Moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival of 2021

The three-day holiday of Mid-Autumn Festival in 2021, I spent it in my hometown intact. In those three days, there was a wind, a rain, and a heavy fog that had not been seen for a long time.

1. That wind

I arrived at Kangzhuang at noon on August 13 in the old calendar. Recently, with the help of Kang Geng, Kang Qiang, Gu Lao and others, the sheep pen and fodder house built with great effort has begun to take shape, and seven or eight sheep have been transferred to captivity. Inside, it belongs to the "three-sided" project of design, construction, and use. The new sheep pen is located on the west side of the courtyard. In the past, our orchard was located north and south, and the conditions were not bad in light and warm weather. In this way, plus a dog I brought from Dingxi in the first two weeks, plus a cat he recently asked for from his old nephew Kang Yong’s house, so that counts, now the third brother is alone At home, in addition to continuing to be the president of his Kangzhuang club and taking care of ten acres of contracted land, he also needs to raise eight or nine sheep, two pigs, one dog, and one cat. He is busy with daily work. One can imagine.

On the afternoon of the 13th, I was taking a nap in the west room. When I was sleeping well, my four-year-old grand-nephew called Han, yelling and slapped, and made me quarrel, saying that there was a strong wind outside and would not let me sleep. NS. I had to wear warm clothes and came to the courtyard. This old north wind was really strong. On the two decades-old elm trees in front of the door, the dry branches and dead leaves that had died due to the severe drought this year crackled and fell a lot.

The third brother and the third sister-in-law are hurriedly rushing at this time, thinking that before the strong wind blows, the two carts have to shovel the alfalfa and straw from the field a few days ago and dry them. I was able to feed the sheep, but in the end I was trapped in this sudden wind and heavy rain before driving the grass to the end. Although the people and the grass were wet, it was originally green grass. Wait for the wind and rain to pass, and then spread it out in the sun. Drying does not affect the eating of the sheep.

Actually,Since September, the third sister-in-law has been picked up by the descendants' daughter-in-law to pick up her grandson who has gone to school in Dingxi City, a hundred kilometers away. On weekdays, the three older brothers are left at home. Other tasks are easy to handle, such as scrabbling grass, building pens and other tasks that require proper help. It is not easy for one person to do it. You have to wait until the third sister-in-law rushes back from the city every one or two weeks to help you, or in the village. Only when I can find a helper can I finish it. But everyone has adapted to this kind of day. Nowadays, there are more "two-and-a-half households" in the northwest rural villages where one person is helping the small ones in the city, and the other is working in the countryside. Therefore, everyone is gradually getting used to it and getting used to it. It seems that the days of our rural people in history have also come over like this.

2. That rain

People often say that the wind and rain are combined with each other, and the wind and rain are generally mixed together regardless of the family. In our hometown, there is often a southerly wind that blows for a few days first, transporting a large amount of watery clouds in the south of others for a period, and then returning to blow a northerly wind. We call it "Huiyun", God. With such a full brewing process, it will rain heavily in this way. In 2021, there will be a severe drought in my hometown, and many places have no harvest in summer and autumn. Everyone has been looking forward to this storm for a long time, but this year the biggest and best rain that should have fallen to the first half of the year has been dragging on. It was a bit late on August 13th, the Mid-Autumn Festival. But it’s better if it’s planted. As a farmer, the crop will be confiscated this year and the land will have to be planted next year. It will rain on the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the ground can at least be polished a little bit better. The moisture content of next spring planting will be guaranteed. People of, never dislike too much rain.

From the second half of the night on August 14th, moderate rain changed to light rain. This rain has been raining for long enough and the amount of rainfall is enough, but the general feeling is that the rain this year is unpleasant, just like those A small contract foreman on a construction site pays wages to migrant workers who are in distress. At eight or nine o'clock in the morning, the second and third brothers and I got up to drink a pot of tea. The rain had completely stopped, and there was fog on the east and west mountains.

3. The fog that day

There is very little fog in the mountains in my hometown. This is because the moisture accumulated in the arid and semi-arid areas is not enough, especially this year. Little is due to location and climate. On the morning of August 14th, the fog was majestic. There was fog on the surrounding hills all the way to the front and back of the village. You can see dozens of steps in the lowest fog. This kind of sight is rare.

