It's snowing outside, but it's warm as spring inside.
There are less than five days left before the task of handing in 20,000 large reed handles, but Li Long is not in a hurry at all.
He, Li Jianguo, and Li Qingxia sat on chairs beside the fire wall, holding a piece of melon in their hands and eating there slowly.
"Mom, you eat too." Li Long greeted Du Chunfang to eat the melon. Du Chunfang shook his head and said with a smile:
"Hey, this melon is really good. You can still eat it in the winter, but it’s not as smooth as in the summer.”
"That's right, you eat melons in the summer, smash them open, eat them if they taste good, and throw them away if they don't taste good. In winter, you can eat melons whether they are delicious or not." Li Jianguo also held a melon. Talk while eating.
This melon is not bad. It has yellow flesh and a sweet taste. It is not like some green flesh ones which make people feel fat when eating.
The spare house in Li Long's large yard became empty after Chen Lirong and her daughter moved out. Li Long simply didn't set up a stove and put in more than a hundred melons, just to eat them slowly.
The watermelon cannot be stored, and by November it is almost completely broken, and there is only a bag of water inside.
The melon is different. It has thick skin and is durable for storage. It has a unique flavor when eaten after the weather cools down.
"Wear a cotton-padded jacket in the morning and gauze in the afternoon, and eat watermelon around the stove." Li Jianguo spit out the melon seeds into his hand, then put them in the bowl next to him, and said with a smile:
"I didn't expect to hear this before. "We are living the sentence now."
It is morning now, and the Li family's reeds have been tied, so there is no life left. Wang Delong brought another cart of reed handles the day before yesterday. Although it was not as large as the first time, the two times combined made Li Long feel that the task would be completed in one or two days, so he was not in a hurry at all.
What is urgent now are those who still have a lot of reeds at home but did not tie the reeds properly at the beginning.
“It’s snowing, and I don’t know if it’s frozen in Xiaohaizi.” Li Qingxia hasn’t caught a fish for a long time, and this winter, she can’t stand it anymore.
"No, it will take a few days." Li Long shook his head, "This temperature is not enough. There should be ice, but it is not solid.
Those reeds are hollow, and they can still go in for a while. The water is breathable. Not to mention the danger of breaking holes in the ice, the fish will not come here."
Li Qingxia is convinced by her younger son.
"What are you going to do after finishing the reed?" Li Jianguo asked Li Long.
Li Long picked up a tooth to hit melon again. It is said that he was in the field at that time. He was really impatient to eat this thing. He was tired of looking at it every day. It's a good thing now. After all, there aren't many fruits that ordinary people can eat in their mouths in winter.
Nowadays, there will definitely be people who go to their piles of corn stalks to look for the green stalks that are not yet dry and then chew them.
It suddenly occurred to him that there were really bugs in those green poles. In the fields here, there is a kind of insect that is really very dangerous. It is called the cotton bollworm in the cotton field, and it is called the corn borer in the corn field. They are still found in the oil sunflower field.
The same insect can harm more than three crops at once, which is quite powerful.
In his previous life, he also followed other people to chew corn stalks in winter, and found overwintering corn borers in them.
This thing is brought home to be used as firewood, so these bugs will not end well. It's just that the eggs that fall on the ground are disgusting. Once they hatch in spring, they start to harm crops.
Fortunately, there are no bugs in the melons. If there were any, the melons would be spoiled in the first place and there would be no way to preserve them.
"I plan to rest for a while after finishing the reed handle, and then go to the mountains. Harimu and the others must have returned. They don't know if they have gone down the mountain. It is not easy to pull things on horseback. I will They take some supplies up the mountain.”
This is something that must be done every year.
In fact, Li Long can take some time off if he wants, but there are a lot of these messy things all year round. Some things can be done or not, and some things must be done.
There was a voice outside. Li Qingxia stood up and took a look at the window. The window was covered with plastic sheet and he couldn't see the people outside clearly, but he thought it was probably the person delivering the reed.
Li Long threw the melon rind into the dustpan in the corner that served as a garbage basket, stood up, put on his coat and walked out. As he walked, he said:
"I came to deliver the reeds this morning. I have no money." "
When I went out, I saw it was Ma Chenyang, Ma Jinbao's son.
Ma Jinbao is the one who deliberately slows down. He failed to get melon seeds from the Li family - of course, he did not admit that he missed the opportunity because of his suspicion, but he just felt that the Li family was misleading him.
