Cold

When winter comes, the sheep and goats grow new coats, the horses put on their furry pants, and the camels put on their sister-in-law's new felt clothes (only the heavier camels are still bare-assed), and it seems that only the cows are still wearing their sparse hair. So only the cows got special treatment and slept in the nest like people, while the horses, sheep, and camels all spent the night in the open. At most, a wall of sheep dung was built around the sheep - what could be done to keep out the cold? I guess it's just protection against wolves.

In winter, we all work together to fight the cold. Every day we ate well and kept filling the stove with sheep dung (sheep dung has a weak fire and goes out quickly). As soon as the sheep left early in the morning, the people who stayed home turned over the wet parts of the sheep pens and dried them out. Then they spread the dry dung residue. Next, they had to clean the cattle pens, throw the wet dung and the dung that had been wet with cow urine and frozen and clotted through the skylight, and also put on the dry dung. The Shishbek family worked hard every day to drive the camels back to the sandbox for the night, checking that their clothes were not hanging up or falling off.

By the end of December, it was getting colder by the day. When they returned from herding, the sheep's backs were covered with snow, the horses were covered with frost and long ice streaks were trailing from the corners of their mouths. The cows and camels all had white eyebrows and white beards, and they all looked kind-hearted. As for the men who rode back, their eyelashes and eyebrows were covered with coarse frost, and their scarves and hats were white on the brim.

In those days, the radio station in Harbin broadcasted a cold snap forecast, saying that the temperature in the winter pastures south of the Wu River would drop to minus 42 degrees in the first few days of January, reminding the herders not to go too far out to graze. So everyone started making preparations. There wasn't much mud left, but Jumma still made some mud and glued the thickly frosted leaking corners of the walls. The next door finally put a plastic sheet over his barn to put a roof on it - it had been open before! I have a big problem with that. His cows were so frozen that they came home to my pen and couldn't be driven away.

We also braved the snow and plowed a dozen sacks of dry manure around the sheep pen, giving it a thick layer of "bedding".

My sister-in-law brought back a bucket of dry sheep manure and made a thick "mattress" for the sick sheep that was "hospitalized" in our nest.

When milking, my sister-in-law carried a broom and swept the snow off the back of each cow.

In the past, the horses were given four handfuls of corn as a nutritious meal every day, but now they are given five.

At morning tea, my sister-in-law would put a little cypress branch on the stove board, saying that the smoke and aroma from baking would banish colds.

The cold weather finally arrived, and every morning and evening the mercury column of the thermometer stopped at about -35 degrees (the lowest scale this thermometer could show). I would love to know how many degrees the coldest late at night will drop to, and whether the mercury column will keep shrinking into the lowermost bulb ...... but in the dead of night, even if I wake up, I don't have the courage to leave the hot blanket and run out to see ...... curled up under the blanket, thinking of the panda dog sleeping in the open air, it is very It is heartbreaking.

Sometimes at nine o'clock in the morning, the temperature has risen to minus twenty-four degrees, but at ten o'clock it will drop two degrees. There was even a day when it was 30 below zero at noon. It was so cold in the daytime with the sun! This is really rare.

The worst offenders at this time of year are constipated people ...... buttocks will freeze numb!

The calves also froze and went home early, once they got home, they went into their pens and didn't come out, not even caring about their mother's milk - that was their only meal of the day ah.

In the early morning at -35 degrees, drinking hot peppered tea, feet still cold. Just a meter away from the roaring fireplace, the mouth can still breathe white. I moved closer to the stove some, half a meter away, there is still puffing. Closer, a foot away, there is still breath. Closer again ...... Juma said, "What are you doing? Eat the stove?"

In the field when taking pictures, see the lens covered with a little dust, it is customary to blow a breath, the result is that the vapor immediately condensed on the lens, solidly frozen into a white frost, the more you rub the more blurred.

Finally understand why the ancients would say "acid wind shot eyes" - really very acid! It really is a "shot"! Looking into the distance with the wind, within a few seconds, tears flowed down my face and my eyes hurt. In addition to the tears in the cold air steaming, fogging full of lenses, and soon solidified into ice, immediately can not see anything. And the wind is obviously not a gale, only a little bit stronger than the breeze.

Also found one thing: when it is particularly cold, you can not whistle. Could it be that the lips are hard?

Even though the house was repaired carefully, it still leaked everywhere. A pot of snow in the room, put a night can not melt a drop.

No matter how everyone persuaded tea at dinner, I killed not to drink - afraid to get up at night to go to the toilet ......

