Chapter 204 Stone Pound
“Haha, think about it for yourself, have you ever ridden a dog when you were a child?”
The adults in the family are more superstitious and often educate the children at home. , you cannot ride a pig or a dog.
If you rode a pig when you were a child, when you grow up and have a wedding party, it will snow heavily.
If you ride a dog, it will rain heavily if you do something important at home, which is unlucky.
Of course, many adults also use it to coax children, just to prevent children from tossing the pigs and dogs at home.
Later this sentence was often used as a joke.
Zhou Yang really thought about it carefully. Although this kind of thing has no basis, he usually doesn't believe it.
But when it comes to yourself, you still have to think about it.
After all, there is a saying that it is better to believe in something than something that doesn’t exist.
"I've definitely never ridden one. I wanted to ride one at that time, but my mother gave me a spanking and then I behaved."
Zhou Yang's words made everyone around him laugh. The adults here are all elders. .
They all grew up watching the generation of Zhang An and Zhou Yang.
Zhang An and the others had forgotten some things about their childhood, but these uncles would remind them from time to time.
Not long after chatting with Zhou Yang and the others, Zhang An walked towards the back of the village.
When he left the village and walked to Chahe, Zhang An saw his fourth grandfather.
Master Zhang is also carrying a load of things on his shoulders, and it seems that he is going to the fields in the mountains.
"Fourth Master, what did you pick?"
Zhang An strode forward and soon caught up with Fourth Master Zhang.
“When I came back from pressing oil yesterday, I picked some oil cakes to put into leaf tobacco.”
Mr. Zhang and his elders did not spend money to buy cigarettes.
Instead, you can grow your own leaf tobacco by planting it on a small piece of land. After harvesting the tobacco leaves and drying them, you can smoke them for a year.
Sometimes there is a lot left over that can be sold on the street to get some gas money.
"Master, give it to me, I will help you pick it up."
While his fourth grandfather was talking, Zhang An reached out and took over the burden from the old man's shoulders.
“I can carry it myself, but I don’t carry much.”
In the village, there are many people of Master Zhang’s age who can carry burdens up the mountain and into the fields.
On the one hand, my body is relatively healthy, and on the other hand, my family is in a normal state, so I want to do more.
Although Fourth Master Zhang felt that it was not too heavy and wanted to carry it to the field by himself, Zhang An took it with his hand on the pole.
It really didn’t weigh much. The two baskets were full of pig manure mixed with oil cakes.
It looks like a lot, but it only weighs fifty or sixty pounds.
"Master, how many leaf tobacco have been planted this year."
Zhang An looked at the few oil cakes and pig manure in the basket. I'm afraid there isn't enough land for them.
“I have planted about a hundred seedlings this year, and I have no intention of selling them. I just have enough to smoke.”
In previous years, when the old man was plating tobacco leaves, he would always have more. Plant two points of land.
However, Zhang An thinks it is better to plant less tobacco. Planting too much flue-cured tobacco is tiring.
The key is that you can’t smoke it all yourself, and you can’t sell it at a high price even if you take it to the town.
And today’s young people like to spend money to smoke cigarettes.
Even if she has no money, Jiaozi, who can buy a pack for one yuan, will not smoke leaf cigarettes.
So the leaf tobacco produced by the old men is only appreciated by the elderly.
And it's also because it's cheap that those old men are willing to spend money to buy it.
Of course, another reason is that the leaves roasted by yourself are too smokey.
Generally, young people who have only been smoking for a short period of time cannot resist the momentum of leaf cigarettes.
Zhang An had tried it before when he smoked, and after just two puffs, he collapsed.
"Where are you going?"
Master Zhang watched his eldest grandson rushing into the mountains, but he didn't bring anything with him, thinking that Zhang An was going to collect condoms.
"I heard from Tiewazi and the others that there are a lot of stone pounds in the forest at the foot of the sand. I haven't eaten in many years, and my mouth is a bit itchy, so I want to take a look and catch some, hehe. ”
Fourth Master Zhang has known for a long time that he doesn’t like anything except this delicious bite.
"Where are there any stone scales over there? This thing likes to be by the stone water, so even if there is one there, I'm afraid it will only be a little big."
Master Zhang said Then, he pointed the direction to Zhang An.
"If you really want to catch the big ones, you have to go to the well to wash them. Shi Ping likes to stay near the rocks with water. As soon as you pass that place, you can hear their noisy noise."
