There is no way to replicate the interesting things I did when I was a child. The toys at that time were Barbie dolls bought by my parents for 1.5 yuan and a game console for 5 yuan, but this was only a small part of my time to entertain myself. More Spend your time in contact with nature.
Actually, when I think about it, some things were a bit cruel at first, but at that time, they were a joy to enjoy.
When I was a child, spring suddenly came in the morning after the thunder that tore the sky and the sound of overwhelming rain, and everything revived. Frogs lay their eggs in the waterlogged fields, and there is a loud croaking sound at night. Children who have nothing to do after the ice and snow melt are already eagerly waiting for the new growth of thorn moss and hair needles, as well as the small insects that will arrive with the season.
In the past, granaries were built with mud bricks, and the bricks often had holes drilled by bees. The greatest happiness at this time is to take the empty glass bottle that the adults drank, break off a small branch, and poke holes one by one. If you hear a buzzing sound, put the mouth of the bottle close to the hole, pull out the branch and quickly block the hole with the bottle until the bee flies into the bottle. If you see a returning bee flying near the earth wall, you will stop searching blindly, wait for it to fly into the hole, and then go over and poke it. Sometimes flowers are stuffed into the bottle to attract bees.
In addition to waiting for the rabbit, I will occasionally go outside to look for it. Large areas of rapeseed fields are buzzing with activity. Get into the flower ground, point the mouth of the bottle towards the bees collecting nectar on the flower string, and use the branches to gently push it into the bottle. Unlike the simple and rough method in the earthen wall, this method requires more skills and patience. The probability of success is low, but the target is exposed to sight.
Summer never stops from morning to night.
Get up early in the morning, take out a bamboo broom at home, break off the excess branches, leaving only the two branches with a Y shape at the top, and then go out to look for spider webs wrapped around the two branches. Bigger spiders build larger webs and the stickier the webs. He often runs and jumps around the village, so he naturally knows where there are big spider webs. Spiders do not easily leave familiar web-making sites. Even if they wrap all their webs around today, when they get up and look at them tomorrow morning, they will find a complete web hanging there again, waiting for the scurrying little flying insects.
When the dense spider webs are wrapped between the two branches, the dewdrops on the roadside grass sparkle under the sunlight. At this time, the wings of the dragonfly that stayed on the grass seedlings overnight also have a thin layer of Water vapor, alertness and flight speed are much slower than normal. He carefully approached the resting dragonfly with a bamboo branch wrapped with a spider web. When he was four or five centimeters away, he suddenly accelerated. The dragonfly struggled on the spider web before it could react. Before the dew dissipated, I walked home happily wearing sandals thickened by two to three centimeters of mud and dust.
Most of the captured dragonflies cannot escape a tragic fate. In the summer, mosquitoes bite me so much that I can't sleep well. The stronger dragonflies will put them inside the mosquito nets, hoping to catch mosquitoes. In fact, being imprisoned in a narrow mosquito net, no matter how strong a dragonfly is, becomes lifeless. If the captured dragonfly is mutilated, it will be dismembered and placed in front of a foraging ant under the plum tree in front of the door.
After several attempts, the ant found that it could not drag food several times larger than its body, so it returned to the ant nest to fetch reinforcements. I followed it to the ant nest. After waiting for more than ten seconds, the ants crawled out of the hole one after another, and soon they became a black line swimming on the ground. The ants that come out to carry food include worker ants that are the same size as when they forage, and soldier ants that are one or two times larger, which I like to call ant heads. The amount of food determines the number of porters and also the number of ant heads. In the wandering ant team, not all ants are heading in the direction of the food. Some will go against the team, occasionally stopping to touch the antennae of another ant that is moving normally, and then continue walking after a second.
During the process of carrying food, some ants even stood on top of the food. They looked like they were working hard as they scurried up and down, but they looked more like they were hitchhiking. I don’t know if they were helping to carry the food. I spent more time watching them move food closer to the ant nest little by little, and occasionally they would make mistakes, such as making a deep trench or placing a branch on the path they must pass. There would be a brief pause as the line passed by, and soon it would pass the obstacle I had created. You can sometimes spend an entire afternoon watching ants transporting food.
After the sun sends the dew away and the temperature rises, there are more types of dragonflies with more beautiful colors, including the red dragonfly. In order not to break the wings of the dragonflies when catching them, I twisted the cobwebs I wrapped in the morning into a small dot. This type of dragonfly is relatively sensitive and needs to stand still in the sun like a wooden man. Wait for the frightened dragonfly to stop again. After a few seconds, it quietly raises its feet and approaches slowly. The movements of its hands must also be slow enough. Undetectable. Then use the spider web point to get closer to the back between the two wings, and when you are sure, you will take action with lightning speed. Sometimes it takes two or three trips to catch a dragonfly, but it doesn't feel boring at all if you enjoy it.
