Chapter 24 24. The old father's worries

"Get him! Get that sheep!" I turned around when I heard the sound, and saw a big ram fleeing towards me.I took a few steps to catch up, twisted the sheep's horn with my left hand, and spun it in a circle to relieve the force of the sheep's rush. .Four or five children rushed over like little wolves, pulling the horns, grabbing the legs, and pressing the sheep firmly on the grass. "Are you okay?" The herdsman rushed over, with two muddy sheep's hoof prints on his robe. I smiled and stroked my messy hair: "It doesn't matter." "I'm not asking about you, I'm asking about the sheep." The young man gave me a mischievous look, and tied the sheep's hooves, "Okay, Li Weiyi, milking is not very good, but catching sheep is terrible."

The children started laughing, and I blushed and spat: "Stupid Duoji, are you staying in the city? You can't even look after a sheep." According to the grassland tradition, the herdsmen would pour a few drops of water from the living Buddha's sutras into the mouth of the sheep before killing them, to save the living beings. Dorji was inexperienced, and as soon as he pinched the sheep's mouth, he was kicked over by the sheep's hooves, causing the sheep to escape. This Duoji was the college student who took Greene and me to find Abba in South Carolina. He just graduated from Southwest University for Nationalities this year. He studied music and played the guitar well.Dorje is handsome and upright, and he speaks good Chinese and English. Although his father hoped that Dorje would stay in a big city to work like his two elder brothers, and earn some money as a singer in a bar, but Dorje came back with a pout: " They don't like the songs I sing, saying that the grassland long tune is too earthy."

Dorji's ranch was originally on the other side of Dahewan, separated from our Wolf Mountain by a river and a mountain.When the river was frozen in winter, I crossed the river to go to his house. At that time, Green, who had returned to the wolf pack, followed a big wolf and took two lambs from Duoji's house.When I found his house along the wolf trail, only Aunt Duoji and his younger sister were at home. Not only did the kind-hearted Aunt not care about the wolf eating sheep, she also treated me to mutton buns and donated a lot of dry food to help us survive. through a famine winter.

A few days after we came to Zeren’s Yuanmu, Duoji’s family came with their cattle and sheep. This year, the flood flooded their pasture, and Tashi gathered them to the higher-lying Yuanmu of Zeren. , everyone has a mutual care together.As soon as I saw Grandma, I greeted her affectionately and helped her: "Grandma, do you still remember me?" Grandma looked at me and smiled lovingly: "You eat buns for four people alone, can I not remember? How is your wolf doll, have you found it?" This question hit me dumb, I smiled and shook my head, a little sad but no longer depressed, looking for Green has become a hope hidden in our hearts, this hope supports us to stay here, explore, record, wait.Sometimes we think, is it more important to find our Green, or to leave these precious records to let more people pay attention to "big life"?At the beginning, the mood of going to the grassland just to find children gradually calmed down, and we were able to witness the survival of animals and the changes of the grassland with the eyes of a witness.Wait, record, and continue the story of wolves, wild animals, humans, and the wilderness.

Grandma Dorji is a kind old lady with silver hair. Her Tibetan robe is often stained with flower petals and grass stalks but never soil.Years of hard work made her bend her waist, and put all her forward strength on a crutch, so the rosary hanging around her neck dangled on her chest.There are always portraits of living Buddhas in Grandma's tent, and she always holds a prayer wheel in her hand. When it is not raining, she will kneel and pray in the direction of the holy mountain in the yard over and over again. Two days ago, a one-year-old cow was drowned in Duoji's grandmother's house. Zeren and Duoji helped her skin the cow, then carried the cow into the tent with a door panel, and handed it to the grandmother to handle.I saw that the old lady was trembling and couldn't even walk smoothly, so I wanted to help her dismember the beef.Grandma waved her hand lightly: "No, I'll take my time, it's a small thing."

