Li Long remembered that in his previous life, there were also melon growers in several other villages in his hometown. Sometimes the melons were ripe. When he wanted to go there to eat, the landowner was there and he felt a little embarrassed to say hello.
Now that my own melons are ripe, I understand the thoughts of the landowner. If someone comes to eat melons, they are really welcome. After all, this is equivalent to free labor, helping to break the melons. , as long as you keep the seeds, the more you eat, the better.
After a slight change in mentality, I suddenly felt enlightened. No wonder the owner of the land was so enthusiastic when I ate melons in some people's fields in my previous life.
This is the reason.
Li Long had been an otaku in the compound for a while, and he and Gu Xiaoxia lived a good life of love between men and women without shame. When the date was ripe, Li Long drove a tractor there Supply and marketing cooperatives buy things.
The original two salespersons in the Supply and Marketing Cooperative store have been replaced by one. Now one is a middle-aged aunt and the other is a young girl. Li Long vaguely remembers that they were newly assigned after graduating from technical secondary school this year.
Li Long is a popular person in the club. He may not necessarily recognize everyone in the supply and marketing cooperative, but everyone in the club basically knows him. Even if they don’t know him, they have heard his name. After all, Director Wei is serious He organized all members of the society to learn about his deeds by reading newspapers more than once.
So when Li Long entered the supply and marketing cooperative store, the middle-aged aunt Liu Xiumei took the initiative to greet:
"Comrade Li Long is here, what do you need today?"
"Hello, Comrade Li Long!" Qin Xiulan, the new lesbian, greeted Li Long crisply, with curiosity in her big eyes.
"Hello, hello!" Li Long responded hurriedly. He didn't expect the other party to be so enthusiastic, but he didn't want to have more contact. He now wanted to do what needed to be done as soon as possible.
"I remember that we have a big pot in the store, the one with a diameter of 1.2 meters. Is it in stock now?"
"Yes," Liu Xiumei was very clear about the things in the store. , she said with a smile: "Why are you thinking about buying such a big pot? What are you planning to do?"
"My brother grows it at home. The melons are almost ready now. I plan to buy three large pots and use them to make a tool for clearing melon seeds. "Li Long explained briefly, "Do you have three?"
"The store has them. Two bites. This kind of big pot may not be sold in two or three months. I remember that there seems to be some in the warehouse. I will arrange the goods for you.”
"Then thank you Sister Liu." Li Long said, "Do you want me to go over and move together?"
"No, no, no." Sister Liu waved her hand hurriedly, "I can just ask He Kuanguan to help me move. That's it." It's his job, you sit down."
As she said that, Sister Liu went out through the back door.
Li Long and Qin Xiulan are the only ones left in the store now. The atmosphere is a little awkward. Li Long takes the initiative to break the awkwardness:
"Comrade Xiao Qin, do you know how much a pot costs? ?”
"I...I'll check." Qin Xiulan really didn't know. She blushed and hurriedly flipped through the book she brought with her. She flipped through several pages and then read:
"A large pot with a caliber of one meter and two meters." , purchase price..."
"No, no, no, no," Li Long smiled, "You can't sell me the purchase price. You have to tell me the selling price. Otherwise, if you tell me the purchase price, what will I do if I negotiate with you?"
In fact, how can any state-owned store bargain at this time? Belongs to the kind that likes to buy but not buy.
Qin Xiulan originally did not regard Li Long as an outsider. After all, they were all employees of the supply and marketing cooperative. When Li Longyi was asked to speak, she also knew that she was a little nervous. Her face turned redder and she stuttered when speaking. ：
"The selling price...the selling...price is nineteen yuan and eighty cents..."
"Okay, I understand." Li Long knew he couldn't tease the little girl anymore, so he nodded and stopped talking.
The three pots cost fifty-nine and four, which is not cheap either.
But considering that this cauldron is made of solid materials, all made of iron, it is really not a loss.
After a while, Sister Liu came in from the back door carrying a large pot with the warehouse manager. The warehouse manager and Li Long were also familiar with each other. They said hello and hurried back.
Li Long issued the invoice and paid the bill. Sister Liu and Qin Xiulan wanted to help move. Li Long waved his hands hurriedly:
"Just stop moving. If you show your waist, you will be in trouble."
