Chapter 215 We walk on the road with high spirits
On the way home, the villagers kept greeting Wang Deming enthusiastically: "Deming, you're back?"

"Yes, isn't it time to harvest the wheat? I came back to help everyone."

"Deming, you are awesome!"

"Yes, that's right. He didn't forget us country folk even after he came to the city."

"Haha, I am a peasant myself!"

"Another leave?" The villager, Uncle Yan, squatted in Wang Deming's yard, holding a pipe in one hand, and called a meeting of the villagers in the mutual aid group. He took a puff of his pipe, glanced at him, and said, "You are busy with work in the city, so you don't need to ask for leave to come back."

"With so many of us busy with those few acres of land, how can we tire your mother out?"

Wang Deming explained with a smile: "Haha, uncle, if one more person works, the villagers will be less tired. Otherwise, we will feel embarrassed to receive the dividends from those acres of land at the end of the year."

"What's there to be embarrassed about? The large animals in our group were all bought by you, so your family doesn't count as a member of the group. It was also you who taught me how to raise earthworms, chickens, ducks, and compost, so your family doesn't count as a member of the group either."

Uncle Yan tapped his pipe against the sole of his shoe, put it on his waist, stood up, and brushed the dust off his butt. "Okay, I know you don't forget your roots! It's good for you to come back and work. You know it's not easy to grow crops, but at least you won't be lazy and don't know the difference between crops."

He turned around and told the other members of the mutual aid society, "Go to bed early tonight and get up at 4 a.m. tomorrow. Especially those newly married ones, don't waste your energy on women's bellies."

"If you are too weak to harvest wheat tomorrow, I will slap you to death!"

"Haha." The crowd laughed and looked at the young men and their young wives who had stubble on their lips.

Wayao Village has become very prosperous in the past two years. Chickens and ducks are everywhere, and every household has surplus food. Also, because the village can burn kilns, many families have built new tiled houses. Almost every household raises pigs, and a few families specialize in raising cattle, donkeys, mules, horses and other large livestock.

Except for a few mountains where kilns were fired, all the other mountains were planted with various trees, including fruit trees, elm trees, locust trees and the like. In midsummer, the mountains are greener and no longer the bare, gray hills as before liberation. There was no other way. As long as the mountains were close to where people lived, they were all cut down and bare. Firewood was the first thing people bought when they opened the door for food, such as firewood. It could be used for personal use and could also be sold for money. I used to chop wood when I was a child.

Not only that, the newly built dirt road and drainage ditch in the village are also planted with elm and locust trees on both sides.

The reason why many elm and locust trees are planted is because you can eat elm seed rice and locust flower rice in spring.

These were all Wang Deming's suggestions: plant more trees and more grass. The grass was alfalfa bought from Gongzhufen. The young leaves of alfalfa can be eaten by humans, and the stems can be used to feed livestock and make silage.

I can't do anything else, and I can't change anything, so I can only help the folks here.
As for storing grain at home, a small amount is fine, but if there is too much... Wang Deming's family was not short of money, so they never sold the grain after paying the public grain tax. Village cadres went to their home almost every day to persuade them, and finally they sold the grain to the state grain store.

Besides, in this era, whether it is wheat or rice, the storage time is only 2 years. If it is stored for longer, it will be like bran and will lose its nutrition.

After the members returned home, smoke rose from every household and various aromas could be faintly smelled in the air: scallion pancakes, stewed chicken, bacon, and other delicious food that the farmers had stored up for half a year, which they brought out to provide nutritional supplements to the young and strong men in charge.

The same was true in Wang Deming's family. When her son came back, the smile on godmother Wang Shuqin's face never faded. She kneaded dough, made pancakes, and stewed chicken.

Then pick some onions and Chinese cabbage from your own garden, some lettuce and cucumbers, and add the soybean paste that Wang Deming brought back from Tianyuan Sauce Factory, and a sumptuous dinner is ready.

