The end of February and the beginning of March is a rare leisure time for farmers throughout the year.
The New Year has passed, and the children have flown away with their families. The swallows on the beams have not returned yet. More and more land is abandoned, and large tracts of land are covered with withered yellow and gray-brown tones.
Apart from the green mountains and vast expanses of lush green in the distance, the entire village is filled with loneliness and silence.
Today, the fields beside the bamboo forest of Old Song’s family are bustling again.
"Song Sancheng, what's going on with your family this year? Have you made a fortune and are you planning to do something big? Do you have so many fields to cultivate?"
"That's right, Old Song, what are you planning to plant? There were two tea trees in the field, but you don't want them anymore?"
Everyone was invited by Song Sancheng to clean the fields.
In the corner, a tiller was rumbling away, and before plowing the land, they first had to clear away all the weeds and trees on the ground.
Otherwise the little machine might get stuck.
Fortunately, there are many people, and working together is not only fun, but also quite efficient. After one area is cleaned up in the front, the tiller in the back plows the land twice, which is just the right combination.
Those who came were all about the same age as Song Sancheng.
At their age, most factories don’t want them to work outside.
The age requirement can be relaxed for those who do hard manual labor, but the bosses are still afraid of accidents.
Plus, people in their 40s and 50s have suffered a lot when they were young, and many of them still have some physical pain or something like that…
Now that I stay in the village, I just work for a while and take a break from work, trying not to add burden to the children.
Therefore, when Song Sancheng asked people to do the work, he offered 150 yuan a day for bending over and doing hard work, which was not an easy job, but everyone was willing to do it.
Now that I’m older, I just want to have some fun.
Song Sancheng also sighed: "This tea is not valuable. There is still a large area of it on the hillside. I haven't taken care of it here for many years... What's the point of keeping it?"
That's true.
This is not a famous tea town, but just ordinary tea from the mountain valley. After it is fried, it is sold outside, and it tastes sweet when you drink it yourself, but few people are willing to pay for it.
The tea trees in this field were planted because they couldn’t bear to see the fields bare…
But I’m old!
I really couldn't do those farm work that required extreme physical effort, so I slowly accepted my fate.
"So what are you trying to do by cleaning up the land and the mountain?"
The person asking the questions was neighbor Li Baoni.
Speaking of this, Song Sancheng didn't know how to start.
What to say
Is your daughter planning to stop working and come back to farm
How many young people these days know how to farm? If this gets out to others, the villagers will laugh to death!
So he just wrote lightly: "Nothing, my Tantan works too hard and her body can't stand it anymore. I told her that we need someone to help with the farm and asked her to rest at home for a year or so before going out to work."
That's true.
Which young person doesn’t go out and explore the world
Neighbor Li Baoni also sighed: "That's true. My daughter came back from Chinese New Year with a sallow complexion. When I asked her, she worked overtime until 1 or 2 a.m. - her salary was so low, and she had nothing left at the end of the year."
Li Baoni's daughter sells clothes in a chain store. She is sweet-mouthed and good at talking. Now she is a supervisor. She has to do inventory late at night and go on business trips to expand stores. It is also hard work.
Unfortunately, the environment has been bad in the past two years, wages have not increased, and we still have to worry about layoffs...
When it comes to children, every family has its own problems.
Zhou Maozhu, who was a little further away, also sighed: "My son told us to move to the city to live with him and help take care of the kids. The peppers in the supermarket next door are more than ten yuan a pound! Can we afford it?"
"I have to take care of my kids. I have to take them to kindergarten in the morning, pick them up in the evening, and then take them to interest classes. They are not in the same place. The bus makes me dizzy. The air conditioner is on in the house every day, which is not as warm as the stove we use."
"I stayed there for a week, but I couldn't stand it anymore, so I just came back on my own."
As for the old woman at home, of course she couldn't bear to leave her grandson, so she stayed there and took care of him wholeheartedly.
Regardless of whether farming is reliable or not, the reason Song Sancheng came up with is plausible:
"Tan Tan also said that the food in recent years is not as delicious as before. I thought, since I am staying here, I might as well grow some vegetables and rice for my children, and I can also eat delicious food myself."
The villagers were also happy when they heard it.
"Song Sancheng, you are the one who has the most land in the village now. You have become a landlord. When your rice is ripe, I will not buy rice, but yours."
"Yes, yes, yes, I buy it too. The rice sold outside looks white, but it is polished and has no nutrition at all. Not only does it cost several dollars per pound, but it is also not as fragrant as the rice I used to grow myself."
Song Sancheng didn't dare to agree: "My family only grows two plots of land, which are not enough for our family to share. I won't sell it."
Who here has never farmed
When everyone heard this, they were unhappy: "The two fields together have several acres. How many thousand kilograms of rice do you eat in a year?"
Song Sancheng also laughed: "What should I do? My rice seeds are good, and they taste good, but they are expensive. The best yield is only 1,000 kilograms per mu. 1,000 kilograms can produce 700 kilograms of rice, which is only enough for two or three people to eat for a year."
"My old man and old lady, my child's grandmother, uncles, aunts, and uncles... don't every household have to get some points?"
"This is just enough for our family to eat."
This is how relationships work in the village. One always gets a share from neighbors and relatives. It doesn't have to be much, but it has to show appreciation.
When everyone calculated, they couldn't find much more, but there was definitely more: "No, I must eat your rice this year, or I won't come when you plant rice!"
Everyone responded.
What this means is that you definitely won't ask for money if you help with the rice planting.
Song Sancheng didn't dare to respond: "With just two plots of land, it won't take us two days to plant rice ourselves... Eat, eat, eat. Come and help when the rice is harvested. There will be plenty of rice!"
Everyone was laughing and joking, and when they had cleared a field and were ready to move to another place, someone suddenly remembered:
"Then you can clear these twenty acres of land and plant a few acres of rice. What are you going to do with the rest?"
Song Sancheng did not hide it: "Growing vegetables."
"I was thinking that we should not use pesticides, and then take the bus to the city to sell them. It won't be a loss at all."
That doesn't make much.
If they don't use pesticides, there will be layers of weeds and insects, and the couple won't have time to clean them up, let alone worry about it.
What's more, the road here is not easy to travel. The bus to every village runs once a day, and it costs 40 yuan for a round trip...
The vegetables need to be fertilized and grown with effort. Many vendors in the vegetable market are from rural areas near the city, which is closer than them, so the competition is greater...
No matter how hard you try, it's all hard-earned money.
Everyone did the math in their minds and realized it was really not worth it!
But then I thought: "That's fine. Old Song, you need someone to look after Qiao Qiao at home. We are old and no one wants us to work. It's good to grow vegetables by ourselves."
"I'll come to the fields and buy and pick them right away!"
…
…
Most crops grown in the village are of a single variety, and the harvest seasons of each household overlap, so vegetables often have to be bought.
In addition, it is now allowed to sell pigs in rural areas, and it is also allowed to kill pigs and eat them yourself, but it is illegal to kill pigs and sell them.
Tantan will plant rice, watermelon, various vegetables, chestnuts from the mountains, beekeeping, because the honey of astragalus is really not to be missed! And a lot of wild vegetables.
Raise pigs, dogs, chickens, ducks, geese, as well as fish, shrimps, and water chestnuts.
If you have any other favorite crops, please leave a comment!