readytorunbook Chapter 112 Working hard
Chapter 112 Working hard
The persimmons on the tree looked very good. The two brothers Li Weikang climbed up the tree and could see clearly from close up. They found that some of the persimmons had signs of being bitten by birds and insects, and some were rotten. They picked the good ones.
Some places on the tree were too high, so they had to poke them with long sticks, while Li Benfu, Chen Dawei, Xia Qingyue and Chen Yuzhen held sacks to catch the fire.
They were busy until after three o'clock, and all the good persimmons were collected in six large backpacks and five sacks.
The men were carrying things on their backs and lifting things, but Xia Qingyue and Chen Yuzhen were empty-handed.
Go back to where you hide your things and share today's harvest.
Han Zhibai said to Xia Qingyue: "I don't want the persimmons and badger fat, but I want some star anise and cinnamon. How do you think we should divide the prey?"
Considering today's rich harvest, she wanted to get some more Chinese tallow fruit when she walked back later. "Well... I don't want civets, how about giving me pheasants and rabbits?"
There is only one civet cat and no one of its kind. I am afraid it will be difficult to raise it if I bring it back home, so it is better to be safe and raise chickens and rabbits.
Today we hunted five pheasants and eight rabbits.
"it is good."
The three parties divided up today's harvest and each carried their own things. Han Zhibai from the Li family took the initiative to help share most of Xia Qingyue's heavy things.
They had harvested a lot today, so they carried the goods twice to the stream.
After helping to carry the load for the second time, Han Zhibai and Xiaobai left first.
Xia Qingyue and the Li family came to the tung tree carrying some things and picked two sacks of tung fruits.
A sack of tung oil fruit weighs about thirty to forty kilograms. Brother Li Weikang and his brother each got a sack. They took down the persimmons that were originally tied to the backpack and replaced them with tung oil fruits tied at the bottom and persimmons tied at the top because persimmons cannot be crushed.
Everyone was carrying a lot of things, and although they were tired, they felt extremely at ease and satisfied in their hearts.
Just like before, he made two more trips to carry the things to the downstream of the stream where Xia Qingyue lived, which was near the pepper tree.
Everyone was exhausted from running around carrying things on their backs, so they took a rest on the spot for a while.
After a good rest, the Li family hid some of their belongings and carried them back on their second trip.
"Uncle, aunt, you must be careful when you go hunting in the dense forest!
I will come to visit you later when I have time."
Chen Yuzhen held Xia Qingyue's hand, her eyes slightly red, "Okay, okay, you have to be more careful too, come to us anytime if you have any problems."
Xia Qingyue nodded obediently. She smiled at the Li family, all of whom had expressions of reluctance on their faces.
After watching the Li family leave, Xia Qingyue moved the things one by one to a dark place farther away and hid them, and then brought them back in five trips.
The last time she came back, she entered the tiankeng in the dark.
After living here for a few months, I have become familiar with the layout. Even if it is pitch dark, I can still grope my way to the kitchen table and light a candle.
She was so tired that she sat down on a stool, her breathing became smoother, and she drank three cups of water to quench her thirst.
Heihei was also drinking water from his water bowl with slurps.
After sitting and resting for a while, the chickens, ducks and rabbits cried out in hunger. She chopped up wild grass and pumpkin, mixed it with a little rice bran to feed the chickens and ducks, and picked up the chicken and duck eggs.
Eight eggs.
Five ordinary duck eggs and four fertilized duck eggs.
The rabbits eat wild vegetables and pumpkin seeds.
The rabbits that were hunted recently were very adaptable. They were not afraid when they saw her enter the pen. Instead, they came closer to her when they smelled the aroma of food.
Three of the rabbits were pregnant and had slightly bulging bellies.
She squatted and watched the rabbits eat. "While the weather is not too cold, we can hatch a batch of ducks and raise a batch of rabbits. This will continue until the end of the year. There will be no shortage of fresh meat."
After taking care of the poultry, Xia Qingyue started to cook dinner with Heihei.
