Author: Cui Furong
Not all perseverance has results, but there are always some perseverance that can cultivate hope from the frozen land. —Epigraph.
At the turn of the millennium, the Loess Plateau on both sides of the Yellow River was scorching. The barren land of Hanzui Village, Xipo Township, Xiangning County, is particularly resilient, and the people here are facing a fresh beginning.
That year, most of the farmers in southern Jinnan chose to cross the surging Yellow River to pick peppercorns at farmers' homes in northern Shaanxi to earn a little pocket money. As the saying goes, "Practice is the only criterion for testing truth." "Through practice, my fathers realized that this barren land, which has nourished them for generations, can also grow good varieties of pepper trees. The peaks of the Loess Plateau are undulating and magnificent, but it is precisely these thousands of ravines that have become the biggest obstacle for farmers to get out of the mountains. The fathers had to trek thousands of miles over the mountains and mountains, carrying heavy pepper saplings across the Yellow River Bridge to bring the peasants' desire for a prosperous life back to their hometowns.
My grandfather was a wise farmer who asked my father and cousin to bring hundreds of pepper saplings back to his hometown. When my grandfather heard about it, he cleaned up the few fields with a good geographical location in the family and put new hope on these pepper saplings. My grandfather used to say that I was "the same age" as the pepper tree at home. At that time, it took four to five years for the pepper tree to bear fruit. My grandfather and grandmother were energetic middle-aged people, and they took good care of the little saplings, and even if they did not bear fruit in a short time, my grandfather and grandmother patiently persevered year after year, turning the soil, fertilizing, weeding, and pruning day after day, hoping that they would bear fruit. It's like my mother taking the trouble to teach me to eat at the same time, watching me babble and toddle.
After thousands of sails, the pepper tree finally bears fruit, and the whole family will gather almost every midsummer to pick pepper and feel the joy of the harvest. I was only five or six years old at that time, and I first realized the appearance of Sichuan pepper, which happened to grow very well at that time, and a cluster of Sichuan pepper could occupy the palm of my hand. Pedestrians passing by in the fields are all comparing whose peppercorns grow better, and the eyes of the villagers are full of joy of harvest. However, the smell of peppercorns, sharp thorns and the scorching heat are the biggest tests for farmers. Sometimes, the people at the acquisition office go door-to-door to buy every now and then, and the color and variety are different. On a sunny day, spread the pepper into a thin layer, dry it in your yard for a day, and separate the pepper seeds from the shell of the peppercorns, so that you can produce better color peppercornsOn cloudy days, it is difficult to separate the pepper seeds from the shell of Zanthoxylum bungeanum seeds, but the color is mostly purple;Rainy days, but it has added great trouble to farmers, the picked pepper not only can not separate the pepper seeds from the pepper shell, the color will also turn black, the farmers have to rush home to rescue these peppercorns, so the weather is extremely important to the farmers.
After a few more springs and autumns, I gradually grew into a teenager, and so did the pepper trees, which my grandfather called "juvenile peppers". The growth of teenagers will always have some sharpness, and the same is true for pepper trees. It is the period when they grow most luxuriantly, and it is also the period when the long thorns are the sharpest. I often feel sad because I am pricked by peppercorns, and this is not the normal life of every farmerAnd I only experienced this hardship during the summer vacation, and I never felt the difficulty of sowing, weeding, pruning, and killing insects. Fortunately, the land under the pepper trees is free of weeds, and there are relatively few mosquitoes in the fields without weeds. The branches are pruned, as if the seats are arranged without crossing each other. In the process of picking peppercorns, the speed is not slowed down by the tedious entanglement of the branches, which is the credit of grandfathers and grandmothers.
With the proposal of the rural revitalization strategy, the leaders of townships and towns actively responded to the call of the state, led farmers to learn Xi agricultural knowledge, set off a wave of comprehensive poverty alleviation, and reflected the farmers' resolute determination to alleviate poverty in an all-round way. Every year, the villagers will concentrate on learning Xi agricultural knowledge about pepper planting, insecticide, and pruning. This move not only allowed the villagers to have a comprehensive understanding of agricultural knowledge, but also greatly increased the annual output of pepper, increased the income of farmers' families, and laid a strong foundation for winning the battle against poverty in an all-round way.
The year when I was facing the big test of my life was the darkest period for me. The peppercorn field is a pure land where I want to escape from reality. Under the scorching sun, the failed boy stood on the top of the pepper field, picking peppercorns and thinking about my future. At this moment, a careless pepper thorn pierced my forehead, and it was this peppercorn thorn in the middle of my forehead that woke me up, my life should not be like this. It is easy for Mo Dao to return home, and there are many things in the world that are worried. Since then, I have firmly believed that knowledge is the way to change my destiny on my life path. After a year of repeating, I was finally admitted to the university of my choice. I didn't let up when I got my acceptance letter, and I knew that my life had just begun. In that summer, I would go out early and return late to pick peppercorns with joy every day to earn a little pocket money for school. The purchase price of peppercorns that year was even more gratifying, and at the beginning of the school year, I used the summer harvest to buy the supplies I needed for the beginning of the school year.
Under the party's leadership, cadres at all levels serve the people wholeheartedly. In recent years, the Xipo Town Pepper Festival has been held in Hanzui Village, Xipo Town. The evaluation site of "Zhuangyuan Pepper" can be described as crowded, more than 30 large pepper farmers in the town have gone to participate, and experts selected "Zhuangyuan Pepper" through a series of criteria such as color, smell and body shape of Zanthoxylum. The winners of "Zhuangyuan Pepper" can get corresponding bonuses, stimulate farmers' motivation for pepper planting, and improve the quality and quality of Zanthoxylum. At the scene of the pepper festival, several popular online anchors in Xiangning County also happily went to contribute to the revitalization of the countryside, and they gave full play to their expertise to bring goods in the live broadcast room of the platform, so that more people learned about our hometown through major platforms, and also started the name of pepper in Hanzui Village, Xipo Town.
In the past, Hanzui Village was just an ordinary agricultural village. Nowadays, the local area has vigorously developed the pepper industry, registered the brand of "Hanzui pepper", extended the industrial chain, and collectively invested in the construction of a pepper processing plant. Therefore, Hanzui Village has also been listed as one of the key rural revitalization demonstration villages in Xiangning County. Under the strong support of leaders at all levels to farmers, the pepper of Hanzui Village, Xipo Town will surely move towards a larger market, and at the same time, more advanced pepper cultivation technology will be introduced, and the road to prosperity will be wider and wider
Our generation has witnessed the process of local pepper from seedlings to prime, and has also experienced the difficulty of agricultural production. From the closed sales channels and no one knows to the prosperous journey, it is the crystallization of the wisdom of the working people under the leadership of the party. I always firmly believe that the pepper brand in Hanzui Village has the older generation to open up sales channels and register the brand, and the new generation will bring it to the world. Cultivate top-quality Zanthoxylum pepper agricultural products, build a processing and production chain of Zanthoxylum pepper agricultural products, solve the employment problem of local residents, make the economy vigorously develop, and the people live and work in peace and contentment, and build a better home together.
The frost leaves are as red as February flowers, carrying thousands of rice flowers. In this pepper harvest season, every farmer has begun to take their basket early and return late to feel the joy of the harvest, the industrial development of more than ten years in this harvest season is vividly displayed, I wish the farmers in this pepper harvest season to earn a lot of money, but also sincerely wish Xipo Town Hanzui Village pepper festival to be held successfully!