Xiaodu Village! Located in the northeast of Hengpi Town, Wuhua County, it is a small mountain village surrounded by mountains. Because it is located in a mountainous area, most of the villagers focus on animal husbandry and planting fruit trees. Young people in the village rarely stay at home in the mountain village. Most of them study or work in larger cities outside. Those who stay in the village are basically based on Middle-aged and elderly people who make a living from farming.

The geographical location of Xiaodu Village

I have a friend named A Bing. He and his wife are both from Xiaodu Village. They bought a house and a car in the county. Now his wife and children are He lives in the county town, but his parents still live in his hometown in Xiaodu. Because his parents still live in his hometown, he has to go back to his hometown several times a month to visit his parents.

At a late-night snack party, we ordered fried rock snails to eat. While eating, Ah Bing mentioned that there was also a kind of snail in the mountain stream in his hometown. That kind of snail was different from ordinary stone snails. People there call that kind of snail a pit snail. The meat and shell of the pit snail are black, and the body is long and pointed. The color of ordinary stone snails is mostly dark green, and the snail meat is also black.

Keng snails

A delicacy hidden in the mountain streams deep in the mountains, Xiaodu Village mountain snails, have you ever eaten this kind of snails?

I checked on the Internet that there is indeed such a kind of snail, called Shankeng snail. This kind of snail only grows in mountain streams in the mountains and has very high requirements for the water quality of the growing environment. Wild mountain snails on the market can be sold for 70, 80 or even hundreds of yuan per pound, which is ten times the price of ordinary stone snails. Ah Bing said that when she was a child, there was nothing to eat at home, so she would often go up the mountain to pick up food from the stream and cook it for herself. Now that so many years have passed, I wonder if there are still pit snails that can be picked up in the mountains. So I told A Bing to take me with me when I go back to my hometown. I want to visit Xiaodu Village. Go to see the lonely elderly people in the village, and check out the mountain streams to see if there are any pit snails that can be picked up.

Xiaodu Village is about 20 kilometers away from the county seat. We went to Xiaodu Village on July 16. Starting from the county seat, when we arrived at the center of Hengpi Town, it was still a spacious road. When we entered the village, the road became smaller and smaller, because Xiaodu Village is a mountainous area. The road was all around the mountain. After going around the mountain road several times, we arrived at our destination. The air in Xiaodu Village, far away from the city, was particularly fresh.

Xiaodu Village

After visiting the lonely elderly people in the morning, I couldn’t wait to ask A Bing to take me up the mountain to pick up pit snails in the creek in the afternoon. He said that it is much easier to go up the mountain now. There are cement roads and it only takes 10 minutes to ride a motorcycle. In the past, it took at least half an hour to an hour to go up the mountain.

The creek on the mountain

The snails I picked up

I picked them up in the creek on the mountain for about half an hour. There were indeed many snails. . And the appearance of these pit snails is exactly the same as those mentioned on the Internet. But all of them are very small and immature pit snails. It is estimated that these small pit snails have not even grown enough flesh to fill the gaps between their teeth. Ah Bing said that there are also large pit snails in the big stream at the foot of the mountain, and they are all large pit snails, but because the water is relatively high, it is impossible to pick them up. They can only touch them. Whether they can touch them is another matter.

The big stream at the foot of the mountain

The giant pit snail I touched

I spent the whole afternoon touching the big stream at the foot of the mountain. Although the flow was a bit fast, the water level was up to my knees. On. After my persistence, I still touched a lot of snails, and they were all relatively large and mature snails. Since I had to rush back after dark, although I didn’t gain much, I was very satisfied. It turns out that our Wuhua mountains hide such great specialties.

The snail we touched

The snail we touched

The snail we touched was given to A Bing’s parents, and we rushed back to the county town that night Home. On the way back, I thought about it and mentioned it to A Bing. Xiaodu Village has such a good ecological environment and resources. Why not use the streams in the mountains to breed snails, and then purchase and sell them to the city. Isn't this a way to get rich? Farmers in rural areas, especially those in mountainous areas, are not unwilling to engage in planting and breeding to get rich, but they are afraid that the fruits of their hard work will not be sold and no one will buy them.

If the selling link is opened up for them, farmers don't have to think about this problem. They can just cultivate and plant the products well. We in the city will help them sell the things in the mountains. Isn't this what we are doing in the headlines? That’s what poverty alleviation experts should do. Instead of always talking about getting rid of poverty and becoming rich, taking practical actions is the most important thing.