Chapter 27: Miscellaneous Events Before the Year
The deer was just an interlude. After feeding it some spring water, Zhang An put it on the grass and ignored it.
Continuing to search in the woods, after a while, Xiaohu finally opened his eyes.
He ran wildly in the snow with his prey in his mouth, asking for credit from Zhang An. Zhang An happily touched the tiger's head.
Little Tiger especially liked Zhang An's touch, and he rushed into the forest again as if he was encouraged.
After about half an hour, the tiger cub returned in triumph again, carrying prey in its mouth. This time it was a fat rabbit, not only alive, but also with a bulging belly.
Could this rabbit be pregnant? Otherwise, it could still come out after eating so much? Don't you want to have a good sleep in the cave?
If it were Dahu and Erhu, the ones they brought back would definitely be dying even if they were not dead.
For some reason, Zhang An always felt that Xiaohu was a bit too spiritual.
The same thing happened when the rice was being dried. Although the big tiger and the second tiger also pounced on it, they rarely hit the sparrows. The three tigers lay motionless, and if they moved, the sparrows would suffer.
It just so happened that Zhang An planned to raise some rabbits in the space, so he didn't have to catch them himself.
When it got dark, the three tigers all came back, and all three of them had harvested, two pheasants and a hare.
Today's harvest was good. For most of the day, Zhang An had three pheasants on hand, plus the one in the space, which was two hares.
On Zhang Bin’s side, there was nothing more to gain except the rabbit he picked up in the afternoon, but this was not bad.
But Zhang Tie had nothing left, and ran all over the mountain. Their big yellow dog followed him, but he didn't catch anything.
Some losses cannot be hidden. Although the two brothers Zhang Bin picked up the rabbit in their hands, they still gained something.
So in order to appease his little brother, Zhang An generously gave Zhang Tie a pheasant to take home.
According to the third aunt's temperament, this will definitely be left until New Year's Eve.
. . .
After returning home, Zhang An handed the prey in his hand to Zhang Jianguo.
It's not that Zhang An doesn't know how to operate a knife, but Zhang An's father usually does this kind of thing at home.
Especially when eating, sometimes a chicken is killed and its blood is eaten. Zhang An cannot eat it because it makes him blush when talking to others after eating it.
Don’t eat chicken feet. If you eat them, you will go crazy.
Anyway, there are a lot of rules, and Zhang An doesn’t know how they were passed down.
However, this does not affect Wang Fang's education, so every time he can only obey, is it possible that he still resists.
Anyway, just listen to your mother. For such trivial matters, just do whatever she says, otherwise you will have to be nagged again.
Dad Zhang Jianguo moved very quickly and took care of the pheasants and hares in just a few strokes.
But Wang Fang didn’t let him eat it, and also said he would save it for the Chinese New Year. Then Zhang An suggested salting it and hanging it on the fire rack and smoking it together with the bacon, so that it would have a different flavor.
In the evening, my mother was preparing to pound chili peppers, and Zhang An was there to help.
These peppers are grown at home. On the one hand, they are picked and eaten when they are in season. If they are not eaten, they are reddened, and then they are picked and dried into dried peppers.
That's how it is now, then I call it out, wash it, fry it with vegetable oil, put it in a bowl and pound it into chili powder.
In mountainous areas, chili peppers are an indispensable thing in everyone’s daily life. There is a lot of moisture in mountainous areas, so people’s bodies will also have a lot of moisture.
Chili pepper is a thing that can drive away the cold. This is a treasure left by our ancestors for thousands of years.
Zhang An pounded ten kilograms of peppers for a long time. He had to pound them over and over again before he could pound the large pieces of peppers into powder.
Wang Fang poured half of Zhang An's pounded chili noodles into the bowl and packed it up, and the other half was going to be used to prepare the oil chili immediately.
Zhang An’s favorite thing is to put two spoons of oily chili when eating noodles. It’s so refreshing.
This thing is simply a magical tool for cooking. Later, a certain brand of oil chili was sold to the world. It's almost the end of the month, and the adults are busy preparing things for the New Year.
Zhang An didn't know what to do at all. Even if he celebrated the New Year in later generations, he would just buy some New Year's goods and wait for New Year's Eve and cook a table of dishes, which would count as celebrating the New Year.
But in the countryside, and in this era when the New Year flavor is very strong, everyone has wonderful expectations for the New Year.
In their minds, they must be well prepared for the New Year after being busy all year long.
Wang Fang has too many things to prepare, such as pickling sauerkraut, soaking glutinous rice to make rice wine, making rice cakes, etc.
There was no glutinous rice at home, so Zhang An was arranged to take Nuogu to grind rice.
Because Changqing Village has not yet bought a rice grinder, everyone grinds it with water in the water room.
Zhang An easily lifted the fifty kilograms of rice.
When we arrived at the mill, we were lucky and no one was using the mill.
Zhang An installed the belt of the millstone, poured the millet into the mill bucket, and opened the sluice door.
Ziyoyo~
The millstone was turned around.
Fifty kilograms of rice can produce more than forty kilograms of rice, so it was done quickly.
After collecting the rice bran, someone happened to need to grind it, so Zhang An did not close the water gate.
The glutinous rice for making rice cakes needs to be soaked many days in advance, otherwise the steamed glutinous rice will be poured into the stone mortar and the person making the rice cakes will suffer.
Because the glutinous rice has not been soaked thoroughly, it cannot be pounded into pieces at all.
Later Zhang An also made rice cakes when he went back to his hometown to celebrate the New Year, but only a few kilograms of rice was enough, because the old people often said that the rice cakes made during the New Year are called reunion cakes, which represent the reunion of the family. .
In this era, everyone is too cruel when it comes to making rice cakes.
A dozen weighs dozens of kilograms, which are all the shadows left by not eating enough in the past.
After the rice cakes are beaten and dried after the New Year, you can find a water tank and soak them in water. They can be stored for a long time.
Even if the water in the water tank smells bad, the rice cakes will not go bad. The most you can do is change the water.
And for them, rice cakes are very convenient.
Sometimes I go to work in the mountains and don’t have time to cook and bring them over, so I cut some rice cakes and put them on the mountain. When I’m hungry, I light a fire, take out the rice cakes and bake them.
This thing is very filling. Zhang An doesn't like eating it anymore because he was tired of it after eating too much in the past.
Time passes day by day, and it is getting closer to the Chinese New Year day by day.
The white snow accumulated in the mountains has also begun to melt. It rained so hard in the front that it will take several days for the snow in the back to melt, and it will be extremely cold these days.
When the snow melts, there will be a lot of water on the mountain flowing onto the road. If the mud road encounters water, you must not walk on it because it is too slippery.
So no one at home goes out during this period. During the New Year, the family only needs to go to the street to buy some incense paper, candles and cannons. It is not popular to set off fireworks in mountainous areas yet, so they all set off cannons.
Then I bought some fruits and candies for the children.
Generally, even when guests come to the house, the snacks used to entertain the guests are things like melon seeds and peanuts, and each family grows a lot of them.
Those who can afford it will buy new clothes and new shoes for their children, and wait until the day of the New Year to let the children put on new clothes to celebrate the New Year.
Zhang An is not particular about clothes, so he doesn’t care. He has been around that age for a long time.
(End of this chapter)