In the morning, after breakfast, Zhang Yaowei and Shui Wang went out to find a boat.

"The rice bowl is out of rice." Mom told Mom to ask him to pick a load of rice to husk.

In their village, there is a shelling machine in the commissary, which charges five yuan at a time. If you don't want chaff, you don't charge. But rural people basically have to take back the chaff, and they have to feed chickens and ducks.

"I'll go!" Zhang Yaohua said.

Lao Zhang is happy in his heart, his two sons are good at home, and he doesn't have to do a lot of work.

So, Zhang Yaohua took the snakeskin bag to the barn to load the rice, which was a new grain that was harvested some time ago. Now their family does not grow much rice, not enough to eat, and they have to buy more than 300 catties every year.

The mother found two baskets, and when she saw her son using a snakeskin bag, she asked, "Don't you need a basket?" ”

"Forget it, bagged it!"

The last time he used a basket, he accidentally got a bamboo and stabbed his finger, Zhang Yaohua still remembers it vividly.

In their place, the basket woven with bamboo strips is the mainstream tool for loading things, and even when marrying a daughter, some dowries have to be carried through with bamboo baskets.

The bamboo basket in Zhang Yaohua's house is still woven by the old man himself.

The older generation, which one is not a craftsman?

The tools used at home are almost all handmade by themselves, and they can be made by themselves, and they definitely don't cost money to buy.

Just like the rice measuring cup in Zhang Yaohua's house, it is made of bamboo tube, which has a history of twenty or thirty years. Some families use the lid of a kettle, while others use an unknown tin pot.

As soon as Zhang Yaohua packed the bag, Ah Jiu came over.

"Big brother, I'll pick it." As he spoke, he snatched the flat pole over.

Get! Zhang Yaohua didn't fight with him.

The two of them came to the commissary and shouted to the boss. The shelling machine is in a small house next to the commissary, and the machine in front of me has been used for a long time.

For as long as Zhang Yaohua can remember, it has been this shelling machine.

"Do you want chaff?" The boss asked.

Zhang Yaohua nodded and took out five yuan to him: "Hmm!" Want. ”

The boss took the money and started to get busy. The machine starts, and the noise is a bit loud, but for the sake of its age, there is nothing to complain about.

In addition to the high noise, small broken rice is also produced when the husk is peeled, which comes out of the other mouth.

"This sheller is older than me, right?" Ah Jiu said with a smile.

Zhang Yaohua nodded: "It should be older than you." ”

Ah Jiu also said: "Our village doesn't farm anymore, it all grows sugarcane and other fruits, and you can't make money by plowing the fields. ”

The price of grain is really a bit low, it has not changed for more than ten or twenty years, and some people even ridicule that a pound of rice is not worth as much as a pound of mineral water.

"Of course, you can't make a lot of money growing sugar cane. Our village is fine, what to plant is up to you. In some parts of our town, sugar cane cultivation is almost semi-compulsory. Ah Jiu broke the news.

Zhang Yaohua was stunned, it's all this era, and there is such a thing?

That's something that only happened in the era of the planned economy, right?

"Won't it?"

Ah Jiu nodded seriously: "I heard that many sugar factories are from state-owned enterprises, and they must ensure output." So, big brother, you know. ”

Wrestling with state-owned enterprises, you have almost no chance of winning.

"What's even more bizarre is that there are places where food has to be grown. There are still people in our village who are worried that they will have to cut down the fruit trees and re-cultivate the fields. Ah Jiu continued.

Zhang Yaohua has heard of growing grain, after all, our country has a red line for cultivated land, and it is necessary to ensure grain production. That's a national consideration, and it's not good to talk about it too much.

The Chinese are very persistent and attach great importance to grain, and grain must not be controlled by others.

Although it is now possible to import rice and other grains in large quantities at a low price, the state still invests huge subsidies to encourage farmers to grow grain.

They talked for a while at the door, and the inside was peeled off.

The rice with white flowers exudes the fragrance of rice.

What you grow at home is good, unlike what you eat outside, and it is becoming less and less textured and tasteful.

"Big brother, have you noticed? The rice sold outside is more shiny, and it looks good or not. ”

At this point, I thought of it with Zhang Yaohua.

"Hmmm! That's right. Zhang Yaohua nodded.

"I've heard people say that it's rice that has been thrown away, but it always feels unlikely, how high is the cost?" When Ah Jiu heard others say this, he didn't believe it in his heart.

After all, the retail price of a lot of rice is about three yuan, and he can't imagine what kind of work it takes to polish every grain of rice.

"It's not surprising, there are professional polishing machines, just go through it once, it's not as difficult as you think." Zhang Yaohua said.

He suspected that after polishing and other processes, some delicious ingredients of the rice were lost, so it was not delicious.

This reminded him of a little knowledge that the teacher had told him before, saying that there is a layer of substance on the surface of rice that is very nutritious, and when washing rice, do not rub it hard.

The teacher also told a story that there used to be a family, and the daughter-in-law was a very filial person, and every time she boiled porridge, she would give the rice to the old mother to eat, and eat the thin soup herself. However, the old mother is getting thinner and thinner, and the daughter-in-law is getting thinner, the better.

Of course, this story is a bit exaggerated, but it will not be groundless, which shows that there is some truth to it.

In addition, the reason why we feel that the rice we buy outside is not delicious is that we may have bought old rice. The taste of new rice and old rice is really far apart.

Rice also seems to have an expiration date.

Speaking of delicious rice, this reminds Zhang Yaohua of the two years after graduation, when he traveled to the Northeast during his annual vacation, and the rice there was really delicious.

It was the most delicious rice he had ever tasted, like Thai fragrant rice, but it smelled fragrant and tasted no as good as Northeast rice.

When he came back, he tried to buy something online, such as Wuchang rice, but he couldn't taste the taste and texture at all.

He knew that he had bought a fake.

Later, someone told him that the annual output of Wuchang rice was hundreds of thousands of tons, and the sales volume of Wuchang rice on the market exceeded 10 million tons.

Damn it! It's outrageous.

It was Ah Jiu who carried the rice home, and Zhang Yaohua carried two bags of lighter grain bran.

After pouring the rice into the rice bowl, Ah Jiu took his son out to play and walked to the beach. The sea is always fresh for those who live inland.

Zhang Yaohua was called by his mother to hoe behind the vegetable garden.

Get! I promised my mother to help her expand the vegetable garden.

When he hoeed the ground, a flock of chickens and ducks surrounded him, and every time he hoeed, he turned over the soil, and the chickens and ducks rushed over and ate the insects and earthworms hidden in the soil.

"Go aside." Zhang Yaohua hurried with his feet.

I'm really afraid that a hoe will go down and cut off one or two chicken heads.

As soon as the words fell, the two chickens fought because of an earthworm. That's called a fierce one! It's no wonder that some people like to watch cockfighting, it's a bit of a sight to behold.

It's just that there are a lot of chicken feathers that have fallen.

Mom hurriedly came over to persuade the fight, and each played fifty boards.