There was heavy fog on the mountain, and the ground was very humid. We couldn't work, so our brothers sat down to make a fire and drink tea. The pot of tea that the third brother drinks every morning is still very regular, and the time, points, and ostentation have become a consistent system for more than ten years. Bake some buns while drinking tea. I am used to drinking it. Morning tea is used as breakfast. It is natural that three meals a day become two meals a day. My second brother and I went back to our hometown, and we lived like this with the third brother. It is possible that our brother’s habit was also learned from drinking tea early when his old father was alive.

When the old father was alive, he drank the pot of tea in the morning for a whole life, and said he didn't drink it for a headache. Although life at home in the 1970s was hard and poor conditions, the old father's morning meal of tea has never stopped. At one stage, the old father might also be drinking the famous "Yiguang Tea" produced in Chongqing. Because of its low price and low quality, the tea was mostly finely chopped and used on the branches when the tea was about to boil. A thin stick that was folded down hurriedly mashed the boiled tea under the tea water, otherwise it would overflow, so it is called "overflowing tea". Later, after my home conditions improved slightly, I started drinking Shaanqing , Yunnan's brick tea , Tuo tea, cooked tea , and Chunjian , Chunrui and other green teas. The pot of tea from the early morning in the country has become a habit to drink every day, and it often brings out some culture from it, including headaches and dizziness if you don’t drink it.

On the 14th day of the eighth lunar month, when our brethren got up early for a cup of tea, the fog in the vicinity of Zhuangzi dissipated, and only in the distance towards the small river under the North Mountain was still thick. Diffuse, the famous Maojiaping and Zhangwan borders were still covered by clouds and mist, but they soon dissipated.

4. That dog

This time I will return to my hometown for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Another task is to see how the puppy I caught back to Kangzhuang a few days ago is alive?

This was last week. I caught a dog from Dingxi's home for the third brother. It was a child from a company who worked in a unit in Jingyuan Daluzi and surnamed Su. Because he has a new granddaughter in the family, and there are children in the family, he can no longer raise a dog, so I asked around to see who can help him raise this accustomed puppy? Out of help, when I went back to my hometown last time, by the way, I took the little dog named "Twice" back to Kangzhuang and gave it to the third brother.

Listening to Lao Su, his dog has been timid since childhood, and has skipped meals since he was a child and only eats dog food and ham. So since I brought this dog to the countryside, Lao Su has to send the dog food purchased online by express to the countryside every ten and a half days, for fear that his puppy will not live well in our countryside due to the problem of living habits. , Lao Su loves his dog very much, Lao Su's heart is a little soft. I kept telling him on the phone on purpose that the only way to feed dogs in the countryside is to let the dog eat with the owner. Where does it have the conditions to buy dog ​​food and ham for him every day? Let it be able to eat full, this is already a situation of social progress. For example, in our poor places, feeding dogs before the 1980s, generally speaking, the pigs in the house eat what they eat, and even the pig food is not willing to let it grab it. It can only eat shit everywhere. In order to get a life, like now, the dog's life has gradually become so happy? This was unimaginable in the past.

However,I'm still insisting on gradually transforming the living habits of this little dog called "twist". This time when I went back to the countryside during the Mid-Autumn Festival, I let it learn to eat chicken bones that everyone has gnawed before, drink chicken soup, learn to eat ordinary meals, and make initial progress.

The puppy that Lao Su gave me is actually a very clever guy, he still listens to me to explain some truth to it, I said that the conditions in our country now are no longer what you used to live in the city The conditions are no longer necessary, and there is no way to pay attention to it. Life has to come from hardships, and you can’t burden your old owner with the burden of buying dog food all the time. If you don’t learn to eat home-cooked meals, how can there be a reason to eat dog food every day in the countryside? It seems that it has also begun to know a little bit of the current situation, some common food that suits its appetite, it has already begun to learn to eat, unlike when it first came to the country to resist.

On this day, for the first time, I took it to the half slope of my hometown Dongshan. After a big wave, the dog ran happily among the barren mountains and weeds. It seems that this dog is to be raised in the country, and here is the place that fits its nature. Life on the buildings in the city is really wrong.

