This vegetable field is behind the window of my original office, 3.4 meters wide and 8.9 meters long. It turned out to be a wasteland. Later, someone reclaimed it, which made my husband greedy. Fortunately, the family moved away quickly, and my husband naturally took over this vegetable field. This was ten years ago.
In the early days, more than 2 years ago, my father was arranged to live in this retired building, and he asked for a set of top-ranking houses by name, just for the three small plots in front of and behind the house, and for this land, he also took great pains. The first thing is to clean up all the stones in the field and open it up. The most difficult thing to grow vegetables in the city is the lack of fertilizer. There is no human excrement and urine, and there is no livestock. At most, we can get a little chicken manure, and then there is coal ash or dried rice. Vegetables are stuttering, but the mood of farmers is high. With my father gone, we moved to my father's house to live, and the small dishes were naturally run by my husband.
I like watching men who are working very much. At this time, men are wise, capable, silent and focused. You will feel weak and stupid when you look at them. When I was a child, every family invited a carpenter to play furniture at home. For ten and a half months, after class, I watched them work around the carpenter. A piece of wood soon became all kinds of furniture parts, especially the ingenious and accurate structure of the falcon base and the exquisite legs and corners of the furniture. Love also arises spontaneously. Reading novels and many true stories all say that my woman ran away with the little carpenter, so I will smile and feel particularly understanding. If labor is the most beautiful, workers should be the beauty of beauty in China.
At the moment, he is not good at making friends, has no hobbies, is a little drunk and immoral, is a little suspicious and jealous, and is a little indifferent and boring. He is busy in that palm-sized field. I look at the window platform from time to time, and I see peace, tranquility, concentration and charity. Occasionally, he looks up at me and even smiles. I know he doesn't love me, but he loves this place and is happy to be in something he likes.
perhaps it is the infiltration of thousands of years of farming civilization, and people have an innate nostalgia for the land. In the sixties and seventies, my husband was already a young man, and it was too difficult for me to have food and clothing in the bitter northwest. Never unwilling to be poor, he wants to live a fairly rich life by relying on a craft, so he has learned this and that for more than ten years, and his life is not necessarily improved, but he will not do farming. The saddest thing is that the craft that can only make a living is still regarded as the tail of capitalism, which is not only difficult to walk, but also involves the revocation of his hukou and the recovery of his own land. Come to me and tell me these things, I am a little at a loss, I don't know what it is. Maybe he felt a little guilty when he faced me, so he lied to me about how many seedlings he had and how many sheep he had. I was even more dismissive. Growing up in the city, I have no idea about the countryside and the land. Later, I gradually understood the priceless and precious land, and also deeply understood the serenity that my father and husband could show as soon as they arrived in the land. It was a wanderer returning to his hometown, a child snuggling in his mother's arms, an unspeakable certainty, and an unforgettable plot.
Especially when I went back to his hometown, I was really drunk when I saw the endless ups and downs of the thick yellow land, the quiet people working there, the sheep grazing slowly, and the white clouds drifting leisurely. The soil that came from time to time smelled fishy, which gave people a stable heart.
at that time, I realized a feeling called eternity. See these two words that make people feel eternal? They are all made of land. The most ordinary and lowly is the land that is everywhere, and the most noble and supreme is the land that is everywhere. When you have it, you won't feel precious. If you leave it, you will feel that dull pain. Just like you can cheerfully render the delicious food you have eaten in a five-star hotel, what you can't forget from time to time is the humble meal your mother cooked for you when you were a child.
With such carefully cultivated land, one day the community won't let it grow. It is said that if someone reports it, the community should plant flowers and plants, not vegetables, which will affect the beautification of the community. My husband was depressed and passively resisted for several years, which was quite a bit of guerrilla warfare. You went in and I went back several times, but finally the enemy gave up. In fact, I understand that city people who can hardly see the loess in the city see the intimacy and greed of a piece of land, because it is impossible for everyone to have their own vegetable field, and they would rather call it barren than see others happy. What a lamentable person! Now, behind the window, there are many weeds, which is a bit of a wild feeling. It is not easy to feel this feeling when living in the city. I will lie on the window every few days and have a look. The desolate wilderness and the ferns that grow in the cracks of the stone in the fort give me a lot of imagination.
in this way, my husband only has the land behind my office, because it belongs to our unit behind the office and the community can't manage it. In addition, there is a power distribution room next to it, so of course there is a lock in and out of the door. My husband holds the key, and people in the office have to call him when they come in and out. He doesn't know what to think, so my self-esteem has a little pride first.
