Chapter 247 235: Old Almanac
Brother Yang and Zhou Huaian carried the round table into the yard, helped Father Yang to sit at the upper seat, and sat next to Yang's father. Everyone gathered together and began to eat in a lively atmosphere.
Father Yang took a sip of sorghum wine and said, "Sorghum wine tastes better. The sorghum in my family is growing well this year. I will save half of it for making wine after the sorghum is harvested."
Father Yang smiled and said, "Okay! Then we'll carry two loads of sorghum over and you can help brew it."
"Yes!" Dad Yang joked with a smile, "Brew more wine so that we can have some wine when our son-in-law comes!"
Zhou Huaian's face was full of smiles. This visit to his mother-in-law's house was the most relaxing one for him. It was better like this now. Yan'er was proud and his mother-in-law's family also had face.
Yang Chunyan drank a bowl of delicious mushroom soup and asked, "How much of the millet in the field fell down last time there was a strong wind?"
Yang's mother: "We don't have many here, but a lot of them have been spilled in the paddy fields near the river."
"Not many of our family fell down."
After dinner, Mrs. Yang brought over a watermelon. After cutting it open and eating it, everyone started to clean up.
Yang Chunyan and her mother cleaned up the room for Zhou Huaian and then went to the kitchen to help clean up.
The men sat in the yard and chatted as the sky gradually darkened.
Zhou Huaian saw Yang Chunyan coming out of the kitchen and walking towards the backyard, so he followed her and said, "Yan'er, I need to go to the toilet."
He doesn't like staying overnight at other people's houses because he is afraid to get up in the middle of the night and doesn't dare to go out, but he is embarrassed to ask someone to go with him.
Yang Chunyan stopped and waited for him to come over. "If you need to get up at night, go to my room and knock on the window, and I'll know."
Zhou Huaian shook his head, "Forget it. If your sister-in-law sees us, she might think we don't know the rules."
Yang Chunyan thought about the strict rules these days and was afraid that someone would think too much if they saw her. "Then I'll ask mom to give you the flashlight!"
"Um!"
The two men came out of the toilet, scooped up some hot water to wash up, and then went to their respective rest rooms.
Yang Chunyan and her husband returned to her parents' home, one lived in her younger sister's room, and the other lived in the room she lived in before she got married.
There was a desk by the window in Yang Dongmei's room, and there were many books on the desk. She looked around and found two storybooks. She leaned against the head of the bed and read for a while before turning off the light and going to sleep.
The next morning, Yang Chunyan got up and went to the taro field behind the house with Zhou's mother. Zhou Huaian followed Brother Yang to the brigade to pay the money to drive the tractor.
Before the two men went to the brigade to dry the dam, they first went to the brigade accountant and paid the money for the purchase of the tractor.
The accountant of the Yangjiaping brigade, who was also an uncle of the Yang family, happily took the money and gave the key to the warehouse where the tractor was parked to Brother Yang.
Zhou Huaian followed him to the brigade's dam. Brother Yang opened a warehouse where a half-new tractor was parked. It looked well-preserved, and the bright red paint on it still looked bright.
"Let's go in!" Brother Yang took him into the warehouse, picked up the hand crank and said to Zhou Huaian, "Watch me crank it, let's learn how to crank it first."
"Yes!" Zhou Huaian stepped forward with a smile, "I have helped the master with the tractor a few times, but I don't know the functions of those parts."
Brother Yang smiled and walked forward, explaining as he did it, "The tractor has a total of 6 forward gears and 2 reverse gears. You need to pull the clutch to change gears, and you need to hold the steering handle, commonly known as the small handle, to turn.
To turn left, squeeze the right handle, to turn right, squeeze the left handle, and pay attention to the brakes. When the vehicle is moving and turning left or right, the handle cannot be pressed all the time, but pressed and released, otherwise the person will be thrown out..."
