Self-sufficient life | "Writers" and writers (3)

Author | Kou Yanding

Editor | Crane bitter frog

Editor's note: Sister Kou has always been a looming writer—now, she is lying on some book covers or hanging on the producer list of series contributors; Like work. In the third article of the self-sustaining life series, the writer hired people to build the four seasons vegetable garden and sun room. In the process, he learned some details of how to make a living from the masters, and also learned a word: "writer".

This "writer" is not another writer

"Yo ho! I'm still a writer." When Master Yu said that to me, he was stunned for a moment: I didn't say anything, did I?

After thinking about it again and then smiling, I learned a Tai'an dialect. The emphasis is on "zuo", read three times, long pronunciation, "home" with children - "writer": an expert who can make good use of tools and can work

Master Yu said this because I picked up the guy to level the ground. They dug ditches and troughs, causing the peaks and valleys to rise and fall, and they stumbled while walking. My small yard is only the size of a palm, either on the beams in the ditch, or on the rose blueberry and kiwi seedlings. They just hurry up and don't repair the land, and the repair is not only pleasing to the eye, but also saves the life of my baby.

"The writer" makes me happy. It was so easy to hold back that I didn't climb down the pole, and took the opportunity to brag that I knew how to farm.

They are not only metalworkers, bricklayers, and masons, but also people who cultivate the fields of nearby farms, and are real laborers. Saying this is to give me a tall hat. I was surprised that an old sister with books on all sides started her hands quite arrogantly. But if I really take myself as a writer, I don't know how high the sky is.

During the construction period, they were very emotional about their labor ability. I love hands-on, but many times I fail to grasp the essentials. They are not only light-hearted because of the difference in physical strength and strength, but especially the subtleties of using the body and tools in the work, which is admirable.

For example, chainsaws and electric drills, I have them, I love them, and I can use them, but they're all quite laborious and clumsy. If you want to cut the angle iron, you must first install the tools, lay the ground, have a tape measure and a line drawing pen at hand, follow the operating procedures, put it to the bottom, put it on the top, start it, saw it down, and then cut it according to this procedure. Two knives.

They started with the right hand handle and left-hand angle iron, just like me, but immediately after sawing, they used the newly sawed angle iron as a ruler, and they drew a mark along the way, folded it over and continued to open another one, and then, even the sawing did not stop, With a swing of the left hand, adjust the angle iron to 90 degrees, and do not put it firmly on the base. Grab it directly under the rotating saw blade in the hand, and cut the right-angle broken line in the air, and then shake the hand again to remove the burrs. , in the next process will not hurt hands or hurt people. The whole process is extremely smooth, and the sound of the chainsaw is almost non-stop.

In addition to the first measurement with a ruler, the next step is to find the size, and ensure that it is welded tightly. It can be said that this operation is not standardized, but what is the purpose of standardized operation? The purpose is to operate stably without deviation and user safety. There is no problem with the stability of their grasping angle iron. The human-machine matching is highly safe, and the efficiency is countless times that of mine - "Writer".

As a writer, I can be regarded as a person who loves hands-on work and can work, but in terms of labor ability, compared with them, it is almost a ruined life.

Writers also have "writers"

Of course, there are also "writers" among writers, such as Thoreau, who wrote "Walden".

At the end of March 1845, Thoreau came to the forest by the lake with a borrowed axe and began to chop down trees to build a house for himself. On July 4, Thoreau moved into a house he built himself: "This way I have a house that is airtight, nailed with wood chips, and plastered with plaster." On the shore of Walden Pond, Thoreau's wooden house is almost 14 square meters It looks like there is an attic, a small room, two doors, two windows, very transparent. There is a fireplace in the house, a two-meter-deep cellar outside the house, and a sloping house built with the remaining materials from the building, with complete living functions. All this was built by Thoreau's own hands.

Of course, building materials were also purchased, Thoreau has detailed records, and it cost a total of $28.125, including two boxes of lime, a thousand old bricks, and two old windows and glass. In order to give people a reference to this cost, Thoreau mentioned that the annual rent of a student dormitory is 30 yuan at the Harvard University-Cambridge College where he is studying.

A writer like Thoreau was a "writer".

"Writer" on the prairie

The American children's literature classic, "The Cabin on the Prairie", tells the true life story of the Ingalls family. From the perspective of Charles' daughter Laura, a little girl of six or seven years old, the process of building the house is recorded. The family drove the carriage from Constance to Kansas. The carriage went on the prairie to a place where there was no road. Charles shouted "stop": "This is where we are going to build a house and live."

Charles lived in the carriage with his wife and three young daughters. He wanted to build a house and live there, he did what he said, unloaded the items from the car, and drove away: "Dad is going to the bottom of the ditch to load a carload of logs and come back."

It sounds like there is a timber factory at the bottom of the ditch, but in fact, this is an uninhabited prairie. From where they parked, they could see the treetops by the riverbed. Laura didn't see the process of the treetops turning into logs, only the result, "Dad sat on a cart of logs and drove the carriage back." Then, one car after another. Then, start building wooden houses out of these logs.

