The Taste of Wheat Waves Lyrical Prose

My mother has a summary of Maizi’s life: He suffered from cold and heat, and stayed out for eight months. That is to say, wheat was planted during the autumnal equinox of the first year. Shortly after it was unearthed, winter came. In the cold season, the young wheat seedlings resisted the severe cold and used the thick snow as a quilt to nurture silently. With. When spring comes, the wheat seedlings seem to be in no rush to grow. During the Qingming Festival, it suddenly begins jointing, heading, flowering, and filling. As if in the blink of an eye, the seeds were full and the highest temperature reached 38°. When the wheat is ripe, it’s time to go inside and stock up.

Remember that wheat harvest is the happiest and most tiring time. When I was a child, it was called "Three Summers of Busyness". This three summers refers to: summer harvest, summer management, and summer planting. The summer harvest is mainly wheat harvest, which is called "the tiger's mouth seizes grain, and the grains return to the warehouse." It is said that wheat harvest is the happiest because you can eat white flour steamed buns after harvesting wheat. At that time, it was enough to eat stick noodles every day, not to mention a few meals of white noodles. To say that it is most tiring means that time is tight, tasks are heavy, and there are many difficulties. As the saying goes, it takes a month for autumn to ripen, and it takes a while for wheat to ripen. If it is medium ripe, it will be harvested ten minutes. If it is very ripe, it will be harvested seven minutes. The wheat harvest depends on the temperature. If it is earlier or later, the harvest will not be optimal. What's more, at that time, insect infestations, dry and hot winds, strong winds, heavy rains, and even hail could come at any time, and weather forecasting was not as scientific and advanced as it is today. Occasionally, there may be human disasters, such as fires, etc. Therefore, we must rush to collect and attack.

The most experienced farmer in the village, with a sickle in his waist, walks around the fields, rubs a few wheat ears, bites them with his teeth, and then decides whether to cut that piece of wheat. . Cut! So, at three o'clock in the morning, the small trumpet in every household in the village blew the "tick-tock" wake-up call. Everyone listened to the captain's order and rushed to the wheat field together to start harvesting wheat. With stars on their heads, they were still sleepy, their steps staggered a little, and many people were still wearing cotton-padded clothes. Then, each person claimed a ridge and started harvesting. The captain and the hard-working people who went ahead flew ahead, and the late and clumsy people followed closely behind. At dawn, I saw that the ground was full of people, like a formation of wild geese, moving in front and behind, fast and slow, scattered throughout the wheat field. The sun is getting hotter and hotter, and the cotton-padded jackets have been thrown into the fields. Some had towels on their heads, wiping sweat while moving forward. Some began to squat down and cut wheat, moving slowly. I was in the crowd, picking up, cutting, putting down, straightening, bending, taking steps, and picking up again. The most unbearable thing was the pain in my back. When the captain called for a break, everyone went to drink saccharin water. One was sweet, the other was cold, and everyone was gurgling. I had to carry the sickle on my back to cope with the pain in my waist. Sometimes I had to lie on the ridge in the field and use the back of the ridge to prop up my waist to reduce the pain. Adults say that if children don’t have waists, how can they get back pain? At that time, whoever cut an acre of wheat would be rewarded with two taels of cotton oil from the production team. So, everyone is really motivated. At that time, I could work back and forth for a long time and harvest one and a half acres of wheat. Really bad back pain. Today, my back hurts when I see the wheat ripening. When encountering something that is lying down or difficult to cut, it not only hurts the back, but also causes a headache. Because of my backache, I often wonder, when will I use a machine to cut wheat? I will definitely invent when I grow up. My parents are both good at harvesting wheat, and my father is the team leader. He is always at the front and becomes the "lead goose". Mother has endurance, and the wheat harvested from each field will exceed the average. Every year, our family is given a few kilograms of cotton oil as a reward, enough to feed our family for a year.