Over there on the sand. It was just a place Zhang An mentioned casually, and he never thought about actually going there.
But when Zhang An heard what his fourth grandfather said, he smiled and agreed.
Anyway, it’s close to the mountains. The wells are much closer, so you just need to walk along this river ditch.
After walking for more than ten minutes, we arrived at the place where Mr. Zhang grew leaf cigarettes.
This is not a mountain, but a rocky protrusion on the back mountain.
The land at home must be used to grow food, and Fourth Master Zhang is reluctant to use it to grow leaf cigarettes.
So just create a piece of mud land in this stone field and plant some randomly.
"Go ahead, I can do the fattening myself."
Zhang An originally planned to accompany his fourth grandfather to do the fattening.
But when they got to the fields, Fourth Master Zhang drove Zhang An away.
He also said that Zhang An was not sure about the measurement and would burn his leaf cigarettes later.
But in fact, Fourth Master Zhang didn’t want Zhang An to do it to avoid getting his hands dirty with pig manure.
However, Zhang An did not continue to be stubborn with the old man, and he did not give up as much as possible.
The total amount of fertilizer I picked is just this little. If I add too much later, I'm afraid it won't be enough later.
On the way towards the well, Zhang An picked a few rice seedlings here and a few white dreams there.
In this season, there are more and more wild berries on the mountains, and you can see them just a few steps away from the water.
Because Zhang An walked up the river ditch, most of the area was paddy fields.
With the existence of rivers and ditches, as long as it is not a severe drought, there will be no shortage of water in these fields.
So the rice production in the village does not only rely on the paddy fields in Shangtianba beside the river.
There are also terraces behind the village, next to these back ditches.
After walking a few steps up the river, Zhang An saw several bumble bees on the blooming prickly pear flowers nearby.
After Zhang An came closer, they seemed to feel Zhang An and flew over and landed on Zhang An's shoulders.
It can be seen that these bumblebees are from the boxes raised by Zhang An's family.
Zhang An knew that bees could fly far to collect honey, but he never expected that he would meet his family members when he went out.
Prickly pears are very abundant here in Changqing and can be found everywhere.
You can see them everywhere in Tianba, on the mountains and in the woods.
The prickly pears have already begun to bloom since the seedlings were planted some time ago.
So far, many flowers have faded and grown prickly pears.
There are also some prickly pear trees that are just beginning to bloom.
After mid-July, these prickly pears will slowly mature.
At that time, the children will pick some wild fruits to eat, and the adults will pick some, go home, cut them and dry them, and use them to make wine.
Zhang An plans to pick some this year and make a jar of prickly pear wine at home.
Zhang An walked alone and walked quickly. It didn't take long to reach the woods in Shuijingchong.
There are many springs in this mountain area, and the spring water is always flowing out, so it is called Shuijingchong. Some springs are relatively large, and the water flowing out has flowed into a small ditch.
Some springs are smaller, and you can only see water emerging from them, and the ground nearby is wet.
Of course, there are many invisible springs buried underground.
Half of the water in the ditch behind Changqing Village is collected from the mountains in the distance.
The other half of the water source is the mountain spring water flowing from these wells.
Normally, they will not stop flowing throughout the summer and autumn.
It will not be until the dry season after late autumn that their water output will become smaller.
In Zhang An’s decades of memory, the springs on these mountains only stopped flowing twice.
And those two times were due to severe drought.
Many springs may stop flowing, even if water comes out again.
Although these springs fed by water wells have experienced drought, they have continued to flow water since the flood season.
It can be said that they have been nourishing the village of Changqing.
From a scientific perspective, it may be because of the existence of the big river that a separate body of water has been formed here.
As long as the river keeps flowing, the waters nearby will not dry up directly.
When Zhang An walked into the forest, there were only a few "croak, croak, croak" sounds.
After all, guys like Shi Ping don't like to be active during the day. At the moment, they are huddled under rocks or sleeping soundly in the crevices of rocks.
It is not easy to hear their voices during the day. This is because there are many trees in this forest.
So the surrounding environment is relatively dark, so only a few of them come out to move around.
But when it gets dark at night, they will wake up, and then they will run out and start looking for food.
The sound of these things is ridiculously loud, and their sound can usually be heard from a long distance away.
So many people grab stone pounds and go out with flashlights in the middle of the night.
Because of their calls, there is no fear of not being able to find them.
For example, Zhang An was following the cry just now.