Simple food is the most nourishing. Wang Deming was enjoying the meal with a greasy pancake in one hand and fresh vegetables dipped in soybean paste in the other.

"Deming, you should eat more chicken." Wang Shuqin pushed a large bowl of stewed chicken towards Wang Deming. "You will be doing physical work tomorrow, so you need to eat more meat."

Wang Deming scooped some chicken soup into his own bowl, gulped down half a bowl, and continued to dip vegetables into soybean paste, saying, "Mom, I'm tired of eating all the fish and meat I eat every day in the city." "I took you to eat Tan's cuisine on the Dragon Boat Festival. The four-courtyard house in Yongkang Hutong is actually my house. You can eat it every day if you want."

"Ah!" Wang Shuqin's eyes widened in shock. She immediately turned her head to look at the gate. When she found no one there, she breathed a sigh of relief and asked in a low voice, "Deming, how many houses do you own now? Are you trying to kill yourself?"

"You've seen the criticism of landlords in the countryside a few years ago. Can you avoid it in the city?"

Wang Deming took out a handkerchief to wipe his mouth and said slowly, "Including Yongkang Hutong, there are three." Seeing the anxiety on his godmother's face, he immediately explained, "Don't worry, I know what's going on. The house in Suzhou Hutong near Dongjiaomin Lane is now the finance office and fine material room of the pharmaceutical factory."

"As for the houses in Qinlao Hutong and Yongkang Hutong, they are occupied by my Soviet friends, the two big-nosed ones you saw."

"Oh." Wang Shuqin let go of her worries, breathed a sigh of relief, and asked in confusion: "Deming, Mom remembers that you were very cautious when you first came to the city. Why..."

“I want to make some changes.”

Wang Shuqin seemed to understand, and Wang Deming did not give any further explanation.

"Oh Deming, you will be 20 next year and can register for marriage. You should hurry up and have a child." Wang Shuqin started urging her to have a baby every time they met. "With the conditions in our family, we can afford to raise more than ten children, not to mention how many you have. You should hurry up."

"How can we possibly afford it? We only have a few acres of land at home, and if we have too many children, we won't have enough to eat." Wang Deming accidentally let the cat out of the bag.

"Ah, how is that possible?"

“You’ll know next year.”

When Wang Shuqin asked again, Wang Deming just shook his head.

Those who have never done farm work and yearn for a pastoral life, even if they have not done much farm work, just participate in the autumn harvest once, without having to do the double harvest (which is only done in the south), and they will be so tired that they will doubt their lives.

Wang Deming got up from the kang at four in the morning, yawned, put on long-sleeved coarse cloth clothes and pants, put on gloves, picked up a sickle, carried a pot of boiled water with salt, and strolled to the wheat field of the mutual aid society.

There were a few torches symbolically stuck on the ground beside the wheat field, and the main light came from the round summer moon, casting a silver light.

The frogs in the distant pond are croaking, and the insects in the wheat fields are chirping one after another. To put it in a more literary way, it is a picture of summer pastoral beauty.

But the workers didn't notice it. Uncle Yan was walking back and forth on the ridge of the field with his pipe in his mouth. When he saw that everyone was gathered, he didn't say anything inspiring, just two words: "Start harvesting!"

Including Wang Deming, men and women went straight into the wheat fields, each with three ridges to go.

He bent over, stooped, and lowered his head. He held the wheat in his left hand and used the sickle in his right hand to cut across the bottom of the tough straw from right to left. He gathered the harvested wheat in his left hand and placed it on the left side of his body.

No one spoke, they continued to bend over, without raising their heads, and continued to harvest.

In the era before mechanization, wheat, rice, sorghum and corn were all harvested bit by bit by manpower.

No, after the household contract responsibility system was implemented, every household did the same thing. The commune’s tractors and harvesters had to be paid for using them, and gasoline and diesel were no longer available.
Men and women are the same, unless they are under 10 years old or over 60 years old and can't work anymore, they all go to the fields like this.
Keep working until dawn breaks in the east.
(End of this chapter)