As soon as the tractor entered the village, I felt that the atmosphere was different from before. The air was filled with joy, and the children were playing all over the village. Of course, even if the children were naughty, the adults no longer beat or scold them. It seemed that all of a sudden The child became tolerant.
The tractor stopped at the entrance of the village. Gao Shufang and Gao Mingli got out of the car first, each carrying their own things. The bags were all bulging.
"Second brother, second sister-in-law, fourth brother and I are going back first." Gao Shufang obediently waved goodbye to Gao Mingcheng and the others.
"Yeah." Gao Mingcheng responded. Seeing them walking along the path towards his parents' house, he started the car and continued driving to Niuweiling. Along the way, he kept saying hello to people.
On the bed of the tractor, many beauties were sitting quietly, their eyes looking excitedly at the long-lost village.
She has not been back to the village since the clothing store opened. After being away from the village for nearly two months, she still misses her a little.
When I returned home, my thoughts reached its peak.
Black Tiger and Elf heard the sound early and ran towards the tractor, immediately welcoming the owner's arrival.
"Black Tiger, Elf." Duomei stroked the heads of the two dogs and played with them happily, but the two dogs were not satisfied yet and kept rubbing against Gao Mingcheng.
Gao Mingcheng was moving the things in the cart into the house, but he had no time to pay attention to them. He only lightly kicked the two dogs with his feet and said, "Go aside, I will come back to play with you later!"
Many beautiful people saw Gao Mingcheng carrying heavy things, and he himself was not idle, helping to carry lighter things to the car. In addition, he had to carry water for hygiene.
Although Gao Mingcheng would return to the village every five or six days, especially when he was hunting wild boar last time and stayed there for two days, the house would inevitably collect dust after being unoccupied for a period of time. , naturally it has to be cleaned inside and out.
There are traces of water left on the edge of the well mouth. This may be Zhang Chengyuan or Gao Yuanjian who came to carry the water.
It's been dry this year and there's a shortage of water everywhere. For the public wells in the old village, you have to line up early to get water. If you get there late, there will definitely be no water to drink.
For this reason, Gao Mingcheng gave Zhang Chengyuan and Gao Yuan the key to his yard so that they could fetch water from their well. In addition, the key was given to Zhang Chengyuan so that he could take care of the livestock at home. Zhang Chengyuan would come over every day to help him take the sheep out to graze and sprinkle a handful of grain for the chickens.
The chickens at home are only fed once a day. If they are not full, they have to go outside to look for bugs and grass seeds to eat.
The couple worked for more than an hour before cleaning the house inside and out.
Gao Mingcheng put away the rice noodles, various candies and snacks he brought back, and a lot of wind-blown meat, and then looked at the familiar mountain peaks.
"How beautiful, I'll go for a spin in the mountains." He said, and strode out the door. Black Tiger and Elf were lying outside. When they saw him coming out, they immediately stood up and followed him in a hurry. behind him.
"Let's go, I'll take you to patrol the mountains!"
Gao Mingcheng took the two dogs to Xiaofu Mountain first. Most of Xiaofu Mountain was still empty, except for a patch of sugar orange planted halfway up the mountain.
One hundred and eight trees were originally planted, but several of them died one after another. Now when Gao Mingcheng went up the mountain, he found that another sugar orange tree was dead, and its leaves were all withered. It was most likely due to dryness.
He easily pulled out the dead sugar orange and threw it in a special pile of miscellaneous trees. When it was completely dry, he could carry it back and use it as firewood.
There is nothing to do in Xiaofushan now, but Gao Mingcheng still carried a bucket of water to the place where the Polygonatum seeds were buried. The Polygonatum seeds need to be hidden in the sand. After he collected the Polygonatum seeds last fall, he has been hiding them in the shade of Xiaofushan. location and keep the soil and water moist.
When spring comes, the seeds can be dug out and sown.
Polygonatum is a nutritious medicinal material that can be stewed and eaten directly, or can be processed and used for medicinal purposes. It has many uses. Gao Mingcheng plans to plant a batch on a large scale.
Of course, the seeds he now has are limited, and he can only slowly expand the planting range.
After walking around Xiaofu Mountain, Gao Mingcheng led the two dogs into Niuweiling. However, he did not go into the deep mountains. He just went to check the condition of the beehives.
Beekeeping cannot be completely ignored. You must always pay attention to the condition of the beehive and make some treatments in time. If the beehive is not good, it must be replaced in time.
After Gao Mingcheng completed the inspection one by one, he killed some wasps. The wasps will eat bees and sometimes follow the bees to the beehive and then wait for an opportunity to take action. Therefore, the corpses of bees can often be found near the beehive.
