Chapter 60 The Plums Are Ripe

All the big and small things in the house need someone to do, such as packing vegetables, picking wolfberry sprouts, and clearing land in the mountains to plant sweet clover.

Xia Wu was extremely busy, and he had to recruit people from the village to handle some trivial matters.

She gets paid daily and works in the village, so many people in the village want to come to her.

However, the work Xia Wu has is not too much, but not too little either, and can be done by a few people.

She helps villagers sell vegetables online. Even a famous lazy person like Yang Dalan knows how to reclaim land and grow vegetables to make money, not to mention other people in the village.

Because of the vegetable farming, the older bachelor Yang Dalan got married. Although she is a widow with a family, the villagers have a very simple value: widows are good, and having many children means she is fertile.

Besides, Yang Dalan is not a very good man, otherwise how could he still be around today?

Yuexia's surname is Wang. She is the cousin of Shi Hongniang's daughter-in-law and a strong woman with a miserable life.

Last year, her husband passed away and her mother-in-law had a stroke. The eldest child in the family was only twelve years old. She arranged for her eldest son to take a leave of absence from school and stay at home to take care of his younger siblings and mother-in-law. She went to the brick factory by herself and worked hard to earn 4,000 yuan a month to support the whole family. It was as hard as it could be.

When Shi Hongniang was trying to find a match for her, Wang Yuexia asked other people about it. Yang Dalan was notorious for being lazy. Everyone knew that his family was a low-income household and he was a lazy bachelor, but he was still honest. Wang Yuexia was a little hesitant at first, but later she learned that a college student had returned to Yanggou Village and had rented a mountain. Many people in the village were working for her. As long as they were willing to endure hardships, earning a few thousand yuan a month would not be a problem.

The news spread to people in other villages. Last year, people from Yanggou Village dug winter bamboo shoots and took them to other villages. This year, the vegetables sold faster than those from other villages.

It’s not that there are no people from other villages who want to sell vegetables, but they just won’t buy them.

It just so happened that Shi Hongniang was working under Xia Wu, and Wang Yuexia thought that if she married Yang Dalun, she would be half a member of Yanggou Village. Then she could ask Shi Hongniang to find her a job in the village so that she could free up her hands to take care of her mother-in-law and let her son go to school.

After two days of consideration, Wang Yuexia married Yang Dalan.

As soon as she got married, she started to clean up the Yang family. As the saying goes, even a broken ship still has three thousand nails. Although the Yang family is poor, they have a lot of useless junk.

Wang Yuexia directed Yang Dalan, and the couple worked together to clean the house and free up a room for the two elderly people to use.

Yang Dalan's mother is bedridden, and Wang Yuexia's mother-in-law can get up but has difficulty moving.

In order to make it easier to take care of the two elderly people, Wang Yuexia simply moved them into one room, letting them sleep in two beds so that they could have company.

Wang Yuexia has two sons and one daughter. The eldest son is Zhou Bo, who is twelve years old this year. The second son is Zhou Hai, who is ten years old this year. The youngest is a girl named Zhou Ru, who is just six years old this year.

Originally, the two sons slept in one room, and the daughter slept with Wang Yuexia. But now Yang Dala is around, and she can't let her daughter sleep with them, so she lets the three children sleep in one room.

Let’s wait until my daughter is older before giving her a room.

Within two days, the situation in Yang Dalan's house was completely new. The villagers all said it was good and that a family still needed a woman.

Yang Dalan was also happy. Having a wife and not having one were completely different lives. Now he not only had a wife, but also three children.

When the three children first came to the house, except for the eldest who called him uncle, the second and third children were afraid of him and did not dare to talk to him.

Yang Dalan also knows how to coax children. When he went to Xia Wu to sell vegetables in the morning, he asked her how many pounds of strawberries she bought to take home and share with the three children.

He did whatever Wang Yuexia asked him to do, and even gave his meager savings to Wang Yuexia in front of the two elderly people and three children.

Yang Dalan asked Wang Yuexia to send the eldest child back to school. The village secretary Yang Guofeng specifically reminded him that the child was still in the nine-year compulsory education stage and had to study. The family was in difficult circumstances before, so it was understandable for the child to drop out of school. However, now that Wang Yuexia is married to Yang Dalan, it doesn't make sense for the two adults who can't support the family to leave a twelve-year-old child at home to work.

Wang Yuexia didn't expect Yang Dalan to say that. He said that only if children study well can they have a bright future. If the three children can make progress in their studies, she would sell everything she has to send them to school.

After Yang Dalan got married, he wanted to live a good life with her. What he said was all from the heart. He was lazy before because he had no wife, but now that he has a wife, Yang Dalan is thinking about making good money. If Wang Yuexia can give him a baby, then the Yang family will have a successor, right?

