When you saw the title, did you immediately think of Tian Zhen's song: "My family lives on a high loess slope, and the wind blew over the slope. Whether it is the northwest wind or the southeast wind, it is my home, my home. "

Yes, this rough and heroic song sung by Tian Zhen is about my hometown.

My hometown is on the Loess Plateau.

The Loess Plateau, located in the north-central part of China, is one of the four plateaus in China, one of the cradles of ancient civilization in China, and the most concentrated and largest area of loess on the earth, with a total area of 640,000 square kilometers. It spans most or part of seven provinces in China, such as Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Shanxi and Henan, and is mainly composed of Shanxi Plateau, Shaanxi-Gansu-Shaanxi Plateau, Longzhong Plateau, Ordos Plateau and Hetao Plain.

The topography of the Loess Plateau is different from other plains. Except for a few rocky mountains, most of them are covered by loess on the back. Because of the loose soil, it has been eroded by running water for a long time, resulting in thousands of valleys and broken terrain. However, it is also a unique natural landscape of the Loess Plateau. The landform fluctuates greatly, and mountains, hills, plains and valleys coexist.

So, don't be surprised when you see the ravine crossing Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia. Yes, our mountains are like this, overlapping, embracing and surrounding.

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The loess plateau has a deep soil layer and strong honest and frank, so there is a special kind of human representative residence-cave dwelling.

On the hillside where the loess layer naturally accumulates, on the edge of the original soil, the hole drilled upward along the mountain has a wide field of vision.

When I was a child, my family lived in a cave. This cave has a door, a window next to it and a heatable adobe sleeping platform next to the entrance window. There is a fire hole under the kang, which is connected with the indoor stove. If we cook in the stove or burn firewood in the fire hole alone, it will be very hot on the kang. Go to the kang as soon as you enter the door in winter. The warm kang is enough to resist the cold in winter.

At that time, we lived in a complex. Fifteen or six caves in a row, two people in each family, seven or eight families together.

In summer, people come back from work at noon every day, and the yard will be very lively. Men will sit at the door of the cave and smoke, chat and enjoy the cool, and women will start cooking. At this time, you will see puffs of smoke coming out of every cave.

In winter, the land freezes and there is no farm work to do. After eating, people will sit in sunny places, make a pile, bask in the sun and chat. Children are playing happily in the yard, chasing each other and laughing; Adults sit together, either playing poker or sewing, enjoying the leisure time of farmers.

If it snows and stops, everyone will start sweeping the snow. Although they swept the snow in front of their house, the yard suddenly became lively. People say the snow is auspicious, while men sweep the snow with their cats around their waists and still smoke old cigarettes in their mouths.

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As early as before, people's means of transportation were cars, horses and donkeys. At that time, the car was a unicycle, and people pushed it to the fields to send dung and pull grass to feed livestock. A unicycle can walk on all kinds of rotten roads and skillfully bypass all kinds of potholes and stones, but it is difficult to control, and if you are not careful, it will overturn and even people will fall.

When I was only three or four years old, some places in our hometown needed people to drive donkeys to the ditches to transport water every day. It used to be two big barrels, but later it became an iron barrel. Saddle the donkey first, then put the bucket on the donkey and fix it by saddle. People pull donkeys and carry water into the ditch step by step.

I remember very clearly that my cousin took me to fetch water. He held the donkey's reins in one hand and me in the other, and sang to me, "My family lives on a high loess slope, and the wind blows over the hillside."

Now back to my hometown, the road in the ditch is gone. It has been pushed beyond recognition by bulldozers and planted with small saplings. How can I find it? There was no trace at that time. I looked at the opposite mountain, which was still lush, and the path for cattle grazing on the mountain was gone.

For hometown, sometimes, trying to find its appearance is also a kind of happiness. That kind of self-evident, that kind of memory flying moment.

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The loess plateau has loose soil and fertile soil, mainly wheat, plus corn, sorghum and millet. Potatoes are the main vegetables, which are easy to grow and have high yield. Whether it is spring, summer, autumn and winter, it is an essential dish at home. Of course, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and cucumbers are growing well. Every summer, every family can be self-sufficient in vegetables.

Many people in the south have never seen green walnuts. Yes, we produce walnuts in the Loess Plateau. Every August and September, walnuts are covered with branches, in groups of two and three, and green bags are wrapped in shells. Basically, there are one or two walnut trees at every door, enjoying the cool in summer and eating walnuts in autumn. Around the Mid-Autumn Festival, the green peel of walnuts began to fall off, which is the season to harvest walnuts.

In addition to walnuts, apple trees are also fruit trees that we often plant. The temperature difference between morning and evening is large, and apples are sweet and delicious. Autumn is the harvest season. Walnuts, apples, persimmons and crisp pears are all ripe one by one, and people are busy picking them. Of course, corn and millet also need harvesting.

You can't help feeling that the fruits in the countryside are sitting in rows, waiting for the farmers to take them home. Sometimes, I even think it's childish for them to play with rocks, scissors and paper. Whoever wins can be taken home early.

The four seasons in the Loess Plateau are distinct. In spring, the earth thaws, everything recovers, grass shoots out of the ground, willow branches sprout, and flowers grow lovely buds; In summer, when you look around, it is lush and white; Autumn is fruitful, and the trees and leaves in the mountains begin to change. Yellow, yellow and red all show deep affection for trees. As you expected, winter is bare. The leaves fell, the grass withered, and the farm work was over.

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People on the Loess Plateau are rough and simple, as broad-minded as those who travel in the sky, shouting loudly all the time, which makes people feel uncomfortable and happy. Listening to the feeling can travel through ancient times, sigh the vicissitudes of life, sigh the changes of time.

Nowadays, many caves have been abandoned and replaced by brick houses and high-rise buildings made of concrete and steel bars; Today's means of transportation are tricycles, tractors and so on. And there is no sign of a unicycle; Nowadays, there seems to be few human sorghum except wheat fields and corn fields.

But so what? Time goes by like water, taking something away, leaving something behind, replacing something, and bringing something at the same time.

What remains unchanged are the endless valleys and mountainous Shan Ye on the Loess Plateau.

Invariably, the rising sun shines on Shan Ye and the caves.

What remains unchanged is that there is little water on the loess high slope, but the wind is very strong.

What remains unchanged is that people on the Loess Plateau are still descendants of the Loess Plateau from generation to generation, simple and honest.