Chapter 145: Harvesting Wheat

After the Dragon Boat Festival, the wheat is ripe.

The wind blew, creating layers of golden wheat waves.

Every family was busy harvesting wheat, and house building work also stopped.

Li Wanyue was wearing a straw hat and holding a sickle. She grabbed a small handful of wheat straw in her left hand, and used her right hand to draw force across the bottom of the straw, and a handful of wheat was cut off.

The movements were not fast, and even though the original owner was a capable person, she still couldn't get used to it.

I have been using skin care cream during this period and have basically not done any other rough work except washing clothes, so my hands have become much softer.

After only a quarter of an hour of cutting, the palms of my hands were already red from being rubbed.

Oh, if only it were a harvester.

It won't take long to complete the harvesting and shelling.

Go back and sew a few gloves with cloth, at least they will be of some use.

Looking at the others, brother Li Dachuan had already cut a large piece of land.

Sun Xiuqin also cut a lot. She is much more diligent now than before.

In the past, during the busy farming season, she would only be responsible for housework.

Li Youshan said: "Yueyue, we are here in the fields, you can go home and rest."

"Yes, we can finish the harvest in a few days without you."

Li Wanyue wiped the sweat off her forehead with her sleeve and said, "Now that we are here, we must finish our morning work. Don't worry, Dad. I will take a rest if I am tired."

After saying that, he bent down and continued cutting.

I'll hire someone to collect it next year. Isn't the purpose of earning money to live a good life? My family is not short of money, so there's no need to suffer.

Several children followed behind, picking up wheat ears and reciting poems as they did so.

At noon, Li Dachuan stayed behind to look after the wheat while the others went home to eat.

Wang Guixiang had already prepared the meal. When she saw everyone coming back, she hurriedly poured a few cups of sour plum soup.

Then put food on the table.

She said, "Mom, Yueyue, I'll go in the afternoon, you guys stay at home and rest."

Zhao Suying waved her hand: "I can still do this little bit of work, but it's not easy for you to work at home, there are so many things to do."

I have to feed the pigs, chickens and rabbits, do the laundry, fetch water, cook and cut grass for the pigs. There is never a moment of leisure.

Li Wanyue drank a cup of sour plum soup and fanned herself with a fan.

Wang Guixiang packed some vegetables and rice in a bamboo basket, and two tubes of sour plum soup and took them to the field to eat with Li Dachuan, while the others ate at home.

In the afternoon, during their break, Li Wanyue, Zhao Suying and others cut up old clothes and sewed a few pairs of gloves.

A wide strip of cloth is sewn on the edge of the gloves. Tie the strip of cloth after putting them on so that they won’t fall off.

Li Wanyue asked Zhao Suying to try it on.

After Zhao Suying put it on and picked up the sickle, she said, "It doesn't feel convenient to work with this on."

"You won't feel that way once you get used to it."

Zhao Suying smiled and said, "Okay, I'll wear it to work in the afternoon."

Li Wanyue went to the kitchen, found a few basins, poured the saltpeter powder she bought into the basins, added different amounts of water and stirred them evenly.

She remembered that the ratio of saltpeter to water was about 1 to 3, so she tried increasing or decreasing it slightly within this range.

Then he filled a small bowl with water, propped it up with a small wooden stand, and placed it in the large basin.

After resting enough, the family went back to work in the fields.

When Li Wanyue returned home in the evening, she went to the kitchen immediately.

All four basins were covered with ice, but the quality of the ice was different.

The water in the bowls placed in two of the basins had frozen into ice. The ice made from saltpeter-containing water can only be used to cool down and cannot be eaten.

Li Wanyue picked up the basin and placed it on the table in the yard. Zhao Suying and others widened their eyes.

"This... this is ice. How can there be ice in such a hot day? Yueyue, where did you get this?"

Li Wanyue said: "I made it myself."

"Wow, could our Yueyue be a fairy who has descended to earth? She can do this." Zhao Suying exclaimed.

"Ordinary people can also make ice." Li Wanyue said, shaking the fan.

The cool breeze blowing on my body immediately dissipated the summer heat.

"How about it?"

"It's really cool, you guys try it too." Zhao Suying stood up and let others feel it.

There was a sudden exclamation in the courtyard.

Xiao Tao asked: "Auntie, can I eat this ice?"

Li Wanyue shook her head: "You can't eat this, you can only enjoy the coolness. You can eat the ice in the small bowl."

As he said this, he broke the ice in one of the bowls into cubes for them to eat.

Xiao Tao held an ice cube in her mouth, and the coolness went straight to the top of her head. She had never eaten ice in the summer before, it was amazing.

Li Wanyue received another wave of admiring glances.

－－－－

The Li family planted four acres of wheat and harvested it in two days.

With the ox cart, the wheat was transported to the threshing ground without much effort.

The wheat needs to be threshed by repeated crushing with stone mills here.

Then peel the shell, remove impurities, dry it and store it in the warehouse.

With the cows, there is no need for human labor to pull the millstone.

Li Wanyue sighed again, farmers have a very hard life.

On the other side, the Li family’s old house.

When Li Youshan was divided out, not much land was given to them, and they kept most of it.

There is a lot of land but few people to work on it.

Only Li Youfu and his wife and Li Dalin and his wife were doing the work.

Li Xiangyu had never worked in the fields. He didn't even go home, using the excuse of taking care of his pregnant wife.

When Li Youfu saw that Li Youshan's family had finished harvesting the wheat, he immediately went to their house.

"Brother, you have harvested the wheat, isn't it time to help mom and dad harvest? This is when the family is divided, you promised."

Li Youshan said, "Didn't I say I won't help? I have helped to collect the crops over the years. You should go back first. It's late today. I will go tomorrow."

After saying that, he walked away.

Li Youfu rolled his eyes. Since he had someone to help him, he didn't need to worry anymore and went home to rest.

The next day, Li Youshan took Li Dachuan to the old house.

Li Youfu and Li Dalin saw that only the two of them came, so they asked, "Where are the second and third brothers? Why didn't they come?"

"Shouldn't the harvested grain be threshed and dried? Besides, why didn't my brother's wife and niece-in-law come?"

Li Youfu choked. He thought that at least four people from the eldest family could come today, and they were all good at work. One person could work as fast as two of them.

I didn't invite my wives to come, and who knew that only two of them came.

He asked: "Didn't we have at least four people in previous years? Your family has a cow, so your sister-in-law can do the threshing work. We have only harvested two acres of land, and there are still five acres to be harvested. What if it rains?

Big brother, let Dachuan call the two brothers over. You guys can start threshing two days later."

Li Youshan said, "We are only helping you out of kindness. You will not share a single grain of the harvested food with us. You provide two people and we provide two. It is just right. It doesn't make sense for you to only provide two people for your work and let us provide four."

Li Dalin resented the Dafang family for being so narrow-minded, but when he saw the villagers looking at him, he immediately changed his expression and retorted.

"Uncle, what do you mean by this is my family's land? This is my grandparents' land, and we are all working for them.

Besides, it's not that my family doesn't have people to take care of it, it's just that my mother is in poor health, and my husband has to take care of the elderly and do the housework. There's nothing we can do.

You can't let your grandparents do the work, you have a large family, and having a few more is also for filial piety, and if you take them in early, they will feel at ease. "