A Time Travel Effort in the 70s

After Shen Jiaren saw Liu Hui off, she washed up and lay down on the kang. She stayed awake all night until the alarm clock woke her up the next morning.

After getting up, Shen Jiaren cooked some noodles, added some tofu sauce she had made yesterday, and also cooked some vegetables.

When Shen Jiaren was eating it, she discovered that the tofu was cut into cubes and fried into a sauce. It tasted like meat, but it was not meat.

No wonder I didn't taste it when I ate it yesterday. I thought it was diced meat, just like the meat sauce. It would be a pity to eat this sauce with noodles only. It might be better to cook it with rice noodles or steamed buns.

After Shen Jiaren finished eating, she went out to the brigade warehouse to prepare for the autumn harvest.

When they arrived at the gate of the brigade warehouse, the brigade leader Liu Dashan began to arrange today's tasks. As it was the end of the autumn harvest, the elderly and children were all responsible for picking up the field stalks left on the ground in the fields. The young and middle-aged people were divided into several groups to thresh the rice in different wheat fields.

There was no drawing of lots for this task. Instead, people were assigned according to the tasks of baling and threshing. However, when threshing, they were divided into two groups. One group used "throwing rice buckets", one group used "pedal rice threshers", and another group used tractors in the brigade warehouse.

To be honest, when Shen Jiaren heard about the way Captain Liu Dashan selected people to do the two threshing tasks, she was very curious about what it was like. After all, it seemed that when Captain Liu Dashan selected people, he did not choose them based on the young and strong, but a combination of the old and the new? Not really, because some groups were also young and strong.

Shen Jiaren was transferred to the team that used tractors in the brigade warehouse. To be honest, Shen Jiaren was very curious because she had only seen wheat harvesting in the north, and this was her first time harvesting rice. Especially since this method was the first time she had heard of it, she was even more curious about what the scene was like.

After the teams were assigned, Shen Jiaren stood behind Aunt Xiao Zhou. Yes, this time, Shen Jiaren and Aunt Xiao Zhou were assigned together again, but they were not alone, but together with a group of people.

"Xiao Shen, follow me later. Do what I do, and learn from me. Then you won't be at a loss as to what to do and just stand there."

"Uh-huh"

After saying that, Shen Jiaren followed Aunt Zhou to the warehouse door to pick up furniture, but the two people received different things. One was something similar to Zhu Bajie's rake, but only the front part had spike teeth, and the other was something with three particularly large wooden points that looked like a fork.

Unfortunately, Shen Jiaren received something that looked like a fork, while Aunt Zhou received something that looked like a rake.

"Xiao Shen, what you got is a wooden fork, which is used to pick up rice stalks. You will see how to use this wooden fork later. It is very simple.

What I got is called a rake, which is one of the types. Look at the one my aunt, Aunt Zhou, is holding, which is also a rake.

Let's go, this tool won't be used for a while, we need to go to the wheat field in front of the warehouse to place the rice straw first."

"Arranging rice stalks??? Oh oh oh." After answering, Shen Jiaren followed Aunt Xiao Zhou to the wheat field.

Maybe because the threshing floor was quite large, there were eight people standing in the threshing floor holding tools, plus a tractor driver named Liu Hui, a total of nine people.

I saw one of the men and Liu Hui pushing a round stone over and tying it to the tractor.

The rest of the people started to take the rice stalks from the piles of rice stalks collected from the fields and place them on the threshing floor.

"Xiao Shen, come here, come here, watch how I spread it out and how I give it, and then you spread it out and give it the same way.

The first time you lay this out, don’t take too much, take less, and come back to get more after you’ve finished laying it out.”

"Yeah, thank you Auntie Zhou."

Shen Jiaren looked at the people around her, picked up a large bundle of rice stalks and started spreading them in the middle of the threshing floor. To be honest, Shen Jiaren was really afraid of bumping into seven people walking back and forth like that. But who would have known that two aunties would put down the rice stalks and start squatting there to spread them, while the remaining five people carried the stalks back and forth.

Shen Jiaren felt okay at this time. At least she didn't have to worry about doing something wrong and slowing down others.

While Shen Jiaren was carrying the rice to the aunties, she finally understood why the two aunties were squatting there spreading the rice stalks. The aunties' skill in spreading the rice stalks was something that not everyone could do. It was just like the live art works that Shen Jiaren had seen in modern times.

I saw two aunts starting from the middle of the threshing floor. The heads of the rice stalks were exposed outside, with the stems of the rice stalks pressed underneath. Layer by layer, circle by circle, they bloomed in the threshing floor like a blooming chrysanthemum.

The circle of rice straw was getting bigger and bigger, and each person's speed of carrying and spreading it was getting faster and faster. Shen Jiaren also sped up.

After a while, a huge rice stalk chrysanthemum bloomed in the wheat field.

At this time, the round stone was finally hung on the back of the tractor.

Liu Hui drove the tractor into the rice stalk chrysanthemums in the wheat field and began to circle around.

"Xiao Shen, let's step back. Don't stand on this edge. If the millstone falls off, it will be dangerous. Let's step back.

After the first threshing, we can stand inside and work with the tractor." Auntie Xiao Zhou said as she pulled Shen Jiaren back a few steps.

After hearing this, although Shen Jiaren had many questions, she nodded and took a few steps back following Aunt Zhou's steps.

After the tractor finished the first round, the rest of the people began to walk towards the center of the circle of rice straw.

Holding a fork like Shen Jiaren, he started picking up the rice stalks.

The person holding the pallet started dragging the rice out behind the wooden fork, while the person holding the wooden shovel shoveled the rice aside. Then one person holding a winnowing basket started shaking the rice in another corner to shake out the gravel, rice stalks and other things inside the rice.

Shen Jiaren looked at it for a while and felt that the wooden fork in her hand might be the better way to winnow the rice stalks. After all, the others required either quick hands and eyes or strength.

But after Shen Jiaren really got the hang of it, she found that it was not as easy as she had imagined to use the wooden fork to insert the rice stalks and lift them up. After all, it was easy to insert, but how to put it back so that the rice stalks could be crushed by the stone mill behind the tractor, or how to thresh the rice better, and how to not use up your waist and arms, all of which were abilities that Shen Jiaren did not have...

Shen Jiaren worked for a whole morning and found that it was no wonder that they had to rest for a day before doing this job again. This job was not easy and very tiring, and it was the kind that was tiring enough to make one die.

It is not tiring at all compared to harvesting rice. Harvesting rice just means bending over and harvesting, harvesting non-stop, and then carrying the rice back continuously.

As for threshing the rice, you have to move no matter what, and it is tiring no matter how you move. You are constantly exposed to the sun and covered in dust, which makes you itchy and uncomfortable.

The most important thing is that the dust from the rice stalks falls down and lands on people, which makes them itch constantly. People have to keep following the machine, because the rice grains are crushed after being threshed out, and they have to be paid as public grain. If the quality is not very good, the public grain will not be accepted there.

All morning, Shen Jiaren was either holding the rice or turning the rice, either turning it to thresh the rice or clearing the area.

Later on, several people even left the threshing floor. They were either checking the threshing condition of the rice stalks or piling up rice bales around the threshing floor. These rice bales would later be distributed to the people in the team for their use.

After all, the whole rice stalks can be used for burning, basically, but they can also be used to weave straw sandals, mats, farm tools, store things, and so on. At this time, many people will not use them for burning because it is too wasteful, and they use them for other purposes.

So there were not enough rice stalks to share, so during the autumn harvest, everyone cherished them very much.