My 1995 Small Farm

   Chapter 107 Catching Scorpions at Night

However, the little yellow-skinned children are solid skins, but they are more stupid than each other, and they are not at all as clever and cunning as other yellow-skinned children. They are almost two months old, and they can't even catch birds and mice. Don't expect them to steal chickens.

Several times when Wang Susu was feeding the chickens and ducks, they also went to the stone trough on the other side of the chicken coop to eat and drink. As a result, the chickens and ducks drove the yard all over the place. Xiao Huang and Xiao Pang didn't dare to go up and fight hard, and they gave these three little things a few bald patches. This is not a long memory, every day is either bullying the little rabbit or teasing the chickens and ducks, and sometimes jumps on the backs of the two dogs to play, making Heiwa Xiaojin very tired of them, and annoyed Xiaojin a few days ago. Don't let them come down in the yard, Xiao Huang Xiaopang can't complain to Chen Ling, as long as Xiao Jin comes down and bites, this is more honest.

Chen Ling pinched the three chubby little idiots, and seeing that they were comfortably closing their eyes and dozing off on his lap, he was speechless for a while: "As stupid as Heiwa, you don't have the ability to grow flesh. ."

  Speaking of which, the yellow-skinned man in the mountains is very good at catching mice and birds, and swimming and climbing trees. People who are close to the river often have yellow skins swimming along the water to their homes to harm chickens and ducks. When I get up, I can see that the sheds of the chicken coop are full of wet paw prints, which is hard to prevent.

   "Alas, it's been abandoned, it's been abandoned..."

Chen Ling shook his head and sighed. He grabbed the back necks of the little fools and threw them to the ground. Regardless of their confused and aggrieved appearance, he went to the backyard to feed the silkworms, and then put the silkworms in the plaque. After cleaning the sand, the silkworms have already shed their skins three times. Once again, they will start to form cocoons. At this time, they need to be fed every two or three hours, even at night.

But Chen Ling thought it was troublesome, so he planted two mulberry trees in the cave. After going out for a walk every day, even the branches and leaves were bundled and brought back several bundles. In this way, Wang Susu didn't have to pick mulberry leaves. The mulberry leaves produced by Dongtian are extremely nutritious. At first, Wang Susu woke up several times to feed silkworms at night. As a result, they couldn’t finish the mulberry leaves they put before going to bed, and there was no bad growth. .

   After the silkworm sand is cleaned, it is piled on the wall and left to ferment. Then I poured the silkworm sand that had been fermented two days ago into a bucket, mixed it with bran and stirred it to make a simple fish food. I returned to the front yard and poured it into the lotus pond. , All the fish surfaced and scrambled with their mouths open. Now, because Chen Ling poured half a bucket of stream water into the pond every two days, these ordinary ornamental fish have also become savage and fierce, and they are better fed. Eat everything, not picky eaters at all. Not to mention the silkworm sand, the steamed bun **** can also swim to the surface of the water to **** it like a smashed head.

   "Fortunately, it looks a lot more beautiful than when it was first put in. Otherwise, it's just that the more temperament is going off-road, it's better to put a few grass carp in it."

Chen Ling put down the bucket, squatted on the side and admired it for a while, then went to cook the rice. After Wang Susu came back from herding the cows, the two had eaten, washed the pots and bowls, and began to sit together and tie the wheat straw into a shelf. , Before silkworms form cocoons, they must be prepared for them to spin silk, which is often called the 'mountain' that silkworms have to climb up the mountain in rural areas, which is usually called silkworm frame.

   After a while, Liu Nier brought a large group of Xiao Maotou and called him outside the house to call him out to catch scorpions.

   "Why do you bring so many bottles, where are you going to catch them tonight?"

  Chen Ling went out and saw the little dolls standing at the gate of the courtyard with a bunch of cans and wine bottles hanging from their necks, either carrying kerosene lamps or torches.

   "Hey, let's go around the village first, if you can't go out to look for it. But I said that we won't be allowed to go up the mountain, and you can't take it with you if you have a rich uncle, saying that there are wolves on the mountain at night."