Sticky dragonflies may stick to their wings. At this time, you need to gently separate the thin wings and spider web points. When the viscosity is low, it is fine. When the viscosity is high, it is easy to tear and become incomplete. Unlike sticky dragonflies, sticky cicadas or cicadas need to stick their cicada wings, otherwise not only will they not be able to stick, they will be frightened away.
Cicadas and cicadas usually chirp at noon and evening, and in the afternoon they sit silently on trees. Except for tall toon trees, they are most often found on evodia trees.
In the afternoon, look up under each Evodia tree to look for cicadas. If you see one, climb up the tree on tiptoe, trying to avoid shaking the branches. The male cicada will flap its wings and make a cry after being captured, while the female cicada makes no sound except flapping its edges.
Mud-covered cicada sloughs can often be found on the trunks or leaves of Evodia. It is thought that they can be found on this tree species because the leaves are so dense that sunlight cannot directly reach the soft soil below. Cicadas are more difficult to catch than cicadas. They live on plum trees with similar colors or on higher branches. They are difficult to find or they give up because of the height. In addition, cicadas are more alert.
When you are not catching dragonflies or cicadas, you will catch butterflies. The butterflies that are most likely to be caught are those that have just emerged from their cocoons. At this time, they cannot adapt to flying. To find this butterfly, it's best to go where there are three needles. This thorny plant can provide shelter for butterflies as they emerge from their cocoons, but it cannot stop children from having fun. Common butterflies are white or yellow, with few or no patterns on their wings, and they mostly have a bulky, ungrown belly.
I secretly pulled a one-meter-long thread from my mother's sewing box and tied it to the tail of the butterfly. When it wanted to fly, it couldn't help it. There is a kind of black butterfly with colorful patterned wings that is relatively lucky. The hidden place where it breaks out of its cocoon allows them to avoid the fate of being caught before flying, and it dances among the bright smelly peonies under the tree.
There are often groups of dragonflies flying back and forth over the yard. They occasionally stop on the nearby fence to rest, but most of the time they fly tirelessly. When I have nothing to do, I will take a broom and beat them. After a while, their flying height will go up. If they stop for a while without disturbing them, they will return to their original height. If this kind of dragonfly flies faster than usual and at a very low altitude, it often indicates an upcoming heavy rain.
There is a kind of dragonfly with a long tail that almost only appears in the sky above the courtyard dam in the evening. We call it the dragonfly emperor. Because it is rare during the day and its color is beautiful, it is always popular with friends next door in the evening. Holding the bamboo broom, he beat it time and time again. This kind of dragonfly is as difficult to trace as a ghost that flies low, and it is difficult to flutter against a broomstick that flies high, so there are long bamboo branches prepared for this kind of dragonfly in the house. With the long bamboo branches and the height of the jump, you may be able to catch two or three dragonflies in one night, but the disadvantage is that you cannot get complete dragonflies, and more of them die directly. Later, my younger brother also discovered the shadow of the dragonfly emperor during the day. They were hiding in the cool and dark bamboo forest. From then on, the bamboo forest became an extra place to go in summer.
After being beaten and injured, dragonflies will fly to higher places. Children know in their hearts that they fly high because they need to fly to the sky to find gods to heal their injuries, and they will return to earth the next day.
There are other pastimes in summer evenings, that is, sitting outside the house with your trouser legs rolled up, making a long sound like "ah", and the mosquitoes nearby will gather in front of you. Just put your hands together and swat them. This mosquito is extremely small and smaller than sesame seeds. Sesame seeds are not grown in my hometown, so they are called rice bran mosquitoes. When my legs started to itch, there were already a few mosquitoes stuck on them. I slapped my legs quickly and hard, leaving scattered blood spots when I raised my hands.
When the sky gets darker, the light of fireflies can be seen, flying up and down under the moonlight. The place with the most fireflies is near the bushes. The ground is covered with patches of white sage and occasionally nettles. In the moonlight it was possible to see road gravel, leaves and grass, but it was difficult to distinguish nettles. If you accidentally get stung, it will hurt. I squat down and keep rubbing the stung skin with my hair. I don’t know which generation of folk medicine it was passed down from. Although it doesn’t relieve the pain, I still follow it.
When catching fireflies, I would recite a folk song passed down by the old man. Due to language differences, it cannot be translated literally. The general meaning is, fireflies, fireflies, fly lower, and I will give you a torn kerchief. You can reach out and catch the flying fireflies without hesitation, but you need to pay attention to the ones that are parked on the leaves of leaves or crawling on the ground. There is a kind of insect whose tail is glowing like the fireflies.
The adults in the family also let the children play wildly in the village at night, but before going out, they always tell them not to go where there are many weeds, and to walk carefully and pay attention to the road, not to worry about the children bumping into them. , but worried about stepping on the soldering iron tip that comes out at night.
