Chen Mo and his father were walking, but they found that the road seemed wrong. This road was not the way to their fields.
"Dad, isn't this the path to the family fields?" Chen Mo asked in surprise.
"Yeah!" Father Chen Jianguo replied in a low voice.
"Dad...?" Chen Mo shouted.
"We'll wait until we get to the end of the field," said his father, Chen Jianguo.
Hearing his father speak like this, Chen Mo could only stop asking questions for the time being. He knew his father's character, that he was a relatively kind but stubborn farmer, and his father had the final say in everything at home, so Chen Mo could only shut up.
We walked a short distance along the foot of the mountain, crossed a small stream, and arrived at the northwest corner of the village's hillside, which is considered the innermost part of the village. It is about a few hundred meters away from the village road, and we turned around a cliff edge. A few miles away along the winding mountain road is Qinggang Village.
"We're here!" said the father.
Chen Mo looked around and found that this was the land closest to the foot of the mountain in the village. It was a little more inconvenient than the land next to the road before, but fortunately, the land was basically the same. But since it is the place closest to the mountain and the innermost part of the village, if you walk further along the dirt road, it will all be wasteland and mountainous land.
"Dad, this is..." Chen Mo asked, pointing to the field.
"Well, last year, because the village planned a number of homestead sites, 50 meters of all the land south of the road was occupied, and my family's fields were also within the scope of requisition. After the replacement and adjustment, all 10 acres of land here were allocated to our family. Since you didn’t come back last year, I didn’t tell you anything,” said his father, Chen Jianguo.
Chen Mo looked at the surrounding environment and couldn't say anything. After all, compared with the previous fields, there wasn't much difference here, except that the transportation might be a bit bad. Other than that, it was relatively close to home. And at the foot of the mountain, there are some village woodlands on the hillside, and there is a winding valley looming.
"It's good here, it's relatively close to home." Chen Mo replied with a smile, said nothing more, and started working with a hoe.
"However, the land here used to be raw land, right?" Chen Mo asked.
"Yes, so there are four more acres of land." Dad replied.
"So after passing here, the land will still be undeveloped or what?" Chen Mo asked.
His father, Chen Jianguo, was a little surprised to see that Chen Mo was very curious about the land at home. He had never been so curious before.
My father pointed to his own land and said, "Our land is the furthest outside, so the land beyond our home is wasteland, which has been abandoned for many years." He pointed to the west-facing position of the land and said, "This is Next to it is 200 acres of wasteland that the village used to contract to others. It was cultivated for a few years and then fell into disuse. Even now, no one has contracted it, and it has always been left like this!"
"Why are you asking these questions?" asked his father Chen Jianguo.
"Oh! I just want to ask out of curiosity!" Chen Mo smiled and replied.
Chen Mo knew that his parents and brothers had a total of 6 acres of land in the past, and his sister originally had two acres of land. However, after her sister got married, the village took it back, leaving only 6 acres of land. Although 10 acres of land are being replaced now, relatively speaking, it is definitely not as good as the previous 6 acres of mature land. But it has already been planned for a year, so it is impossible to worry about it anymore.
The father and son didn't say anything more. They gathered the fields and weeded them. After noon, they were almost done with their work. The ground is planted with spring wheat, which is sown in the spring and harvested in the summer, and then corn is planted. Use rotational planting to relieve pressure on the land. Spring wheat will be ready for harvest in late August or early September.
Father Chen Jianguo is the kind of taciturn person. He doesn't talk much and just keeps his head down while working, so the two of them work very quickly.
In fact, if it were the past, farming ten acres of land would have been exhausting. Ten acres of land is already the limit of a farmer's labor, and he may have to use livestock. However, the rural areas were better now more than ten years ago. Whether it is spring sowing or autumn harvest, there are people driving agricultural machinery to do the work. They can plow the land and sow it for a little money, and the rest is watering, fertilizing, etc. Weeding and other easy tasks are done, and when it is time to harvest, the agricultural machinery comes over again, and then the goods are collected and packed together. What farmers have to do is to drive a walking tractor and take the packed grain home to dry and store it, or sell it directly to collectors.
After finishing their work, the two returned home one after another. If you are busy working in the fields in the morning, you basically don’t have to go to the fields in the afternoon.
After lunch, Chen Mo talked to his parents and then went out for a walk. Mainly to visit the wasteland near the mountain, as well as places such as Calabash Valley where I used to play when I was a kid. I spent the entire afternoon walking around and taking a lot of photos with my phone.
Chen Mo's old house is here. There are several neighboring houses, all of which are old houses built with adobe bricks. They are very dilapidated and no one lives in them, making it look a bit desolate.