So when I was making the reed, I wanted to squeeze it, but it wasn’t that I didn’t want to make money.
But he didn't expect that two cars of Weizi would be delivered from Xiahai Village, and he immediately panicked. Not only did he panic, but his son also panicked.
Their family got a lot of reeds. Others had almost finished tying them, but they didn't even get a third of them. They heard that Li Long was almost out of reeds, so they were naturally anxious.
We usually say we are afraid of the cold, but it snowed again, and the Ma family didn’t feel cold anymore. They got up before dawn and were still working after dark.
Even when the farm work is the busiest, it has never been so busy.
Ma Chenyang scolded his father and complained about Li Long in his heart.
But when the most respected people in the village tried to speak out against Li Long, they were all rebuffed. He knew that even if he spoke, Li Long wouldn't care.
If you want to make money, why should you help the village make money at the expense of your smile?
Although Ma Chenyang has a similar personality to his father, at least he is not stupid, so he works hard every day just to make more money.
Li Long would not deliberately target his family. Those who are qualified are qualified, and those who are not qualified are not qualified.
"Xiaoyang, how many reed handles did you bring today?" Li Long asked as he walked out the door.
"Eighty." Ma Chenyang said, "Check it out. By the way, do you know that Xu Jianjun was captured?"
"Caught back? Who caught him?"
"Tao Daqiang." One of the reasons why Ma Chenyang came so early today to deliver the reed to Li Long was to pass on the news.
"Tao Daqiang went to his father-in-law's house last night to deliver something. He saw someone sneaking around in Weigou, so he stepped forward and caught him. It turned out that it was Xu Jianjun. Then Tao Daqiang beat him , The nose was bruised and the face was swollen. Xu Jianjun went to talk to the captain early this morning, but the captain scolded him. "
Ma Chenyang's house is next to Xu Jianjun's house, so he knew about it relatively early. Xu Jianjun knew it was a scandal, so he wouldn't tell anyone about it, while Tao Daqiang had to take care of his wife, and he was an introvert himself, so he wouldn't tell anyone about it.
He didn't even tell Li Long.
Li Long was also a little surprised that Tao Daqiang actually beat Xu Jianjun.
Xu Jianjun dared to come back, most likely because he knew that the family had paid back some of the money owed by Weizi after burning it, and asked Xu Chengjun to help pay the rest.
It was okay, so I dared to come back. I don’t know where I have been hiding these past few days.
Of course, the debt has been repaid and there is no news. Li Long thought that Tao Daqiang's beating of Xu Jianjun should be to help him vent his anger.
Xu Jianjun is barely 1.7 meters tall, while Tao Daqiang is 1.8 meters tall and is 20 kilograms heavier than Xu Jianjun. He is also younger, so it is very easy to beat him.
Li Long really didn’t expect this.
He carefully inspected the reed handles sent by Ma Chenyang and returned a dozen of them that were unqualified.
Ma Chenyang pulled the donkey cart without any objection. After collecting the money, he said to Li Long:
"Li Long, I can send another batch tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow..."< br>
Li Long calculated and said:
"Tomorrow will be enough. I will collect the last batch tomorrow night, and they will not come the day after tomorrow."
"Okay, okay, I know! "As soon as Ma Chenyang heard what Li Long said, he immediately led the donkey cart to his home. He wanted to do more as soon as possible.
A reed handle costs 30 cents, which is equivalent to a kilogram of flour!
No fool would do it!
Li Long put the reed handle on the tractor. At this time, he no longer worried about someone setting fire.
At lunch time, I collected reeds from several more companies, but they were not too many, and the proportion of qualified ones was not too high.
It seems that some people are really anxious.
Li Long was not in a hurry. After lunch, he took two melons and went to Tao Daqiang's house.
The reed handles at Tao Daqiang's house have also been tied, and he is smashing coal in the coal shed. The coal brought by the cart is in large pieces and must be broken into small pieces before being brought into the house.
Seeing Li Long arrive, Tao Daqiang greeted him with a smile:
"Brother Long is here?"
"I heard that you beat Xu Jianjun? Are you okay?"
< br>"It's okay, he didn't dare to fight back "Tao Daqiang didn't expect Li Long to know it so quickly, and said with a smile, "If he dares to fight back, I'll beat him on the nose."