   Liu Nier sniffed her nose, then took two cans and handed them to Chen Ling: "Well, I brought them for you. I'm afraid that you won't be able to tighten the lid with the bottle, and the scorpion will come out."

   "Haha, okay, uncle didn't hurt you in vain."

  Chen Ling took it and tied it around his waist, then went home and took a clip made of bamboo grate from the stove, and followed the little dolls out the door with a flashlight.

   After walking for a while, he suddenly realized something was wrong. Chen Ling frowned and looked at Liu Nier: "Is your baby missing a tooth?"

   "Hey, Uncle Fugui, the prawns you made are so fragrant. I ate them with steamed buns at home. I didn't know what to do after I finished eating. I woke up early and saw that two teeth fell out."

   "My mother also said that it was thrown on the roof, or else the teeth would not grow well, but I couldn't find it."

   Liu Ni'er grinned, her two lower front teeth were gone.

   "Uncle Fugui and I have also changed my teeth. It's the big stupid tooth inside."

   "My tooth is a small tooth. It's about to fall out and there's a little bit of meat left. My grandmother said that it would be pulled by a thread. I didn't let her pull it because I was afraid of the pain."

   The other two little boys also refused to lag behind, and ran up to him with their mouths open to let him see.

   As a result, the torch in his hand almost caught Chen Ling's hair.

The parents of the little dolls allowed them to come out to look for scorpions, but they were reluctant to use the flashlight, so they lit torches. Most of the torches in the mountains are made of hemp rods, which are the hemp rods that are afraid of wolves. After soaking and peeling off the skin, the middle pole is left. After a little drying, it is light and white. It is convenient and easy to use as a torch, and it burns smoothly.

   Ramie has been very useful in these years, making hemp rope and linen cloth, which gradually became rare in the early 21st century.

  Hemp poles are generally about one meter five, and more than ten can be tied into a small torch, which is safer than reed poles, and it is fine for small children to use.

   "Okay, uncle saw it. It's a good thing to change your teeth. When the teeth are replaced, you will grow up."

  Chen Ling said with a smile.

  The little dolls like adults to say that they have grown up. When they hear this, they jump up and down with joy.

  Today's night is good. In the sky, the semi-circular moon exudes a faint halo, and the whole earth is silver-gray. The weirs in the village, the reservoirs outside the village, and the ponds are full of frogs, and all kinds of insects are also shouting loudly in the grass. In this early summer night, accompanied by the cool mountain wind, it seems to be full of vitality.

However, the corn has not started to be planted, and I am tired from working during the day. There are not many people who come out to catch scorpions at night, only a few, holding torches and bending over, lifting the stones under their feet one by one. I couldn't catch a single scorpion, but if I was lucky, I could fit half a bottle under a rock.

   Seeing that these people were catching scorpions, Liu Nier didn't run over to fight with them, and led Chen Ling to the old house in the village with a smile.

The old houses in the mountains were not all built of adobe, but also made of stone, and the outside was covered with yellow mud, but after a long time, the stones inside will be exposed from the wind and rain, and some people are more particular about it. The scorpions like to stay in the crevices of these stones.

  Because it is dark and damp, there are many small insects, so it has become a paradise for scorpions to forage.

  To catch a scorpion in this kind of place, it is important to be fast, otherwise it will be easy for the scorpion to slip back into the crack of the wall, or to escape into the weeds, it will be difficult to find.

Scorpions are actually very smart. Some scorpions rely on their appearance to be similar to the color of loess. When you look at them with a flashlight, they pretend to be dead motionless to confuse people. When it knows the danger, it retreats into the crevices of the rocks and hides, and when there is no light or movement outside, it climbs out. When the flashlight shines on it, it hides again. This is guerrilla fighting with you, no? With a lot of effort, it's hard to catch it.

   However, although there are many scorpions in the old houses in the village, they are overgrown with weeds due to the inaccessibility of people. There are also all kinds of terrifying poisonous insects or other unknown creatures hiding in them, and some of the roofs are crumbling in half, which is very scary.

