OBS Chapter 387 Following the Villagers into the Mountains
Chapter 387 Following the Villagers into the Mountains
Zhou Guo carried a basket in each hand, two full baskets of rotten soil mixed with mud and fallen leaves. Zhou Mai and Zhou Mi each carried one basket, and she carried one in each hand and quickly went down the mountain. If you didn't know, you would have thought she was carrying two empty baskets.
The old man also came to help after he came down the mountain. Now half of the vegetables in the garden are grown by him. When this piece of land is developed, he will probably be in charge of it, and naturally he will have to do a better job of it.
The family worked on the back mountain for three days and scraped almost the entire hill, raising the rocky ground by two feet!
Zhou Guo clapped his hands and said happily, "That's good. At least there will be enough food. If that doesn't work, we can open up the land next to it. At worst, we can just move more soil and water it."
Li shook her head and said, "No, there is a large stone slab below. Even if we have to dig, it would be better to dig along the river."
Zhou Guo nodded, thinking that these were enough for the time being.
The soil is ready, and the next step is to plant vegetables.
Cucumbers, beans, choy sum, pumpkin, loofah and onions have been planted.
He didn't know what to plant on this cleared land. After thinking about it, Zhou Guo took out some soybean seeds, dug some holes, planted three or two seeds in each hole, and covered them with a thin layer of soil.
There is not enough food at home this year, so all the land is used to grow wheat. However, there are horses at home, and soybeans are necessary. She simply planted soybeans on the whole land. Then she can eat tender edamame, which can also be a dish.
She also planted melon seeds in the corners of the two vegetable gardens. There were about seventeen or eighteen trees. Her family also loved eating a lot of melon seeds.
I weighed out so many melon seeds during the Chinese New Year, but they were all eaten before the 15th day of the lunar year. This year I grew some myself. Although not much, the harvest can satisfy my craving.
The busy farming season in the village is almost over by this time.
After finishing their work, there was nothing to do, so every household went into the mountains carrying a backpack and a machete.
The firewood stored for the winter is gone, so I have to go chop some. Various wild vegetables in the mountains have also come out. It’s the lean period at home now. The only things on the table for three meals a day are pickles. I’m going to get some wild vegetables.
If you come across some precious medicinal herbs or something, you can pick them up and sell them for money.
Zhou Guo's seedlings were growing vigorously. There were still ten days before transplanting. After she harrowed the field again, she put on a small backpack, took Zhou Xing, Li and the old man, and followed the villagers into the mountains.
This time they went in another direction, towards the village entrance.
Chen was also inside, and she chatted with Li, "I see your Guoguo has started to harrow the fields again. Are you going to plant the rice seedlings?"
Li said, "It should be soon. She is the only one who is in charge of these two acres of land. I didn't say a word the whole time, from tilling the land to raising rice seedlings. I did whatever she asked me to do, and I didn't ask any questions."
Chen disagreed, "How can you not ask? Even though you let her take care of it herself, you should know what the child is doing and what progress she has made. If you don't help her watch over her, she might get the season wrong and harvest one day less food if she's late."
Li smiled and said, "She doesn't want me to manage it. We have an agreement. If she manages these acres of land well and the harvest is good, I plan to hand over all the land in our family to her next year. We just need to follow her and work behind her. She works very hard. Don't worry, she will not forget to plant rice even if she forgets to eat."
"That's good." Chen nodded and smiled, "Thank goodness that your family is so rich that you can spoil your child so much and even give her the land at home to play with. In my life, I have never seen anyone give land to children to play with."
Li said, "She bought the two acres of land with her own money. You know, although she is young, she is very opinionated. She said she wanted to grow rice, so she went to find a piece of land and bought rice seeds. She did everything by herself and didn't worry me at all. I couldn't take back her two acres of land. Besides, I had to let the child try. How could I know if she could do it if I didn't try?"
She didn't want to say more about this matter, so she changed the subject and said, "I saw you guys run to the mountains as soon as you get up these days. What's there in the mountains?"
Chen started talking excitedly.
Zhou Guo walked behind with a small backpack that he had bought especially for her on his back. They had never been on this road before. After walking for more than an hour along the road out of the village, it suddenly turned north. After walking for eight or nine miles, it went west and walked around for another ten miles before they saw endless mountains.
The mountains at the end of the village that they often visited were also big, but they were just one mountain after another, unlike this one, which was continuous, one mountain after another, with no end in sight.
From then on, we entered the mountain and each family dispersed. You went that way, I went this way. We first chopped the firewood to be brought back and tied it up on the mountainside, and then carried the baskets on our backs up the mountain.
Zhou Guo was good at chopping firewood. She picked a place where no one came. The living and dead trees that were collapsed by the snow in winter were lying across the forest. She picked two dead trees, removed the branches, carried the trunks to the roadside and tied them up. Today's firewood was finished. It was spring now, and there was no need to heat the kang during the day. These two pieces of firewood were enough for their family to burn for more than a month just for cooking.
Li and her friends also chopped a bundle each. They were not as strong as Zhou Guo and could not carry such heavy branches, but a bundle of small branches could still be burned for several days.
As usual, the old man disappeared as soon as he entered the mountain, as if he had come to his own back garden, very casual.
After chopping the firewood, the group headed up the mountain. Wild vegetables and other things were all there.
Before they reached the halfway point of the mountain, Zhou Guo couldn't walk any more. Starry eyes looked at the endless field of ferns, all of which were tender, straight and plump, and asked, "Why is there no one picking such a large field of wild vegetables?"
Li said, "This stuff doesn't taste good, why pick it? Besides, they all go up the mountain to look for goat mushrooms. This time of year is when goat mushrooms are in season. This stuff can be sold to the drugstore, and it tastes good. We carry it back to the county town and sell it to diners at 40 wen per pound. We sell it to the drugstore at 30 wen per pound. This stuff brings everyone a lot of money every year."
"Sheep mushroom?" Zhou Xing had never heard of it. "What does sheep mushroom look like?"
Li spread his hands and said, "I haven't seen it either. I just heard that the umbrella buds are the same color as mud, with pits and bumps all over them, and they look very strange."
Zhou Guo was stunned. Why does this thing sound so much like a morel?
Sheep mushroom, sheep mushroom, isn’t that the morel?
What are you waiting for? Who needs these ferns when there are morels? No wonder no one picks them when there are so many. It turns out there are better ones. "Mom, sister, let's go. Leave these for when you come back. If you can't find them, come back tomorrow. There are so many that we only have two backpacks. We can't fit them all. Bring sacks tomorrow."