The disappearing "tiger with five claws"

Cuckoo and cattle woke up the terraced fields in the south of the Yangtze River, which had been sleeping for a winter, and it turned over lazily. Qiu Ping's father threw the grain into the arms of the terrace, and he heard the sound of the grain "kicking the quilt". Soon, the pale bud tip of the grain turned into a green seedling. Nature is so wonderful that we have to sow seedlings before and after the solar terms in the sky. Spring ploughing is coming, and so is the tiger with five claws!

Spring ploughing in the south of the Yangtze River is just like the Chinese homework assigned by nature to the villagers. Terraces are layered, just like a huge composition exercise book spread out in the mountains. The villagers nodded and bent down frequently, and one by one wrote the story of spring with seedlings.

It's okay. My sister is sitting on the ridge, muttering mud, my father is smoking and transplanting rice skillfully, and my mother is there. Occasionally, she stopped what she was doing, looked at her sister on the ridge, and quietly looked at her ten-year-old sister Qiu Ping. The water didn't reach Qiu Ping's knees. She held a handful of seedlings in the palm of her left hand, the cat hunched her back, and her elbow was propped on her right knee to prevent her from falling into the paddy field. Her right hand was pinched in the palm of her left hand several times. The seedlings are just the right size. She grabbed them with five fingers and pressed them into the water, and the seedlings sank into the water. A few leaves were swaying on the water, and the whole seedling was actually floated by the roots. Mother smiled with snow: here comes our "tiger with five claws"!

The "five-claw tiger" is not a Siberian tiger or a South China tiger. It's not a tiger at all, it's a beginner's action of transplanting rice. Rice fields are everywhere in the south. After the rice harvest in the first year, it is full of water soaked in soil, so it is labor-saving to plough in the second year. After turning over the soil, you can rake it flat and sprinkle fertilizer, so you can plant seedlings. Rice likes water, which is different from growing vegetables in dry land. It is best to transplant rice seedlings when the black sesame paste soil is submerged by about 2 cm of water. This kind of soil is fully wet and sticky, and it is neither deep nor shallow to insert your fingers into the seedlings. The soil flows quickly around the seedlings, tightly absorbing the roots of the seedlings, and they quickly merge into one.

Transplantation is also very particular. Mother held the seedling in her left hand, and put her thumb, forefinger and middle finger together in her right hand, and quickly "wedged" the root of the seedling into the soil with a pistol. Qiu Ping, on the other hand, is different because she is young, her hands are too small and her familiarity is not enough. She holds the roots of the seedlings with five fingertips. In this way, when the seedlings are planted in a pit with a small fist, the contact area between the roots of the seedlings and the soil becomes smaller. In addition, when the hand is lifted, water will rush into the pit and wash away a little soil at the root of the seedling, and the root is not attached to the soil. With the turbulence and buoyancy of water, seedlings will float easily. This is the "five-claw tiger" my mother said, which is a common phenomenon that rural children help spring ploughing and novices transplant rice seedlings.

Qiu Ping is only ten years old. She just learned to transplant rice seedlings. It's not surprising that there is a tiger with five claws. Her mother has also experienced the "tiger with five claws" and is her grandmother's mother. After the mother finished laughing, she walked over and demonstrated slowly, explaining one action after another to her. Qiu Ping is very clever. He will remember it after teaching it twice, and he is becoming more and more agile.

Grandma told her mother that farmers can't live without land, and the "five-claw tiger" is the experience gained from practice and should be taught from generation to generation. Mother also told Qiu Ping about it that day, and Qiu Ping felt that her mother was right.

At the beginning of the 20th century, with the pace of reform and opening up, Qiu Ping grew up and went to work in Guangzhou. A few years later, Qiu Ping married the Zhuang people in the neighboring village and gave birth to her daughter Yuan Yuan. Yuanyuan's grandmother doesn't like girls very much. Due to the restriction of family planning, Qiu Ping did not have another child, and gave her daughter to her mother.

One spring ploughing season, Qiu Ping returned to her daughter's house and dressed Yuanyuan in new clothes. Her mother deliberately teased her: "Good granddaughter, do you want to go transplanting rice with your mother-in-law?" Yuan Yuan pursed her lips, turned and threw herself into her father's arms and replied, "I won't go! Mud will stain my new clothes. Grandpa won't go. Grandpa and I are playing at home. " The father smiled and said, "Children should not learn how to transplant rice seedlings, but study hard and get into a good university." That year, Yuanyuan was the same age as her sister who was playing with mud on the ridge.

The cuckoo quarreled again, but the tiger with five claws still didn't come. The terraced fields under the big mountain are also visually tired, and they are getting lazy. Occasionally, when I hear the sound of children passing by, I look at them from a distance until I can't see their backs. One day, a sudden diesel engine woke it up, and my father took care of rice with the help of farming machinery. He had a dream when he fell asleep again. In the dream, his mother is teaching Qiu Ping to transplant rice seedlings. ...