Chapter 433 Gourd
Every May, the first shift of summer arrives. At this time, many places begin to feel the fiery enthusiasm of summer.
And this period is also the busiest time for everyone, but no matter how busy we are, everyone is very happy.
Although the book only talks about the golden autumn in October, May is actually the first harvest season of every year.
Here in Hongyan Town, the main cash crops of farmers are nothing more than rapeseed, rice and corn. Wheat is also grown, but it is relatively small and cannot be ranked.
For ordinary families, rapeseed is their main source of income. Even rice and corn in the second half of the season cannot compare.
The first is the planting area. When rapeseed is planted in winter every year, most families will plant rapeseed in paddy fields or mountainous areas.
But it is different in summer and autumn. Rice can only be planted in paddy fields, and the remaining mountainous areas are responsible for growing corn.
Hongyan Town is a place with relatively good geographical conditions in the mountainous area, and every household has a paddy field.
This era is different from that of later generations. No one would be willing to use paddy fields to grow other crops. Rice fields are rice fields.
Therefore, even if there is a bumper harvest of rice and corn, the harvest will not be as large as rapeseed, and naturally it will not be sold for that much money.
Besides, rice is the food that everyone needs every day. Even if there is a good harvest, it is impossible to sell all of it.
The same is true for corn. Everyone raises several animals at home. After the animals are sold out, they can no longer keep them.
Rapeseed is different. Not many people eat vegetable oil now. Daily cooking oil is basically pork suet harvested on the streets.
Because people now do more physical labor and more frequently, lard is much more resistant to hunger than Narushizi vegetable oil.
Therefore, rapeseed oil is not considered a daily oil. Even if some people press the oil, they can’t extract much, and the rest are sold.
Therefore, rapeseed is the main source of income for ordinary farmers’ families.
Zhang An still remembers that when he was in school, Wang Fang and Zhang Jianguo had to sell a lot of rapeseed every year to pay for his tuition.
So, no matter how busy and tired we are in May, everyone is very happy, because what is shed is the sweat of harvest.
This is true for ordinary people, and it is even more true for the Zhang An family.
Throughout May, aside from the rapeseeds in the several acres of fields, cherries, strawberries and peaches matured one after another. This is the main source of income for Zhang An's family.
Of course, this is also a great gain for the villagers.
Because this month they received several months' worth of wages from Zhang An's house, and they also had work to do every day.
While Zhang An’s family was sending away the ripe peaches, busy May was also waving goodbye to everyone.
"Xiao An, remember to go to town and buy some realgar tomorrow morning."
During dinner in the evening, Wang Fang explained the matter to Zhang An solemnly.
Even though there are only two days left in this month, tomorrow and the next two days, tomorrow happens to be the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, the Dragon Boat Festival.
After the paddy fields were plowed, everyone was not in a hurry to move the rice seedlings, but took advantage of the glory of the Dragon Boat Festival to take a rare break.
The family happily makes rice dumplings together, hangs mugwort and sprinkles realgar wine around the house.
For mountain people, you don’t have to eat the rice dumplings and hang the mugwort, but you must sprinkle the realgar wine.
If someone's family doesn't sprinkle realgar wine, it means that their family is not an authentic mountain family.
After all, what that sentence says, sir, you don’t want a snake to get under your bed when you sleep at night.
This is true. When Huang Ming’s father, Huang Dabiao, was young and not yet married, a snake crawled under his bed.
Huang Dabiao was very frightened that time, because it was not Bai Suzhen who got under his bed, but a snake as big as an adult's arm.
I heard from the villagers that Huang Dabiao was really bitten by a snake on his thigh that night, but fortunately it was a non-venomous cauliflower snake and he escaped.
But even the cauliflower snake is very dangerous, because it bites at the root of the thigh, and if it goes higher up, it may not be poisoned to death, but it can be incapacitated.
So Huang Dabiao, who had experienced that time, was very active in sprinkling realgar wine every year.
If it was Bai Suzhen, he might still be enjoying it, but unfortunately not, he didn't want to continue to encounter those cold and cold guys.
The same is true for Wang Fang, because she is really afraid of snakes, so she takes it seriously every year.