He stepped forward. Holding a large pot in both hands, he turned around and went out, carefully placing it on the bed of the tractor.
The three large pots were put into the cart together. When they entered the supply and marketing cooperative store, Sister Liu and Qin Xiulan both opened their mouths.
This cauldron is not light!
"Comrade Li Long, you are so strong." Sister Liu said enviously, "It would be great if my family had such strength as you. It would take him a long time to move a table, but he is far behind you."
"I'm young." Li Long didn't want to cause hatred, so he said hello to the two of them, hurried out, and drove away on the tractor.
An old mattress was prepared in the cart compartment. Three pots were folded down and stacked on top of each other. Each pot was separated by a mattress so that it would not break if it collided. The bottom of the cart is also covered with thick sacks, which is generally relatively stable.
“Look at this person,” Sister Liu sighed in the store, “how powerful he is! Who among the young people in our community is like him? He can make money, is strong, and is polite. He's handsome, well, why did he get married so early?"
She turned and glanced at Qin Xiulan. Qin Xiulan blushed and hurriedly lowered her head to look at the price of the product.
Sister Liu shook her head. Qin Xiulan had just graduated from technical secondary school and was nineteen years old. It was time to find someone to talk to.
What a pity.
Li Long drove the tractor and pulled the cauldron towards the team.
It is already early September, and the school has started. Students in the middle school have finished class, and the campus is full of laughter. When it comes to the elementary school, classes have already started here, and the sound of reading can be heard.
Li Long vaguely remembered that his elder brother Li Jianguo said that the place where he found the money cellar was not far south of the primary school. At first, this large area here was considered the area of the Fourth Squad. At that time, the other squads had not divided the area, so the area of the Fourth Squad was very large.
Li Long thought that when he gets old, he would buy a metal detector and come here to hunt for treasures and have fun.
I don’t know if it was illegal to do so at that time.
There should probably be a lot of old copper coins left in that money cellar. Of course, I don’t know how many can be used.
After all, according to Li Jianguo, it was rotten at that time, and more of it was broken when squeezed by the hand. Those copper coins that were still usable took away five or six troubles, and even more rotten.
And it was only plowed out during plowing, and was not completely cleaned up, let alone professional excavation by archaeologists and cultural relics managers.
Therefore, Li Long felt that there should be a lot of intact copper coins left there, and since this area is sand, it would not be damaged in more than ten years.
Li Long thought, the tractor had already passed the boundary, passed the third team, passed Weigou, and reached the fourth team.
No one else in the team is using the tractor yet, so as soon as the chug sound is heard, people know that Li Long is back.
He planned to ask Li Jianguo if he wanted to buy a tractor after harvesting the melons. After all, we still have to harvest corn and do other work. If my eldest brother wants to buy a tractor, he can sponsor some.
Since the last time Li Jianguo and Li Long caught Ma Long and Lu Tietou, the news has spread among the villagers, and every family has reminded their children:
"Don't go wreaking havoc on the melon field, or I'll beat you to death! Did you hear that Ma Long from Ma Yinbao's family made his father howl so hard!"
In fact, children still have curiosity, but At this time, the beatings from the parents were real, and no teenager would like to try it again with the taste of being whipped with armed weapons.
As a result, the Li family's Dagua Ping An grew to a mature stage.
The tractor has become the dream of the adults in the village. Some people don’t even have a donkey cart at home, but that doesn’t stop them from dreaming about buying a tractor in two years’ time and driving it around like Li Long.
Li Long drove the tractor to the compound of his eldest brother Li Jianguo. It was already noon. Li Jianguo and Liang Yuemei came back from the fields. There were several melons in the yard.
Li Long turned off the engine and got out of the car and asked:
"Brother, is this melon ready?"
"It's ready." Li Jianguo said with a smile:
"In Two fields have bloomed, and the seeds are all ripe. It’s dark and plump, but it’s a little uneven and warped.”
“What’s wrong with it? Are they all sold by the same weight?” Li Qingxia asked, “Can it still be done? One price? ”
Li Jianguo used to grow melons for the team when he was in a collective, and he knew this:
"That's different. If there are too many warps, the price will be low and it won't be rated as high-quality. You think, buy it from this roasting seed factory It’s fried melon seeds sold for people to eat, you Which one is easier to crack when you crack it: the flat one or the warped one? "Of course it's better to crack the flat one. If you crack the flat one, the seeds will be whole. If you crack the warped one, the kernels will be broken." "Li Qingxia understood immediately. Then he worried:
"What should we do?"
