Chapter 49 New Markets and Hawthorn Seeds, Education, Hawthorn
Lai picked and chose, selecting half a bag of fresh, green walnuts. The rest were spread out in the yard, sprinkled with water, and covered with straw to keep them warm.
Besides the hard outer shell, there is also a greenish-yellow skin covering the walnut kernel.
This peel is quite difficult to remove; peeling it directly with your hands will stain your entire palm.
So in Lai's hometown, people who grow walnuts will bury the walnuts with their green husks still on in the ground, and then dig them up to remove the husks after about ten days. This makes it easier to separate the green husks from the walnut shells.
To save time, Lai covered the wheat with straw and water, and after a few days, he could peel it and achieve the same effect.
We're not in a rush to sell the chestnuts; we just need to peel enough to sell for one afternoon.
The next morning, Lai first roasted the chestnuts, and then took Neil to school to pay the tuition for the second half of the year.
At the school, I ran into familiar faces like Rhys, Brian, and Kari, who were also paying tuition for their children.
"How was yesterday? Did you pick anything?"
The one who asked the question was Rhys, and the others were listening nearby.
"Fortunately, we picked two bags of walnuts. But the size is average, none of them are very big."
“The good walnut groves at the foot of the mountain are all guarded by people from other villages. Only a few small, secluded patches have gone undiscovered by them.”
Ries's tone carried a hint of helplessness.
"There are many more nut forests further up the mountain, but it's too dangerous there, and it's not easy to transport the harvested nuts down the mountain. Gradually, fewer and fewer people go there."
Kari interjected.
As the squad leader of the patrol team, Kari also patrols the mountain every year, so he is more familiar with the area than Lis.
Ray was somewhat tempted, but he would absolutely not act rashly without being fully prepared.
Do you know which family in the village grows the most sunflowers?
Lai wanted to buy some sunflower seeds, roast them, and sell them together with roasted chestnuts. He wouldn't sell them at a high price, just to add some variety to his stall.
"Why don't you go ask Link's family? They grow a lot of flowers every year."
"good."
Ray secretly made a mental note that after paying the money and receiving the books, he would go to Link's house to check things out.
The school tuition wasn't expensive, but books made up the majority of the cost.
The children played and frolicked nearby, while the adults lined up to pay, eager to send away these troublesome kids.
Only Neil obediently stayed by Lai's side, receiving praise from several aunties.
After finishing his business, Lai went to Link's house and bought forty pounds of sunflower seeds.
Their sunflower seeds are dried very well; the shriveled and worm-infested ones have already been mostly picked out.
The sunflower seeds are long and slender with plump kernels. Selling them to Laiyi at the wholesale price of seven copper coins per pound is an absolutely fair price.
As luck would have it, Link was actually the father of Helen, Neil's good friend. Because of this connection, Link promised that no matter how many sunflower seeds Ray wanted, he could get them from him for seven copper coins.
In the afternoon, Lai took roasted chestnuts, roasted melon seeds, raw chestnuts, and green walnuts to the market to set up a stall and sell his wares.
Halfway through carrying his load, Lai noticed that there were many more stalls selling chestnuts and nuts at the market than before the holiday.
After careful consideration, he decided to try other markets.
Instead of competing with others to lower prices, it's better to go to new markets.
It's a pity that we have to give up some regular customers.
Lai then went to the market where he had bought the eggs before. The foot traffic there was decent, so he rented a stall there and tried selling for an afternoon to see how things went before making any further plans.
The stall fees here are expensive, but the location is good, and they provide racks for setting up stalls.
Although it cost a lot more money, Lai was still very satisfied with the environment.
There are also few stalls selling mountain products and nuts here.
And so, Lai and Neil sold their goods here for half a day.
Sugar-roasted chestnuts remain a bestseller.
Sunflower seeds sold cheaply, following a strategy of low profit margins and high sales volume, and they sold quite a lot.
The walnuts sold well. The good thing about this sale was that all the walnuts were freshly picked and had green husks.
The walnuts are freshest at this time of year; they're white and tender when peeled, with a crisp texture, unlike dried walnuts which can cause dryness and internal heat if eaten in large quantities. Many people like these kinds of walnuts.
As closing time approached, there were still nearly ten pounds of roasted chestnuts, two paper bags of roasted sunflower seeds, and over thirty pounds of raw chestnuts left.
It's not bad that we sold so much stuff on our first visit.
Laiyi will not resell the remaining roasted chestnuts. Instead, he will repackage them into several bags and sell them at half price to the surrounding merchants and other stall owners.
