Chapter 17 The drunkard's intention is not to drink
"Brother Long, I think there should be a fallen tree under the snow over there, let's start here!" Tao Daqiang panted and looked around, pointing. He pointed to a fallen tree on the hillside in the distance.
"No, keep walking forward for a while." Li Long pointed to the slope next to Dongwozi and said, "The location is the best there."
"But there is no road ahead. . If we go further up, our carriage may not be able to go up." Tao Daqiang was a little embarrassed.
“Push it.” Li Long looked at the smoke rising from the winter nest and said with a smile, “This difficulty shouldn’t trouble us.”
So he pulled in front, and Tao Daqiang pushed from behind, pushing the carriage onto the gentle slope in front.
"Okay, let's just go here." Li Long looked at the terrain and thought it was a good place, then pointed at Dongwozi and said:
"Let's go over and have lunch. Eat, and then work."
"Go there...eat. Lunch?" Tao Daqiang was a little surprised, "Can we have it?"
"Don't worry, those people are very hospitable," Li Long said, pointing to the tea and salt brought on the carriage. He’s not a bad visitor, but he brought something with him.”
Dongwozi is a place where herdsmen in the mountains regularly graze and live in winter. In summer, they go to higher altitude alpine grasslands to graze, which is called summer pasture. In winter, they come to places with lower altitudes, live in winter dens, and graze in winter pastures. The process in between is called transition.
Most of the people grazing in the mountains are Kazakhs. After the arrival of the new century, the officials organized them and moved them down the mountain. They allocated land for them, allowing these people to change from nomadic herding to fixed grazing.
Li Long's village was divided into several households, so he was quite clear about the situation here.
The Kazakh people are very hospitable. In the past, when strangers came to their yurt, they would usually bring out milk dumplings, naan and milk tea to treat them.
A winter nest is actually a triangle dug into the hillside, with the mountain as the back wall and wood as the support, and then a row of houses is built, with a warm pen for cattle and sheep, and a place for people to live. Large amounts of cattle and sheep manure usually accumulate outside.
Li Long also planned to wait until spring to pull some manure here, because he remembered that in spring, the first round of land contracting began.
Although each person was only allocated two acres of land at that time, it was the land that truly belonged to them!
After unloading the carriage and pulling the horse to the winter nest, he saw two dogs rushing over and barking at Li Longtao Daqiang and the horse.
The door of Dongwozi opened, and a man of about thirty years old came out. They were a little surprised to see Li Long and the others.
"Hello, we are here to pull wood. We are tired from walking. Can we take a rest at your place?" Li Long said with a smile.
The middle-aged man looked at Li Long and the others warily, nodded, scolded the dog, walked out and pointed to the wooden pile not far from the winter nest.
Li Long knew where he meant to tie the horse, so he led the horse over. The man pulled a bundle of grass from the haystack next to the winter nest and put it next to the horse. The horse Li Long brought over immediately lowered its head and started eating.
Li Long tied up his horse and smiled when he saw the herdsman's three horses grazing there not far away.
Sure enough, he was just like the one he met in his previous life, he was really enthusiastic.
The man led Li Long and the others into the winter nest, and their eyes instantly darkened.
After getting used to the light here, Li Long saw that the winter nest was not very big, with a wooden kang, a kang table on it, a small stove burning, and a teapot on it.
There was also an old lady sitting on the edge of the wooden kang in the room, lowering her head and playing with a ball of wool. A woman in her thirties wearing a headscarf was looking at them awkwardly.
There was a blanket spread on the wooden kang, and two children were playing with a pile of mutton stones on it and looking at them.
Li Long took out the brick tea and salt from the bag and handed it to the middle-aged man and said, "This is for you."
Tao Daqiang felt a little distressed. The two together cost several dollars. Lunch can be eaten outside. There are so many sesame cakes, and you can only eat one during the Chinese New Year! Why come here for such a luxurious lunch?
But since Brother Long has made a decision, there must be a reason.
"...Thank you." The man was a little surprised and a little excited when he saw the tea leaves that Li Long took out.
He turned his head and looked at the woman, then at the old lady, and then took it.
The old lady and the woman both laughed. Li Long could tell that they really liked this gift.
The man invited Li Long and Tao Daqiang to the kang and asked them to sit inside. The old lady took out a sheet package from the cabinet and opened it on the kang table. Inside was broken into small pieces of naan. The woman began to make milk tea, while the man went out for a trip. When he came back, he was holding a dried leg of lamb. He motioned to Li Long and the others to cut it and eat it, and then he drew his knife and planned to go out.
"No, no, no, no need to bother. We need to finish eating quickly and then pack the wood back." Seeing that the family seemed to be making a big move, Li Long immediately waved his hand, "That's enough."
The man was unwilling, so Li Long pulled him directly. He could see that if he didn't hold him, he would most likely go out and slaughter a sheep.
That’s a big deal.
Although the current sheep are not valuable to the herdsmen, they are usually reluctant to eat them.
The old lady said something to the man, and he wanted to break free from Li Long. Li Long looked around in a hurry, then pointed at something beside the stove and said:
"Don't kill the sheep." , just give that to me!”
The man looked at the thing and was stunned.
As soon as Li Long saw the door, he smiled and said:
"I want that... I can sell this for money."
He saw that they were antlers.
In a few decades, deer antlers will not be very valuable, after all, breeding deer was already very common at that time. At that time, the price of deer antlers had dropped a lot, not to mention antlers.
But at this time, deer breeding was still a very rare thing, and it was basically invisible to ordinary people.
The antlers of male red deer in the mountains will fall off when they grow to a certain stage. The antlers you pick up can really be sold for money.
“Really?” the man asked doubtfully.
"Really, it costs one yuan per kilogram." Li Long said casually, "This is enough for me."
This antler has three branches. It looks like it only costs two or three kilograms. It must be enough. .
The man put down the knife, but after thinking about it, he walked out again.
After a while, when the woman had mixed the milk tea and brought it to Li Long with both hands, the man walked in again, holding an antler in his hand and putting it together with another one.
Li Long could see that this antler was broken, not as beautiful as the original one, and not as heavy.
"Nathan picked this up in the forest." The man pointed to the little boy on the kang and said:
"Originally we planned to burn it as firewood."
As firewood? What a waste of natural resources!
(End of this chapter)