Chapter 62 Spring outing?

Yang Hongwen was in charge of the photography, and he had a camera on his face all day long. Xia Wu took Zhou Ru and a boy named Daner from the village to pick fruits.

The small baskets Xia Wu prepared for the children were very small and could only hold two or three pounds of fruit at most. The two children put the fruits into the big basket in small amounts and multiple times. Xia Wu would praise them after each trip. The two children stared at Xia Wu's movements and hurried to move the fruits when they saw the basket was full. They were quite competitive and were afraid that they would not be able to win the competition if they were slow.

Half an hour later, the set alarm clock rang. After the last basket of green plums was transported, Xia Wu gathered everyone together and began to count the weight to determine the winner.

"I declare that the winner of the first round is the team led by Yang Ping. Congratulations! You will receive a cup of fruit tea and a prize of ten yuan!"

Xia Wu took out the green plum fruit tea that had been brewed long ago, gave each of them a disposable cup, and poured the fruit tea for them. The four children held the cups in their hands with great curiosity, smacking their lips as they drank the fruit tea, still feeling unsatisfied.

"Is it delicious?"

“Delicious!”

"Does anyone else want a drink?"

"I want to!" The other children had been staring at it eagerly, drooling with greed.

Xia Wu gave them cups and poured them fruit tea.

"Even though you didn't win the first round, you did very well. Keep up the good work!"

After letting the children rest for ten minutes, Xia Wu led them to the second round of picking, and then the third round...

Under her manipulation, each group won a game and the competition is currently tied at one to one.

Xia Wu shared the snacks she bought online with everyone. The green plums were too sour. Some children tasted them secretly and frowned and spitted because of the sourness. Then they gave up their obsession with green plums and started eating snacks instead.

The morning passed easily. The picked green plums were temporarily placed in the plum forest, and Xia Wu took the children to have lunch.

Every morning at ten o'clock, Wang Yuexia starts preparing and cooking. The construction site is bustling with activity, and she is alone, flipping the big iron shovel up and down.

Xia Wu had told her in advance that there would be meals for a dozen more children today, so Wang Yuexia started busying herself early in the morning.

They went to the town to buy frozen chicken legs and chicken racks, as well as a few bags of instant fried snacks. When Xia Wu and the children arrived, the sesame balls and popcorn chicken had already been fried and placed on an iron plate, and Wang Yuexia was making the last dish, stewed chicken with potatoes.

The fragrant smell made the children's mouths water. There were not enough chairs on the construction site, so the children moved a few bricks and stacked them together to use as benches. They lined up to wash their hands, put some sesame balls and popcorn chicken in disposable paper bowls, and ate them with their hands.

At noon, Wang Yuexia steamed rice and heated up steamed buns. Xia Wu brought the green plum jam from home. The children liked it. There was plenty of green plum jam at home, so they made sure there was enough.

Wang Yuexia knew that Xia Wu had been tinkering with green plums recently. The freshly picked green plums were sour and bitter, and she didn't like them at all. Xia Wu asked her to try the green plum jam, and Wang Yuexia changed her attitude towards green plums again.

Green plums have been on the shelves for several days. Those who placed orders for them first have already received the goods, but many of them failed to be made, or they just didn’t have time to make them.

Xia Wu thought, why not just put green plum jam on the shelves?

It seems that you can earn more by processing and then selling it.

Thinking about this, Xia Wu discussed with Wang Yuexia: "Sister Yuexia, do you want to make some more money?"

Wang Yuexia didn't even think twice: "Just tell me what you need. I'll do it for you even if it's within my job scope, even if you don't pay me!"

Xia Wu smiled and said, "Aren't there many netizens who don't know how to make green plum jam? I was thinking why don't we process it ourselves and sell it after processing. I hired you to cook for the workers. If I let you make green plum jam, I will definitely pay you more."

If I really want to make green plum jam, it will definitely not be done in a day or two, as there are still a lot of green plums in the plum forest.

Besides, by the time the plums are picked, the apricots and plums should be ripe...

Wang Yuexia could never resist money, so she accepted the task after just a few words.

Xia Wu invited her mother to teach her how to make green plum jam. When she distributed the honey last time, she ordered a lot of glass jars online, and now they are put to good use.

Just change the labels or something.

But isn't it time she designed her own trademark?

Xia Wu took action immediately after thinking about it. Qi Miaomiao was good at design, so she asked Qi Miaomiao to help her design a trademark, and then applied for registration directly online.

After lunch, the children were full of energy and clamored to go pick green plums.

