Chapter 116: Autumn is coming and busy with threshing
This autumn, the rice in the entire Dingxin Commune is growing very well. By August, it will begin to turn golden yellow, and the rice fields look like gold.
Mr. Zheng had not seen such a beautiful scenery for a long time, let alone Xu Qing. Everything felt so fresh.
Today Liu Limin went out to his fields to see if they could harvest. Xu Qing followed him. She was very curious about how the millet was harvested.
Soon the two of them arrived at the contracted land of Liu Limin's family. Liu Limin's family of five were allocated three fields, which totaled about two acres and could harvest more than a thousand kilograms of millet. However, it was hard enough.
Li Min is the backbone of the family, and he is the main force in threshing millet. He not only has to step on the threshing machine, but also carries the millet home. You need to know the output of more than 1,000 kilograms, which refers to the weight after drying.
When it is beaten out of the field, its weight will almost double.
In other words, Liu Limin picked more than 2,000 kilograms of millet by himself. Even if he picked more than 200 kilograms, he still had to make more than a dozen trips.
Liu Limin first came to his family's largest field, which was called Tuotian. Liu Limin didn't know why it was called this field. It was always called that. This field was a big field, and Liu Limin's family only received
One-fifth of this field is at the very edge.
Liu Limin pinched a few yellow grains of millet, put them in his mouth and chewed them to make sure they were ready for harvesting.
Xu Qing said curiously: "Brother, how do you eat raw millet?"
Liu Limin laughed and said, "I'm just trying to see if the millet is ripe. You can only harvest it when it's ripe. Otherwise, there will be a lot of rice. Then when it's time to pay the public grain, the grain station won't even collect it. Besides, it's not ripe yet."
Tou, then the output will be much lower, and the loss will be huge!"
Some people were already threshing grain, and there was a sound of threshing in the fields. Xu Qing asked very curiously: "Brother, when will our family thresh?"
After saying this, Xu Qing couldn't help but blush. She realized that she had said it wrong. What do you mean by our family? She was not from Liu Limin's family.
Liu Limin smiled and said: "We have to start work early tomorrow morning, otherwise the sun will be strong at noon, and it won't be too bad. I don't have anything, Li Hui and the other three are young!"
Xu Qing smiled sweetly and said: "Senior brother, count me in tomorrow. Even though I haven't done this job before, as long as you teach me, I will definitely learn it."
Liu Limin smiled and said: "Well, you can also experience it. This job is really tiring, so you have to be mentally prepared!"
Xu Qing said humbly: "Don't worry, I will work for as long as you can, and I will never be a deserter!"
Liu Limin also inspected the other two fields and found them ready for harvesting.
After returning home, Liu Limin gathered his family and made arrangements to go out and start harvesting at five o'clock tomorrow morning.
Although Mr. Zheng could not participate in this labor, he still arranged for driver Xiao Song to help Liu Limin's family thresh millet. Xiao Song had a lot of strength. With his joining, Liu Limin would definitely have a much easier time.
Mr. Zheng smiled and said: "There is strength in numbers, Dr. Liu, just arrange for Song Qian, and I will go and see this year's harvest."
Liu Limin smiled and said: "Thank you very much, Mr. Zheng, and Xiao Song. Our entire Dingxin Commune has a good rice harvest today, and the grain station is well prepared."
Handing over public grain was a very important thing in the 1980s. It was a task and a duty that every farmer must fulfill.
Whether it is corn, wheat, or rice, there are public grain responsibilities. For wheat, you basically have to pay 50 kilograms per acre, because the yield of wheat is lower, and the yield of rice is much higher, so you have to pay more.
, Liu Limin's family threshed more than a thousand kilograms of millet, and if they had to pay the public grain, they would have to pay more than three hundred kilograms.
The rice planting area in Dingxin Commune is not very large. There are many people but little land. The public grain provided is probably enough to eat. After all, rice is the staple food. Teenagers need to eat one kilogram of rice a day.
Liu Limin's family of five needs five kilograms of rice a day to be full, which translates to more than a thousand kilograms of rice a year.
Therefore, more than a thousand kilograms of millet is really not enough to satisfy the hunger, so sometimes corn, sweet potatoes, wheat, etc. are added to make enough food.
Liu Limin remembered that in his previous life, he often ate sweet potato porridge and wheat cakes.
If you want to eat rice every day, you really can't do it.
However, thirty years later, life in that family became better. At that time, they had the conditions to eat white rice every day, but everyone fell in love with the whole grains of the past.
Mr. Zheng said with emotion: "Our farmers are really suffering. We have to pay the best for public grain. If we can't eat well, we still don't have enough to eat. Alas, it's all because we didn't do a good job!"
Liu Limin smiled and said: "Mr. Zheng, don't say that. I believe that with our current policy of household contracting and the development of science and technology, our agriculture will get better and better. As long as the output increases, there will be enough food."
Yes. It is also our duty to pay public food. After all, this land belongs to the country and the collective, not our own."
Paying public grain is actually an agricultural tax. Liu Limin remembers that it was not until 2000 that he stopped paying it. Later, the state began to provide subsidies.
In the 1980s and 1990s, handing over public grain was a very lively scene. Sometimes there were long queues, and they were basically pulled by trucks. Everyone had to take the best grain to the grain station to hand it over.
Because there are standards for the grain station to collect public grain. If it does not meet the standards, it must be returned and prepared again. Not to mention, sometimes the commune and the brigade will also impose some punishment measures. It is impossible to pass off inferior goods as good ones.
of.
Of course, Liu Limin's family has more than an acre of land where they grow medicinal materials, and they also have to pay public grain, but they only pay corn.
Liu Limin went to hand it over just two days ago, and now the corn has been loaded into the granary.
This millet is the last grain delivered in the year.
The next morning, before dawn, Mrs. Wang got up at around three o'clock and cooked soup, cakes and porridge. When Liu Limin and the others got up at five o'clock, they ate in a hurry, then picked up their belongings and went out.
Xu Qing really got up very early. When Liu Limin and the others came together, she got up right away. She remembered this.
This threshing requires a lot of people to move, including mixing buckets, threshing machines, a lot of baskets, and five or six sand knives.
The mixing bucket used in rural threshing is a big thing made of wood. It is about two meters in diameter and about one meter in height. The bottom is curved, making it easy to drag it in the paddy field.
Liu Limin and Xiao Song were both very strong men. Each of them carried a big thing, Liu Limin carried the mixing bucket, and Xiao Song carried the threshing machine.
Xu Qing didn't have her hands empty either. She put the bamboo pad on her shoulders and set off.
Liu Lixin, Liu Lihui, and Liu Lixia all picked out a basket and put boiling water and other things in it. After all, threshing millet was very hot, so drinking the water felt like pouring water. At the end of the day, three boiling water bottles