My 1995 Small Farm

  Chapter 221 Childlike Hope for Children

The rain this spring is not too small. After a few spring rains, warm winds are blowing on my face. Spring is here. The pink willows are green, the grass is growing and the warbler is flying. The sun is shining and the breeze is gentle. All new.

  The rolling hills have also turned green, and the melodious birdsong is everywhere, the swallows have returned, and they are building their nests on the beams under the eaves, and the birds in the mountains are also chirping happily in the splendid spring light.

This morning, Chen Ling came to Laohewan with a cow, and saw a few big trees scattered on the river bank, which became full of new green. Colorful wildflowers by the river were blooming, and a bunch of wild roses were conspicuous. , the flowers are white as snow and fragrant.

   Picked off a sturdy twig from a wild rose, tore off the outer skin and stuffed it into your mouth, feeling sweet and crunchy. Crouching down to take a closer look, in the green water grass by the river, groups of small black tadpoles flap their tails and swim slowly.

  Chen Ling picked up the fence to fish, and filled a small half of the fish basket in just a few strokes, it really shouldn't be too much.

  Small fish, shrimp and tadpoles are good things to feed chickens and ducks. For farmers, how much food bran can be saved, eat more food in the wild, chickens and ducks can lay more eggs, and they can kill more with one stone.

He came to Laohewan this morning. In addition to fetching some food for the chickens and ducks, he also brought the little white ox over to take a bath and wash it. After all, the little white ox helped with the farm work for more than half a month. Take a rest and relax.

For more than half a month, with the help of my father-in-law and mother-in-law, wheat and rapeseed were planted, watermelon was planted, and a vegetable garden of two acres of land was left. Chen Ling also planted a lot of vegetables. There are also sweet corn and sorghum planted along the ridge, all of which are very good.

   Pulled two handfuls of water plants and fed them to the little white cow. Chen Ling took off his shoes, rolled up his trouser legs, and led him into the water to wash his body.

   Seeing Xiao Bai Niu narrowing his eyes comfortably, his whole body gradually sank in the water, happily kicking his legs and swimming towards the deep water, Chen Ling smiled lightly and followed closely.

   He took the cow to play with the water, and from time to time a kingfisher swept across the water surface, splashing little drops of water, catching fish and shrimp in the water.

   A few big white geese who are not afraid of people play in the river mallard, combing their feathers.

   A group of ducks are upside down in the river, foraging from the bottom of the water, only to see their buttocks without their heads. This funny and peculiar way of foraging can be described as a must.

   "You play here, I'll go around the mountain."

   After washing the little white cow, seeing it sinking in the water, spitting bubbles, swimming around, and having a great time, Chen Ling patted its head, turned and walked to the shore.

   Stepping on the smooth river mussels at the bottom of the river when they came ashore, without leaning over, they directly pulled them out of the mud with their feet, kicked them, and the big river mussels flew to the shore.

   "Hey, it hurts, why didn't you feel it when you kicked as a child?"

  Chen Ling took a deep breath, rubbed his feet, and walked to the shore.

   Then he picked up the mussels, grabbed two handfuls of withered reeds and wiped his feet clean, put on his shoes, got up and whistled twice in the distance.

   Soon, a yellow-clawed falcon flew from a distance and landed on his shoulder.

  Chen Ling reached out and touched Harrier's curved beak and fed it two mouthfuls of spiritual water.

   Then he pointed at the sparrows on the ridge not far away, "Go."

With the order   , the harrier on the shoulder immediately fluttered its wings, dived towards the sparrows not far away, turned into a sharp arrow and shot at the grass.

The    sharp claws fell, and the sparrows made a series of chirping screams and flew in all directions.

   followed Harrier flapping his wings and returned, landing in front of Chen Ling with a **** prey in his mouth.

   "Awesome, it's not much better than the Harrier of the Harrier." Chen Ling tutted in admiration.

   was thinking about taking Harrier up the mountain, but unexpectedly a few weasels slipped over, and Xiao Huang and Xiao Pang rubbed affectionately when they saw him.

   And the three little ones stood up straight, looking at the sparrows in Harrier's mouth, and chirping softly, like greedy cats.

   made the Harrier so full of feathers that he was full of vigilance.

   "Go, go, go, go, go, and want to grab food with Harrier, give you a paw and be honest." Chen Ling kicked them away gently and reprimanded.

Recently, the Tuyanzi flew back, and the sparrows that occupied the Yanzi Cave for the winter on the dam and the surrounding mud cliffs were driven away again. The Tuyanzi is more vigilant than the sparrows and other thieves in the hometown, and they are united. These little things attack the Tuyanzi. Rarely does it work.

   The other birds are also approaching the time of laying eggs, so they are not easy to catch, and the bugs have not yet grown up.

   A few weasels haven't had a good winter, so they stayed at home all day, eating and drinking all day.

   Now seeing that Harrier caught a sparrow, I also want to come over and share a piece of the pie.

   "Go, go up the mountain with me, and come back to find something to eat for you."