V. Seventh brother

This time I went back to the countryside, due to time constraints, I actually didn't see many of my brothers in the village. I went to Nanzhuang Seventh Brother's house.

Nanzhuang Seventh Brother is named Yufang. He is eighty-five years old this year. His sister-in-law’s surname is Zhang Naiyu, a native of Zhangjiagou, Gangou Township. He passed away last year. Seventh Brother currently lives alone in Kangzhuang. Brother Qilao was a graduate of high school from Dingxi No. 1 Middle School in the mid-1950s. He later worked in the transportation company in Dingxi area of ​​. In the early 1960s, he was transferred back to his hometown to work in rural areas.

in the afternoon of August 14,When I was wandering around the village, I ran into a distant nephew "Lao Shang" driving a car. By the way, I squeezed the seventh brother to the town, and the seventh brother bought him some cooked steamed buns and raw food. Noodles and the like cost more than ten yuan. When I got home, I put it in the refrigerator for the next week. In the past, when Qi Sister-in-law was alive, Qi brother probably never ate these machine-made foods sold on the street. On the one hand, it was expensive, and on the other hand, it tasted bad every day. But now the sister-in-law Qi has passed away, and the descendants and daughter-in-law of the seventh brother have also gone to Yinchuan, Ningxia to take their own grandson. The seventh brother has become a lonely family, and the day has to be done by himself. The biggest problem now is that in addition to the inconvenience of life, brothers like these smart phones now can't use it, and the loneliness and loneliness in the daily life is nowhere to be said, no one can say. I accompanied Seventh Brother for a mile from the middle of Zhuangzi to his home at the south end of Zhuangzi. In this short year, Seventh Brother's waist was obviously larger than last year, and his face was much older. In order to adapt to the great change of the death of sister-in-law, Brother Qi seems to have a very difficult and difficult process.

Brother Seven told me that when people are old, they are often annoying. The town where we buy things is still more than ten miles away from our hometown. In the past, when he was young, he walked for an hour. The journey, but now that he is old, he can't go that far, so he can only hitchhike or ask someone to purchase by the way. But many people of the junior generation who met on the road opened their mouths. Many times, they found it bothersome not to bring him or not to bring him. For this reason, he also saw the faces of drivers on the road many times. I can think of the loneliness and hardship in Brother Qi's life.

People are getting old, it is really difficult.

6. The Moon of Mid-Autumn Festival

This year's moon is indeed round fifteen.

Actually, I didn't look at the moon on the fifteenth night because we were running on the road back to Dingxi on the fifteenth night.I was still in the country on the night of the fourteenth day of the lunar calendar. In the first half of the night, because I slept too much in the afternoon and couldn't sleep at night, I stood in the window of the west room and looked at the moon rising from Dongshan for a long time. The moon that night was really bright and round, I don’t know, how many times can I meet such a beautiful moon in this lifetime? How many times will God have such a happy opportunity with me?

looks like nine or ten o'clock in the evening, and there is not even a walking person under the moon in the pavement on the top of the yard. There is occasionally in the sky the sound of planes flying from Lanzhou Zhongchuan Airport to the southeast passing high above the sky. There should be a very important route in the sky above our hometown. There are many planes flying by every day. Especially at night, the navigation lights on the night planes are flashing and bright, which is easy to find. Except for the sound of airplanes flying in the sky, it seems that the only words that can be used in this night, here and now, are only "the silence of all things". Although, in Kangzhuang now, my ancestors have all passed away. They are all buried on the slopes of the east and west mountains next to Zhuangzi or in the bay. On this full moon night, if there is any In that lifetime, they might also be gazing affectionately at the village where they had toiled all their lives under the wavy moon.

Fortunately, in my old home, there are also many of my older brothers and sisters-in-laws who are still alive and staying in Kangzhuang. They have never had poems in their lives. In the distance, when this month is in the middle of the sky, maybe they have already fallen asleep, maybe they are just like me. At this time, people are old and sleepy, and they are also staring at the roundest moon in the sky in a daze.

It is because I know that although there is no noise in Zhuangzi at this time, I understand that it is because there are those old brothers and sisters who are still alive in this bright moon and quiet night. They may accompany them far or near. At this moment, my hometown Kangzhuang can still be where I am at this moment-"this heart is at peace"!

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