Finally, between two big rocks, I saw a stone pound eating a grasshopper that had just fallen.
The only one in front of me was about three or four taels in size, which was considered a big deal, but Zhang An did not grab it.
These guys are very picky about their living environment, and in Zhang An's opinion, they are second only to the giant salamander.
They like to live in forests with water, especially deep mountains and old forests with good water quality.
If the water quality is slightly worse, they will not be able to survive, so this thing can be said to have grown up drinking mountain spring water,
so it is also known as "mountain spring living ginseng".
Because of this, they are very rich in nutritional value and delicious.
In terms of nutrition, a bullfrog is inferior to a stone pound.
Moreover, the bullfrog is an introduced foreign product, while the stone pound is a species native to our country.
Born in the mountains, Zhang An ate a lot of stone pound meat when he was young.
Zhang An still remembers that when his grandfather was still young, he caught the largest stone weighing more than a kilogram.
At that time, such a piece was steamed with lard, and Zhang An couldn't finish it by himself.
Listening to the sounds of various insects and birds coming from the forest, Zhang An found a high place with stones to sit on.
Although these sounds were a bit noisy, Zhang An felt very peaceful and comfortable.
After staying in the mountain for half a day, Zhang An also felt that it was time to go down the mountain and go home.
The water vapor in this mountain forest is too heavy. It feels good to stay there for a while.
But if you stay there for a long time, moisture can easily enter the body.
As soon as Zhang An was about to stand up, his pupils suddenly changed dramatically and a lot of sweat broke out on his forehead.
Because Zhang An saw a small green coiled on the branch in front of him.
And it is not far away from Zhang An. As long as this guy stretches his head and glides, he will definitely bite Zhang An.
Zhang An was a little hesitant to move at the moment, thinking about returning to the space to avoid the limelight.
But at this moment, the little green snake in front of him suddenly turned his head.
Damn it, I'm so scared.
Zhang An patted his chest and calmed down.
The little green snake in front of me has black eyes, and its head is not triangular.
This is a green snake with a docile personality and no toxicity.
I didn’t see the snake head just now. Zhang An thought it was a green bamboo with triangular red eyes, which really scared him
Seeing that there was no danger, Zhang An got down from the stone. Walk to the edge of the river ditch below.
Holding some ice-cold river water, I washed the sweat on my face from the fright.
The cool and refreshing feeling made Zhang An sober up.
Zhang An took out the plastic bag he brought with him and filled the space with more than a dozen stone pounds.
There are many stone pounds in the space now, covering a large area, and they are all crowded together.
The water quality in this place was good, and the environment looked good, so Zhang An simply released some animals outside.
Anyway, Zhang An doesn’t eat this thing every day, he just leaves it alone.
Just think of it as making a small contribution to protecting the ecological environment.
Shi Ping, who has just left the space, is relatively unfamiliar with the outside environment and has to take some time to adapt.
However, they are naturally afraid of light, so after squatting for a while, they jumped into the water.
Use the fastest speed to find a place under the stone that is more suitable for living together and use it as a home.
Seeing the released stone pounds scattering, Zhang An went down the mountain and went home with the stone pounds in his hand.
"What did you catch again?"
When Zhang An returned home, Wang Fang looked at the bag he was holding, which was jumping around.
Wang Fang thought Zhang An had gone to the mountain again to trick him into something.
"I met some stone scales in Shuijingchong. I caught some of them because they were quite big."
Zhang An found an empty bucket and put the bagged stone scales in it.
“It’s so big, it’s more than half a catty.”
The stone scales in the bag are not the largest in the space, but they are still about the size of more than half a catty. .
Although the stone pound is easy to see, it is not that easy to find if you don’t look for it carefully because of its size.
And these guys are very good at jumping. They can jump more than one meter high in one go.
So the big stone pound is not so easy to catch.
Wang Fang took one look and Zhang An closed the lid of the bucket.
Otherwise, they will all jump out in less than a minute.
"Mom, let my dad peel and kill them later, and cook them in the evening."
Later Zhang An ate the frog fish head several times and thought it was very good.
But Zhang An doesn’t like fish heads, so he can cook some fish fillets today.
"Okay, let your dad do it later, but there are so many, I can't finish them in one meal."
Zhang An brought back more than a dozen, at least a dozen Weight.
With so many stone pounds, I will definitely not be able to finish them all in one meal.
"It's okay if you can't finish it. Later, we will form a circle around the fish pond and keep them all."
(End of this chapter)