No, when they broke into an old house with torches, the sudden fire made the originally comfortable environment noisy. Bats and various birds flew out of the old house with their wings, and there were hedgehogs in the grass. Or something scurrying around, making the air full of choking smoke and dust.

Even so, there are indeed many scorpions around the old house. Perhaps there are many small insects and small flying insects here. Except for those who were scared away by the fire, there are actually many scorpions standing still at the base of the wall, basically four or five. It is a medium size of centimeters in length, and its color is slightly yellow. There is one just a few steps away. If you lie there and don't look carefully, you will really be deceived by them.

When the little dolls saw it, they looked like they saw gold, their eyes lit up, they walked over lightly, grabbed the scorpion's tail, and quickly put it into the bottle. It was fast and accurate, and every doll was caught in a short while. four or five scorpions.

   Immediately afterwards, after Chen Ling took them around a few old houses that no one lived in, basically everyone caught almost half a bottle.

   "An old female scorpion!"

   After turning halfway through the village, he walked to a horse barrier at the edge of the village. Suddenly, Komori's eyes lit up, he screamed in surprise, and rushed over.

Then he quickly grabbed its tail with a clip, and let it turn around and use its thin legs to hold the clip and struggle as hard as possible, put it directly into the bottle, and quickly tighten the bottle cap. They caught a lot, but they also caught a bottle full.

Speaking of which, the female scorpion is easy to deal with. If it is a light yellow male scorpion with a high tail and a vigilant appearance, then you must be careful: when people take a clip to clamp its tail, it often It will flash quickly, and it will quickly escape to the grass or stone crevices on the four sides, making it hard to prevent.

This requires concentration to avoid wasting time, because even after the male scorpion is firmly clamped, it still refuses to succumb and will struggle desperately. The scorpion's terrifyingly stout tail vibrates violently, and its clips snap. If a scorpion catcher gets stung in that condition, that's bad luck...

   The taste of being stung by a scorpion is unpleasant, it is not only painful but also swollen, which is very tormenting.

While walking around the village, I was looking for scorpions to catch. This year, there are not many scorpions. Seven or eight little dolls plus Chen Ling, an adult, searched for almost an hour in the east of the village, but only caught 400. There are many scorpions, because some scorpions are too small to be judged only by size, so it is not bad that these scorpions can be sold for 20 yuan, and the harvest is really not huge.

After a while, they moved to the vicinity of the threshing field. The people nearby were not as neat as the villages. The earthen houses were crowded together. The courtyards of the houses were very low, and the trees and weeds were overgrown. They are all old houses.

  The earth wall is very old, very old. It is bumpy due to wind erosion and rain stripping for several years, and it is also covered with black-green moss.

   There were indeed many scorpions entrenched along the edge of the cracks in the wall, all of them majestic and plump, with long tails with venomous spines at the top, arched over their heads, keeping their instinctive vigilance. The dark color on their bodies proves that they are old and molted many times, and it also proves that their poisonous juice is rich and thick.

   After turning here, the harvest is quite good, especially Liu Nier, who caught seven or eight big male scorpions in a row, and the other little dolls also caught more than half of the second bottle.

   After catching this, continue to walk outside the village.

Before walking a few steps, there was continuous dog barking near the threshing field. In the surrounding shacks, some people stuck their heads out to take a look. It was clear that Chen Ling was carrying a few dolls and then shrank back quickly. Go back and go to sleep.

   These people are watching the food, to prevent someone from stealing it at night.

  Chen Ling took a few glances, there were quite a few shacks around, but he didn't know anyone, they all belonged to the first and second teams in the west of the village.

   "Uncle Fugui, there are scorpions on the wall over there. There are several under the eaves. They just shrunk into the cracks in the wall. I can see them clearly."

   Walking to the northwest corner of the village, Liu Nier pointed at an old house that was about to collapse and shouted.

  Chen Ling squinted his eyes with a flashlight, and with his eyesight, he could indeed see a scorpion moving, but after the light hit there, it gradually stopped moving.

