Chapter 657 Sheep Fence with Private Box
After the Qingming Festival, God changed from the previous gloom, peeled off the thick clouds in the sky, and shed golden and bright sunshine on the earth.
Zhang An, who got up early, started walking on the road outside the door.
Standing on the bridge, he suddenly discovered that a few days ago there was a golden rapeseed flower in the vast field, but now it has withered and turned into a small rapeseed fruit.
However, it is not without surprises. Although there is no sea of rapeseed flowers in the large fields at the entrance of the village, there are still many blooming rapeseeds in the fields in the mountains.
They are the ancient crop variety bitter rapeseed, which is different from the victory rapeseed grown in paddy fields. It not only reflects the early and late flowering period, but also their appearance and fruit quality.
In mountainous areas, paddy fields are definitely fertile soil. In comparison, the soil in mountainous areas seems a bit barren.
Therefore, the varieties of crops planted by everyone are completely different throughout the year.
Take winter rapeseed as an example. Because the soil in paddy fields is relatively fertile, almost all of the rapeseed varieties grown in paddy fields are Victory rapeseeds bought from seed companies.
Shengli rapeseed is an excellent variety cultivated by the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences. It not only matures early, but also has high yield and oil yield during oil extraction. Therefore, for many years, Victory rapeseed has always been a winter rapeseed. Main planting varieties.
The advantages of Victory rapeseed are very prominent, so its plants are very tall and have many branches to facilitate seed production.
But also because of this, they have requirements for soil fertility.
If planted in barren land, the growth will be particularly poor, which will greatly affect the harvest.
So as the main cash crop of the family, every family in the village who grows winter rapeseed will plant it in fertile paddy fields.
As for the relatively barren mountainous areas, everyone will not let it be so empty. Since it is not suitable for planting winter rapeseed, we will plant the variety that has been left by our ancestors - bitter rapeseed.
This thing has been cultivated for who knows how many years. It can completely adapt to the relatively barren land in mountainous areas.
And if you want to plant, you don’t need to spend money to buy from a seed company, because many people will leave some seeds for the next year after harvesting last year.
Because it is the product of natural selection, compared with Shengli rapeseed, its plants are not tall and have not many branches. They look quite thin, and their maturity period is relatively late.
So the yield after maturity will be much lower, the rapeseed is also relatively small, not as big as Victory rapeseed, and the oil yield is not very high.
It is for this reason that growing bitter rapeseed cannot solve the oil demand in many areas, so the country has cultivated Victory rapeseed with high yield.
But as a traditional crop variety, rapeseed has its own advantages.
They never care about the fertility of the soil. As long as it is not a saline-alkali land with no fertility, they can grow.
Although the yield of bitter rapeseed is low and the oil yield rate is not high, the oil extracted from it is very fragrant.
When Zhang An’s family still grew rapeseed, both victory rapeseed and bitter rapeseed were both kind.
After harvesting, the rapeseed with high yield will be sold to exchange for money, while the bitter rapeseed with low yield will be kept at home.
Because the oil extracted from it tastes very fragrant, most people will choose to keep it to squeeze oil for home consumption.
The more reason is that the price of bitter rapeseed is not high, so many people are unwilling to sell it.
This is the same as many vegetables and grains in later generations. Some that have been treated with pesticides many times will grow and look good, but farmers do not eat them themselves and choose to sell them to city dwellers.
As for those that don’t use a lot of pesticides, but grow and look very poor, city people are not willing to buy them, and farmers themselves are not willing to buy them, but keep them for their families to eat.
“Such an early day, the third brother ran to the fields and came back.”
Zhang Ancai stood on the bridge for a while and saw Zhang Laosan from the village coming back from the fields, carrying a basket of dewy grass on his back.
"It's still early to go out to the field ridge to cut some grass and go home to feed the cattle. By the way, I'll take a look at the rapeseed in the field."
Zhang Laosan saw Zhang An and came over. At that time, I also put the basket full of grass on my back on the wooden railing of the bridge and rested for a while.
“Hey, your family is planting bitter rapeseed in the field this year, and it is still blooming now.”
After listening to Zhang Laosan’s words, Zhang An opened his eyes and looked around. I saw his family’s fields.
Although the fields of most people have turned green, the field of Zhang Laosan's family is still golden, and the rapeseeds seem to have just bloomed.