"That's okay, there will be a way later." Li Long smiled, "We have a lot of people in our family, so we can do all the work. I am here I bought three big pots. Me, my brother, my father, and I will find a few young men to crush the melons and squeeze out the seeds.
Sister-in-law, take your second sister-in-law to find a board and pick out the warped melon seeds. While they have just come out of the melon and are not yet dry, you can easily fix them and flatten them directly. "
"Can it be flattened? "Li Qingxia was confused and didn't quite believe it. "Yes. "Li Long nodded, "The melon seeds are still wet when they come out of the melon, so they won't break if you press them at this time. It won't work if you press it after it's dried, it will break. It's best to press on while it's wet. "
"Hey, Xiaolong is smart! "Du Chunfang listened to her youngest son talking. The more she listened, the happier she became. She felt that her youngest son seemed to know everything.
In her eyes, Li Long is the best, no one can compare with him. Get on.
Neither can his eldest brother.
In fact, this method was often used by later generations of seed roasting factories. After all, if the black melon seeds are collected, washed and fried directly, then the upturned melon seeds will not be able to get the complete melon kernels, which will affect the taste.
If the taste is affected, customers will most likely not purchase again. In order to solve this problem, roasting factories usually collect the melon seeds, soak them in water, flatten them with a machine, and then fry them.
So this is why the fried black melon seeds I bought in the first few years were all in "original shape", some were flat or some were warped, and the rest were basically flat.
Of course, some factories will do it, and some won't. It depends on which one you like.
Li Long knew this accidentally in his last life, because he occasionally cracked melon seeds, and sometimes used agricultural machinery, and then he saw this kind of machine for pressing melon seeds.
There is no machine at the moment, so manual pressing may be more time-consuming and laborious, but it will be worth it if you can get preferential treatment when you sell it.
In the 1980s, to be honest, labor was really worthless. Everyone would do it if they could put in the effort to make money.
The problem is that many times even if you want to sell your efforts to make money, there is no place to sell it.
The division of labor is clear and everyone knows what they have to do. The Li family still has quite a lot of wooden boards.
Liang Yuemei and Chen Lilong were cooking, and Li Long, Li Jianguo and Li Qingxia divided the wooden boards here.
“These two pieces are heavier and longer, and they are used directly to crush the melons.”
“These two pieces are wider and flat. Once the melon seeds are taken out, pick them out. Come out and press it.”
“It’s best to put big stones in the middle of both sides.”
“Well, there aren’t many stones at home...” Li Jianguo said.
"What's the point? When the tractor goes to work in the fields, just pick up a few pieces from the roadside." Li Qingxia was not worried at all.
In fact, it is all alkali beach now, how can there be so many stones?
"I will go back to the county in the evening, and when I come here tomorrow morning, I will just pick up a few pieces from the river dam." Li Long said, "Don't worry about it."
This is the right way, Li Jianguo nodded. . There are quite a lot of stones on the edge of the river dam (Mohe Canal), both large and small.
After lunch, Li Long wanted to take a rest, but now everyone wanted to see how to squeeze melon seeds, so the whole family, including Du Chunfang, got on the tractor and pulled him along. Go to the melon field.
In the melon field, some melon vines have curled up and dried up, while some are still green. There are thin thorns on the leaves. They don't hurt your hands very much, but they stick to your clothes. At a glance from the edge of the field, you can see densely packed round melons, and occasionally you can see fist-sized ones growing in the evening.
This is for future generations. Once the machine is turned on, it is like harvesting wheat. It is harvested in minutes. The melons are smashed in the machine, the seeds are separated, and the rind and pulp are spit out and sprinkled. In the ground, as fertilizer.
If we don’t have this condition now, we can only do it manually.
Li Long walked directly from the edge of the field twenty or thirty meters carrying a large pot, found a suitable place to put the pot down, and then pressed down hard while turning it in a circle.
He was very strong, and he quickly pushed the pot down to create a nest, and the pot was stable.