She has not forgotten that when the goshawk at home was hatching eggs last year, a snake unknowingly climbed onto the roof of her house.
"Okay, Mom, I'll go buy it when I get up tomorrow morning."
Zhang An remembered that he hadn't remembered the town for a long time, and it was time to go out for a walk and get some fresh air.
It just so happens that I can go to the street tomorrow and tell Butcher Zheng that the big black dog has given birth to puppies.
In the dead of night in the second half of the night, Zhang An came to the space.
Because the gourds he planted have grown, speaking of these gourds, he spent some energy to keep an eye on them every day.
Looking at the gourds on the gourd vine that had become much darker in color, Zhang An reached out and tried to see if he could pick them off.
However, this time it was beyond Zhang An's expectation. He just held the bottom of the gourd, turned it slightly twice, and the gourd in his hand was picked off.
It's not the same as last time. It can't be picked off alive or dead. It seems that the gourd has really grown now.
The gourd now is much lighter than when it was first grown, and it doesn’t feel as heavy when you pick it up.
After throwing it in his hand, Zhang An went to the small courtyard to find a saw and cut off the mouth of the gourd.
When the gourd seeds inside were poked out, the gourd seeds turned out to be the same purple color as the gourd.
And as you can see from the mouth of the gourd, the inner wall of the gourd has the same color as the outer surface.
It seems that this gourd is different from ordinary gourds. The color on its body goes straight to the inside.
Zhang An thinks this is pretty good, and it saves him the trouble of painting the gourd.
The more I look at it, the more satisfied I feel. This purple gourd looks very grand, and it has a shadow of the purple gold gourd of Taishang Laojun.
After hollowing out the inside, Zhang An polished the inside again with the prepared wire brush.
After observing deeply, I found that the polishing was not very clean, so I started again and gave the purple gold gourd another comfortable internal massage.
After finishing this one, Zhang An felt that it was not enough, so he immediately went to pick some red, orange, yellow, green, blue and black ones from the gourd vine.
There were green gourds growing on the gourd vine, but he had no idea of picking them because he didn't like them.
I believe that no male compatriot will like this color, of course, except for those with special hobbies.
Such noble green should be reserved for those who are destined.
After cleaning several gourds, Zhang An found half a piece of wood with good texture and started carving the gourd plugs.
Other people use fine precious wood or jade as the main material.
Zhang An doesn't have it here, and he doesn't have that pursuit, so he can do it with a simple piece of wood.
These gourds are what he plans to use to make wine gourds, so they must be washed inside.
So before leaving the space, Zhang An filled several gourds with spring water and stuffed the gourds with stoppers.
It will be easier to clean it after it has been soaked for a period of time.
Some people make wine gourds, and they must use lacquer or beeswax to make the inside waterproof.
But Zhang An only wanted to use it to hold wine or water, and use it as a kettle when going out. We don't want to store it for a long time, so this process can be completely omitted.
Moreover, those processes also test skills, and people who don't know how to do it can easily damage the gourd.
Zhang An has a lazy temper, so he must do as little trouble as possible so that he will not cause trouble for himself.
But when it was time to fill the gourd with water, Zhang An discovered a very outrageous phenomenon.
This broken gourd doesn’t look big, but it seems to be quite large inside.
Zhang An brought a bucket full of water and filled them with water. He only filled two gourds before the bucket bottomed out. Zhang An was dumbfounded.
You must know that this gourd is one foot long, and there are so many bowls for serving vegetables at home. It doesn’t look like it can hold so much water.
Zhang An didn't believe in evil, so he opened the stopper and poured the water from the gourd into the bucket.
When the two gourds of water were emptied, the liquid level in the bucket returned to the same level as before.
"Is the color of this gourd just an appearance, and the real magic lies in the capacity inside this gourd?"
After loading it back and forth twice, Zhang An fell into deep thought.
Although these gourds grow in space, according to past practices, there must be something unusual.
Although the phenomenon was weird when it grew out before, after observing it many times, Zhang An gave up the mysterious and unrealistic ideas in his mind.
I only think that the overall color of this gourd is what makes it different from ordinary gourds.
Unexpectedly, this ultimate move was still being suppressed. If he hadn't poured water into it, he wouldn't have discovered it.
