Find a sorghum stalk, split a small thin strip and stick it under the wings in the middle of the back. Insects are still buzzing in a silly posture, but the cool wind has become a "small electric fan" for children to enjoy the cool and have fun.
This kind of insect is still flying around on sorghum stalks, and looks like an old lady spinning cotton day and night, so it is called "flower spinning machine". Later, I learned that it also has a beautiful name: "Scarab"
Together with the happy Weaver Girl, there is not only a carefree childhood, but also a shallow breeze, as thin as broken silver moonlight and a spinning wheel that chirps and sings. ...
Grandma shook the spinning wheel of her right hand, and her left thumb and forefinger gently picked up a long flower twist, and her palm made a sharp turn, holding her tail with her ring finger and little finger.
Like a light dancer with ups and downs, she lifted it gently and twisted it slowly to spit out the white cotton thread like a silkworm treasure. Lift it to the end, turn the wheel with your right hand immediately, and the cotton thread is wound on the spindle. Put it away again, then turn around and lift it. In this way, a chubby little fat ear was spun out.
A spinning wheel consists of a beam, a spindle, a stranded wire, a wheel and a crank. Grandma said it was the same as the bike we rode:
"You see how long the beam of the rotating float is, more than one meter, that is to say, the beam of the bicycle; The wheel of the spinning wheel is like a windmill, corresponding to the big gear at the pedal of the bicycle; The crank is in the center of the windmill on the right, which is the pedal in the center of the bicycle gear; Stranded wire is a bicycle chain. What about the spindle? Of course, the pinion drives the rear wheel of the bicycle!
"When riding a bicycle, the pedal turns once, that is, the big gear turns once, and the bicycle will run far ahead, indicating that the pinion at the back has turned many times.
"The same is true of spinning flowers. When you rotate a flower, turn the handle gently with your right hand and the wheel will turn. The twisted thread drives the spindle to rotate quickly. When the right hand turns, the spindle on the left turns many times. The rotating force can easily pull cotton into a "powerful" cotton thread and continuously spin the cotton thread we need. "
Surprised by grandma's extraordinary wisdom, I really want to learn mechanics from young people now. I must be a genius!
Countless nights, grandma sang nursery rhymes while spinning lace to coax me to sleep, accompanied me to sleep, as well as the melodious overture of spinning wheel creaking, several crickets chirping in different lengths, the whispering of autumn insects in the corner, watery moonlight and dim oil lamps!
Grandma is famous for her agility in spinning flowers. Every day when she comes back from work for dinner, she can spin one ear thread in the evening and another ear thread in the morning by moonlight or turning off the small oil lamp. Even, sometimes she can spin two ears when she is in a hurry at night.
When I was a child, every exam, the teacher always said to us as an outsider: "Turn the float in the yard and stretch Dani's skills!"
So, we had to move the small square stools one by one, sit on the grass under the poplar, each with an empty tree, and start "stretching" on the stools, and no one wanted to cheat.
Grandma's flower spinning skills, stretching in the yard every day, can't spare half a day.
Of course, the step of spinning cotton must first be planting cotton, then beating cotton, then rubbing cotton sliver (twisting flowers), and finally spinning flowers.
In the era of mass production, dozens of acres of cotton were planted in the team. In the autumn of October, patches of cotton fall to the ground like white clouds, and countless velvety white flowers bloom. Cotton peach shell is black and hard, sharp as a needle, like the combination and tolerance of men and women.
Women are soft, beautiful, dancing cotton, and men are hard shells they try to protect. When they meet foreign enemies, they use the tip of a needle to resist Maimang!
So when we pick cotton, we will accidentally prick our hands, but the pickers always pick flowers into the basket with a smile on their faces.
Back home, use a cotton bow or cotton elastic machine to play cotton fluffy, soft and silky.
Next, rub the tampon. Using the millet stalk knot at the end of the little finger-thick sorghum stalk as a tool, the cotton is stretched out and placed on a wooden special machine supported by the desktop. Then roll up cotton with millet stalks and rub it gently, and rub it forward in parallel with the washboard covered with cotton. Turn a few times, pull out the smooth millet stalk knot, and the cotton sliver will be rubbed.
Finally, the yarn head is spun on the spinning wheel, and then the yarn head is turned into a yarn handle by the rewinding handlebar, and then the hardness and toughness are pulped, boiled and dyed into various colors. Before the loom, the sun and the moon shuttled, weaving cotton-padded clothes, sheets and backs of various colors. ...
Therefore, since ancient times, no matter how hard it is, with the spinning wheel, the clothes at home will fall!
"Remember to honor your parents when you get to your husband's house, be patient in everything, do more and talk less."
Grandma said to her elder sister-in-law who stood still with tears in her eyes.
The oil lamp lit up a lot, and the gloomy loess wall was radiant with light gold. On the black wooden bed, a worn thin grey-blue quilt was half open, and thick wheat straw was exposed under the black mattress of old cotton. The yellow plastic sheet on the window was uncovered by the wind, which was a patch sewn by grandma with needle and thread. The cold wind bent down and lined up in turn, and a red rope on the head of the elder sister-in-law flashed a little festive light in the drift of the oil lamp.
"Our composition is not good, and this happened again, which makes you feel wronged!
"Mom doesn't have any dowry for you. I don't want to keep these cotton threads. You go to the pulp mill to make clothes for your family. Remember: poor days are afraid of hard work and accumulation. Spinning flowers and weaving is part of being a good daughter-in-law and raising children! "
Grandma gave her aunt a glimmer of hope with a lump of cotton thread, but before dawn, she was quietly sent to her husband's family by Third Master on foot, because at that time her hometown had no confidence and conditions to blow around. Grandpa's philosophy of being a man: If you want to be calm, you can only keep a low profile!
A little long cotton thread, like grandma's endless love and hope, has a firm and tenacious nature once it passes. Despite all the hardships, it is still as straight as the left. My elder sister-in-law's poor and wronged life has surrendered and faded in the face of defying all the forces of setbacks. The wonderful display of five men and two women made her a model of being rich or expensive.
However, who knows that five men and two women were raised not only by my elder sister-in-law and uncle's open-minded and strong attitude towards life, but also by the endless long cotton thread my elder sister-in-law got from her grandmother. She dragged her elder sister-in-law to work day and night. As a woman, she worked hard to teach her children and spin floats in the middle of the night.
In China's self-sufficient farming society, "men plow and women weave" is a conventional historical orientation. As the top priority of women, spinning and weaving bears the source of food and clothing for the whole family, making women's femininity and maternal brilliance endless and passed down from generation to generation.
Now, this is the first time to go out with my grandfather and have a baby. The first spinning wheel rang gently with grandma's dim oil lamp; As my father picked up the hoe, he stepped on the first cock crow of the stars; With the childlike smile and sudden meditation of the third aunt; This ancient home full of aunt's confusion, pain and hope has quietly closed its once vibrant eyes. ...
In the old courtyard that has been abandoned for many years, grandma's spinning wheel has been hard to find. The old courtyard door stands alone between the low and mottled courtyard walls, like a dying and crumbling general singing in the cold wind, leaving only a rusty iron lock to accompany him silently!
The worn-out spinning wheel connecting the stars and the moon with the sun, with a slender thread, strung up the deep warmth of family, creaking and rolling the slow wheel of history, singing the joys and sorrows of the years and long songs.
With the spinning wheel gone, the cotton thread made of clouds still stretches in our wandering life, like an emotional fuse, igniting the softest one in our hearts all the time.