The Past of Chaohu Lake: The Third Chronicle of Childhood-Cattle herding

Author: Shen Hongxiang

Inscription: In childhood and adolescence who experienced material shortage but had many good memories, after graduating from high school, they left their hometown to go out to study, and then stayed in other places to work, and their hometown became the most intimate miss. Unconsciously, I wasted my youth and prime of life, and in a trance, it was the age when I knew my destiny. Inadvertently looking back, it seems that every child bears the help of adults in childhood. During this period, many interesting or smelly things we experienced together disappeared. Only these memories pay tribute to the people and landscapes in my hometown.

In my memory, herding cattle is one of the favorite activities of children and adults. Compared with other farm work such as transplanting rice seedlings, hoeing the ground or carrying burdens, adult herding cattle is equivalent to resting; As for children, herding cattle is not only to fill their stomachs, but also to find ways to support themselves.

If the child is a beginner herding cattle, he will usually go out and go home with his parents. The adults are working in the farmland, and the children are herding cattle not far from the adults. Generally, parents will teach us to choose good ridges, ponds or ditches with dense grass, so that cows can eat as much grass as possible until their stomachs are full, that is, they can go home safely. What I still remember is that once my parents were hoeing in Zuzu Mountain, and I was herding cattle nearby. I just dared to ride an ox. I sat leisurely on the cow's back. This cow is grazing in a small pond with shallow water. At that time, the sky was clear, and there were birds singing around from time to time, which was very pleasant. Unexpectedly, all of a sudden, the cow and I fell into a deep pit. I was really shocked. Fortunately, the cow didn't move. When I climbed out from under the cow's stomach and stood on the ground, the cow climbed out of the pit. Out of the water, I found my ears buzzing and I couldn't hear the voices of people nearby. This is the first time I have been flooded. I thought my ears would be deaf, and I was too scared to tell adults. Fortunately, I walked through two ridges, probably because of the vibration of walking, and the water in my ears flowed out by itself. If you can clearly hear the voices of people nearby, you can breathe a sigh of relief and put your heart back in your stomach. Later, my swimming partner told me that I had water in my ears. As long as I shake my head left and right, I can shake the water out of my ears. At that time, I wondered how a deep pit suddenly appeared in the pond. I didn't know until I was a few years old that the ponds on the hillside generally don't store water in winter. Hard-working villagers will dig a hole in the dried-up pond, pick up cow dung, pig dung and even human dung accumulated in autumn and winter, and temporarily store them there for topdressing rape or wheat in spring.

When we are eight or nine years old, when adults are busy, we usually herd cattle alone, especially when we are busy (rushing to plant early rice and late rice means rushing to plant seeds and harvest, which is called double robbing). Four or five families need this Niu Geng field and threshing floor. At this time, we are all herding cattle around the village alone, because the cattle may be called home to plow at any time. Sometimes, just as several families are fighting for time to plow the fields, the cows are very nervous, and they often pull directly from the east farm to the west farm, and there is no time to eat grass in the middle. In this case, we usually cut the grass home or send it to the ridge in advance, so that the cows can eat as much grass as possible during a short rest. At noon in hot summer, adults need to rest. Cows are usually allowed to rest in the shade, or tied to a pond to keep them as cool as possible in the water.

When I herd cattle, I usually deliberately avoid the pond. I once drove a cow. It was probably hot. I took the cow to the pond and planned to give it some water. As a result, it ignored it and ran straight into the deep water. I can't hold back, I can't swim, so I have to loosen the cow rope in my hand, go home and find an adult to come over, and then pull it out after entering the water. Another time, on a hot night, the adults asked me to take the cows home to play. In order to avoid the Dalian pond at the head of the village and the small pond at the door, I walked a long way to drive the cattle home. Maybe it's in a hurry, or the cow is too hot. On the way home, the cow turned around and ran into a newly inserted late rice seedling field on the roadside and began to roll. At first, I couldn't hold it. I could only wait for it to roll around and enjoy myself, and then I was dragged back to the muddy ridge. Fortunately, the neighbors were friendly, so my mother apologized to the owner of the seedling farm and quickly took the seedling handle to help them replant.