Gao Mingcheng walked around in the mountains. It was noon before he knew it. He was a little hungry. Gao Mingcheng didn't stay in the mountains for long and went down the mountain with his two dogs.
Before entering the house, I could smell the aroma of vegetables and the sound of stir-frying with a spatula could be heard from the kitchen.
"You're back? It's time to eat. Mingcheng, go get a bucket of water. We're almost out of water." Duo Mei saw him coming back and ordered immediately.
Gao Mingcheng responded and walked to the well with a bucket.
There is no water pump installed in the well here. They tie a thicker hemp rope to the handle of a bucket, then throw the bucket into the well, and then pull the bucket up with the hemp rope.
Lifting water like this requires a lot of strength.
The well of Gao Mingcheng's family was well drilled, and the spring was connected. The water quality was very good, and even if it was dry this year, there would still be water in the well, but the water level was lower than in the first half of the year.
At the wellhead, because it was not hardened with cement, some ferns grew. This fern is also a herbal medicine and does not affect the well and water quality, so no one cares about it.
Gao Mingcheng walked into the kitchen with water, and the last dish was just ready to be cooked.
At the dinner table, Duo Mei and Gao Mingcheng said: "I went to see my second sister before. She said that someone came to the village to collect pigs a few days ago, but this year the pigs in the village have not been raised well, and they are not big. The person who collected the pigs I wanted to lower the price, but no one in the village was willing, and finally decided to come over tomorrow morning to collect the pigs. My second sister asked me if I had any chaff at home, and said that I wanted to borrow a few kilograms of chaff. I would starve the pigs all day today, and wait until tomorrow morning to harvest the pigs. Make a big pot of pig food and let the pigs eat it.”
"You can just borrow it." Gao Mingcheng said casually.
Like this, starve the pigs for a day before harvesting them, and then let the pigs open their bellies to eat the next day. In this way, you can eat eight or nine kilograms of pig food in one meal!
If the pig is bigger, it can eat more than ten kilograms in one meal!
And these pig foods will naturally increase the weight of the pigs, resulting in more money for selling the pigs. This kind of operation is considered a routine operation in the countryside. Even the people who collect the pigs know it very well, but they don't know what to say clearly.
But this method also has a small drawback, that is, the pigs will howl when they are hungry, which will make you unable to rest well.
Gao Mingcheng doesn't raise pigs because it's too troublesome.
After lunch, the couple went to the village to visit, but the place they went was different. Duomei first gave the chaff at home to her second sister, and then went to Dong Feixia's house.
As for Gao Mingcheng, he first went to his parents' house, and then went to Grandma Xixin's house. He also chatted with other people in the village and talked about the current situation.
As soon as Gao Mingcheng talked to someone, he learned that other families in the village would also sell pigs tomorrow. Well, it seems that the old village will be very lively tonight!
When your pigs finish braying, my pigs will bray again, one after another, which can make people unable to sleep well at night.
But in order to get more money from selling pigs, everyone must be happy.
Everything is fine at Grandma Xi's house, except that He Xiuman is approaching her due date. Her belly is already very big and she often feels labor pains. According to Grandma Xi, this is a sign that she is about to give birth.
When women in the village give birth, they almost never go to the hospital. They give birth at home. Some women don't even call midwives, and the female elders of the family directly help give birth.
Fortunately, most pregnant women nowadays have enough exercise, so most of them give birth quickly, and even first-time mothers will not delay for too long.
But this also has certain risks, that is, if the position of the fetus is incorrect and the birth cannot be normal, it may lead to dystocia, and in serious cases, one person or two people will die.
In fact, hospitals now have caesarean section technology, and people in the county are beginning to choose to go to the hospital to give birth. Even if they don't go to the hospital, if something goes wrong, they can be sent to the hospital immediately, which is more secure.
Gao Mingcheng considered this, so he pulled Gao Zhuang aside, explained the situation in a low voice, and then said: "Gao Zhuang, if there is anything wrong with your wife, you come over and call me immediately, and I will drive her there. Health center.”
"Okay." Gao Zhuang had never experienced this and had never heard of such a risk, so he became a little nervous.
Gao Mingcheng patted his shoulder and comforted him: "Don't be nervous. I'm just in case. Now that I have a car, it's very convenient whether I go to the health center or the county hospital. Everything will be fine." of."
Gao Zhuang also felt relieved as he took a reassurance.
Yes, it is indeed much more convenient to have a tractor. Although the tractor cannot protect you from wind and rain, and it is quite cold when you sit in the car in winter, but as long as the warmth preservation measures are taken, there is no big problem.
The day passed like this. Early the next morning, Gao Mingcheng went to the old village early to help catch pigs.