Today's green plums have been almost picked. After dinner, Yang Guojun used a tricycle to take some of the green plums to the foot of the mountain for packaging and shipment, and sent some to Wang Yuexia for cooking.

Xia Wu led his soldiers down the mountain to the raspberry fence and announced the rules of the game.

This time it is not a group competition, but an individual competition.

This afternoon, Xia Wu was unusually generous and brought a large bottle of Coke and Sprite from the village store to the mountain to treat the workers and children to drink.

Rinse the bottle after drinking it, cut off the bottom with scissors, use red-hot iron wire to burn three holes, pass the rope through and tie a knot, and it will become a picking container that can be hung around the neck.

Xia Wu distributed bottles to each child. If they picked a bottle of raspberries, they could get three dollars from her.

It is rare for children in the village to have pocket money. If they want to eat spicy noodles or ice cream, they have to ask for help from their grandparents. They are so excited to be able to make money from Xia Wu.

This year's raspberry seedlings are not very tall, the tallest one is just above Xia Wu's waist, which is just right for these children to pick.

A few days ago, not many raspberries were ripe. When I took a quick look today, I saw that there were raspberries hidden under the leaves, looking like little red lanterns.

The wild raspberries on the mountain are only as big as a fingernail at most, but the specially cultivated raspberries grown by Xia Wu can produce fruits as big as a coin.

Some children are quicker and can fill a plastic bottle in just 10 or 20 minutes.

Raspberries are different from green plums. Green plums are green and look unripe, but these raspberries are bright red. If you squeeze them a little hard, the juice will burst out.

Having learned their lesson from tasting green plums, the children didn't dare to steal any. Instead, they slurped their saliva and asked Xia Wu, "Sister, is this fruit sweet?"

Xia Wu was not a stingy person, so he smiled and said, "It's sweet, you can eat it when you pick it."

"Yeah!"

As soon as these words were spoken, a chubby child among the children immediately stuffed the picked raspberries into his mouth. The sour and sweet fruits had a unique flavor, which was something children rarely tasted. Then he started to show off his skills. He picked ten raspberries and eight of them went into his stomach. When others had filled a bottle with raspberries, he only filled the bottom of the bottle.

Xia Wu didn't stop them. Raspberries are rich in vitamin C. Eating too much will at most cause excretion, which will not put too much burden on the stomach and intestines. Moreover, the fence is hundreds of meters long. Even if these children eat as much as they want, they will not be able to finish it.

Xia Wu planned to add the raspberries he picked to the vegetable bags. The vegetable bags were always on sale, and the contents were changing at any time. He would put in whatever vegetables were available in the village. Some vegetables were harvested in March, and some in April, so the contents changed with time.

The picked raspberries were quite ripe, and Xia Wu didn't put too many in the vegetable bag, so he was a little worried about what to do with the remaining raspberries.

In the afternoon, the children worked for half an hour and then rested for a while. This combination of work and rest made time pass quickly, and Xia Wu also harvested two baskets of raspberries.

Seeing that there is one less layer of red on the tree, at least it won’t be wasted.

Xia Wu paid the children according to their work, and one of them received the highest salary, twenty-one yuan.

When he got his share of the money, his hands were shaking with joy. He asked Xia Wu, "Sister, can I still come tomorrow?"

Xia Wu smiled and replied, "Of course."

The children were very happy and asked her if they could come, and Xia Wu accepted them all.

With today's work experience, the children will probably be more skilled tomorrow.

"But when you go home later, you have to finish the homework assigned by school first. If I hear that someone was punished by the teacher for not finishing his homework, he will not be able to participate in the spring outing."

“I finished it yesterday!”

"My teacher didn't give me any homework!"

The children regarded her as their leader and were eager to show themselves, fearing that they would be slow to speak.

After dividing the money, Xia Wu asked them to find something to pack the raspberries. Each person was given a small bag of raspberries to take home, so that the villagers would not say that she was heartless and asked the children to work for her.

This is simply Xia Wu thinking too much.

Children in the countryside have nothing to do at home. After finishing their homework, they run around outside all day. If it is hot in the summer, we always have to be careful that the children don’t go swimming in the river and get into danger.

The children were left in her care, with food, drinks, and money. After returning home, they were more enthusiastic about doing their homework than before. At least they didn't have to be urged by anyone. The villagers were so happy.

So the next day, a few more children from the village came to see Xia Wu.

Portions of raspberries are sent to all corners of the world along with vegetable packages.

There are still a lot of raspberries left. Xia Wu has checked the information and found that raspberries can also be processed into jam, juice, frozen and eaten, or freeze-dried.