It's still a bit difficult to beat a grown man to tears, but this is not the case. It also showed Tao Daqiang’s determination.
"I'll bring you two melons." Li Long said, "Your wife, don't eat. You and Uncle Tao can have some. The stove is burning in winter and the house is very dry. You can eat something cold."< br>
Tao Daqiang held an iron dustpan in his hand and could not help him hold the melons, so he hurriedly stepped forward to lift the cotton door curtain, pushed the door open, and let Li Long in.
When it gets cold in winter, every family will take out old quilts and sew them into cotton door curtains to keep out the wind. After all, the current door cannot be sealed, so the heat in the room will escape without a curtain.
Tao Jianshe is making shoes in the West Room. Yes, Tao Jianshe is making shoes - currently soles are being made. The child has no mother, so many things have to be done by him as the father. Although it is not very good, it is good enough to support the two children from going barefoot.
Shoes are easy to come by, but there is nothing I can do about clothes, so I can only ask my neighbors to help me make them.
Now that Tao Daqiang has a child, Tao Jianshe cannot rest. Although the daughter-in-law is pregnant, it is impossible for her to do too much work. Just taking care of the children takes up most of my time.
Although the control of children is relatively loose at this time, it still needs to be at least half a year old and the child can sit up.
In fact, children in rural areas are currently raised by different families. When there is a big group, one sister-in-law will be entrusted to take care of several children from several families in the same group.
Li Jianguo once said that when Li Juan and Li Qiang were young, when the farm work was busy and there was a lot of work, both of them had to work.
At that time, Li Juan was a little older, but Li Qiang was too young, less than one year old. He was put in a big basket with a group of other children less than one year old or more than one year old, and whoever cried was fed a spoonful of boiling water. Steamed buns soaked in sugar.
Unlike other places, beets can be grown here, at least sugar is not in short supply, and there are many places to make money. Although the children have a hard time, at least they are not hungry.
But only at this time. It will not be easy to eat fine grains when you get older, and everyone knows the disadvantages of big pot rice, so reforms will be carried out in the end.
It got better and better later on, but that’s a story for another day.
"Uncle Tao is making shoes? Are your eyes okay?"
"Okay." When Tao Jianshe saw it was Li Long coming in, he smiled and put down the soles of his shoes, and put the awl and needle away so as not to prick anyone.
After sitting down and chatting for a while, Tao Daqiang suddenly said:
"Brother Long, I want to buy a tractor!"
Li Long looked at Tao Daqiang's firm eyes and asked:
“Have you collected enough money?”
"That's enough."
"Then buy it next spring." Li Long thought for a while and said, "It's too troublesome to get this thing in winter, and it will depreciate a little more when it's left at home in spring. It's better to wait until the beginning of spring when the snow melts. I bought it before I started working, and it was just in time to use it.”
He owns a tractor, so he naturally knows how troublesome it is in winter. Not to mention baking in advance, you need to drain the water in the water tank at night. There are also techniques for baking, so as not to soften the pipe.
Others see his majesty in driving a tractor, but they don’t know that he also has difficulties in driving a tractor.
Tao Daqiang is a person who listens to advice. Even his father couldn't persuade him, but Li Long persuaded him with just one word.
Li Long knew that Tao Daqiang was too eager to feel proud, and too eager to compete for the seat of the second tractor among the four teams.
Tao Jianshe lived a difficult life with his two sons, much more difficult than Gu Boyuan.
Tao Daqiang received a lot of looks from others since he was a child because he didn't speak much and was called stupid and stupid.
Later, he gradually recovered, but he was not satisfied. I have suppressed so many grievances, but now I am thinking about how big a wave I can make.
Tao Jianshe actually tried to persuade his son, but Tao Daqiang’s idea was too right and he couldn’t persuade him.
Unexpectedly, Li Long made Tao Daqiang change his mind with just one sentence.
Tao Jianshe didn’t know whether to be happy or unhappy.
Li Long went to the east room to see Yang Pingping and the child again. He had been here once before and gave the child a red envelope of ten yuan. Tao Daqiang did not refuse and took it.
After talking for a while, Li Long left Tao's house and went to Lao Ma Hao.
The snow on the road was not cleared much, and this was one of the few times Li Long walked around the team. In the past, it was either bicycles or tractors, so there were fewer opportunities to walk.
Uncle Luo was clearing the snow in the yard and was very happy to see Li Long coming.