Anyway, Wang Yuexia and the children saw what he said, which made Wang Yuexia feel warm and her favorability towards Yang Dalan increased dramatically. The three children also gradually understood and started calling him dad.

Yang Dalan looked for work from Xia Wu. All day long he either went up the mountain to work or took care of vegetables at home.

The weather is just right now. If you scatter a handful of seeds on the wasteland, new sprouts will appear in three to five days. Planting vegetables will be a piece of cake.

However, growing vegetables is not that easy. You need to add compost, cut branches, and grow vines, which is very troublesome.

In the past, Yang Dalan had to do the work by himself, but now with his wife’s help, he doesn’t feel tired at all.

After Wang Yuexia had taken care of her household affairs, she told Shi Hongniang about her plan. She wanted to find a job for Xia Wu.

Shi Hongniang was happy to see that she and Yang Dalan were living better and better lives, so she took the initiative to make connections and brought Wang Yuexia to find Xia Wu.

"Hello, Sister Xiaowu," Wang Yuexia changed into clean clothes and looked a little reserved.

She is thirty-nine years old and looks older than her peers.

Xia Wu has very simple requirements for the villagers who come to work. No matter whether they are middle-aged or old, as long as they can work without any tricks and have decent character, it will be fine.

She smiled, extended her hand towards Wang Yuexia and said, "According to seniority, I should call you sister-in-law. I still remember the last time I went to your place for dinner. It was really delicious."

Wang Yuexia pursed her lips and smiled sheepishly, "I just did it randomly, I don't have any special skills."

"I happen to have a job here. I'm wondering if you'd like to do it. I'm planning to build a house on the mountain. I'd like to hire someone to do the work. I'll provide three meals a day. I need a cook. The salary is 120 yuan a day."

Wang Yuexia's eyes lit up when these words came out, and she nodded like a chick pecking at rice, "Yes, of course! Don't worry, I promise to make the meal beautifully!"

"I trust my sister-in-law's cooking skills. There will be about ten people by then. In the morning, you can boil some eggs, steam some buns, and make some porridge. For lunch and dinner, you can have three dishes and a soup. Just make sure they are full."

Wang Yuexia wrote down Xia Wu's request and asked her when she would start.

Xia Wu told her that he had asked someone to set up a pot on the mountain.

The contract for Xia Wu's mountain farming stated that workers' houses could be built on the mountain for the purpose of breeding. Poultry like chickens, ducks and geese always need a place to rest at night.

The caretakers can also have a small house to live in, plus a warehouse to store tools and sundries.

At least a house of more than 100 square meters can be built on the mountain.

Xia Wu couldn't save money, and as soon as he had some, he thought about building a house.

Yang Guojun was responsible for finding familiar workers in the town and buying construction materials, such as sand, cement, and bricks, which was a considerable expense.

As the saying goes, "before the troops move, the food and fodder must be sent ahead." The building materials were piled outside, and before work even began, Yang Guojun personally built two large stoves outside the selected area, both of which were powered by fire.

I also bought a large iron pot with a diameter of about one meter, and the rice cooker I bought was also the kind with a large diameter that can cook rice for more than ten people.

It was also necessary to bring electricity up the mountain. People from the town's power supply bureau came to take a look and solved the power supply problem first. Xia Wu also built a few simple wooden houses for the workers to rest and stay.

There are many people working, and buying food every day is a problem. There are only vegetables in the village, but little meat. If we go to the town to buy them, there is no place to put them.

The refrigerator in Xia Wu's house was already full.

There was no other choice, so Xia Wu placed an order online and bought a large freezer specifically for storing ingredients.

Everything is ready and construction will begin in April.

When the weather gets warmer, we put water in the rice fields and start raising rice seedlings. When the rice seedlings are more than ten centimeters tall, they can be transplanted.

Xia Wu followed his family to experience the feeling of planting rice. The family has more than six acres of land. Yang Guojun planted four acres of rice and two acres of glutinous rice.

Last year, the rice dumplings that the villagers gave to Xia Wu tasted good and Xia Wu liked them very much. Seeing that she liked them, Yang Guojun thought of planting more at home.

The sweet clover on the mountain shows signs of flowering, and the fruit trees are gradually bearing fruit and the fruits are continuing to grow.

The first to bear fruit is the green plum.

The green plums planted by Xia Wu began to ripen. She didn't notice it at first until Liu Guizhen told her.

This is not Xia Wu's fault. Green plums are green, and the plum tree is also green all over. The plums are covered by leaves, and each one looks like a green lantern. Xia Wu didn't know that plums can be eaten while they are green.

Liu Guizhen pulled away the leaves and picked five or six fruits from the tree. She washed them by the canal and handed them to Xia Wuliang.

"Mom, can I eat it?" Xia Wu looked at the green plums and her mouth kept watering. The green ones should not be ripe yet, right?

Liu Guizhen said, "You can eat it. Look, mom will give you one."