Li Qingxia and Li Jianguo came over each carrying a wooden plank. Li Long took the piece from Li Qingxia's hand and placed it flat on the big pot. Li Jianguo put the other piece on top like a cross.
Liang Yuemei and Chen Lirong followed, and Du Chunfang also slowly walked over with her little feet, wanting to watch the excitement.
"Come, let's try." Li Long knew that everyone was still suspicious, after all, they had never seen it before.
I have seen it before and knew that this method is very useful, so I said:
"Brother, pick someone familiar."
"Whatever you choose, they are all ripe." Li Jianguo smiled and picked a basketball-sized melon from the side.
Li Long took it and placed it on the wooden board - he fiddled with the horizontal board to one side.
“Come on, brother, let’s hold one head each and press it down.” Li Long put the melon inside, placed it in the center of the bottom board, and then used the top board to hold the melon down. .
Everyone in the family gathered around, wanting to see what was going on and enjoy the excitement.
“It can be pressed out.” Liang Yuemei is used to doing farm work and can see the principle at a glance, “I just don’t know if the melon seeds inside can be pressed cleanly. If not, I have to dig them out.”
"That's better than just picking!" Du Chunfang didn't care whether he was right or not, but he wanted to protect Li Long anyway. This idea came from Li Long, so she thought it was good.
"That's right." Liang Yuemei smiled. She knew that her mother-in-law preferred her brother-in-law, so she had no objection. After all, Li Long has changed a lot in the past two years and has helped his family a lot, and she is very grateful.
"Come on, brother, let's work together." Li Long said.
Both of them were very strong, so without much exertion, the melon was crushed directly, and the melon juice and seeds flowed out from the crack and fell into the cauldron.
“It’s out, it’s out!” Unexpectedly, the person who shouted out first was Chen Lirong. She had never seen a melon grower in her hometown, nor had she seen how to produce seeds.
This was the first time for both Li Long and Li Jianguo to press the melon. They were afraid that the seeds would not come out completely, so they kept pressing the melon until they could no longer press it and then relaxed.
“Come, let’s see if there are any seeds left inside.” Li Long lifted the board and put it aside, then pushed the board below so that his elder brother Li Jianguo could reach it.
Li Jianguo looked at the broken melon and simply didn’t hold it down. He opened the rind and looked at it. Then he stretched out his hand to pull out the pulp a few times and said "Hey" in his mouth. Sound of surprise.
In his opinion, with this method, no matter what, there should be some melon seeds left in the melon pulp. However, after pulling almost, he saw that there were two or three melon seeds in the melon pulp.
Almost all the melon seeds are squeezed out!
"Hey, this is a good idea!" Li Qingxia was excited, "Xiaolong, this is a great idea! How much effort will be saved!"
Li Long smiled, OK, the verification was successful!
"I'll try, I'll try!" Li Qingxia bent down and picked a melon and put it on the board. He wanted to try it too.
Li Long cooperates.
The two of them pressed it, and Li Qingxia was very strong. With this pressure, the melon juice and seeds flowed out, and there were more melon seeds in the bottom of the pot.
"It's really a little warped." Chen Lirong's sharp eyes saw that the melon seeds were indeed warped a lot, "You have to press them."
"It's okay, they will become soft when soaked in the melon juice. Once pressed, That's good." Li Long said.
Li Qingxia personally inspected the melon and found that there were not many melon seeds left in it.
He picked up the melon seeds and threw them into the pot, and then said:
"Are you going to press them like this in the future?"
"You can pull the melon back and press it." Li Long said, "The pressed melon rind and pulp can be fed to the pigs."
"Okay." Li Jianguo smiled.
At this time, a villager passed by and walked to the melon beating field and shouted to Li Jianguo:
"Uncle Jianguo, can you have a melon?"
"Yes. "Li Jianguo said with a smile, "Just eat it and keep the seeds in the melon."
The man happily found a melon and started beating it.
Eating melons is more casual. The rind is thick and the pulp is small. Usually, "grab" is to pick up the piece of pulp in the middle and eat it, leaving out the rest.
Because there are too many melons, it is not a waste.
The visitor’s name is Chen Qingfu. He is about ten years younger than Li Jianguo, but his name is Uncle after all.
These days, if a child calls someone else’s parent by their full name, it’s considered a curse.
The rules are very strict. (End of this chapter)