Xia Wu is very interested in freeze-drying. Using a freeze dryer can dehydrate fruits and vegetables, which can not only extend the storage time but also preserve the original nutritional value of fruits and vegetables to the greatest extent.

This is exactly what Xia Wu needs.

As time goes by, more and more fruits and vegetables ripen on the mountain. Some of them are inconvenient to transport, and even if everyone eats them to their heart's content, they cannot finish them.

If she had a freeze dryer, she could freeze-dry the ripe fruits, which would not affect sales at all, and the price would be higher.

The refrigerator at home was full, and Xia Wu was very worried. He also wanted to build a cold storage on the mountain and then install a freeze dryer... It was a wonderful thought.

Xia Wu enthusiastically checked the prices of building a cold storage and purchasing a freeze dryer, but then his heart sank.

It costs at least 100,000 yuan to build a cold storage of about 80 square meters, and it costs more than 100,000 yuan to buy a large freeze dryer.

Xia Wu checked his account balance and his mind instantly cleared up.

The poultry shed and staff accommodation on the mountain have not been built yet, and it will cost at least hundreds of thousands of yuan. Although she is earning money every day, it is just barely breaking even, not to mention that she has also borrowed a loan, which also needs to be repaid!

Xia Wu started to worry about money again, wondering how else he could make money.

After the strawberry garden was harvested, the greenhouses were dismantled. She made jam from the last strawberries she picked and preserved it, giving it to others and drinking it herself. There were not many left.

The chickens, ducks and geese raised at home need to be fed every day. If they are not fed, they will not grow meat at all. Xia Wu chops up the leaves broken off from packaged vegetables and feeds them along with bran and other grains. He has only raised them for two or three months, and it is far from the time to sell them and make money.

In addition to earning 10,000 to 20,000 yuan a month from his own media work, and 20,000 to 30,000 yuan by posting more videos, Xia Wu mainly makes money by selling vegetables online.

However, most of the money earned was divided among the villagers. Although she could earn some money by providing the channels, it was far from enough for Xia Wu's expenses.

Fortunately, the fruits and vegetables on the mountain are almost ripe. Xia Wu plans to market them well and make more money in April and May so as to arrange cold storage and freeze dryers as soon as possible.

The video of Qingmei that Xia Wu posted previously gained him a lot of fans, so Xia Wu also posted a video of him coaxing the children to pick raspberries on a spring outing.

For many city dwellers, whether it is picking green plums and raspberries or this unique "spring outing", it is very interesting to them. They watch with fascination and become interested in the green plums and raspberries on the top of Xiawu Mountain.

Xia Wu asked Qi Miaomiao to design a trademark, and within a few days, he registered it online. He bought a label machine to print the labels himself, and stuck them on the bottles and jars, separating them into green plum jam and raspberry jam. Xia Wu then started selling them online.

Because of limited output, Xia Wu considered many factors in pricing and finally decided to set a higher price. A 320-gram can of green plum jam costs 79 yuan, while the same weight of raspberry jam costs ten yuan more.

These jams have a shelf life and can only be kept for up to three months if kept refrigerated after opening. They are purely handmade with no additives and are authentic.

If I have to say what was added, it would probably be a small amount of spiritual spring water.

It tastes great whether spread on bread or in homemade drinks.

So even though the prices were higher than similar products online, Xia Wu’s two jams were sold out as soon as they were put on the shelves.

It was not enough for Wang Yuexia to take time out after cooking to make jam, so Xia Wu found two more women to help. The three of them worked together and could make about five pots of jam every day. After cooling, they sealed and bottled them.

Xia Wu still felt that the small amount of money she earned from selling jam was not enough and was far from what she needed.

Just when she was worrying about where to get the money, someone from her fan group approached Xia Wu and asked her if the flowers on the mountain were in bloom and they would pay for them.

Xia Wu had an idea. There were many fans from the same city in the group, many of whom had families. Their children had been born in the city and had few opportunities to come into contact with nature. When they saw the video Xia Wu posted of village children picking green plums and raspberries, they were all envious.

Isn’t this more fun than going to an amusement park?

Although there are fruit picking orchards in the suburbs of the city, parents are still a little worried that farmers may use pesticides.

But they are very confident in Xia Xia. Didn’t they see that the children in the video were picking and eating at the same time?

We are all from the same village. If Xia Xia really sprayed pesticides on the fruit, she wouldn't dare let the children eat it like this.

Spring is a good time to travel. Not only do children want to pick fruits, but even some adults can't resist the temptation.

What's more, Xia Wu's hilltop was designed by a special designer. The layout of the fruit trees is very good, and the blue sky and clear water make it perfect for girls to take photos.