The main staple food in this part of the country consists of wheat and millet. Wheat or millet flour is made into noodles or dumplings before consumption. Unlike bread which is baked in an oven, noodles and dumplings are cooked with a soup in a pot. They are eaten hot together with different salted vegetables. People also eat steam bums, but not baked bread. Wheat and millet must be grounded into flour before they are made into noodles or dumplings, and therefore stone grinding rollers are common sights in all villages. The picture on the left below shows a large grinding roller being pulled by a donkey.

Usually after harvest the entire crop will be dried in the sun before it is processed. Drying is also needed for preservation. In the picture on the right above a large quantity of corn is being strung up into towers, resting against the house, to be dried under the sun. After the corn is dried, the corn kernels are stripped from the cobs. The kernels are then grounded into flour before being consumed as food. Nowadays, corn is used mainly as animal feed. Corn stalks are used as firewood.

It is not clear what's the other crop lying on the ground in the courtyard. [Let me know if you can identify it.] The bright red crop placed on the mats looks like dates. This region produces many less well-known crops, which may not be familiar to you. Let me show you some of them.

The picture on the right shows a good harvest of walnuts. Here, the villagers are cracking the hard shell of the walnuts to extract the soft kernel within. The shell is cracked by hammering it with a wood stick over a stone tablet. Marketing walnut kernel can bring in a good supplementary income.

A rather exotic fruit being harvested is the lily, a picture of that is shown on the left. In Chinese literature the lily flower symbolizes purity and perfection, which are the beautiful attributes of young girls in adolescence. As a crop lily is marketed for its medicinal value. Made into a tonic, it is prized for its special nourishment (though I have no idea what it is exactly). The picture on the right shows a lily crop is being selected before processing.

Another exotic crop being processed for its medicinal value is the root of "milk vetch," 黄芪 huang qi, which is made into a precious traditional Chinese medicine, with qualities like "relieving perspiration, treating febrile diseases and healing wounds." The medicine is particularly popular in South East Asia, in places like Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore and Indonesia. The picture shows a plant processing the roots of milk vetch. As you can see from the size of the operation, it is not in high demand.

Apple is by far the largest fruit crop in this part of the country, especially in the southern part of the basin. Known for its high sugar content, apple produced here is being exported to places all over the world. Being hot in the day time and cold at night, excessive daily temperature variations cause apples to retain sugar, which is why the apples grown here are sweet. The picture (below, left) shows a plate full of "Double Happiness" apples. Another favorite fruit crop is the pomegranate (below, right).

Other wild fruit plants are: wild apples (left), gooseberry (right)

. . . . rose fruits (left), Viburnum dialatatum 荚迷 (right),

. . . . also Cistanche salsa 肉苁蓉 (left), and seabuckthorn 沙棘 (right)