The people who collect the pigs know that everyone will let the pigs have a good meal, so they come very early in order to prevent the pigs from eating happily.
But some smart people get up as early as four or five in the morning to cook pig food and let the pigs eat it with their bellies open. Only some lazy people procrastinate until very late.
His parents raised two pigs at home, but he didn't need his help. Although Gao Mingwan was still working in the transportation company and had not come back, with Gao Mingpeng and Gao Mingli around, it was still no problem to catch the two pigs.
But Zhang Chengyuan's family and Grandma Xi's family may need his help.
Although Zhang Chengyuan's house is not big and his living conditions are not good, he is very diligent and raises two pigs, while Grandma Xi's family only raises one pig.
When he passed by, he found that He Xiuman's face was not very good and he was not energetic, so he asked.
Grandma Xi immediately said distressedly: "I didn't feed the pig yesterday, and the pig kept squealing. It was so noisy that Xiuman couldn't sleep. She had a big belly and it was hard to sleep, and she was so noisy! Then in the middle of the night , I asked Zhuangzhuang to feed the pigs, but the pigs at home stopped braying, and the pigs at other people’s homes were still braying. There was nothing I could do, Xiuman couldn’t sleep well all night.”
"The village is so noisy now that she can't sleep. She can only wait for the pig collectors to leave before she can sleep peacefully for a while."
After hearing this, Gao Mingcheng also felt that He Xiuman was pitiful.
Almost every household in the old village raises pigs. Some can raise three or five pigs, and some can even raise one. Think about it, with so many pigs bleating at the same time, the whole village may not be able to sleep well!
It's just that others can still persevere if they don't sleep well, but He Xiuman, a pregnant woman, doesn't have a good physical condition if she doesn't sleep well.
Soon it was the turn of Grandma Xi's house to sell pigs, so Gao Mingcheng stepped forward to help. He and Gao Zhuang entered the pig pen with ropes. Gao Mingcheng held the pig down with quick hands and eyes. He was so strong that even wild boars could Able to hold down, let alone a domestic pig.
After he held the pig down, Gao Zhuang took the opportunity to tie the pig's legs, and then the two of them carried the pig out.
The people collecting the pigs stood under the most spacious camphor tree. They brought a large scale that could weigh the pigs. After weighing each pig, they carried it directly to the truck. This is an old truck specially used to load pigs. There were traces of rust everywhere, and the inside of the carriage was filled with pig manure, which filled the air with a smell.
Some people were responsible for weighing, and some were responsible for keeping accounts and giving money. The villagers who got the money were counting the money, with smiles on their faces.
After raising pigs for a year, it’s finally time to harvest.
Some people count the money once and count it two or three more times. When their fingers are dry, they put their index fingers in their mouths to get some saliva on them, and then continue to count the money.
But this year due to the dry weather, in the second half of the year, people will be short of food, let alone pigs. Therefore, the pigs in Gaojia Village are generally not big.
After excluding the money spent on buying piglets and the money spent on pig grass eaten in a year, in fact, there is not much profit.
But there are not many ways for rural people to make money. As long as they can make some money, they are willing to work hard for it. And in the minds of many people, the labor they put in and the pigweed they did not pay for are not considered capital. So in their reckoning, they still made a profit.
Some people are short of hands and cannot carry the pigs, so Gao Mingcheng lends a hand to help. They all have the same surname, so it is inevitable that everyone is related.
After a busy morning, the pigs in the village were finally sold out.
Without these pigs, the whole village became a little quieter. The faces of the adults were full of smiles, and the faces of the children were also full of smiles.
Tomorrow is New Year's Eve. On New Year's Eve, the children in the village will receive red envelopes, which can then be used to buy candies.
Let me ask, which child doesn’t look forward to New Year’s red envelopes?
In the afternoon, Gao Mingcheng decided to go for a walk in the mountains. He planned to see the animals and plants in the mountains.
The black tiger and the elf finally waited for their master to return, so naturally they followed him all the time, following Gao Mingcheng into the mountains.
Gao Mingcheng ran fast all the way. In the winter mountain forest, there were many dead branches and leaves, and the weeds had long since withered, making the whole forest look empty.
When people walk in the mountains, they feel that the mountains are much cleaner. Some small animals that were often seen before, such as hedgehogs, snakes, etc., have all gone to hide and hibernate.
When I came to the place where I caught bullfrogs before, I saw no trace of bullfrogs, because bullfrogs and frogs also need to hibernate. They will dig holes and hide in them. When the weather warms up and there is rain next spring, they will It will wake up from the cave and make a croaking sound to welcome the new year.
Everything seems so quiet, but everything is accumulating strength for the coming year.
(End of chapter)
