Lazy Farmer's Farming Log 3: The Happiness of an Ant Stepping into a Cream Cake

The field, after being worked over by the rototiller, was completely transformed from its formerly grass-covered state and suddenly looked fresh and clean. After flooding it for a day, it was time to move on to the step of preparing the land by hand, but this rookie farmer walked along the edge of the field and looked and looked, yet just could not tell where it was high and where it was low; the surface of the field soil about 10 cm below the water did not appear to have much difference in height.

As I stood in the field full of doubt, dragging a big rake around and giving it a couple of token pushes, Great-Grandpa Bo rode by on a bicycle. Just from the way he is addressed, "Great-Grandpa Bo," you can tell he holds a very high seniority in the village; at around seventy-some years old and being called great-grandpa, you can understand that the hierarchy of seniority and juniority in the countryside is based on generational rank, not on age.

I waved my hand in the field and shouted: "Great-Grandpa Bo! Help me see where it is level and where it is not level."

"This plot of yours is too flat!" He stopped his bicycle, took one look, and answered, then added: "Some of ours are like mountains, some are like seas!"

The lazy farmer wondered to himself, how could there be such a thing as a field being "too flat"? It was probably just Great-Grandpa Bo seeing this clumsy three-legged-cat rookie farmer and casually making polite conversation. Even if my field is neither like mountains nor like seas, do those little hills and small creek ditches not matter? Perhaps because of his politeness, my heart was also filled with confidence, and after dragging the big rake around putting on a show for ten minutes, I took a rest.

And just like that, the puddled soil preparation was finished; actually, it was not as tiring as I had imagined.

After farming for so long, from fertilizing and flooding all the way to puddling the soil, only now did I have the chance to step barefoot into the field. Before going in, I did not know how deep I would sink; at the moment my foot went down, I felt that the mud was very soft and loose, warm in temperature, with a kind of happy feeling like an ant stepping into a cream cake. It was not quite to the point of struggling with every step, only with a bit of extra resistance. When the mud squeezed out from between my toes, it made me think of the old woman at the vegetable market making handmade fish balls, squeezing the fish paste out from the tiger's mouth between her thumb and index finger.

Walking forward step by step, I discovered that the underlying height of the field soil was actually uneven, possibly related to differences in the depth tilled by the rototiller. Wherever a foot stepped, it would create a deep sunken hole, and at the moment the foot was lifted, water would flow into the hole like a waterfall.

After stepping through the mud, walking barefoot on the threshing ground, with a thick layer of mud between the soles and rubbing against the concrete surface, gave a very reassuring sense of pleasure. Unlike in the past, when I was used to wearing shoes, there was a kind of worry and unease that my feet would get dirty if they touched the ground. My feet were no longer always separated by shoes and socks and deprived of sensation; so this was the leisurely ease of the country uncle wearing his barefoot "leather" shoes.