   "There are also scorpions on the wall. My brother caught them last year. Uncle Fugui, let's go home and get a pole."

   Pig Wa'er also followed at this time.

   "No, not even with a pole. I tried to stab with a pole, but some big scorpions fell and died. If they can't sell it, it's not worth a trip home."

   Liu Nier immediately retorted.

   Then turned his face to look at Chen Ling: "I told you to use a broom, and let the adults use it to sweep down. Uncle Fugui, let's come out tomorrow and bring a broom."

The houses in the mountains are not high. When many scorpions come out at night, they like to climb to high places. If they climb a little higher, the little dolls will not be able to catch them. They are not willing to give up, so they go to stab them with poles. In fact, this is not a It's a good way, because the scorpion is thin and it's fine to fall, but if it grows big and fat, it will be troublesome. The scorpion is not afraid of being stuffy, it's okay to stay in the bottle overnight, but it's afraid of falling, and the fat and big male. The body of the scorpion is heavy, and it falls and is half dead. It will dry up soon after being picked up and put away. The dead scorpion is not worth much, which is a pity.

  If it is an adult to catch it, it will be solved. Just tie a broom to the bamboo pole. The broom is soft. Use the broom to slowly sweep down from a high place, so that the scorpion will be fine.

   "Okay, then let's come out tomorrow and bring the broom."

  Chen Ling nodded and took the little dolls home. It was getting late, and if they didn't go back, their parents would come out to find them, so they sent them back along the road.

   But after sending them off and walking back with Liu Nier and Xiao Mori, a stench wafted from them, and they almost made a big somersault.

   "Uncle, someone is digging dung."

   Komori called in the direction of the elementary school.

   Liu Ni'er also looked around, "Someone is digging the dung in our school's puddle."

   Chen Ling also saw at this time that someone was pulling dung out with a donkey cart with a torch behind the primary school in the village.

   Approached and took a look, it was Wang Laishun and his wife, and their second son, Wang Juxiang, was digging feces in the toilet of the school.

  Because Chen Ling and the others were on torches, the other party had already seen them, and there was no way to take a detour, so they had to go up and talk to someone: "Uncle Fifth, Aunt Guizhen, why are you pulling feces in the middle of the night?"

   "Haha, the dolls have to go to school during the day, it's not good to smoke them."

   Wang Laishun smiled and said, "Look at your posture, are you catching scorpions?"

   "Yeah, it's fine after eating, come out and catch some scorpions."

  Chen Ling nodded, then glanced at Wang Juxiang, who covered his face with a towel and dressed neatly in front of the donkey cart. This man was born better than Wang Jusheng. Not only was he half a head taller, but he was also whiter, with thick eyebrows and big eyes, a face with Chinese characters, and a small, square head.

He glanced at Chen Ling without saying a word, and was far away from the dung truck. Chen Ling also felt amused when he saw this situation: This guy, the second child must not have enough fertilizer at home, and Wang Laishun and his wife have to work hard in the middle of the night. , the idea is to find dung.

   Dung is a treasure among the treasures. Farming is indispensable. How can you easily let go of this free fertilizer in the school?

   At this moment, Liang Guizhen suddenly smiled and said strangely: "Fugui hasn't come to visit my house recently, and your fifth uncle has been talking about you a lot."

   "Hey, it's only the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. We're both harvesting wheat and visiting relatives. I'm afraid you are all busy?"

   "It's not busy, not busy, the rapeseed has been harvested early, and the buds have been planted early. Your uncle is just idle, so you have to find him to play cards and chess. If you have nothing to do, you can often go to sit at home."

   "Okay, when I have time, I'll go to the fifth uncle to play chess."

  Chen Ling responded indiscriminately, then smiled politely with Wang Laishun, and took Liu Nier and Xiao Mori home.

However, he sneered in his heart. He didn't know what the old lady Liang Guizhen was thinking. He just remembered that he always carried things when he came to the door. to express.

   If it was just Wang Laishun, that's all. The key point is that this old woman is too annoying.

   (end of this chapter)