After the wheat is harvested, it is time to tie it into bundles. When harvesting wheat, the awns pricked my arms and hurt. I usually have a straight waist and it's pretty easy. After harvesting the wheat, the bundles are brought back to the field and stacked first. When the stacks of wheat are brought back, it’s time to start fighting while the weather is good. Laying the field, drying the field, grinding the field, starting the field, winnowing the field, drying the field, etc. are all the work of adults, especially the technical work. Others are not allowed to interfere. The younger ones sometimes take the opportunity to stand in the wheat pile. , Rolling in wheat straw is a pleasant thing. However, most of the time, you have to go to the "granule return warehouse". It means going to the fields to pick up the ears of wheat that have fallen into the fields or on the roads. Mother said, lower your waist and poke your butt out, gleaning wheat for apricots. Don't be afraid of getting tired. If you pick up wheat, you can just exchange it for wheat, yellow apricots and eat it. Just like "Looking at plum blossoms to quench thirst", we also "listen to apricots to relieve pain" and gather wheat field by field. When the wheat field was occupied by farm workers, in addition to picking up wheat, some people hurriedly planted cobs, collected cotton, etc. The wheat harvest lasted for more than a month. The farmers dried the wheat, then selected the plumpest, cleanest, and driest wheat, packed it in bags, and loaded it onto a large carriage to happily deliver the public grain. After seeing this scene, Wang Yiyang, the editor of Beijing's "Russian Friendship Newspaper" who was undergoing labor reform in our county, wrote a song "The Old Man Delivering Food is Joyful" and won the Hebei Provincial and National Performance Creation Awards. The farmers have to eat part of the remaining wheat that is shriveled, has impurities, or even has mold or insect bites. Each person finally received dozens of kilograms of wheat, making the best pasta preparations for the festival of the year. Steamed buns, dumplings, moon cakes and rice cakes all start here. Now that I think about it, I wonder if the people in the city knew about such a scene at that time?

What impressed me deeply was the waves of wheat in spring. The wheat had just jointed and covered some of the ground. A gust of wind blew by, and the green pointed leaves of the wheat seedlings swayed in turn, like the green waves of the sea, and sometimes like the water ripples in the ditches of watering the ground. We lay down on the ditch and drank some cold water from the well, and sat on the edge of the field watching the waves of wheat. I hope a small boat will come and carry us to the distance. There was one unforgettable thing before I suffered from back pain, which was burning wheat ears.

When the wheat is about to mature after being filled with pulp, pick a handful of green but plump ears of wheat, burn them with firewood, and then rub them. Ouch, that smell, the aroma of green wheat is refreshing. After eating a small handful, the black lips wrap the cracked smile teeth, and the aftertaste is endless. Later, our family opened a steamed bun shop, which was also a busy time. I would go to the street to carry steamed buns in exchange for wheat to earn some money for my family. I still think of shoveling, because there is no firewood, so we have to use a short-handled shovel to shovel all the wheat stubble in the field.

I have not cut wheat for many years, and farmers no longer need to cut wheat. The harvesting machine has finally been invented. There have also been many new varieties of wheat, including triticale. It is said that Guantao County will become the largest triticale wheat planting and breeding base in the country within a few years. Looking at the endless wheat fields, a large combine harvester entered the field. It drove forward with a buzzing sound and gentle dust. After a while, pearl-like streams of wheat poured down from the machine's reversing barrel. From the sickle to the field, here it is just a matter of pressing the button, which takes just a few minutes. The county's wheat harvest only lasts a few days. Time to be happy, right? Happy. So happy! There is really no back pain anymore.

However, there is also a little pain. The harvesters were not very clean, and few people picked up the wheat ears that fell in the field. No one used the wheat stubble all over the field. It is said that about 10% of the wheat falling into the ground now. A retired man picked up several bags of wheat grains in just a few days. Thinking of the many phenomena of wasting food, my back pain turned into heartache. In the past few days, there have been reports of wheat fires in the fields from various places. This is the year when I heard the most fires in wheat harvests. The fires burned the wheat fields cleanly. Almost a year's work was equal to zero, which made me feel sad.

My mother left us due to illness when the wheat was about to be harvested. She was not lucky enough to eat the new steamed buns that year.

It has been ten years since my mother passed away. During the wheat harvest season, even though my mother’s proverb of “lowering down and pouting, gleaning wheat for apricots” still echoes in my ears, I feel really sad and heartbroken!