Lazy Farmer's Farming Log 2: Using Up 34 Bags of Fertilizer in One Day

Looking at the fertilizer the director-general had delivered, I was mentally figuring out how to move all of it to the field for application, while counting how many bags there were in total: 1, 2, 3... 34 bags of fertilizer.

We had agreed on seven o'clock in the morning, and quite a while had passed, yet there was still no sign of the director-general. Too excited to wait for him to show up, I put on my work gloves, grabbed the corner of a fertilizer bag, and swung it onto my shoulder in one motion, just like the "working man" in the Paolyta advertisement, and feeling as energetic as if I had downed a can of "Mangniu." The full weight of the bag settled between my shoulder and neck, propped up by my neck, and as I walked to the field I was still estimating how to spread all this fertilizer evenly across the 1.4 fen of land.

After carrying seven or eight bags of fertilizer, I began to appreciate what Uncle had said about the old days at harvest time, when everyone had to hoist a 50 Taiwan-jin sack of grain onto the ox cart, which is why the older generation all got stunted from being weighed down by grain. Just when my fingers could barely grip the corner of the fertilizer bag, my arms could barely swing the fertilizer up to my shoulder, and my neck could barely hold up the bag, the director-general showed up driving a little blue truck.

"How long are you going to keep hauling like that? You've got to use your head for farming too!" the director-general said with a laugh.

"You've got to use your head for farming, huh? That fits us highly educated rookie farmers just fine," I muttered to myself.

Clearly, the manual haul-and-spread method I had come up with without using my "head" was not the best approach. The director-general told me to load all the fertilizer onto the truck; he would drive slowly while I stood on the rear bed, opening the bags and scattering the fertilizer. This way was indeed much smarter. I only needed to stand on the truck bed and shake the bags out one by one, which was truly a labor-saving and efficient method.

Just as I was secretly gloating that this lazy farmer had learned yet another lazy farming trick, the bumpy truck, along with the wheels that kept spinning in place, began to slip more and more frequently, killing my brief joy. "That's how it is, this field's been fallow too long, nothing's level, the truck just can't drive." The director-general noticed the problem too and said so from the driver's seat while driving.

So we tossed the remaining twenty-some bags of fertilizer one by one into the field, adopting a compromise between the manual haul-and-spread method and the drive-and-shake method: the drop-bag manual spreading method.

If the first step of fertilizing is getting the fertilizer to the field, then the second step is opening the fertilizer bags.

Don't think opening a fertilizer bag is some trivial matter. The bags are stitched shut with cotton twine, and if you yank hard on the string end at the corner, it only pulls tighter and becomes even harder to open. You have to pull the thread end out of the loop before pulling, and then it will zip open all the way in one satisfying tug. The reason I say "satisfying" is that I had been driven up the wall by those knots many times, until I used my "head" to study it properly and stopped yanking randomly, only then did I experience the delight of that effortless, clean pull all the way open.

Although the drop-bag manual spreading method is a compromise, manual spreading is still exhausting work. Naturally, as bag after bag of fertilizer is used up, you keep repeating the motions: open the bag, roll down the opening, bend down and grab a handful, straighten up and fling it. The human body is just like one of those "bird toothpick dispensers" I once saw in a restaurant, where you press down, it picks up a toothpick, and it springs up to hand you the toothpick.

But people are made of flesh, not like the bird toothpick dispenser that has no feelings, though maybe the bird toothpick dispenser does have feelings and we just never cared. Now I understand how hard it has it. Repeating these motions over and over, plus grabbing the corner of the fertilizer bag and dragging it to the right spot, I used to think it was a piece of cake, but after actually doing it, once both my mind and body were deeply moved, there really is only one phrase to describe it: "My back is killing me!"

And I really did savor that "my back is killing me" feeling. When I wanted to straighten up, I had to press my palm against my lower back from behind, and that really did make standing up more comfortable. Only then did I realize, this motion was exactly what I used to see Auntie doing in the field when she greeted me while I was out running, one hand propping up her back, the other waving in the air with a smile: "Ah-Zhong! Out exercising? Come sit when you're free!"

After it became my turn to have "my back killing me," when I first started spreading fertilizer I didn't know to watch the wind direction, so I grabbed a big handful and flung it up into the sky. When the breeze lightly blew the fertilizer, my whole face felt the kisses of the granules, just like walking on a beach with a strong wind. I was even secretly glad I hadn't opened my mouth to welcome it, because this time it wouldn't just be the salty taste of the seaside, it would also carry a thick stench of manure. But it also made me realize that nature really is closely tied to farm labor. It turns out the breeze doesn't just gently caress the rice ears, it also blows fertilizer reeking of chicken manure into my face. When spreading fertilizer you have to watch the wind direction, otherwise you'll end up with a "constipated face."

That first time fertilizing, I still had plenty of naive imaginings. Holding a handful of fertilizer in my hands, flinging it high into the sky, watching it scatter and fall in a parabola, listening to the rustling sound as it hit the grass blades, my heart was always filled with a joyful sense of satisfaction. I imagined that if I flung the fertilizer higher and spread it wider, working a bit harder and more earnestly to spread it evenly, then the rice could absorb nutrients evenly later, and the harvest would surely be better.

That naive joy lasted less than twenty-four hours. It was only when Uncle Chuanzong drove the tiller, its spiral-pasta-shaped blades churning, thoroughly pulverizing and mixing the dried, clumped soil, that I suddenly understood: the fertilizing process I had thought was so earnest was really just to satisfy my own sense of psychological accomplishment.

It turns out the ancients were right: when Heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on a man, it will first distress his mind, tire his muscles and bones, and starve his body... Farming truly is my great responsibility!