There were many ways to injure myself when I was a child, from cutting pig grass to chopping firewood to cutting the skin on my hands from thatch or thorns, etc. If you are in the wild, crush some wormwood and apply it on the wound. If you are in the house, look behind each wooden door to see if there are white cobwebs on the wall. Tear them off, dispose of the dust, and apply them to the wound. Artemisia will sting slightly when applied to the wound, while spider webs are gentle and painless.
There are many poisonous insects in the wild. Sometimes when walking through a dwarf acorn tree, the leg will be stung by the chili pepper attached to the back of the leaf, causing a burning sensation that is itchy but not painful. Spread on the legs. The way to relieve this pain is to find the insect, remove it with the leaves, fold the leaves in half to squeeze the body away, and wipe the affected area with the flowing body fluids.
In addition to bugs, you may also be stung by bees. While walking among the bushes, the irritated bees swarm away under the influence of the branches. At this time, I can only turn around and run away, otherwise I will inevitably be stung. The bee pupae in the hive can not only be used to detoxify after being stung, but can also be eaten, so even if you run away, you will still wait for the bees to return to the hive and approach the hive. Of course, it is impossible to return with bare hands, holding a branch with the leaves removed. When the bees swarm again, they will beat them wildly and finally pick the hive.
This head-on approach is only suitable for small bees. If you encounter a large bee such as a bumblebee, you will run as far as you can. It is said that a strong cow will die if it is stung seven times by a bumblebee. I don’t know if this is a rumor, but I was once stung by a bumblebee on the top of my head. The skin damage at the needle hole still leaves a dent with no hair. After being stung, my face was swollen for several days, with only a slit left in my eye. At that time, my cousin even cried because of his terrifying image.
When I was a child, whenever my father was chopping firewood, I would stay by his side. After the pine wood carried back from the mountain is dried, there will be wood chips expelled from the burrows of beetle larvae. After the firewood was split, the worms appeared and they were picked out one by one and placed in a bowl. Sometimes the chopping position was not ideal and bugs were hidden in the wormholes. My father would stop and bring me the wood with bugs alone. It is a pest to trees, but it is particularly fragrant after frying. Surrounding my father who was chopping firewood was not only me, but also a flock of chickens that were ready to move. One time my father left after chopping firewood, and I followed him into the house after picking out the worms in the hole. When my mother saw that I had not taken back the bowl I took out, she asked me about it. I ran out of the house to get it, but there was not a single worm left in the half-bowl. .
Summer is the most pleasant at my grandma’s house. Not only can I play in the water to cool off, I can also catch crabs. When I get tired of playing, I will go to the rice fields to catch grasshoppers. Fold a grass stem at random and tie a knot at the top. Thread the caught grasshopper from the back of the head, and you will have a bunch of grasshoppers with elastic legs in your hand. There is also an unknown insect larvae that rolls up rice leaves to make a nest, and will collect them if it sees them. When the harvest is large, the grasshoppers will be passed through the water and put into the oil pan. If there are few caught, they will be fed to the chickens and ducks.
There are many small animals in the paddy fields, including eels and loaches hiding in the mud, as well as leeches, water scorpions, water turtles, etc., but my favorite is the water turtle beetle. Water turtles are very agile in crawling in the water, so you need to be very fast to catch them. My parents said that water turtles can be eaten, but only two or three are often caught, so they are usually used for fun.
The most fun thing to play with is the scarab beetle. After catching it, tie it with a string between the head and the body. You can hold the string and let it fly. If it refuses to fly, just pinch it. Throwing circles around the rope is a tried and true method. Scarabs are brightly colored. The most common ones are shiny emerald green wing shells, which may appear golden or brown when viewed from different angles. Occasionally, shiny red scarabs can also be caught. Scarabs like to gnaw at tree trunks and are most common on chestnut and walnut trees. When climbing trees, you need to be quiet and avoid excessive movement. When you get close to the place where the beetles are being chewed, first observe which one has the prettiest color, and then quickly cover it with your hands. If you are lucky, you can catch two or three beetles, or some scarab beetles forget the danger and do not fly away.
The thorns on the scarab beetle's feet are sharp and hard. If you hold it in your hand, it will be very painful, and sometimes it will even bleed, but even so, you will not let go. Slide from the tree trunk to the ground, divide the beetles with your friends, and then happily run home. Sometimes you can also catch longhorned beetles, which are all black in color and have two black and white tentacles. They make a "嘤嘤嘤" sound when you hold them in your hand. My cousin and I don't like beetles, but my brother and cousin like them very much. We tie them with strings and hang them on poles or let them fight with each other.
As time goes by, things change and people change. Many plots cannot be reproduced and can only be found in memories. The things I experienced in my childhood were joyful at the time, but they still seem like rare tender moments now.