After the Dragon Boat Festival, it was already mid-June.
The summer harvest bells have rung.
The school was on holiday for the busy farming season, and both students and teachers had to go to the fields to help with the harvest.
Just like the summer harvest in previous years, the twins were looked after by his grandmother while Guo Haochen followed Deng Qingling to work.
With last year's experience, Guo Haochen was very skilled at picking rice this year. His grandfather even made him a small straw hat for him to wear to work.
He was so arrogant that he told everyone that his grandfather had made a hat for him. In less than half a day, almost everyone in the village knew about it.
During the summer harvest, Deng Qingling would leave work early and go home to cook. After the food was ready, she would give some to the twins, and then take the food to the fields to eat with her mother-in-law and others.
Because we were in a hurry to harvest in the summer, the meals were very simple, just corn and grain rice, scrambled eggs with tomatoes, cold cucumber salad, and some mung bean porridge.
If you feel hungry or thirsty while working, drink mung bean porridge. It is just right to relieve the heat on hot days.
Since the day of summer harvest, the sun has been getting hotter and hotter day by day, almost burning people to a crisp. Even the breeze is warm, and the air is very stuffy.
An experienced old man said that it was going to rain soon, so the village chief asked everyone to speed up and go to work after dinner. No one had time for a lunch break, and they wished they could turn into harvesters and harvest quickly.
Sure enough, just after the rice was harvested, dark clouds floated in the sky, and suddenly the sky was covered with dark clouds, lightning and thunder, and raindrops as big as peas fell down.
The wind and rain blew hard, like invisible hands, beating the doors and windows desperately, making them rattle.
"The rice has been harvested, but I don't know when the rain will stop. If it continues like this, the rice will probably sprout." Guo Youxing sighed as he looked at the storm outside.
"What's the big deal? The weather in June is like a baby's face, it changes at any time. Maybe the sun will come out tomorrow." Liang Xueying said.
Sure enough, the weather in June changes suddenly.
The violent storm that lasted for a day and a night finally stopped.
The morning after the rain is slightly cool, and the air is filled with the scent of earth and grass, which makes people feel relaxed and happy.
In the yard after the rain, on the muddy path, water droplets rolled down, and the emerald green leaves on the shelves sparkled with crystal water droplets.
To put it bluntly, it was a mess. The ground was damp and muddy. The melon shed was blown to pieces by the strong wind and was in tatters. The ground was covered with rotten vegetable leaves. There was no place to step and your feet would be covered in mud.
But the people in the production team didn’t care whether the road was muddy or not. They would just start working as soon as the rain stopped.
Then we sped up the process of harvesting the corn. Fortunately, the weather was good and it didn't rain until around four or five in the afternoon, so the millet and corn could be dried for most of the day.
Rice is usually threshed using a threshing bucket, but in some places, a stone roller is used to roll the rice back and forth to thresh it.
The threshing barrel can be used for harvesting and threshing grains such as rice and wheat. Pinch the back of the crop stem with both hands, first lift it up to the right, and then slap it hard on the left inner side of the threshing barrel. At the moment of slapping, you need to shake your hands slightly to help all the threshed grains fall into the barrel and prevent the grains from being scattered when it is lifted up again.
Threshing is a technical job that requires hard work and cannot tolerate any laziness or saving any effort. Otherwise, the grains will remain on the stalks, motionless.
This job, in one word: tiring, in two words: very tiring, in three words: exhausting.
The corn is almost dry, and you need to rub the corn kernels. First, use a screwdriver to make a hole in the corn cob. Then you can rub the corn with a washboard, or rub the corn cobs together. Some people rub the corn kernels off with their hands. The rubbed corn kernels need to be dried in the sun again until they can be stored without getting moldy.
Because threshing is quite tiring, the work points for threshing are higher.
Because the men had high work points, they all went to thresh the rice, and the women went to rub the corn.
That day, Deng Qingling said she was going to rub corn and asked Guo Haochen to look after his younger siblings. However, Guo Haochen thought it was fun and followed her to rub corn.
As for the twins, the boy and girl were sent to play with Haitao.
Deng Qingling and her friends had just arrived at the drying yard and were looking for a shady place.
"Aqing, come here, there's room here." Ma Liying saw them coming, raised her hand and shouted.
Deng Qingling took Guo Haochen's hand and walked towards Ma Liying.
"Liying, you came early?" Deng Qingling asked.
Ma Liying smiled and said, "Come early and find a good seat. Why did Haochen follow you?"
"Mom, I can help too." Guo Haochen said seriously.
"Okay, Haochen is a man and can help." Ma Liying said and touched his head.
"Yeah." Guo Haochen responded and straightened his chest.
Deng Qingling and Ma Liying saw him like this and smiled secretly.
After sitting down, Deng Qingling first rubbed the two gaps open, and then rubbed Guo Haochen.
Guo Haochen rubbed two cobs of corn and felt a little pain in his hands. He looked and found that his hands were red.
Deng Qingling saw his hand and said softly: "Haochen, why don't you go and play, you don't have to rub it."
"I'll stay with my mother and rub her for a while longer." Guo Haochen felt that he could still hold on a little longer, so he didn't leave.
"Okay, if you don't want to rub it later, go play with your younger brothers and sisters." Deng Qingling didn't persuade her anymore.
Then I taught him how to rub the corn cobs step by step. His hands were small, so it was a little difficult for him to rub them.
Guo Haochen rubbed half a basket of water with great effort, but ran away when blisters appeared on his hands.
Deng Qingling asked him to go find A Tai for Matcha Oil and left him alone. He was delicate and his meat was tender, so it was difficult for him to rub it so much.
After rubbing the corn today, Deng Qingling also picked up some corn silks to take home.
The aunts around at the time asked her what she was picking up these things for, and she might as well take some corn husks home, which she could boil in water and use to start a fire.
Deng Qingling said that boiling corn silk in water has the effect of clearing away heat and dampness.
People around who heard it also picked up some and took them home. It was just right for the hot weather, as they could drink it as cold tea anyway.
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