When the "double robbing" is over and we enter the slack season, we will call our friends and go to the forest farm far away from home to herd cattle. There is a big peach garden and a small pear garden in the forest farm, as well as a big fir tree and other miscellaneous forests. Before the production is distributed to households, the forest farm belongs to collective property, and there is a special person responsible for care and management. In my mind, peaches are very sweet and pears have never been eaten. After the property is distributed to households, everyone's main energy is concentrated on their own acre of land. Nominally, one or two people managed the forest farm, but actually they handed it over to themselves. A few years later, the forest farm was basically deserted.

The forest farm lacking special management is a paradise for us to graze cattle. Generally, after five or six partners drive the cows to the forest farm, we will leave one person to look after them, mainly for fear that they will sneak into the nearby farmland to eat crops, swim in the big pond in the north, or run away and find them. There have been cases where children let cows play by themselves, accidentally lost the cows, went home and asked adults to come and look for cows, and when they found cows, they were scolded or even beaten by adults. In addition to the children who look after cows, several other people will also divide their work. Courageous people will go to the nearby farmland to find fast-maturing peanuts and sweet potatoes (sweet potatoes). Usually they will bring back five or six peanut seedlings and seven or eight sweet potatoes. Timid people are responsible for cooking stoves and preparing firewood. First dig a small hole in the ground, then find some stones nearby to build a simple small earthen stove, and then go nearby to find some hay and branches of different sizes to put on the earthen stove for ignition. If it rained a day or two ago and the straw and branches were basically wet, it would take some matches to light the fire. In the smoky fire, we sometimes have to lie on the ground, cover our mouths with our hands, and blow into the firewood pile to make the flame ignite as much as possible. After the fire is lit, the sweet potato is usually baked in the fire first, and the peanuts are picked from the seedlings before being put, otherwise they will burn to ashes. Usually I can't wait to put it late and throw it early. There is no time when it doesn't burn. Even big potatoes are often too big, burnt outside and raw inside. If a group of people happen to be novices, they often work hard for a long time, and only a little bit of sweet potatoes can be eaten. Most peanuts are baked too hard, or directly burnt into charcoal, which is impossible to eat. Generally, at least one veteran in a group of people repeatedly warned us that we must put peanuts late. If you are lucky, you can eat a few more. Even if you just eat a few half-baked sweet potatoes, you will be as happy as a holiday. When we come home with a little satisfaction, when adults see us for the first time, they will ask, "Are you secretly baking sweet potatoes again?" ? In fact, there is no need to ask, because our mouths are basically black, and sometimes we forget to wash them, or wash them but they are not clean. Generally, as long as the cows are full, adults will not pursue us too much. Even if the host sees them pulling peanuts or digging sweet potatoes at the scene, they will usually say a few words on the spot to avoid ruining their peanuts or sweet potatoes next time. Few parents or children are scolded.

After all, the number of baked sweet potatoes is limited. Most of the time, we will play games together. Girls like to play with stones, while boys like to play cockfighting or fighting. Besides, most of the time, I was looking for everything to eat in the fields of that season, such as picking girls (inflorescences of grass roots), picking thorns (tender stems of wild roses) and digging wild water chestnuts in spring. And I really can't eat. The Robinia pseudoacacia flower heart on the roadside of the village head can be chewed out in my mouth. In summer and autumn, baba fruit (raspberry fruit), snake berry (a kind of red fruit similar to strawberry), jointing fruit (artificially cultivated in the north called winter girl) and chicken nuggets (rolled eye root) are all rare and delicious when they are seen. Occasionally, I see the fruits and vegetables in other people's vegetable fields are ripe, or it may be that a courageous person steals one to eat.

In short, herding cattle is just a platform, and the key point is to find ways to find food or have fun together.

I remember once seeing a pheasant fly out of a fir forest in a forest farm. Colorful feathers were dazzling in the sunset, and I was dumbfounded. The ancients said: the meaning of drunkenness is not in wine, but between mountains and rivers; We are: urchins don't care about cows, only peanuts and sweet potatoes!