

At that time, there were few people who bought the whole dress, and the rural women all bought cloth to go home, and then asked the local tailor to make clothes, and the tailor measured the size of the body when making the clothes, and drew the lines on the cloth with ** according to the size, and then sewed into clothes after cutting.

Tailoring was a profession among local women, as a craft used to earn some money and goods to support the family, and the sewing machine even became a popular dowry for a time. Both the aunt and the aunt have studied tailoring, and the eldest sister has also studied after graduating from high school.

It's rare to buy a whole pair of pants like this, not to mention the velvet pants that I've never seen before. The first to wear new-style pants, the first to say goodbye to open crotch pants, in front of friends, is very worthy of showing off and proud.

I don't know if the wool pants were made poorly at that time, or the materials were scarce, but the purchased velvet pants were not like the belt or elastic now, but were tied with a thin rope. The waist of the velvet pants is sewn into a circle of seams, just enough to pass through a thin rope, the string is made of cotton, soft and matched with the velvet pants, pull out the thin cotton rope, tie a slipknot, you can tie the waist.

The excitement has not passed, and before I have shown off enough in front of my friends, the string used to tie my waist on the velvet pants has become my nightmare.

The reason why it is tied into a slipknot is because it is convenient to untie it in time when it is time to untie it. But when I was a child, I was too playful, and under normal circumstances, I couldn't hold it back until I didn't play, and I wouldn't think of going to the toilet.

Whenever this happens, you need to quickly untie the slipknot. But in the panic, this string always turned against me, and I can't remember whether it was because I was too small, my hands and feet were too clumsy, or I didn't master the trick.

In a hurry, when the slipknot is pulled, the string is not untied, but often pulled into a dead knot, and the feces and urine are too urgent, and the more urgent the pull, the harder it is, the harder it is, the harder it becomes a dead knot, and it is even more impossible to untie. I am often anxious and ashamed because of this, because I can't hold it back, while pulling the string, crying aggrievedly, and pulling and urine all over my crotch.

That's why you have to wear open crotch pants when you are a child, as long as you squat, you can solve it anywhere, how many times you wear the latest trendy crotch pants, pull up the crotch, and stagger home in the ridicule of a group of friends wearing open crotch pants, pride turns into humiliation, humiliation turns into tears, crawling all over childish faces.

Once it is pulled into a dead knot, it is so difficult to untie, I remember one time, I encountered a dead knot again, my father happened to be by my side, while comforting me to insist on holding on, while helping me untie, but until he brought a vice, he could not untie it, and could only smile and watch my feces and urine flow down my trouser legs.