Chapter 24 Chapter 24 The little gray heron and the fish farmer Mr. Ma

In my impression, this is a wild pond, about half the size of a football field, rectangular, and there is a path underwater in the northern third, which will divide the pond into two when the water falls.To the north of the path, there are aquatic plants, among which there are Polygonum rubra, field leaf grass, henna, etc. There are two weeping willows growing on the north bank; to the south of the path is a deep water area, the water depth is about one meter, and there are still a few lotus leaves. There is a pockmark tree, under the tree there is a small paulownia and a coix seedling, and the coix is ​​blooming and setting seeds.On the south side of the path, it seems to be in the middle of the pond, where a piece of wild rice grows densely, but strangely, there is no long bamboo shoots.What needs to be explained is that this pond has no water source, the only source is the rain from the sky, the rain water is deep and muddy, the sky is dry and the water is shallow and muddy, made by fish.

On this day, a living creature suddenly appeared among the aquatic plants. It was a young gray heron. The neck is so long, when it suddenly stretches its neck to the limit and arches it, it looks like a ferocious snake. Its neck is black, with three light yellow lines on its side, its eye circles are also light yellow, and its long beak is about two inches long. The total length of the neck is about shaku five!The little gray heron opened its long beak, and its eyes flashed a fierce light, like a cobra peeping at its prey.It is a young gray heron. I know that beautiful herons prey on small life, but I am still frightened, like a beautiful woman suddenly showing her dagger at you under the shadow of flowers and moonlight.After a while, the little gray heron jumped out lamely, and it jumped towards me, jumping and stopping. At this time, I stepped on a stone pier with my right foot, and fanned it behind my back with my left hand. The folding fan was a piece of silk. The fan is light brown. It suddenly occurred to me that the little gray heron had mistook the folding fan for the wings of a great gray heron.

For two consecutive days, I came to observe the little gray heron. During this time, I tried to catch it in the water and apply medicine to its injured left foot.When I came to the pond another afternoon, I saw traces of someone walking out on the water plants, and the little gray heron was gone. I thought that the little gray heron had been taken away. I thought it might have hid in the wild rice forest. At this time An old man came over, about sixty years old, in good condition, gray shorts and white T-shirt, the exact opposite of my white shorts and gray T-shirt.The old man greeted: There are fish here.I said: Yes, there are grass carp jumping up to eat grass.The old man said: You see someone has gone down here, it must be fishing.I said: no way?How to catch fish?There is a wild rice forest there, and the fish hide in it as soon as they dodge.

The old man came closer to me, and he looked at me, big shorts, T-shirt, slippers, holding a large silk fan, like a fish thief?He said again: "How big do you think the fish is?"I said: Grass carp eating grass probably weighs one catty.The old man said: Seven or eight taels, this fish is raised by me.At this point, the old man began to ask me where I came from. He asked me if I was in the nearby factory. I said no, I was from Tongshankou, and I was staying in Beijing now.He asked me what business I do, and I said writing articles to sell.I asked the old gentleman: Are you from Majia Village?He said: Yes, there are many people with the surname Ma here.Then he said: This pond is contracted by me.

I lost several thousand yuan in contracting the pond.Mr. Ma said.Most of Taiwei Lin's people were named Ma.Why lose?I gave a cigarette to Mr. Ma, and Mr. Ma lit the cigarette, suddenly excited, but he shook his head again, took a puff of the cigarette, and said: "It's hard to say."At first, I wanted to contract this pond for fishing. My son-in-law works in an iron mine, and people there like fishing.The rent for the pond is 250 yuan a year. In the first year, I went to Yangxin and bought a crucian carp worth 3,000 yuan. A one-foot-long crucian carp. How cute do you think a one-foot-long crucian carp with a black back is?It costs ten yuan a catty to catch it, so I thought I'd make a good fortune from it now!Unexpectedly, the fish began to die shortly after being thrown into the pond. I was anxious and looked for the reason, and found that there was pollution. The waste oil from the factory had polluted the pond.This is unlucky. I wanted to make a good profit from it, but all the fish died.

I found that when Mr. Ma said "make a good fortune for it", he emphasized a little bit of tone, thus adding additional vicissitudes to the catastrophic consequences of the fish's death.Mr. Ma looked at the pond and thought for a moment, then described his pond.I think my fish can't die in vain. It was the waste oil from the factory that killed my fish. I want the factory to compensate for the loss.I wrote the statement myself, and I took the water to the Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau for testing. The test results showed that the water quality exceeded the standard by 500 times.Now that I have evidence, I went to the factory, and the factory had a lawyer. They said that my village had signed an environmental protection contract, and the compensation was based on the contract.I said, I don't care about your contract with the village. If my fish dies, I will suffer losses. If I don't pay, I will sue you in court.Things have turned here. The factory is an advanced environmental protection unit. This is a good opportunity. If there is a lawsuit, their environmental protection advanced unit will have to be lost, so they made peace.The factory lost a total of 7,000 yuan, the village took 5,500 yuan, and I took 1,500 yuan, but I still lost 1,500 yuan.

There is a little wind, the setting sun shines on the pond, the grass carp is still arching in the grass, occasionally splashing water.Mr. Ma lit another cigarette.He continued: Originally, the money taken by the village should have been used to clean the pond, but they didn't clean up the pollution. Then, I didn't pay the 250 yuan a year's pond rent. Why should I pay?Am I that bad?They don't clean up the money I got from going to court, so why should I pay the pond rent?I have lost a lot.I can't do fishing, so I planted lotus root in the second year. The hybrid lotus root I bought grew well, but I was not happy. I asked my brother-in-law to dig up the lotus root and sell it. I don't want it.This year, I bought fry again, mainly grass carp from Golden Lake, which is really good, and now it has grown to seven or eight taels.However, the water quality is still not good. It takes thousands of dollars to remove the polluted pond mud, and the sluice below is leaking constantly. I used forty or fifty snakeskin bags filled with soil to block it, but it couldn’t be blocked. Wait, you know there is a kind of mantis shrimp, right?It’s called crayfish, but it’s actually not a lobster. It’s especially good at making holes, and you can’t get rid of it. It just makes your pond leak. To repair the dam, you need another investment. So, this year, next year I will do it Do not engage in this pond again.Originally, I wanted to make a good profit from it, but it cost me thousands of dollars.

After Mr. Ma said that there would be no Baotang next year, he looked into the distance. Opposite was the Beijing-Kowloon Railway. There was a train from Chongqing to Fuzhou passing by. It was an orange carriage.Mr. Ma asked about SARS and the Olympic Games. He said that during SARS, the village was heavily guarded, and all the blacksmiths were driven back to their hometowns. Do you think those blacksmiths are running around, what can't be messed with?After finishing speaking, Mr. Ma suddenly remembered something, said "I'll go first", then turned around and left.I searched for the little gray heron in the grass again, and in the soft rose-colored light of the setting sun, only the scattered and fallen aquatic plants were blown by the wind, and there were blisters spit up by fish on the water surface.In an instant, I turned to look at Mr. Ma, but he was nowhere to be seen. In fact, I wanted to visit the beekeeper in front of me. The sudden appearance of Mr. Ma, the fishman, made me aware of the history of this wilderness pond. In this way, some humanistic understanding of the pond has been added.