But this was a product of space after all. Zhang An didn’t think much about it, but took it for granted.
If there is nothing strange at all, I would be sorry for the identity it was born in this dimension.
Looking back, this gourd is indeed quite capable of holding, but it is not that exaggerated.
Because they can only hold half a bucket of water, which is three times the size.
Whether it is compared with Taishang Laojun’s purple gourd or compared with Calabash Baby’s small gourd, it is not up to par at all.
The last six gourds filled three barrels of spring water. After placing them in the wooden house, Zhang An returned to the room.
"Zhang An, it's time to get up. Mom asked me to buy realgar on the street."
Early the next morning, Zhang An did not get up as early as usual.
But when the sun was shining on his butt, Su Ying came over to urge him to get up.
He hasn't slept in for a long time, but he slept a little too late last night.
Because those gourds were so fun in space last night, so he played with them for a long time without knowing it.
Even when I came out of the space, not much time had passed.
But he lay in bed and couldn't fall asleep for a long time.
Because after seeing those gourds, a bunch of thoughts kept popping up in his head and he was always very sober.
That’s how people are, the more they want to fall asleep, the more they can’t fall asleep.
He didn’t know when he fell asleep later, but he vaguely heard a rooster crow in his ears.
Being dragged off the bed unceremoniously by Su Ying, Zhang An could only get dressed obediently.
Don’t say that Zhang An didn’t wake up angry. Even if he did, what could he do?
Su Ying is now clearly the eldest son of the family, especially since she has a little ancestor in her belly.
It’s as if Cao Cao was still alive, and he was powerful, and he was holding the emperor hostage to order the princes.
"By the way, why didn't you go to school today?"
Zhang An was a little surprised that his wife had time to wake him up today.
"It's Saturday today. You always don't remember the time. I really don't know what you are thinking about all day long."
Su Ying has no idea about Zhang An's frequent failure to remember the day. .
Don’t tell me what day of the week it is, sometimes I ask him what day it is in the month and he can’t answer.
If I had gone to work, my salary would have been deducted long ago.
"Hey, it's okay. You're the only one in our family who can remember it. I don't have to go to work anyway, so why do I remember this?"
By the time Zhang An got up, it was already past breakfast time at home.
So after washing up, he drove directly to the town.
Although today is Saturday, because it coincides with the Dragon Boat Festival, there is a small market in Hongyan Town.
Besides, there were quite a lot of people going to the market in Chang Qing's street. Zhang An met a few older people on the road and took them to the street.
On the road, I met many young children from the village. After seeing Zhang An's car, they shouted respectfully.
Zhang An didn't understand, so he stopped the car on the side of the road. They had seen many battles before, and they wanted to take a ride.
As soon as the young children saw Zhang An parking his car, they immediately crawled into his car like monkeys.
In the past, Zhang An would have sternly refused, because at that time he was still immersed in the consciousness of very strict rules and regulations in later generations.
But now after all these years, he has already adapted to the current rules.
Arriving in the town, Zhang An went straight to the stall selling realgar.
But he found several stalls, and was mostly surrounded by people because there were too many people selling realgar.
No wonder Wang Fang asked him to buy it early, because they had expected that there would be a lot of people today.
There is no way, who made him come late, he can only wait for the people in front to finish buying.
After waiting for half an hour, Zhang An finally bought the realgar that his mother wanted.
Zhang An had nothing else to buy, so he went to Butcher Zheng’s meat stall.
"Hey, Uncle Zheng's business is very good today."
Butcher Zheng sells beef, which is relatively expensive. Even if someone buys it, it won't be too much.
But today the stall was crowded with people, and business was booming.
It’s probably the holidays and everyone wants to eat something good.
After all, other families in the village are the same. Even if they don't buy pork or beef, they will catch a chicken and kill it for the whole family to eat.
That’s why the old people often say that children look forward to the festival, and adults look forward to farming.
"Business is better today, but the Dragon Boat Festival has to be celebrated. Can I cut a piece for you?"
Butcher Zheng weighed the meat while moving the knife, and also weighed the meat. Being able to talk to Zhang An is like multi-tasking with a multi-core processor.
(End of this chapter)