   They all listened to Chen Ling's words, and ran at his feet, walking up the mountain.

   Soon, the Harrier also ate the sparrow and flew over.

   Fortunately, no one went up the mountain at this time, otherwise, I would have been shocked when I saw this battle.

   Indeed.

   At this moment, if he replaced the **** in his hand with a bow and arrow, and the weasels beside him were replaced by dogs, with the harrier on his shoulder, it would be a proper **** for hunting.

  …

In fact, Nanshan has the slowest **** among the three-sided mountains. People like to come to Nanshan the most. In the past, the mountain spring water on Nanshan was a must. Every day people went up the mountain to fetch water. Can exchange money.

   The one I don’t like to go to is Beishan on the side of Chen Lingjia’s farmhouse, because there are too many wild animals and many poisonous insects, so it’s not a good place to go.

  In old age, wolf worms, tigers and leopards all appeared from Beishan, and even the highest peak was named after Langdiyan, which is evident.

   Entered the forest, took out the basket, dug up spring bamboo shoots, picked wolfberry heads, picked wild garlic with a hoe...

  In spring, fresh and green wild vegetables are everywhere.

  What Malan and Didi dishes can be seen everywhere along the Tiangeng Road. Gao Xiulan has cooked several times at home in the past few days to eat vegetable buns and vegetable noodles, especially the vegetable noodles, dipped in sesame oil and vinegar and chili oil. They are very fragrant.

   But if you want to stir-fry it with meat, you can still use bamboo shoots as the main ingredient, and it tastes just right.

   After digging up half a basket of bamboo shoots and picking half a basket of wild vegetables, Chen Ling was about to go down the mountain, when a few weasels suddenly straightened up, called softly towards the bushes in one direction, and then looked back at Chen Ling, looking like they were about to move.

   seems to have found something and is asking him if he wants to rush over.

   However, before Chen Ling could react, the bushes rattled for a while, and saw a gray-brown pheasant, with a group of young pheasant cubs, rushing towards the distance.

   "It's a pheasant, I thought you guys saw something."

   The pheasant ran away, and Chen Ling didn't mean to let the Harrier go to chase, but just called the reluctant little weasels to turn around and go down the mountain.

   Next, the weasels found a lot of bird nests in the trees above their heads.

  It is the spring of March, and the birds in the mountains are hatching eggs one after another. There are bird nests on tree branches, tree holes, and stone nests, and most of them have adult birds hatching eggs in the nests.

   This made the three little weasels so greedy, they kept screaming and begging Chen Ling, wanting to eat bird eggs.

  Chen Ling ignored them.

  If this was a child, he would climb up the tree and dig them all out without the little things to remind him.

   As for now, he naturally wouldn't do that.

Even in winter, he used sticky bird nets to net birds, and all the good birds that lived in the nets were released, leaving only thieves, magpies, turtledoves and other destructive ones. These things flooded the mountains and covered the sky and the earth. , With them, crops and seedlings have been harmed a lot.

   However, even such a bird cannot be hunted excessively.

  Because after 1998, they used pesticides on a large scale in the local area, and the number of birds in the mountains decreased significantly. For many years, the sparrows became rare.

Chen Ling still remembers that in a few years, he could often see dead sparrows, swallows, magpies, etc. in the fields. Some birds even ate poisonous insects with pesticides, and they fell to the ground while flying in the air. Lose.

   These large flocks of Wuyang Wuyang, flooded with birds, will soon be pitiful.

   For example, the earth swallows were only seen sporadically afterward, and they were not a good thing.

  Thinking of this, Chen Ling naturally has to pay attention to one thing, no matter whether it is a beneficial bird or a harmful bird, it should not be caught too wildly.

  Otherwise, there are Harriers and Weasels, and those pheasants don’t even want to run away.

   was thinking about pheasants.

  In the grass beside the mountain road, another pheasant clucked and fluttered its wings, and its feathers were like reeds floating down in the air.

   The little weasels swarmed towards the place where the pheasants flew out.

  Chen Ling also walked over.

   Sure enough, it was another pheasant nest, and there were more than ten wild eggs.

   "This guy, in spring, the mountains are really lively, there are bird nests and eggs everywhere."

  Chen Ling was overjoyed, picked up a few wild eggs that got out of the nest, and put them in his bamboo basket.

   Wild eggs are different from bird eggs.

   Wild eggs can be taken, but be careful not to take all of them.

  The villagers like to encounter wild eggs and wild duck eggs, which is no different from a pie falling from the sky. It is a gift from nature.

Wild things are generally ignorant. As long as the eggs in the nest are not swept away, half, or even a small half, three or five eggs are left. After a few days to see, there will be more than a dozen eggs inside, which is almost the same as my own. Feeding makes no difference.

Of course.

  If you take all the eggs at one time, it will not work, just like the old hens at home, sometimes take out all the eggs in the nest, and the chickens will no longer go to the nest to lay eggs.

   Seeing that Chen Ling took some wild eggs, the three little weasels thought they were for them, so they climbed into his basket and wanted to eat them, but they were still pulled out by Chen Ling by the back of the neck.