So, we have fresh shepherd's purse to eat in spring. In the first few years, he didn't know what shepherd's purse was. Shepherd's purse looked like a dandelion when he was a child, which was very difficult to distinguish. Until he was old, dandelion turned into a furry little white ball after its own yellow flowers, and shepherd's purse had seeds like a shovel after its small white flowers. At this time, you saw shepherd's purse, small flower beds and small green spaces everywhere. I don't usually go to his side dishes. It's strange how it was hidden when it was fresh and tender, but now the corners are full, thinking of its fragrance, I look at it with my eyes closed, trying to remember their current position, hoping to remember it next year. But often in the coming year, I still can't remember it when I am eating properly. When I see a small shovel swaying in the wind again, it will be too late and I will wait for next year. It seems that day by day, year by year, flies by quickly, and when I have a thought in my heart, this time is like being dragged by someone with a rope, and I hesitate slowly. That's what the so-called "nature tricks people" means. Later, I told him what shepherd's purse was, and when he remembered it, he ate shepherd's purse, so he wrapped jiaozi's wonton and served hot pot, which were all excellent things. Too much, giving people away is also a show for a while, and everything you say and listen to is warm in your heart.
later, there will be cauliflower, which is the most popular dish in spring. It is sweet and tender, and it is second to none in hot pot. The so-called cabbage moss is the moss that runs after the cabbage is old, not everywhere. The first crop is the best, no matter the second crop, the taste of the third crop and the fourth crop is poor. He doesn't care, as long as there is, he will eat it till it blooms and bitter. I don't care if you want to eat it or not. It's not good to grow your own vegetables. If you don't, you won't. Once you harvest it, you will eat it next time. If you eat enough, you will complain while eating. He still doesn't care, just pick a little bit for a while. Slowly, you can eat Chinese cabbage, or lettuce or something. Before and after Qingming, plant melons and beans. The weather is getting warmer, with a gust of wind, a burst of rain and a burst of sun, like a tropical rain forest. This warm climate, not to mention the carefully planted fruits and vegetables, can germinate even by inserting a dry wooden stick, and suddenly it is my April day. He can't grow melons, but he grows beans well. The fat and fat stick beans are really gratifying. When he can't finish eating them, he cuts them into long strips with scissors, dries them in the sun, and soaks them in warm water in winter. The roast meat is very delicious, so he is not willing to give them away if he can't finish eating them. It's no good planting melons, and nothing will bear well. One year, I said that you should plant loofah for me. I like it. He won't respond to what I said, but I know he will plant it, and as a result, the vines will climb all over the world, but the melon will bear one fruit, and there is no second one. He can't tell me why. I know that although he is from the countryside, he can't grow without land. I often joke about him: workers don't have jobs, farmers don't have land, and vegetables can't grow. People who know it say, Xiao Zhai, you have to dig deeper. I don't know if he is weak or thinks he doesn't agree with what others say, but he is still the same. I said, are you afraid it will hurt? In fact, I didn't take this place seriously at all. I just regarded it as his playmate and gave him a place to go. Don't be so bored and homesick.
The next year, I still got a loofah, so I just laughed and he was at a loss. After all, I don't know how to ponder. In the third year, there was a bumper harvest of loofah. I picked one or two home every other day, and I fried meat for a while, scrambled eggs for a while, and made soup for a while. When I didn't eat enough. This day is getting hotter and hotter, and all kinds of vegetables are emerging one after another. Pepper is what I want. Although I want eggplant, it is still a bad plant. It is like being stunted and looks like sin. On the contrary, it is a unique specialty here. The younger brother of tomato, Xiaoxi persimmon, is called in our local dialect: waxberry, not cherry tomato, but a small tomato with a general thumb, sour and sweet taste, and I don't know how much better it tastes than tomatoes. Cooking with it is especially delicious, that is, it is eaten raw and comparable to fruit. If you have more, you can make tomato sauce, and put a little flour on it, which is sour and delicious. But this thing is left to fend for itself. He has no seeds. Every year, he gives birth to his own growth, blossoms his own fruit, and grows quietly on the edge of the land, not occupying a serious place. Although I didn't ask, I think he is going to give it water and fertilizer. I didn't have enough of this thing. I put it on a small plate. In the past, one by one, I could knot it again. In the summer, I kept on eating it. I don't know how many. In a few days, he came from the ground and took out a handful from his pocket. When there are many peppers, take some dried peppers and some chopped peppers, which will be enough all year round.