One person built the house to the height of three-story logs, and he needed Laura's mother to help the wood, and quickly built it to a height that Laura couldn't climb. At this time, the mother was hit in the foot by the falling log, and without help, the building stopped.

Fortunately, there is a neighbor across the river, who is also a person who migrated from afar to prepare to start a family from scratch. They built the house by au pair, and with the help of Mr. Edwards, they built it to the required height in one day - building a house on the prairie, so to speak, it is simple and rude, so willful and so easy.

That night, the family moved into a new house with no doors and roofs. Because Dad heard the howls of wolves nearby, it was safe to let his wife and daughter live in a place protected by a wall.

A hero doesn't need nails

The wolf came as soon as he said it, without waiting for their door to be in place. Laura woke up in the middle of the night by the howl of a wolf. Dad carried her to the window. "Wolves form a half circle in the moonlight." In another window, see "On the other side of the house, is the other half of the circle of wolves".

Laura lay on the bed "hearing the sound of their claws on the ground and the gruff sound of their noses sniffing through the cracks in the wall".

Early the next morning, Dad started making doors. The tools at hand are the axes, saws, knives and drills that you bring with you. The raw material for making the door is still the log at the bottom of the ditch, and of course, labor.

He has no nails. More than 20 years earlier, Thoreau's house building expenditure list already included iron pieces and screws, which were the general building materials of that era. But to buy the nails to go to town, and back and forth for at least a whole day, with the wolf by my side. Dad wants a door immediately: "A man can build a house or make a door without nails". He built the house without spending a penny, and he did not use nails. He used an ax to cut out sockets and tenons to fasten logs. I have tried wooden dowels for doors, but it takes a long time to get one, and the quality is extremely poor. Laura had brought it all together with the phrase "all with good sturdy dowels", showing how lightly it was in her dad's hands.

used to be a "writer"

The story of the Ingalls family is not too far away, it is just the era of western pioneering after the American Civil War, more than a hundred years ago. Similar experiences are not isolated cases. In the west surrounded by wolves, thousands of pioneers are similar.

I have met many such "writers" myself. More than ten years ago, I filmed a documentary by the Jinsha River, and lived in the mansion of my cousin Ferry. The large mansion has two entrances. Besides the fish pond, chicken coop, livestock shed, orchard, vegetable field, and Chaliao stove room, there are two floors with carved doors and windows.

The land there is precious, and every inch of land is so precious that no one is willing to use any land that can be planted to build a house. Twenty years ago, this place was still Shiliangpo, where no grass grew.

"Family disciples with four walls" said that they were poor, but when their cousins and aunts got married, they were so poor that they had no walls and lived in their parents' house. They build sheds and live in the mountains every winter when they are slack. They cut wood (the trees they planted many years ago), cut stones, burn lime, and dig soil to burn bricks and tiles. How did the "mansion" come to be? Almost zero cost, the building materials are all from your own hands and the land, and the labor comes from au pair.

Regardless of whether the house is large or cramped, the riverside people live a life of self-sufficiency from oil extraction to wine making. Pushing it forward for another twenty or thirty years, it even includes growing mulberries, raising silkworms, spinning, spinning, and weaving garments. People who are particularly particular will plant a piece of highland barley in addition to wheat, and the wine they brew is particularly moving. My aunt just like this, let my uncle be intoxicated by the highland barley wine for 20 years. Here, every person and every family lives alone between heaven and earth, and is a self-sufficient "writer" who interacts and dialogues with nature.

It doesn't matter whether you build a house yourself or not, what matters is the ability to make good use of your body and limited tools in your own living environment. Once, this was the most fundamental survival ability of the human race.

The human race was not destroyed by the wolf race. In the process of evolution, it did not starve to death in the natural selection of things, and stood out as the spirit of all things. What did it rely on?

The difference between man and animal is the use of language, fire, and the use of tools. Civilization has developed human progress, the ability to use fire has reached its peak, and modern industrial civilization has grown based on fossil fuels. There are more and more writers using words. However, are our ability to use our bodies and tools in use? Still retiring?

In Thoreau, in Charles, in the hands of uncles and aunts, tools are not only an extension of the human body, but also an extension of human autonomy. Today, tools are not what they used to be. They can be computers, keyboards, or aircraft, ships, excavators, and crawler vehicles. It seems that human tools are becoming more and more powerful. However, you must know that the longer the distance chain between our hands and labor and these tools, the more human beings lose control of the tools, and even to a certain extent, become controlled by these tools, but lose our Life is autonomous.

No matter where you are, a real "writer" is someone who can make good use of the most basic tools at hand and use his own labor to meet needs and benefit others. So, are there more and more people like this now, or are they less and less? Am I such a person myself?

"Let the wolves howl, Pa and Jack (their old dogs) are there, they can't get in." Laura fell asleep surrounded by the wolves.

There are fewer and fewer wolves in this world, why can't I sleep soundly when there are no wolves around?

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