1, "facing the loess and facing the sky" means that when farmers are doing farm work in the field, they bow their heads and bend down, just facing the loess and facing the sky. Used to describe the hardships of farmers, it is a praise for farmers and sympathy for farmers' friends.
2. This sentence is taken from Four Poems about Cattle. The whole poem reads: "Face the loess and face the sky, and take pains. Until the golden autumn grain Man Ku, is still a pioneer field in the hinterland ".