In the middle of the night, I was awakened by the sound of chopping and hacking, and I followed the sound - under the moonlight, only the tent of Duoji's house was still lit, and the bright yellow light showed a thin old lady's face on the thin summer tent. Silhouette, she wielded an old machete, and my eyeballs almost fell out when she saw her. Every time she raised the knife, I was startled, and I shrank back into the bed in horror. At dawn, when I went to see my mother's tent again, a cow had been dismembered into small pieces and packed into dozens of buckets, and even the blood stains in the tent had been scrubbed clean.

After chopping the cow all night, the old lady didn't even look tired at all. She picked up a big bucket of beef bones and said, "Take it back, this is for your dog." I held the beef bucket with both hands, thanked the old lady respectfully, and respected the old lady. Although the old lady in the grassland is old, she does her work unambiguously, and she never asks for what she can do. People don't eat the drowned livestock, and they just distribute them to the dogs of each family as rations. The stove in my house was gone, but when we were evacuating the hut, the big black stray dog ​​followed along the ruts at some point, and squatted outside my tent wagging its tail at mealtime the next day.Yifeng saw that it was really rare for this black dog to follow us all the way here, so he wanted to adopt her, so he put a collar on the black dog and tied it outside the tent to let her recognize this home.The black dog just lay obediently at the door for three or four days, not making a fuss or struggling, just watching us busy with things with a pair of slightly melancholy eyes.

During these rainy days, Tashi ran on the grassland every day, busy telling herdsmen in dangerous areas to evacuate.Herdsmen gathered here one after another to camp and seek refuge. Yuanmu in Zeren became lively. Every time a new neighbor came, everyone would help to set up tents and move houses. Nomadic life has no fixed place, herdsmen have no concept of real estate, and their household items are very simple, including stoves, pots and pans, floor mats, combined small tables and cabinets, several glove boxes and a portable satellite TV issued by the state, which are enough up.It's not that they can't afford expensive furniture and electrical appliances, but that those extraneous things that affect migration are really a burden to them.The "walk and go travel" that makes city people envious is an ordinary life for grassland people.Maybe the people in the city have accumulated too much wealth. While the material occupies the living space, it also occupies the spiritual space. All kinds of reluctance and reluctance to let go hinder their freedom.Do we own property, or does property hold us captive?

The children who helped Duoji catch the sheep before were the children of these herdsmen. The youngest was three or four years old, and the oldest was seven or eight years old.The most mischievous of these children is Radish, and Yifeng is attached to him as soon as the kid arrives. When the heavy rain stopped, Yifeng and I tidied up the tent, and Luobo handed us things.We only had quilts and no beds. Xiaoluobo brought a large pile of cow dung and muttered in Tibetan. He taught me how to pile up the dried cow dung. next person. Standing in front of the cow dung bed for the first time, I was a little hesitant. When I was in the city, I would never have thought that I would sleep on a dung pile one day.Even "Cinderella" in fairy tales is just sleeping in the ashes, and I broke her record by lying down.

"Don't you dare to sleep?" Rinzeng Wangmo laughed, "All you urbanites sleep... are milk tofu mattresses and worm silk quilts. This is too wronged for you." I guess what she wanted to say should be It's latex mattresses and silk quilts. "I'm not wronged, I just... communicate with the cow dung first..." I squatted in front of the bed, undecided. "Cow dung doesn't smell bad, it's actually bio-fermented grass cake." With that said, I feel much better.Who cares, fight it out, women can be particular, but there's no need to be coquettish.