To the west of the old house is a 200-acre field, but it has been idle for a long time and is all covered with grass. About a hundred meters north of the old house is a hillside, covered with some bushes and some sparse trees. When I was at home, I was contracted to plant fruit trees on the hillside, but I guess it was a loss for some reason. After working for a few years, all the fruit trees were cut down, which was a pity.
To the east of the old house, and in front of the gate of the old house, is a rural dirt road, about 6 to 7 meters wide, and next to it are dozens of acres of wasteland and gradually rolling hillsides. This dirt road used to be the main road in the village. It was less than a kilometer away from one end and connected to the newly built provincial road, and it ended at the foot of the mountain. It turns into a small mountain road and goes directly to the entrance of Calabash Valley.
The entrance of Hulu Valley is located not far from the northeast corner of the old house. Once you enter, you will find a relatively large valley. However, the valley is shaped like a gourd, so the locals call it Hulukou. Chen Mo often played here when he was a child.
The valleys inside Hulukou are all barren mountains. There is a small stream flowing in the middle of the valley. It flows directly out of the valley mouth in the southeast direction, winding along the mountain col, and finally turns parallel to the provincial highway. After passing a big mountain pass, we were heading towards another village at the intersection of three roads. That village was called Liying Village. One road of Shancha Road is the main thoroughfare to the town and connects the county and the urban area. The other road is the road leading to Qinggang Village after passing through Chenjia Village.
After entering along Hulukou, it is only a few kilometers away, and there is no very wide terrain. It is just undulating mountains of various sizes. If you keep going in, you will enter the Qinling Mountains. However, the mountain road is steep and steep. No one lives in it.
There used to be people living in Hulu Valley, but they all moved to the village homestead planning area in front of Chen Mo's old house more than ten years ago. Now no one lives there. The entire Hulu Valley, including the slopes and valleys on both sides, probably covers tens of thousands of acres. However, it may not be easy to develop, and there is no good scenery, so no one has contracted to develop it so far.
Chen Mo walked around the old house and Hulukou. If he wanted to go home and contract the land, of course he had to make certain preparations. He really couldn't talk nonsense without actually inspecting it.
When I got home, it was already dinner time, and my parents didn't ask anything. The family of three gathered around the dining table to have dinner.
After dinner, Chen Mo pulled his father and mother to the main room of the house and wanted to talk to them about his plans.
"You said you don't want to go to work in the city?" His father, Chen Jianguo, lit a cigarette and became somewhat silent when he heard that his son planned to return to the village to farm.
"Dad, employment is very fierce for college students now. My major is biology, so it's not easy to find relevant jobs. So I want to return to the village to farm." Chen Mo said.
"No! I'm sending you to school because I want you to leave the land and live a glorious life in the city. I don't want you to go to college and then go back to facing the loess and become a farmer!" said his father Chen Jianguo angrily.
"Dad! Listen to me first." Chen Mo pondered for a moment and then said: "I majored in biology, so I studied a high-tech farming technology in school and wanted to go home and experiment."
"High-tech farming? I have been farming all my life, and this is the first time I have heard of high-tech farming." said his father Chen Jianguo.
"Dad, don't look down on high-tech farming. In the past few years, the village didn't engage in side business and introduced cash crop cultivation. Didn't the technicians at the Agricultural Science Station have technical support?" Chen Mo said.
"Shit! All the imported peach trees have been cut down by the village for firewood. It's high-tech shit." His father, Chen Jianguo, looked down upon these things.
"Dad, can't you just let me try? What if it works?" Chen Mo stared into his father's eyes and said firmly.
The father said nothing and kept smoking.
"My father, are you talking about this...? Why don't you let your child try it?" Chen Mo's mother, Fu Huili, saw her son winking at her and could only beat the drum beside him.
"What about your studies?" His father, Chen Jianguo, was a little worried about Erwazi's studies. After finally getting into college, he came back to farm, which definitely made him a little angry and heartbroken.
"My studies have been completed. I can apply for a diploma after submitting my graduation thesis in a few months!" Chen Mo told the truth.
Father nodded, but didn't say anything. He just took out his cigarette, lit it, and smoked dully.
"My father, please say something!" Fu Huili, her mother, waited for a long time and then urged her in a hurry.
"If you come back to farm and conduct experiments, that's up to you! But you also know the situation at home, so don't let your family pay for it!" said his father, Chen Jianguo.
Chen Mo smiled and said to his mother: "Mom, thank you. If you hadn't interrupted, Dad would have refused."
"Coming back to farm is the path you chose, so don't regret it." Fu Huili, the mother, was not sure whether her child could persist, so she could only say this.
"Don't worry, it will definitely surprise you." Chen Mo said.
"Hey! How much money do you have? If it's not enough, the family still has some!" His father, Chen Jianguo, was still talking about the lack of money at home just now, but seeing that his child had made up his mind to go home and farm, he had nothing to say. , I can only support, no matter what, they are all my children, if I don’t feel sorry for them, who will?