He walked to the front of the car and said, "First, step on the accelerator, then press the decompression lever, then insert the crank, and use force to drive the flywheel to rotate to a certain speed, then release the decompression.
Remember, do not let go of the crank at this time. You have to let the flywheel rotate about three turns with the crank. Wait until the machine starts normally before you can let go. Otherwise, the crank will smash your jaw off..."
Zhou Huaian took note of it carefully, and when he encountered something he didn't understand, he pulled him aside to explain it again. Then the two of them drove the tractor out of the warehouse.
When he went downstairs to close the warehouse door, he looked at the spacious warehouse door and suddenly remembered that the tractor could not drive in at all on the field road in front of his house.
I took the key, got on the tractor and gave it to Brother Yang, thinking that I would learn it first and then think of a solution when I got home.
Brother Yang said to him, "I'll drive to the tractor road outside, and you can practice."
“Yes!”
Zhou Huaian glanced at Brother Yang, who looked a bit like his young wife, and thought that he and Chunyan had been married for almost a year, and had come to his mother-in-law's house several times. The words they had spoken together were not as much as they had said on the first day.
He felt that although his brother-in-law was a bit fierce, he was still good to Chunyan. He couldn't blame him for not looking at him well before, he just blamed himself for being too lazy...
When they arrived at the mechanized farming road, Brother Yang stepped aside. Zhou Huaian went up and held the handlebars. Under Brother Yang's command, he drove the tractor slowly forward with stiff movements.
Maybe because he often watched the tractor driver drive, he let go after a while and the speed gradually increased.
Yang Chunyan and her mother were working in the taro field behind the house. They picked up a basket full of taro stalks and carried them to the gate of the courtyard. They saw Mrs. Yang washing the faces of her two little nephews on the steps.
"Two little naughty ones, just got up?"
"Auntie!" Da Shuang ran over when he saw the two of them, pulled Yang's mother and said in a baby voice, "Grandma, I want to eat your eggs."
"It's cooked!" Mother Yang took him up the stairs and then took Xiaoshuang to the kitchen.
Yang Chunyan put down the basket, and Yang Dasao took it immediately. "It's too troublesome to fetch well water to wash. I'll go to the ditch in front to wash it and carry it back."
Yang Chunyan nodded, "I'll go with you."
The Yang family raised four pigs and cooked a pot of pig feed every day. There were many taro stalks during this period, so they fed the pigs with taro stalks, rice bran, and ginger and taro powder.
The two of them arrived at the ditch, where several women were squatting. Some were washing clothes, and some were washing Swiss chard. When they saw the aunt and sister-in-law coming, they greeted them politely.
Yang's father is the barefoot doctor in the team. The villagers are all polite to them because these days, if you have minor illnesses or pains, the most convenient way to get treatment is with the village barefoot doctor.
The water in the ditch was as clear as the water in the stream, not at all like the turbid water thirty or forty years later, with even all kinds of household garbage and plastic bags thrown in it.
Before the aunt and sister-in-law reached the door of their house with the taro stalks on their backs, they saw Zhou Huaian and Brother Yang driving a tractor past.
Yang Chunyan pointed at Zhou Huaian and said, "Wow, you got the hang of it so quickly!"
Mrs. Yang took a look and said with a smile, "The tractor is very simple. I heard from your eldest brother that he learned it in just two afternoons."
"Yes! That year the brigade sent the brigade secretary's nephew and my eldest brother to learn. They both learned at the same time, but my eldest brother got the hang of it the fastest and drove the best. The brigade secretary's nephew later joined the army, and my eldest brother was the only one driving the tractor."
After hearing this, Sister Yang said with some regret: "It would have been great if you had married Li Yong. His family conditions are better than the Zhou family, and he is more ambitious than Huai'an.
After retiring from the army, I worked in the village for two years and then went to work in the town. Fortunately, Huai An changed, otherwise I would feel sorry for you! "
(End of this chapter)
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