In those days, Juma came back from herding sheep, while removing the cold heavy clothing, pulling off the big-headed boots, while gritting his teeth and saying: "Very good! Great! The colder it is, the happier I am. The colder it is, the happier I am. Forty degrees below zero is not good enough, it has to be fifty degrees below zero!" I hurriedly asked what was wrong, he said: "early to freeze off the feet forget, from now on will never be afraid to freeze feet!"

I asked, "Why don't you buy a pair of felt tubes?" The next door had a pair of felt tubes, which the two Shishbek brothers wore in rotation, fat and big, with shoes and calves wrapped tightly together, looking very warm.

He said sullenly, "Last year, but not this year."

Last year was a rare high cold snowstorm weather. I asked, "Did you break them last year?"

But he replied, "I left it at my father-in-law's house when I was on a visit."

......


In the days without sheepskin pants, Juma said he had to pull some firewood every hour to roast his feet in the snow while herding sheep. Once look at another half an hour to home, but still can not carry on, the fire to warm over, to continue to go home.

The good thing is that the ground nest is only later, the Kazakh herdsmen used to live in the winter felt house! He said that when he was young, a pile of fire in the middle of the felt room, everyone sitting around the fire, the face is hot, but behind the cold air swishing. Outside the felt room, in all directions, all winter. I can't imagine ...... at that time, poor Kazakh children, wrapped in a sheepskin for the winter, even no clothes and pants.

I said: "Which direction are you herding sheep today? I carry a thermos, walk to bring you tea!"

He said: "Expansive!"

But that night the first thing Juma said when he returned was: "I thought you said you'd bring me tea at noon? I waited all day ......"

Before entering the winter nest this time, my biggest concern was of course the cold. Because there was a rumor that this year's winter is "a thousand years of extreme cold", so the preparations are almost all put on the cold, dressed thicker than everyone else, attracted the ridicule of the shepherd.

At that time, when preparing clothes, I hated that one piece of clothing had the function of three pieces, so that I could bring two less pieces. According to this standard, I packed some of the ...... that I would never wear out on a regular basis, and in the words of my mother, "It's like the clothes of the Monkey King." Anyway, I appeared on the winter pasture, a person who is inexplicable, wearing inexplicable clothes more than reasonable.

I unpacked a sheepskin vest and sewed the sheepskin into a long cotton coat. To move my arms easily, I cut off the sleeves of the long cotton jacket, so that it became a long thick vest with a sheepskin lining, but unfortunately, it was too thin. A good friend, Chun, provided a down jacket that her son had outgrown after he grew up. Children's clothes tend to be loose and warm, so it's easy to move around, but unfortunately, they're too short. I also prepared incredibly fat camel hair cotton pants, a leg that can be loosely tucked into my two legs, but unfortunately too long. When I put them on, the pleats piled up from the back of my feet to my thighs ...... but this way the stride would not be very hard and it would be much easier to ride a horse (in fact, it would still not be able to bend and get on the horse by itself). To match the cotton pants, and set my mother's long pants. In short, inside and outside, wear everywhere fat. I thought I wouldn't look short by wearing fat, but I was even shorter. To hide all this, I caged the outermost a covering leather coat, covering to the neck. So much for the dragon robe.

I had a nice fleece hat, but unfortunately, it was too thin. Then creatively the other three not very good woolen hats are set together and sewn inside the fleece cap so that the thickness of two centimeters. Wear is still warm, never wind, but unfortunately too tight, strangled the brain pain ...... so and cut the side of the hat, help set a triangle of thick fleece cloth, this loose and comfortable, unfortunately, the appearance and shabby.

I also brought a sleeping bag, the sleeping bag claims to be able to withstand the cold -15 degrees. Bullshit. It turns out that fifteen degrees above zero can not resist. Even if fully dressed - the coat does not take off, the hat does not take off, gloves do not wipe, even wearing shoes throughout the drill, but also can not resist. But in any case, at least it is an impermeable thing, the big deal is to cover a bed of several kilograms of the wool quilt on top. Because I insist on sleeping in a sleeping bag, never too much trouble, Juma will call me "sack girl". I always said: If a bear comes at night, how can I run away?

Although up and down, inside and outside, day and night are so nasty, but, no cold is the hard truth. I am still satisfied with my equipment. Everyone was embarrassed to say anything about me, but when it came time to go out, they were worried about me and thought I was embarrassed to take it out.


By February 17th, my diary had the following content: Sunny and very hot. When Karma came back, we went to carry snow together, without hats and wearing only short jackets. During a break on the way, she said cheerfully, "Just like summer! Just like summer!" -- as if the winter of a few days earlier had been completely forgotten.