Chapter 446 Bag

I coaxed it back by trimming its hooves. Now that I don't have any use for it, I haven't paid attention to it for a long time, and I haven't trimmed its hair for a while.

Zhao Yeqing felt like a scumbag who deceived a young girl.

He patted Xiao Hong's head and promised: "Tomorrow, when the sun comes out, I will give you a bath, cut your hair, and trim your hooves. I will make sure you are well groomed."

Now with electricity, trimming horse hair has become easier. You can adjust the length at will and shave it all off with an electric clipper.

Some clothes and bags that Zhao Yeqing bought before were also decorated with horse hair. He always wanted to try it, but he had no experience and didn't know whether the horse hair used to make clothing needed special treatment.

But judging from the horse hair she shaved off, it was already very smooth without any processing. If we don't consider its durability, it probably doesn't need any further processing.

We chose to give Xiaohong a bath at noon when the sun was the warmest. After taking a bath and drying her, we started shaving her hair and finally trimming her hooves.

The hair shaved off this time was long enough, and Zhao Yeqing carefully collected the horse hair, thinking that he could make clothes with it after weaving the cloth.

What I collected this time can be used to make a small bag. I have a lot of animal leathers at home. In addition to the skins left over from killing cattle and sheep, there are also bear skins and several wolf skins, and even more rabbit skins.

We have to wait until next spring when cotton is planted and harvested before we can spin and weave cloth. It's still early, and it will be in time to collect horse hair to make clothes by then.

When Zhao Yeqing made a bag for the first time, after drawing the blueprint, she took out a piece of sheepskin, which was the largest and relatively softest in her home. This time when she came back from the village, she found a lot of thick thread for sewing shoe soles, and she planned to use this thread to sew the bag.

The sewing machine has not been brought back yet, so the first bag must be sewn by hand. She plans to use visible stitching for such thick thread, which will not look ugly, but it needs to be sewn neatly.

The sheepskin that I tanned myself was not as soft as the processed ones, but Mu Xi's craftsmanship was getting better and better, so it was acceptable. However, it was difficult to dye it, and the inside would easily have a smell.

Zhao Yeqing sewed a layer of coarse cloth lining inside the bag, and covered the ugly and uneven color of the outside with horse hair.

The horse hair is soft and feels super smooth when spread out on the surface. It is also very shiny. Once it is evenly covered, you can no longer see the mottled colors of the leather inside. The reddish-brown horse hair looks quite high-end.

(Pictures available here)

When carrying a backpack in the mountains, practicality is definitely the most important consideration. The most convenient ones are crossbody and backpack. Waist bags and chest bags are also acceptable, but the bag shapes are more complicated. It was Zhao Yeqing’s first time, so he chose crossbody.

Carrying it crossbody will not block the space for the backpack, and it is also easy to cut the leather. After sewing two crescent-shaped pieces of leather of the same size together, just add a crossbody shoulder strap.

In order to hold more things at the bottom, Zhao Yeqing added a piece of slightly harder wild boar skin at the bottom for splicing. There is no need for horse hair at the bottom, and the bottom of the bag is not easily visible. The most important thing is that wild boar skin is durable, and it is more convenient to go into the mountains without adding horse hair.

If you want to put the bag down in the mountains, you can throw it anywhere without worrying about the horsehair surface getting damaged.

Her skills are limited, and the horse hair was glued on with glue, so she doesn't know if it will last long.

Handicraft work is the most time-consuming. It takes three days to make a bag. Of course, the three days are not all spent on making bags. The vegetable garden also has to be weeded and pest-free. It’s hot in summer now, and the vegetable garden still has to be watered in the evening when the sun is not hot.

The chili peppers grew the fastest and have already started to bear fruit. The next best growing tree was the banana tree, which had already borne fruit in a long bunch. Each fruit was the length of a palm and had not yet expanded.

Zhao Yeqing remembered that bananas could be picked when they were still green, and then left for a while until they turned yellow before being eaten. She had never eaten bananas that were naturally ripe on trees, and there were more wild bananas in her hometown.

The taste of plantains and bananas is quite different, but if she had to choose, she would probably prefer plantains. Although the middle of the fruit is sour, it is fragrant and has a refreshing aroma that bananas don't have. Bananas are also fragrant, of course, but the aroma is sweeter and not as fresh.

The new banana seedlings growing on the roots of the banana trees are already half the height of adult banana trees. Once this batch of fruits are picked, the old trees will be cut down so that they can grow faster with more nutrients.

Zhao Yeqing walked a few steps to the side and went to look at the citrus tree next door.

At this time last year, the citrus trees had a lot of insects, mostly snails, densely packed on the trunks near the roots. But as long as the ducks were released, these snails became excellent protein.

Just after the spring this year, some snails crawled out and were eaten clean by the ducks. The quality of the duck eggs laid has improved.

Snails themselves are nutritious, and their shells can also provide calcium to ducks, making the shells of the eggs laid by ducks harder.

When Zhao Yeqing is bored, she will go to the vegetable garden to look for insects. If it is not disgusting, like aphids, she will use tweezers to pick up a few and put them in a small box.

Then I went to the pond and scooped up a few small fish fry and put them in a transparent container. I threw small aphids into the water. It was quite interesting to watch the small fish fry fighting for food.

After not having much contact with electronic products, I feel less empty when playing these games that I create for myself. Even my eyesight seems to have improved.

Her eyesight was good to begin with. After so many years in the mountains, what was previously a little blurry has now become crystal clear. She can even see sesame-sized insects clearly from a distance.

Zhao Yeqing threw the big insects to the hens and washed away the small ones with water. He planned to spray some insect repellent medicine tomorrow morning.

She thought that if growing garlic could repel insects, then couldn’t garlic water do the same?

I'll try it tomorrow. The aphids on the fruits and vegetables keep coming back and forth. I wonder if garlic water will be better than tobacco water.

For plants like peppers and tomatoes that are relatively short, the effect of intercropping with garlic is very obvious, but for taller climbing plants like cucumbers, the performance is not so good and still requires human intervention.

In the evening, Zhao Yeqing calculated the time. Mu Xi had been in the village for five days. He estimated that he would be back in the next two days. When he came back, he would kill the sheep and cattle first.

It is time to harvest the grass again. The silo is still full because it was filled once in the spring. The new grass that has grown now does not need to be cut and put into the silo. It can be dried and put into the hay house.

Zhao Yeqing muttered that he would go to the edge of the cliff tomorrow and use the intercom to ask Mu Xi when he would be back. If the loom was finished, he would have to go and pick him up.

Unexpectedly, when I woke up, Mu Xi had already pushed the door open and walked into the house.