When I first arrived in the grassland, I always felt that cow dung was dirty. After half a year, the cow dung was even with me!The longer you live on the grassland, the more you realize that cow dung is really a treasure. It can not only be used to light fires, keep warm, and paste walls, but it is also inseparable from the details of life.In grasslands, cow dung is as important as food and water.The winter in the grassland lasts for eight months. The nomads have no food and drink and can kill sheep to satisfy their hunger. But without cow dung to keep warm, they will freeze in one day. City people do not worship gas stoves, but cow dung stoves have a sacred status in the hearts of grassland people. The fire is prosperous and the family is prosperous. The cow dung stoves are not extinguished in four seasons. When the boiled broth drips and stains the stove, the owner immediately wipes it clean with an oilcloth, and respectfully puts a pinch of Tibetan incense.When it's freezing cold, even if someone's boots are soaked in snow, they must never put their feet on the stove to warm up. I built a bed of cow dung, put hay on it, spread bedding, and lay down in the nest. It was much more comfortable than a wire bed!The bed of dried cow dung insulates the moisture from the ground, gives off a little warmth of its own, and stores dry fuel at the same time, what a great way! It's just... It's not just me who loves cow dung, but also toads and mosquitoes. The gaps in the dung block provide them with refuge.Whenever he was attacked by mosquitoes, Yifeng would always scratch the red envelope on his body and mutter: "I was bitten by wild animals again." Hard to jump up. Yifeng also followed my example and built the nest bed. I thought he was clumsy, so I drove him outside to help the women. When everyone is busy, Yifeng is afraid that he will become an idler. Outside the big tent, Yifeng gave reasonable suggestions to the milking girls: "It's raining outside, and half of the bucket of milk you milk is full of water, why don't you take the cow into the tent to milk?" The girls snickered and bit each other's ears, and shouted to Yifeng: "You can do it!" Yifeng is often enthusiastic about "guiding work".When Duoji was milking the cows last time, he complained that the yak's tail kept slapping him in the face because it chased away mosquitoes, so Yifeng instructed him: "Why don't you tie a brick to the ox's tail and just drop the yak's tail. " Dorje adopted this good idea, and the tail of the ox was smooth. Dorji happily immersed himself in milking, but unexpectedly, the yak's tail was so strong that he even swung the tail with a brick, knocking the boy unconscious. Yifeng stuck out her tongue in fright, but Duoji's mother remained calm. She looked at her son, and took a dozen mutton buns from the pot for Duoji to keep aside: "Let him sleep for a while, and eat when he wakes up." After waking up, Dorje understood that "cherish life and stay away from Yifeng". Since then, Dorje has taught the girls this Chinese phrase specifically to deal with Yifeng - "You go ahead!" "If I go, I will go!" Yifeng took the rope on the horns of the yak and dragged it into the tent, but the yak didn't bother to pay attention to him.The girls just laughed. "If you can't get in, don't bother." Aunt Duoji cheerfully whipped butter. "Why?" Yifeng was very depressed, "Can't cows enter the tent?" The girls laughed even more happily: "I can't live. The cow knows." Although the heavy rain comes and goes, it is rare for families with a radius of tens of kilometers to live together, and it is as lively as a party. Over there, a few girls were kneading dirt and mud to do something, and the dolls were also grabbing handfuls of mud and kneading it into mud balls for a mud fight. I walked over to have a look with great interest: "What kind of mud is this? What is it used for?" "Clay, there is a lot of clay in our place. You can see that the yellow mud in the mountains is all clay mines. We dug clay to make an earthen stove, and it will harden when it is dried and burned." I became interested all of a sudden, so I stayed there and never left.I remember that there are many such yellow mud dug out by marmots on the Wolf Mountain. There should be many clay mines in the Wolf Mountain.If I had known that this clay could be used to make a stove, we would not have had to pitifully pile stones in a small pit to boil water during the days when we guarded the wolf den on Wolf Mountain.This technique had to be learned, so I simply squatted down to watch them make the stove. They mixed the clay evenly and flattened it on a piece of plastic cloth to make a clay tablet about 6 cm thick, 50 cm wide and 60 cm long, and opened a palm-sized door in the lower part of the clay board.Cut a 5 cm deep and 10 cm wide gap at the edge of the corresponding clay board above the door opening, and one side of the clay stove is ready.Do the same for the three clay boards, and when they are half dry, stand up the three clay boards to form a triangle with the notch