My world is snowing

Author: Chi Zijian
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features:
The most afraid of spring wind is perhaps snow. The spring wind, like a huge broom, sweeps the snow on the ground leisurely. It sweeps day by day. At this time, the larks come, the sun's rays become soft, the ice river bursts with passion, flows, tender green sprouts push through the humus soil on the sunny slopes, and the Dazixiang flowers bloom like the morning glow, scattered here and there. Spring comes with sound and color. My childhood memory of spring is linked with an old mute. In a remote and desolate small town, a life with defects, their names are as fragile as the wings of autumn butterflies, gradually broken by wind and cold. No one remembers his real name; everyone calls him the old mute. He looks like he is in his forties or fifties, extraordinarily black, extraordinarily thin, with a long neck, the exposed veins on it often remind me of several earthworms crawling haphazardly. The old mute fed the livestock in the production team, and every morning and evening, one could often hear the sound of him cutting grass—hooo, rustling, the sound was like a woman scraping fresh fish scales with a knife, or like a man rushing to split firewood with a sharp axe. The most outstanding dye in this world must be autumn frost. As soon as it arrives, the green mountains change color. When it first appears, the leaves just turn yellow slightly, and at this time, the mountains look more like a field of wheat overflowing with the spirit of harvest. After the second frost falls, the light yellow leaves turn golden or burnt red, and the mountains are like wearing a hat of red and yellow. And if you enter the forest bathed in the third frost, which is even more intense, you can see any color you want. Most of the leaves are golden and golden-red, but there are also pinkish yellow, greenish pink, redish green, purplish red, and brownish purple. At this time, the mountains are clearly a spring garden, colorful. We call this kind of mountain "Five-Color Mountain." When the Five-Color Mountain surrounds us, the wild geese fly south, the river flows slowly, the clouds in the sky are not as many as in midsummer, the sky appears exceptionally high and exceptionally blue. People hang all kinds of vegetable seeds on the mountain walls, starting the autumn harvest. And the hardest work in the autumn harvest is digging potatoes. Potatoes can be used as vegetables, as staple food, and as feed for livestock. In that era when grain was rationed, potatoes were widely planted.