Zhang An is not someone who has never farmed before. He can tell at a glance that the fields planted by Zhang Laosan’s family are bitter rapeseed.
"Hey, you also know that our family doesn't have much land outside now, only this little paddy field is left. After thinking about it, your sister-in-law and I think that the rapeseed from the fields of more than one acre can't be sold for much anyway. For money, it’s better to grow some bitter rapeseed, and then we won’t sell it, but we will squeeze some oil for our own consumption.”
Zhang Laosan laughed and explained to Zhang An.
In fact, their family has a lot of land, but in order to expand the kiwi fruit planting area, Zhang Laosan took out all their mountain land in the past two years and exchanged it with the villagers.
So now, except for the little more than an acre of paddy fields and orchards in the middle of the field dam, there is no other mountainous land left in their home.
Furthermore, with such a large orchard, their family can make a lot of money every year just from selling kiwi fruits, so the money from selling the little rapeseed is a big deal for their family. Dispensable.
So, it is not strange to grow some bitter rapeseed and squeeze oil for your own family.
“This is good. The oil extracted from bitter rapeseed is not only delicious for cooking, but also for frying other things. Third brother, you have so many bitter rapeseeds at home, you can harvest a lot.”
< br>Zhang An saw that their family had planted so much rapeseed, and immediately thought that after the harvest, he would buy some from their family and squeeze out some rapeseed oil.
You must know that their family did not plant a single rapeseed plant this year, but only garlic.
“There’s not much. Don’t look at the size of my field, which is almost two acres, but when I receive it at home, I can get up to five hundred kilograms of rapeseed.”
Hearing this, Zhang Laosan said, He smiled wryly and shook his head. This is the yield of rapeseed, and this is still a conservative estimate. If there is a drought for a while, or there are a few hailstorms, it will be hard to say.
“That’s not too much, Third Brother, after your family harvests the rapeseed, sell some to our family. This year, my family didn’t plant any.”
This number was not much different from what Zhang An estimated, so he immediately discussed it with Zhang Laosan.
Based on the calculation that one hundred kilograms of rapeseed can squeeze out more than twenty kilograms of oil, more than five hundred kilograms of bitter rapeseed is equivalent to more than one hundred kilograms of rapeseed oil.
Normally, a family of four like Zhang Laosan’s family cannot eat so much rapeseed oil throughout the year.
Because every household in the village needs lard in addition to rapeseed oil for daily consumption.
"Okay, if the harvest is good, I will give you one or two hundred catties evenly, but don't be too little."
If it were anyone else who spoke, Zhang Laosan would not necessarily Will agree, his family is not short of the money from selling rapeseed now.
But the person who spoke was Zhang An, which was different from the others. Zhang Laosan agreed without saying a word.
He always thought about Zhang An's kindness in his heart. Otherwise, their family would not have the orchard like the golden hen now.
"Enough, enough, this is not too little." Zhang An knew that it was enough if someone could sell him one or two hundred catties.
Although the squeezed oil is not enough for the family for a year, when the time comes, it will be enough to collect some from a few families in the village.
Although each family in the village does not grow a lot of rapeseed, it is impossible to sell it for one or two hundred catties like Zhang Laosan.
But if one family can’t do it, then find a dozen or so more families. It won’t be difficult to save hundreds of kilograms of rapeseed by then.
"By the way, your garlic this year looks pretty good. I think just by selling those garlic moss a few days ago, I have already made back the money I spent on growing garlic."
< br>Mentioning the garlic in Zhang An’s field, Zhang Laosan couldn’t help but sigh.
Because the garlic planted by Zhang An’s family this year is growing really well. He has never seen garlic growing so well since he was a child.
“Hahaha, God gave me face, so I look pretty good.”
Hearing this, Zhang An just laughed and said to Zhang Laosan.
If we just talk about the cost of garlic seeds, we have already paid back the cost by selling those garlic seedlings before the Chinese New Year last year.
The garlic moss sold a few days ago was a net profit.
According to the price given by Ding Yi, this batch of garlic moss can be said to be several times the cost of garlic seeds.
Coupled with the garlic harvested in a while, it can be said that their family has made a lot of money from planting this season.
Back home, Zhang Jianguo was about to push a trolley out of the courtyard.
"Dad, what are you going to do?"
Zhang An was not sure what his father wanted to do, and he was curious.