   "Don't worry, I said I'll take you to find something to eat later, this egg is still useful to me."

  There is an old hen in the house, just in time to hatch some chicks and ducks. You can also try to hatch a few of these wild eggs.

  …

   Go down the mountain.

   Little White Cow is still immersed in the joy of playing with water.

Chen Ling looked around. The wheat seedlings were jointed and stalked, green and thickly spread on the field, and the wild flowers on the roadside were bulging. Went to the hidden place and took out a bucket from the cave, filled half a bucket of water in the river, and led a few weasels to fill the mouse hole for them.

   I saw several newly dug mouse holes in the grass beside the mountain road just now. Looking at the piles of broken soil at the entrance of the hole, the scale of these mouse holes should be not small, enough for the weasels to have a full meal.

   Then he found the nearest mouse hole and poured water into it.

   It's not autumn anyway, and the ground mice at this time won't store food in the hole, just pour water into it.

   Most of the bucket of water quickly filled the mouse hole.

   Several weasels and harriers were all around, watching with curiosity and anticipation.

   Within two minutes, the ground mice inside couldn't hold their breath and ran out to probe their brains to check the situation outside.

   Seeing people standing outside, as well as weasels and eagles, surrounded by the three major natural enemies, the wet ground mouse shrank back in fright.

  Chen Ling ignored it and continued to irrigate with water.

  The mouse couldn't hold on any longer, dragging its wet body and rushing out lifelessly.

   At this time, Xiao Huang and Xiao Pang reacted the most quickly. One fluttered and bit two mice and quickly killed them.

   followed, and several mice escaped from the hole on the other side.

  Three little weasels also dispatched one after another, chasing them in all directions.

   But there are too many mice, and the weasels can't catch up.

   Chen Ling shook his shoulders when he saw this, and a black shadow with yellow claws flew out, and then fell rapidly from the air, heading straight for the grass, but Harrier also dispatched.

   That's it, none of the voles in this litter escaped. As usual, Chen Ling fed the Harrier some spiritual water as a reward.

   Then he picked up the bucket and filled it with water, filling all the mouse holes by the surrounding mountain roads.

  It took about twenty minutes, but none of the ground mice in the mouse hole could escape, and they were often taken down by the weasels in a single encounter.

   The weasel couldn't catch up, and the Harrier stared at him, but he didn't miss it.

   "Very good, I'll practice with Heiwa and the two of them in the future, then you can go hunting."

  Chen Ling touched them happily and appreciated them.

  After eating the mice, the three little weasels were full of energy, smelling in the east and sniffing in the west, and quickly ran away.

  Chen Ling didn't care about them either. It was almost noon, and he was ready to call Xiaobai Niu home.

  The three little things suddenly ran back screaming, shaking their heads and jumping up and down.

  Chen Ling squatted down and took a look, "What's the matter? Was it stung by a scorpion?"

   These little fools are a bit unlucky... Now that the weather is getting warmer, scorpions and other poisonous insects are also coming out.

   With their restless nature, it is normal to provoke scorpions.

   "Hey, it's not a scorpion, it's a bee."

   Waiting for the three little guys to lie down at his feet in grievance, Chen Ling realized that one or two bees were falling on their noses.

  Bees are different from wasps in that their poisonous needles are attached to the venom glands of their internal organs. As long as the attack is carried out, the barbs on the poison needle will hook the skin and pull the internal organs out, making it difficult to fly away.

   reached out to help them pull out the bees with poisonous needles on their faces and noses, and then put them aside.

   Chen Ling noticed that in the wild rose bushes on the river bank not far away, there were many bees buzzing and picking honey.

  The wild rose is also called the white residual flower on their side, and it is easier to attract bees and butterflies in the spring.

   "Let you be dishonest. It's not good to provoke anything. If you provoke bees, you deserve to be stung."

  Chen Ling knocked them all out, and he didn't care too much. Being stung by a bee is not a big deal, and the swelling will disappear in a few days.

   At this time, the little white cow swam over from the river.

When    went ashore, there was a lot of movement, and the bees in the flower bush were startled and flew out in large swaths.

   "This guy is incredible, he's stabbed into a honeycomb."

   He walked over and saw that it was really a honeycomb, and there were many yellow-brown spots scattered on the leaves of the wild rose.

   The little boy who had picked out the honeycomb knew that it was bee shit.

  Where there is a lot of bee feces, there must be honeycombs.

  Because bees love to be clean, before they go out to collect honey or fly back to the honeycomb, they will excrete the feces from their bodies to ensure the cleanliness of the honey.

   So it makes sense that everyone dares to eat honey directly.

   "Good guy, I picked up a wild egg and almost stabbed a honeycomb. I'm more expensive than the little kids in the village."

  Chen Ling smiled.

   I thought that if my doll would run away in the future, it would definitely be more interesting to bring the doll over to play.

   Then I couldn't help laughing at myself, my daughter-in-law is still half a year old, so why did I start looking forward to having a child?

   (end of this chapter)