There are too many cabbages to eat in autumn, so he gives them to relatives, friends and neighbors to eat. Just because a little cabbage is grown by himself, its value will increase exponentially. Then he added a few words: I am a hot green food without pesticides and fertilizers. The sender is proud, and the recipient nods. I think what he was happy about in his life was when the article won the prize and the vegetable harvest season. Then I planted radish, but I don't know why. His radish grows a radish tassel instead of a radish. The radish tassel above is more than a foot high, and the radish below is not much bigger than the egg. Wash the pickled cabbage and stew the ribs. It's a pity to throw away the red and green cherry blossoms. The most unbearable thing is that his' leek' doesn't last long, and it's hard to eat it sparsely, and he can't find the reason. It took a long time to cut one back, thin as hair, and told me: You choose it clean, and I'll take jiaozi. I didn't choose angrily: you are deliberately testing my patience. While sitting patiently and carefully choosing clean, it is of course delicious.
I have to worry about the intruders from time to time, such as cats, dogs and chickens. To be honest, his food didn't save any money for my family's life, but a wanderer who lives alone in a distant place, an old-fashioned person who is not good at making friends, and a person who often makes you feel lonely, what a small dish brought him was not all economic benefits, but a deep nostalgia and recognition for his hometown. Therefore, he maintained this land wholeheartedly, as if to maintain one of his thoughts. Praise his food and maintain his fragile self-esteem. However, I seldom go to the fields to see how he treats me.
he went. I gave the key to the original unit, but no one took care of it for more than a month, and the weeds were flourishing. My good friend, Guo Er, loves farming as much as a farmer, so I went to get the key back. The unit means that someone will clean the backyard. When the weather is fine, I accompany her to the fields every afternoon. She works, and I sit next to a chair where my husband doesn't know when he moved. On closer inspection, it turned out to be the chair in my office. How long did he move here? Why didn't he ask me to work with him? Why can't I often watch him work?
now I'm sitting in that chair again. There is no him, but everything is him. His big basin of water, in which my son bathed when he was young; His casserole, which he loves to make soup with. There are also bottles and cans used at home. The most incredible thing is that in a box on the stone stage, there are some correspondence between him and his family when there was no telephone or mobile phone in the past, and I also wrote it. What does he want? How long did he put it here? Does he want to burn it? Did he secretly feel that he was dying? In that case, he won't allow me to say anything, and I dare not ask a word, including his illness. But why didn't it burn? Is it too late? I still forgot. He didn't say a word until he died. If I don't come to this field and I don't find these things, will I just let this thing die? What does he want? This man I have never understood in my life, I am in a trance. The heart is curled up like leaves of trees in this winter.
On the edge of the land that is not wide, there is a brick fence, and there is a flower pond outside. After several years of free growth, bamboo grows so high and green in winter, which gives a lot of comfort to the bleak winter, and of course comforts my thin and cool mood. His land has been deserted and neglected for several months, except for Vivi, a few cages of leeks that can't be seen if you don't look closely in the weeds, which are just a few Chinese cabbages rustling in the wind and rain. Or there are a few shallots and an eggplant dry in meditation. Did you miss him? He made you miss him, or you were left alone and didn't pick it home.
A decaying poplar tree near the flower wall used to grow in front of my house. People tied a wire to it as a clothesline. Over time, the wire was deeply embedded in the tree, and slowly the tree withered. In the years before it died, mushrooms of all sizes grew from the roots of the tree, which was the winter fungus we often ate. He often used rice washing water to irrigate when he had the heart. When it comes to winter, it is full of rich bacteria, not to mention eating, and it looks gratifying. Finally, this tree is too dangerous to fall down at any time and place, and someone from the community sawed it. I don't know when he moved it into his side dish. He has never been physically weak, and I can't think of how much effort he has made without help. Now I see this dead tree here again. My name is Guoer, and I often water it with rice washing water. One day, Guoer doesn't mind turning over the covered wood chips, and the rich bacteria just appear horizontally, which makes people really happy.
Clusters of small white velvet balls, I don't know what they are, but in short, they are unremarkable wildflowers. They are already overflowing and will be heartbroken, and they will burst when they are mature in the wind. Sitting in that chair, the rare warm sun shines in winter, and my heart is so hazy that I can't distinguish between true and false. Obviously, it is the figure of fruit working, which actually turns into his busy posture. I seem to hear him using his own Putonghua, but in fact, only I understand where the Northwest dialect is muttering.
If time could be turned back, I would sit in the broken chair that has been with me for decades and now I can only live in a corner and watch him work silently. Listen to him talking about cats and dogs, watching birds flying in the sky, floating clouds, or taking a nap and eating a sour and sweet wax fruit instead of arguing with him.