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Many words that are familiar with the tunnel of memory have, at one time or another, been lost and extinguished along the slope of history, in a sharp downward spiral that is irreversible. This forces us to be confused about our hometown, about the customs and scenes in the deep alleys of our memories, weathering into unrecoverable fragments as the years fly by. For example, "picking up dung", nowadays who can still accurately say what kind of production labor, and this individual labor behavior contains what kind of joy and happiness.
In my childhood and teenage years, collecting dung was a "normalized" labor in the village, and it was nothing new. Whether it is the elders or the younger generation, a pile of cow dung or donkey dung balls scattered all over the world, all see dung as gold, full of affection, can not help but rushed up to, according to their own. The tools for picking up dung are very simple: a dung basket behind the back and a dung fork in the hand. Dung picking is not a collective labor, can not pile up, can not evolve into "looting" behavior. Therefore, not sleeping in, going to bed early and getting up early means more opportunities and harvests than others. The process of picking up manure is equivalent to the current morning exercise, no need to dance with a sword, no need to dance in the square, no need to wear a mask to avoid the haze. In the morning sun, or in a real haze of fog, carrying a dung basket all the way walking, objectively play a role in physical exercise.
The strong laborers have to go to work in the morning to participate in the collective labor of the production team, so half a big boy and the old man composed of the main force of picking up dung. The lazy half-boys, sleepyheads follow them, most of them are unwilling and unable to get up early, the old man in this regard will take advantage of. In those days I was in the ranks of the half-big boys. I studied in Changli County, Hebei Province, Sun Jia Tuo secondary school run a learning agriculture base, agricultural learning Dazhai wide accumulation of "green manure", wide accumulation of farmyard manure, also became a trend on campus. Every student in every class has a quota of task indicators of manure collection, even if the language, math, physics, chemistry test 100 points, if the manure collection does not meet the task indicators, can not be named "three good students", can not be considered a qualified successor to the red revolution. This is a hard line, let me in the whole three years of junior high school, every day dare not be lazy, every day early to bed and early to rise. Early in the morning to step on the production team to work the clock, carrying a manure basket to go out, regardless of horse dung, donkey dung, pig dung, regardless of how much manure picked up, attitude determines everything, there is action will be rewarded. With the dawn to start, wearing the sunrise to go home, harvest feeling full. The first thing you need to do is to get your hands dirty.
Gathering manure can not be impatient, can not be greedy, can not be hung up on a leakage, to be calm, indomitable and indomitable eyes and legs fast. I and my buddies never sleep in winter or summer, we get up early and pick up the dung baskets, each choosing a path to the north in the direction of the Houfengtai Railway Station. Gradually, we walked farther and farther away, and before we knew it, the four-kilometer-long dry road had gently made a round trip. If I could pick up half a basket of dung from large animals (cows, horses and mules), it would be an unexpected blessing that would make me so happy. If not, I would not be happy with what happened, nor would I be sad with myself. I pick up dung this kind of labor sincere love, never make do perfunctory, as the saying goes, do a line love a line. In the large livestock dung, horse dung is the largest, cow dung is the largest, mule dung and horse dung is similar, donkey dung is the smallest. In my eyes, it is like picking to the basket are vegetables, picking up to the dung basket are top quality fertilizer, there is no good or bad points.
Horse manure is shaped like a medium-sized potato, yellow, a little loose, easy to pick up. Donkey manure is the smallest in shape, black in color, close to a round egg, and compact, hard skin, we call donkey manure "donkey dung egg", that is, according to its shape characteristics. Cow dung is the largest in shape, cake-like, divided into upper and lower layers, yellow in color, soft in texture, and when picking it up, the dung fork must be used carefully so as not to break the layers of cow dung. Once the Spring Festival, my father took my sister from Qinhuangdao City to visit me and my grandmother, I went to the back of the Fengtai train station to meet relatives home, hard to put down the dung baskets, all the way back and forth to the eyes of the sharp legs and hands, full of return.
The picking up of dung is a product of a specific era, and is also a fashionable "behavioral art" popular in the countryside during the long years of farming. Livestock, once as the main means of production in agricultural production, which production team to raise more large livestock, the production capacity of the production team is naturally strong. Therefore, long-term living in the rural community, regardless of men and women, young and old, as long as hardworking, dung picker most of the time can be full of chopping. In fact, looking back, an old man, or a young man, walking along a country road filled with the smell of crops, carrying a loaded manure basket on his back, returning with a squeaky voice, walking through the seasons of morning and evening at a pace that suited the season, was quite agrarian. To paraphrase Mao Zedong's poem about peasants: carrying dung baskets home, heroes everywhere under the evening smoke. It's a long, meaningful journey.