Love and Loyalty Furniture Swap Episode 2: We Are Not Happy at All

Because the workplace, Dawa Vegetable Shop, is about to move, Xiaobao and I have also moved to Pinghe Village in Shoufeng.
The old bungalow was an empty house, so we grow crops in exchange for furniture, and we called on friends to bring their secondhand furniture to the home.
First the furniture, then once the dust settles, only then do we plant sweet potatoes, corn, and peanuts.
Someone asked: "Won't you owe a lot of favors?"
"We can give them sweet potatoes! Someone even said they want wild garlic." I said, as if it were only natural.
What we owe, we repay with dreams.
Now, Xiaobao is mostly in the fields; I have begun writing field notes from time to time, to repay these friends who gifted us furniture.

[Part Two]

One afternoon, he dragged over a lot of dead tree trunks and spent the whole afternoon busy in the backyard, until the next day when I walked over and found Cuban oregano, rosemary, scallions, and kohlrabi, all neatly laid out in different sections under his "attentive" design. I also saw a frame that looked like a rocket stove, and I laughed and asked what he was going to do with it. He said he was going to grow tomatoes with it.
Now I like to go to the backyard in the morning and give these guys a drink of water. When I water them, somehow
I can smell their fresh fragrance. Faint, as if they are responding to me too.

Sounds lovely, doesn't it? It isn't. All lovely things are exchanged for a great many struggles and waits. Our backyard, ever since I finished pulling the weeds, had been idle for quite a while. Now there are a few things growing in it, a bit of planning, a bit of hope, and I cherish it very much. I use this to urge myself to go visit the backyard often.

So, everyone knows now, right? We are not living it up at all!! You should know that the Peach Blossom Spring disappeared ever since the man from Wuling visited it during the Taiyuan era of the Jin dynasty. Nothing can stay blissful forever. As for me, because of blah blah blah I accidentally wrote too much about my frustrations in the fields, and it is time to wrap up. I still haven't written about the frustrations with bread, so I will just have to talk about Xiaobao's arduous, tormented bread chronicle in a few days.

May we all be blessed to, one after another, fly over every frustration. Just like wheat that is glorious even when eaten up, and corn that musters its spirits even when it bears no fruit.

The Pinghe Home - Chongzi & Xiaobao