The end of February and the beginning of March is a rare leisure time for farmers throughout the year.
The New Year has come to an end, and the children have flown away with their families. The swallows on the roof beams have not yet returned. More and more land is abandoned, and the tones of withered yellow and gray-brown occupy large areas of land.
Except for the green hills in the distance and the vast expanse of greenery, the entire village was lonely and silent.
Today, the fields beside the bamboo forest of the old Song family were bustling with activity again.
"Song Sancheng, what's going on with your family this year? Are you getting rich and ready to do something big? Do you have to clean up so many fields?"
"That's right, Old Song, what are you going to plant? There were two tea trees in the field, so don't want them anymore?"
Everyone was invited by Song Sancheng to clean up the fields.
In the corner, the cultivator was rumbling, and before plowing the land, they first had to clear away all the weeds and trees in the field.
Otherwise, the little machine might get stuck.
Fortunately, there are many people, so working together is not only fun, but also very efficient. After one person cleans up one area, the other person will plow it twice with a cultivator. The combination is just right.
The people who came were all about the same age as Song Sancheng.
At their age, if they go out to work, most factories don't want them.
Those who do hard work can relax the age requirement, but their bosses are also afraid of getting into trouble.
In addition, people in their forties and fifties, who endured hardships and hardships when they were young, have many physical ailments and so on...
Now, if I stay in the village, I will just work for a while and take a break, trying not to burden the children.
Therefore, Song Sancheng said that asking people to do work, bending down and exerting force for 150 days is not a good job, but everyone is willing to come.
As I get older, I also want to have fun.
Song Sancheng also sighed: "This tea is not worth much. There is still such a large area on the hillside. I haven't taken care of it here for many years... What are you keeping it for?"
This is true.
Their place is not a famous tea place, it is just ordinary tea from the mountains. It is roasted and sold for takeout. It costs fifty yuan a pound to drink it yourself. There are not many people outside who are willing to pay for it.
The tea trees in this field were so bare that I couldn't even see them...
But I’m older!
I really couldn't do the farm work that required a lot of effort, so I slowly resigned myself to my fate.
"Then what do you want to do as you clean up the land and the mountains?"
The person asking the question was neighbor Li Baoni.
Speaking of this, Song Sancheng didn't know how to speak.
What to say?
Your daughter is not going to work and is planning to come back to farm?
How many young people these days know how to farm? If you tell them, people in the village will laugh to death!
So he also said lightly: "It's nothing. My Tantan works too hard and her body can't bear it anymore. I told her that she needs help in farming at home and let her rest at home for a year and a half before going out.
work."
This is true.
Whose young people don’t venture outside?
Neighbor Li Baoni also sighed: "It's true. My daughter came back during the Chinese New Year with a sallow complexion. When asked, she worked overtime until one or two o'clock - her salary was only that small, and she had nothing left at the end of the year."
Li Baoni's daughter sells clothes in a chain store. She is sweet and talkative. Now she is a supervisor. She often does inventory late at night and travels to expand stores. It is also hard work.
However, the environment has been bad in the past two years, wages have not increased, and we have to worry about whether there will be layoffs...
When it comes to children, every household has a hard-to-recite scripture.
Zhou Maozhu, who was further away, also sighed: "Last time, my son asked us, the old couple, to live with them in the city and help take care of the children. The chili peppers in the supermarket outside the door cost more than ten yuan a pound! How much money can we eat?
Are you up?"
"With my children, I take them to kindergarten in the morning and pick them up in the evening and take them to interest classes. They are not even in the same place. The bus makes me feel dizzy. The air conditioner is blowing on every day in the house. How can we burn the stove to keep warm."
"I stayed there for a week and couldn't bear it anymore, so I just came back first."
As for the old woman at home, of course she still couldn't bear to part with her grandson and stayed there to take care of her as best she could.
Regardless of whether farming is reliable or not, the reason Song Sancheng came up with is pretty decent anyway:
"Tan Tan also said that the food in the past few years has not tasted as good as before. I thought, since people are staying here anyway, I might as well plant some vegetables and rice for my children, and it will be delicious for myself."
The villagers were happy to hear it.
"Song Sancheng, now you are the one who farms the most in the village and you have become a landlord - when your rice is ripe, I will stop buying rice and buy your rice instead."
"Yes, yes, I will buy it too. The rice outside looks white. It is all polished and has no nutrition at all. It costs several yuan per pound, and it is not as fragrant as the rice I grew myself before."
Song Sancheng didn't dare to agree: "My family only farms two fields, and it's not enough for my family to share. If I don't sell it, I won't sell it."
Who here has never farmed before?
Everyone was unhappy when they heard this: "The two fields combined are several acres. What, how many kilograms of rice does your family eat a year?"
Song Sancheng also laughed: "What should we do? My rice seeds are good and taste good, but they are expensive. The best yield is one thousand jin per mu. One thousand jins yields 700 jins of rice, which is enough for two or three people."
Year."
"Looking back at my family, the old man, the old woman, the children's grandma, uncles, aunts, and uncles...don't every household get some points?"
"This is enough for my family to eat."
This is how the relationship between people goes in the village. Neighbors and relatives always have to give a little bit, not much, but they have to show their affection.
When everyone calculated it, it couldn’t be much more, but it was definitely a lot: “No, I have to eat your rice this year, otherwise I won’t come when your family transplants rice!”
Everyone agreed.
What I mean by that is that I will help plant the rice seedlings without asking for money.
Song Sancheng didn't dare to respond: "With just two fields, it won't take us two days to plant the rice ourselves... Eat, eat, eat. Come and help when the rice is actually harvested. The rice will satisfy you!"
Everyone was laughing and joking. When a field was cleared and ready to be moved, someone finally remembered:
"Then you clear up the twenty acres of land and plant a few acres of rice. What are you going to do with the rest?"
Song Sancheng didn't hide it: "I'll just grow vegetables."
"I'm thinking that if we don't spray medicine, we can take the shuttle bus to the market to sell it, so we won't lose money."
That doesn't make much money.
If we don't spray pesticides, the grass and insects will be layer by layer, and the couple won't have time to clean them up, so they won't have to worry too much.
What's more, their road is not easy to get around. The shuttle bus runs from village to village once a day, and it costs 40 yuan for a round trip...
The vegetables need to be fertilized and worked hard, and so many vendors in the vegetable market are from rural areas near the city. They are closer than them, and the competition is greater...
Earning it back and forth is hard-earned money.
Everyone made a calculation in their minds, it’s really not a good deal!
But then I thought: "That's okay, Lao Song, your family Qiao Qiao is being looked after. We are old and no one wants to work. It would be good to grow our own vegetables."
“When the time comes, I’ll come to the field to buy and pick now!”
…
…
Most of the varieties grown in the village are single, and the ripening seasons of each household overlap, so vegetables often need to be bought.
In addition, it is now okay to sell pigs in rural areas, and you can kill pigs to eat yourself. It is illegal to kill pigs and sell them, so you cannot.
Tantan’s next step is to grow rice, watermelons, various vegetables, chestnuts from the mountains...and beekeepers, because the milkvetch nectar is really not to be missed! There are also many wild vegetables.
Raise pigs, dogs, chickens, ducks, geese, fish, shrimp, and water chestnuts.
If there are any other crops that you like more, you are welcome to leave comments!