Li Long found a wooden shovel and followed Old Uncle Luo to clear the snow and asked:
"Old Uncle Luo, are the things here enough?"
"Enough. , enough. There’s rice, noodles, and meat, and there’s a lot of oil for cooking. How much can I eat by myself?”
After Chen Lirong and her two children moved away from Lao Mahao, Uncle Luo had a lot of food. Much less cooking. Li Long comes here occasionally and comes and goes in a hurry. Uncle Luo is really happy to be able to work with him today.
Li Long and Uncle Luo cleared the snow in the yard, and then went to see the animals in the pen.
The wild boar is still wild and untamable, and it keeps grunting when someone comes over. The red deer and roe deer held their heads high, presumably looking for food.
Li Long looked at it, turned around and asked:
"Uncle Luo, are those two red deer and a roe deer about to give birth?"
"Yes. Ah." Old Uncle Luo said with a smile, "Xiaolong, I think when the red deer comes down, I will grab the deer fetus and freeze it, and you can take it back to Xiaoxia.
Deer fetuses are good for women, but when Xiaoxia gives birth and her vitality is severely damaged, this will make up for it. "
Li Long knew about this, but he had never thought about it. Now that Old Uncle Luo reminded him, he felt that this was really feasible.
I heard people say that there was something like that in the past life People with chronic diseases such as tuberculosis and long-term physical weakness are good to eat placenta.
Deer fetus is a great supplement, especially for women.
This is definitely possible! >
I just don’t know if Gu Xiaoxia is willing to eat it?
But it doesn’t matter. Get this stuff, bake it on a tile stove, grind it into powder, mix it into food and eat it.
For the health of your family, there is nothing wrong with hiding it.
"Okay, okay, I heard that the deer will eat the deer's fetus after it lays the deer's baby. When the deer is about to lay, Uncle Luo, tell me, and I will be here to guard you. , This is safer.”
“Okay.” Old Uncle Luo is naturally willing. He was also worried that it would be troublesome if he couldn't catch the deer cubs laying in the middle of the night.
Uncle Luo said that it would take more than ten days for these red deer to give birth, so Li Long was not in a hurry. This time is enough for him to hand over the reed handle and then go to the mountains to deliver food.
Coming back from Laoma, Li Long found that someone had given reeds again.
He made an appointment to make some calculations, and it was almost settled tonight.
But since I told others, let’s come back tomorrow. Once the goods are collected tomorrow, we will simply go to the supply and marketing society to deliver the last batch of goods.
The reeds take up space, and Li Long has sent fifteen thousand reeds to the supply and marketing cooperative. There's a lot of space there, so it's easy to put things away.
Before the sun set, Li Long drove the tractor toward the county. If we don’t leave, there will be no more piles on the tractor.
Back home, Li Long thought about it and told Gu Xiaoxia about the deer fetus.
What he didn’t expect was that Gu Xiaoxia didn’t object!
"I know that deer fetuses are good things." Gu Xiaoxia said matter-of-factly:
"I also know that you will not harm me. If I really give birth to a child, I will raise him. , then my body cannot be weak. I think... my sister-in-law is quite weak, and she seems to have suffered from confinement disease.
Although Juan and Qiangqiang are doing well, they are quite miserable. "
Li Long Xiangxiang said:
"Then there are more than one deer fetus anyway, I will get one for my sister-in-law too. We raise so many deer, and now it seems that they are finally useful. ”
Gu Xiaoxia still has no symptoms of pregnancy at this time, which is quite unexpected.
I also went to the county hospital for a check-up, and it was officially confirmed that she is pregnant.
However, the pregnancy test at this time was not as complicated as in later generations. After confirmation, the doctor told them some precautions and let them go back.
At this time, medical technology was not so developed and there were not so many instruments. Many fetal diseases could not be discovered at all, or they were not known at this level of hospitals.
So even if Li Long wanted to check it in detail, he couldn't.
For example, Tang Si or something like that.
The next day, Li Long still went to the team, collected the reeds for a long time, and then told the whole team through Xu Chengjun's loudspeaker that the reeds would no longer be collected.
Li Long suddenly left the team on his tractor and headed towards the county.
Ma Chenyang looked at the piles of reeds in the yard and wanted to curse but couldn't.
There are many people who feel the same as him.
PS: (Dizziness, daughter has a fever, no time to write, only one update tonight.) (End of this chapter)