Add water to a pot, put in a bowl of egg liquid mixed with water, and a bowl of chopped pumpkin and steam it.
After more than ten minutes, it was almost cooked, so I took the iron pan, added lard, and stir-fried a plate of fresh mushrooms.
I've been eating too much barbecue at noon these days, and it's a bit greasy, so I'll just keep it simple and eat light food at night.
I gave most of the eggs and the other half of the pumpkin to Heihei. She eats pumpkin as her staple food. The pumpkin she grows herself is sweet, soft and delicious.
After dinner, she sorted out the supplies she brought back today, refined the badger fat, put it in a small ceramic jar, and placed it in a cool place.
Instead of taking a walk to help digest her food tonight, she sat on a stool beside the dining table and picked the tung trees from the branches.
After smearing for more than half an hour, she took the beeswax candles to the poultry house where they were building. The candle wax dripped and stuck to the stools, two on each side of the east and west.
She took up her hoe, jumped into the partially dug pit, and began to work hard.
The candlelight was dim and swayed in the wind.
Under the warm yellow light, she swung a hoe, and her figure, working tirelessly, was projected onto the dug earth wall.
The excavated soil was put into wooden buckets and carried up to the open space next to it for future use.
When digging, Heihei stayed with her in the pit. Even when he was so sleepy that he nodled his head like a chick pecking at rice, he refused to leave even though she called him several times to go back to his room to sleep.
Not long after digging, her whole body became hot and sweaty. She rolled up her sleeves and trouser legs and slowed down. It was like running. If you run too fast at the beginning, you will feel weak afterwards. As the saying goes, more haste makes waste. She should adjust her pace and have enough energy to run again.
After digging for more than an hour, she was exhausted. She was panting with flushed cheeks. She finished her work for the day and called Heihei to go up and wash up.
Heihei has been going out every day recently, so she would use a cloth to scrub his entire body with warm water every night to make it cleaner.
After washing up and lying on the bed, Xia Qingyue, who was so sleepy that she could hardly open her eyes, thought about tomorrow's plans and fell asleep in a daze.
In the middle of the night, she woke up from the cold, her mind still confused.
The straw mat was cold, and a thin quilt was half pressed on her body, while the other half covered her.
At daybreak, she woke up and opened her eyes. She gradually regained consciousness and the first thing she felt was a chill on her neck and shoulders. She wrapped herself tightly in the quilt and turned over. Her feet touched the straw mat and her legs trembled and bounced up due to the cold.
"Hiss, it's cold. Let's take down the straw mat. It will be terrible if I catch a cold."
She felt cold when she slept in the middle of the night the past two days, so she wanted to remove the straw mat. However, it was a bit hot in the first half of the night, so she thought about waiting for a few days to see.
It was cool in the early morning, so she put on a thin long-sleeved shirt and wore it outside. She washed up, fed the chickens, ducks, and rabbits, and cooked porridge and hard-to-cook vegetables for breakfast.
After completing a set of daily routines, the morning sun rose and she went to dig the foundation pit.
She thought of digging in the morning and evening when it was cooler, and doing other things in the rest of the time.
After digging for more than two hours, her stomach was growling with hunger, so she went up to get some warm water and washed her body, feeling much refreshed.
When the lid of the iron pot in the front stove is opened, fragrant hot steam wafts out, and the pot contains cured pig's trotters and dried cowpeas.
"It smells so good. I'm so hungry."
She swallowed, turned around and grabbed some kimchi from the kimchi jar.
Heihei eats porridge and chicken and duck eggs, while she eats rice and vegetables.
She always eats until she is 90% full for breakfast so that she can have the energy to face a new day.
She had to hurry up and make the candles these two days, so she still used tung oil fruit to rub the leaves in the morning.
The whole morning passed like this, and all the tung oil trees were harvested.
When it was time for dinner, she had not finished the cured pig's trotters stewed with dried beans from the morning, so she cooked rice and fried a wild vegetable. She quickly finished the meal, cleaned up, washed up, and climbed into bed for a nap.