As she spoke, she took a bite of most of the green plum and chewed it without changing her expression. "Look, it's quite delicious, sour and sweet."

Xia Wu didn't suspect anything and bit it without any precautions.

The next second, I was turned into an emoticon.

Oh my god! How can there be such sour fruit!

In her impression, green plums are very delicious!

Liu Guizhen laughed heartily at her daughter being teased. Xia Wu drooled for a moment and laughed too: "Why is it so sour?"

"Your father loves sour food the most, so leave these for him." Liu Guizhen not only cheated her daughter, but also her husband.

Xia Wu agreed, and the mother and daughter picked some more green plums and went to the construction site.

Although he hired workers to do the work, Yang Guojun was still worried that they would cheat and waste money. So after finishing his farm work in the fields, he would run up the mountain and work with the workers with his bare chest, acting as a supervisor.

Liu Guizhen stuffed a green plum into Yang Guojun's mouth as if to tease Xia Wu. Yang Guojun ate it as if nothing had happened and even said it was delicious. "It's really delicious. Feed me another one."

"Is it really delicious or is it just pretending to be delicious? Don't play tricks!"

"That must be delicious. Come on, I want another one."

Yang Guojun's hands were dirty and he couldn't take it himself, so he urged Liu Guizhen to feed him.

Liu Guizhen fed him another one, and Yang Guojun ate it with gusto, which made Xia Wu's cheeks sore.

"Is it really that delicious?" Liu Guizhen was skeptical, wondering if the food she had just eaten wasn't sweet enough. She tried taking another bite...

"Damn you Yang Guojun! You only know how to trick me!" Liu Guizhen was so angry that she slapped Yang Guojun. Yang Guojun's prank was successful, and he ran away laughing: "Didn't you trick me first?"

Xia Wu was happy to see that her parents had a good relationship.

But she was also a little worried. She thought the plums were delicious, but she didn't expect them to be so sour and astringent. Even the spiritual spring water couldn't improve the taste.

After searching for information online, Xia Wu realized that there are different types of plums. Some plums turn yellow when ripe and are sweeter.

However, fresh green plums contain high acidity and bitterness, and the taste is not good when eaten directly. But after processing, the sour taste will be neutralized and it will become the green plums that Xia Wu is familiar with.

Correspondingly, there are many processed products of green plums, which can be made into preserved plums, salted green plums, green plum juice, green plum jam, green plum wine...

In this way, the dozens of plum trees planted by Xia Wu will be put to good use.

Xia Wu can't cook, but that doesn't stop her from being innovative. Whenever she's undecided, she calls out, "Mom!"

Liu Guizhen stopped fighting and asked, "What's wrong, girl?"

"Mom, let's do this!"

Xia Wu showed her the green plum processing method that she had just found on the Internet. The mother and daughter hit it off and decided to give it a try.

First, they bought the glass jars needed for making green plum wine and salted green plums, about twenty or thirty of them, large and small. As for rock sugar, there were people in their local area who knew how to make old rock sugar. Liu Guizhen took Xia Wu directly to the house of the rock sugar seller and bought dozens of kilograms of rock sugar.

Coarse salt and lemon can be bought online, and the express delivery will arrive in a few days.

Xia Wu called his brother and mother to go up the mountain. The three of them worked for more than an hour and brought back two baskets of green plums.

While Yang Hongwen was filming a video, Xia Wu took out a large iron basin, cleaned it first, pumped well water into the basin, and then poured the green plums into the clear and cold well water.

The April sun is slightly warm, and the green plums and clear well water collide, presenting the colors of early summer under natural light.

Wash the fuzz off the surface of the green plums, remove the stems, pour the washed green plums into the pot, add water to cover the green plums, simmer on low heat until the skin of the plums cracks and the flesh becomes soft. At this time, the green plums gradually turn yellow, and then remove them and drain the water.

Liu Guizhen is the main force in making green plum sauce, and Xia Wu is only qualified to help her. One is responsible for reading the production process, and the other is responsible for implementation.

Although it was a bit clumsy at first, I got better at it after getting used to it. Pour the processed green plums into the pot again, add rock sugar and a little salt in a 1:1 ratio, bring to a boil over high heat, cook until the rock sugar melts, the flesh gradually becomes rotten, and the core and flesh are separated. At this time, just pick out the core, reduce the high heat to low heat, and simmer until the plum jam can hang on the shovel.

The mother and daughter worked for several hours, sweating in the stuffy kitchen, and finally saw the green plum jam take shape as they wished.

Before turning off the heat and serving, squeeze some lemon juice into the sauce, then put it into a clean glass jar and seal it for storage.

There was no bread at home, only the steamed buns that Wang Yuexia had sent over. Xia Wu cut the buns into slices and spread some green plum jam on them. He took a bite and his eyes lit up.

"Mom! It's delicious!"