“Didn’t you say that you would tidy up the sheepfold and put up a new layer, so I went to the old house and pushed the remaining wood over, and we can start today.”
Zhang Jianguo did not go out to graze today because several ewes at home were expected to give birth.
The new sheepfold at home has been built, and everything has been solved, whether it is the wall or the floor.
But Zhang An didn't plan to just shut the sheep in. He planned to build a new layer in the new sheep pen. When the sheep live in the upper layer, the lower layer will be convenient for collecting sheep dung.
Zhang Jianguo thought that being idle at home would be idle, so he wanted to push the wood over and finish it early.
"Don't use a cart. You can't push this thing much at a time. I'll go get the carriage out and the two carts will be pulled back. This will save you the trouble."
Zhang An looked at the trolley in his father's hand, shook his head and said, this thing is indeed useful in rural areas, but the carrying capacity is still too small.
To build a new layer in the sheep pen, a lot of wood needs to be used. With this thing, it will take a long time to finish.
“I just thought that I would plow the fields and plant rice seedlings in a while, so I didn’t think about taking them out and letting them grow fat.”
It’s not that Zhang Jianguo didn’t think about his carriage. It's just that he is a person who cares about livestock. He is planning to do spring plowing in a while, so he wants the horses at home to be well fattened.
It is not like some people who raise a cow or horse at home and risk their lives to do so.
“It’s been since last winter, and it’s not confinement. It takes such a long time to raise him. Besides, Dahei’s stubborn temperament, Dad, it’s all for nothing if you feel sorry for him. Blind.”
Zhang An also knew that his father was someone who cared about animals, but he felt that his father was caring about the wrong person this time.
As for Dahei, the animal is suffocating in the pen every day. It is eager to be let out and have fun.
As for fattening, that does not exist. Its strong body has never lost weight at all.
Waiting for Zhang An to set up the carriage and go to the courtyard of the old house, the father and son took out all the remaining wood from the wooden upstairs and loaded it into the carriage.
In fact, Zhang An probably had some discrepancies. He didn't finish the two cars and made a third trip.
The wooden partitions of the new sheep pen are not very short, about one and a half meters above the ground.
In this way, no matter who comes in when cleaning sheep dung in the future, they will not be too cramped.
After setting up the pillars and several rows of main bars, Zhang An was responsible for cutting the wooden boards into thick wooden strips, while Zhang Jianguo was responsible for taking the wooden strips to the circle and nailing them one by one. .
There is a gap between the wooden slats. The gap is not too big or too small, so that the sheep will not stumble and fall down, and it can also make it easier for the sheep excrement excreted by them to be discharged to the lower layer.
I have to say that this was a meticulous job. The father and son worked for two days in a row before putting up the layers of wooden boards in the sheepfold.
"Dad, there is no need to play in such a spacious place anyway. Why don't we just separate some small compartments so that whether the ewes are about to give birth or the lambs that have just been born, they can stay away from each other. The sheep will be safer.”
Although it has been set up, Zhang An did not stop there, but planned to build some separate compartments in the sheep pen.
In the past, when the number of sheep at home was small, there were no safety risks whether they were ewes expecting to give birth or lambs that had just been born.
But now, as the number of sheep raised at home increases, many sheep are becoming more and more restless, especially the rams, who often fight with each other.
It doesn't have any impact on themselves. At most, their heads are buzzing for half a day.
But for some ewes about to give birth and newborn lambs, it is very dangerous.
From last year to this year, several lambs have been trampled to death because of horn fights between the big rams.
In this regard, Zhang An has been thinking about how to solve this problem.
When he saw such a spacious sheepfold in his home, he thought of the Internet cafes in later generations. In addition to the lobby, there were also some individual boxes.
After having a private room, no matter how noisy the hall is, the private room will be much quieter.
The same is true for the separation of the sheepfold. This can well solve the problem of fire at the city gate and damage to the fish in the pond.
Quan is considered to be some preferential treatment for the ewes who are about to give birth and the newborn lambs.
"It seems that it can be done this way. It won't take much time anyway, and there are still a lot of materials left, so let's do it."
Zhang Jianguo thought about it carefully and found that Zhang An was right. Makes sense.
So they just got on with it, and the father and son hammered in the sheepfold again, creating some single rooms.
(End of this chapter)