facing upwards.Tap on the clay to connect the three clay tablets so they stand upright.Then make a rectangular mud tank and connect it to the top of one of the mud slabs.When it is completely dry, a simple mud stove in the field will be ready. Viewed from the side, the clay stove looks like a small beacon.Looking down from the top, the triangular tandoor with a square mud tank behind it looks like a big arrow. When in use, the mud trough above the stove is used to transport cow dung fuel.After the kettle or pot is placed on the triangular clay stove, the gap above each clay plate can allow the fire to breathe, and the door opening below the clay plate is used to take out the ashes.When the fire is lit in the furnace, the clay is slowly hardened and tends to be semi-ceramic, and it is no problem for an adult to step on it.This stove will last for months.If the owner intends to use it for a longer period of time, he can put a fire around the earthen stove and burn it fiercely. The longer the fire burns, the stronger the stove will be, because the clay will be completely potterized and almost as hard as fire bricks.This kind of stove is easy to obtain materials, as long as you can find clay, you don’t need to carry it around like a household item. After the nomads evacuate, the stove stays where it is, exposed to wind, sun and rain. Cracked and shattered, melted into the soil and entered the next reincarnation. Most of the herdsmen gathered here come from the depths of the grasslands, and they still maintain the traditions of Tibetan herdsmen, using clay stoves and black tents. Every time they pinch the stove, the dolls are at their most mischievous. The dolls love to play with mud by nature. After the mud fight, they are all muddy like mud monkeys. Now they lie on the ground and start making clay dolls again.I also have a very childlike heart, and my hands itch to see it for a long time. I used the excuse of amusing the children to make clay sculptures. I draw a lot of pictures on weekdays, but actually I like playing with mud more. What I mold out of mud are three-dimensional things, all-round and multi-angle, and more tactile.It's just that in the city, it's hard to find an inch of land, and the children in the city may not even have the opportunity to "pee and mud".Now I finally squatted in the mud, and I rolled up my sleeves with a smile.I liked playing with mud since I was a child. The "Legend of the White Snake" and the scenes I made when I was a teenager were sent to the province by the teacher. I won an award at the art exhibition. I didn't know it was called "sculpture" until I received the award. To put it bluntly I still play in mud. Squeezing "Big Ah Fu" is the easiest. I made one for the children to play with. The children shook their heads and said, "What is this? It's too fat, and people look like this, so they can't even lie down!" "Auntie, have you seen anyone?" "Would you pinch a decent thing we know?" I was scolded to the point of scratching my head. It was really a bad start, and I was washed away by the brat. "Okay, okay, what do you know? Let's hear it." "Yaks, sheep..." "And horses, riders..." Little Carrot jumped the highest: "Bang Ke! Bang Ke, I want Bang Ke! Weiyi pinch me a lucky boy, and there is a little one!" My heart warmed up, and the child still remembered them: "Okay, okay, Weiyi will pinch Bangke for you, little ones, get on the mud!" Little Carrot moved a big lump of mud: "Is this enough? I want one as big as Fuzai, and put it on my bed." "Uh... not enough, this is not enough anymore, he is so big." I grabbed another large piece of mud and added, "This is almost enough, okay, let's go!" The radish was happy to dance around me in rabbit steps, adding mud to me for a while, and wiping my sweat for a while, so that my face was covered with mud. "Wei Yi, when Fu Zai grows up, I'm going to pinch a big wolf for him and put him in the mountain to scare him!" Among the crowd, there was only one person who was silent—Nanka Abba.He looked haggard and had been resting in the tent and rarely came out.I heard from Duoji that Nanka's father was seriously ill, but the old man was unwilling to go to a big city for treatment.Abba said: "Life and death are a matter of fate. I close my eyes in the grassland, and I feel at ease." I saw my father sitting at the door of the tent, looking at the dark sky, shaking the prayer wheel with one hand, and dialing the rosary with the other, as if counting the days he had passed in his life, he whispered to himself: "This is not a good omen...not a good one It's a sign... It's the first time I've seen such a heavy rain disaster at this age." I sat beside him: "Abba, don't worry, everything will be fine after this rain is over." Abba shook his head slowly: "The grassland has its law, and if there is a big disaster, it will only get worse and worse. You don't understand. The grassland is going to change... It's going to change... Om mani padme hum..." Abba recited the scriptures and looked at the deep sky, with dark clouds in his eyes.