Chapter 328 Repairs after the Snow

The temperature is gradually rising and is likely to break through 0 degrees soon.

The two finally found an opportunity to go out and cut some wood to repair the building.

Hunting for animals on the grassland has not been so frequent recently. Some time ago, herbivores came out to forage for food and carnivores came out to hunt. In the end, the animals that survived should have obtained relatively sufficient food.

It is estimated that many herbivores have become supply to carnivores, and those that survived are unlikely to come out again until the snow melts and vegetation grows on the meadow.

If there are fewer active herbivores, there will be correspondingly fewer carnivores.

The two men seized the opportunity and went to the bamboo forest on the road at the foot of the mountain to cut down some trees and bamboos.

The temperature is now so Xiaohong can go out. With Xiaohong pulling the cart, both of them feel a lot more relaxed. However, her pulling force is not strong enough, so they have to carry the cart twice.

Carnivores may appear at any time, so we dare not use cows to pull carts because they will run too slowly if something really happens.

As a pleasant surprise, Zhao Yeqing also dug up two winter bamboo shoots.

She showed Mu Xi the winter bamboo shoots in her hand with a smile on her face, "Look at this, our first meal of pickled pork with preserved vegetables this year is now settled."

When she slaughtered a pig, she had already prepared the bacon for pickled pork with preserved vegetables, and had been waiting for this moment to come. She never expected that she would have to wait for nearly a year.

The two had gone down the mountain and into the village many times before, but they had never found so many animal footprints near the road going down the mountain.

This time, not only were there many more footprints, but there were also many footprints that neither of them recognized, and the deep and shallow footprints were particularly obvious on the snow.

Zhao Yeqing thought so too. After all, it has been so long since the ground cracked. When human activities no longer involve this area, it is normal for animals to begin expanding their territory.

It may also be that the two people know too little about animals. If they see its appearance, they might know what kind of animal it is. Even if they don’t know, they can basically find it by checking the manual they brought from Meishan. It is really impossible to tell it apart just by looking at the footprints.

There were hoof-like footprints, some similar to the pads of cats or dogs, and some forked claw marks that looked like they were left by some kind of pheasant.

All in all, it is definitely a good idea to go home early and try not to come face to face with any animals that are still alive.

After this period of hunting, the previously skinny, hungry and cold carnivores must have become more powerful now. If they met two people, they would definitely be unable to defeat them.

After all, the animals that can survive until now are either strong enough, able to fight or run, or have large herds.

Although there were no traces of social animals or wild beasts among the footprints, they still had to act quickly to be on the safe side. After moving all the wood back home, the two men hurried to repair the barn before the snow melted, including the rack for drying dustpans and the pole for drying clothes in the yard that had been destroyed before.

We don’t plan to lay more tiles on the roof now. Just ignore the fallen and broken ones, and pick up the intact ones and place them in the corner of the courtyard wall.

Wait until the earthquake has passed after the snow melts or before the high temperature comes before laying the roof to avoid such unnecessary losses.

Every time the broken tiles need to be re-fired, they have to go to the mountains to pick up red mud. After making each tile piece, they have to ignite the brick kiln for firing and cooling. It is not only laborious but also very time-consuming.

After the buildings are repaired, the first priority is to move all the livestock back from underground, and the barns must be disinfected before moving them back.

Although the temperature is not so low that water freezes into ice in this season, it is still often below zero degrees. Only at the hottest time at noon may the temperature barely reach -1 degree or zero degrees.

When the two men were cleaning the barn, they had to light two fires inside to dry the wet floor quickly.

After cleaning, disinfecting, drying, and laying clean hay and straw, the livestock can be moved back.

Zhao Yeqing also did not forget the vegetables and fruits she had protected for a whole winter.

Originally, I thought I just needed to move all these plants to the ground to prevent the basement from collapsing and being damaged.

But when they were about to move the plants, they discovered that they had spent the entire winter thinking only about how to keep the plants alive and had not had much time to pay attention to their condition.

The strawberries were fine, the plants were growing very healthy, but the tomatoes, which I thought I could keep until this year, had some problems.

Tomatoes are not as cold-resistant as strawberries. During the coldest period of time, he provided sufficient light in the greenhouse, which caused the tomato plants to grow wildly in the greenhouse. It is unknown whether they can survive after topping.

But if you ignore it and let it continue to grow, the subsequent flower bud differentiation of such plants will be very poor. Even if it blooms and bears fruit, the flowers and fruits will easily fall off. The fruits that are produced will not only be easily infected with diseases, but will also fall off deformed.

In order to avoid future troubles, it seems that we have to grow seedlings again.

In addition to tomatoes, eggplants and beans also need to be replanted. The vines of climbing plants such as beans, loofahs and cucumbers are very easy to age. Even if they are not frozen to death, the plants no longer have such vigorous vitality. If you want the fruits to grow well in the future, it is safer to replant them.

When the weather was cold, she thought about whether she should pull out the vegetables planted in the basement and have to be replanted in the spring.

But then I thought that the planting lights were already on, and the growing leafy greens and strawberries needed to be kept warm. Although the fruits on the bean and loofah vines could not be eaten, they could be saved for seeds or wait for them to grow older and become loofah pulp that could be used to wash dishes. Plus, the weather was cold, so I was too lazy to deal with it.

Among the nightshade vegetables, the only one that can still be used is probably pepper.

Eggplants are even less cold-resistant than tomatoes, and are already dying. Zhao Yeqing is afraid that even if the weather warms up again and they are moved to the ground, they will still be susceptible to disease due to the alternating cold and warm weather.

After thinking about it carefully, she decided to just grow new seedlings since she had so many seeds. However, if she did this, the only peppers and strawberries she would have protected over the winter would be the peppers.

Zhao Yeqing was a little frustrated, and then he thought about the original intention of building the planting basement. In addition to protecting the fruits and vegetables to successfully overwinter, another reason was to be able to eat fresh vegetables in the winter and to move the vegetables to the basement to continue growing healthily when it was too hot in the summer.

So far, except that the quantity of vegetables for the winter is a little less, all other goals have been achieved.

Thinking of this, Zhao Yeqing found herself quite happy to grow seedlings and sow seeds again. After all, she was too idle now and wished she could find a hundred or eighty things to do a day.

Now that fewer plants can be moved out of the basement, the two have the energy to start preparing vegetable seeds to be planted in the spring.