We'll take the rest home and sell them again tomorrow.
Today is Neil's last day of vacation. Tonight, Lai grilled some spare ribs for Neil and served them with mashed potato salad. The leftover steamed buns were also toasted into slices to eat as snacks.
"Brother, what will you do if I go to school?"
After dinner, Neil and Rye were counting their money in the living room as usual. Suddenly, Neil asked Rye a question.
"It's okay, I can manage on my own. You just focus on your studies and don't worry about me."
"I'm so useless."
Ray meant to reassure Neil, but the somewhat sensitive Neil overthought things.
"Why didn't it work?"
Ray put down the money bag and looked at Neil seriously.
“Neil helps his brother sell goods, cooks for himself, and keeps the house tidy when I’m not around. Neil is the most hardworking kid.”
Ray's earnest answer left Neil somewhat at a loss. But the words of affirmation warmed his heart.
"Thank you, brother."
“We are blood brothers, there’s nothing to thank me for.”
"Then...brother is the best!"
Lei didn't speak, but smiled and shook his head.
Children always come up with some strange and unusual questions, especially sensitive children like Neil.
When children fall into a cycle of doubt, parents shouldn't rush to dismiss their ideas, nor should they ignore them because they're busy with other things. Proper guidance is what parents should do.
But many parents often fail to do this.
Some parents even tell others about things their children care about as jokes, which undoubtedly pushes their children away from them.
The child's childhood also leaves behind memories that are hard to let go of for a lifetime.
Although Ray had an unhappy childhood, his grandparents' meticulous care made up for many of his childhood regrets and made him a positive and optimistic person.
Neil has some similar experiences to him. Although their environments are very different, he also wants to continue to pass on the love that his grandparents have given him.
The next morning, Neil took the snacks Rye had made to school alone. Rye continued to set up her stall, chatting with the other vendors at the market to gather useful information.
As the days went by, Neil went to school to study and spent his free time selling goods at various markets with Rye.
While the nuts in the mountains were still available for harvesting, Lai hired several goblins and stockpiled a large quantity of them.
Once this batch of goods is sold out, Lai's street vending business will have to temporarily come to a halt.
It's worth mentioning that while searching for nuts all over the mountain and constantly refining the map, Iru and another goblin discovered a hawthorn grove.
Hawthorn is called "sour fruit" here because it tastes too sour, so very few people buy it. It's mostly people with pregnant women in their families who buy it from the shops.
Those who live in the countryside usually go directly to the mountains to pick cucumbers, or they eat the old cucumbers directly. They would never waste a single copper coin on things that are so easy to obtain with just a little effort.
Hawthorn is so good!
When Lai saw so many hawthorns, it would be a lie to say he wasn't happy.
Candied hawthorn berries, hawthorn cake, hawthorn slices, hawthorn leather, hawthorn jam, and hawthorn drinks.
A series of various snacks flashed through Lai's mind.
But Lai was too happy too soon; an eighth-tier magical beast—a porcupine—lived in the hawthorn forest.
It looks like a pig, but its body is covered with many spiky armor plates that are poisonous and can cause mild paralysis. When it senses danger, it will launch these spikes to drive away enemies.
When Ray returned to the village, he specifically asked Rhys for advice on how to deal with it.
Rhys told him that once the porcupine had fired all its spikes, it wouldn't pose any threat. Rhys made several straw men overnight and the next day used the same method of "borrowing arrows with straw boats."
With the pufferfish problem solved, it's time for a pleasant harvest!
There were plenty of hawthorns here, so Lai instructed the goblins to pick only the biggest and best ones.
This time, we only picked two and a half bags of hawthorns.
Hawthorn berries are not like nuts or other mountain products that are easy to preserve. They must be processed within a certain time frame, otherwise they will all rot.
Without refrigerators or any other effective preservation techniques, Ray could only try to sell the fresh hawthorns as much as possible.
The hawthorn market is really slow. Lai Yi has been selling for almost a week and has only sold one bag. This can't go on; the fruit will rot before it's all sold out.
After much deliberation, Lai hired two diligent women in the village for two silver coins. The three of them spent a whole day removing the pits from all the hawthorns.
Some of the hawthorn slices were dried and stored, while the rest were placed in a bowl to be used to make various hawthorn snacks the next day.
This bag and a half of hawthorns yielded quite a few hawthorn pits. After freeing up her hands, Lai washed them several times with clean water, then hung them out in the yard to dry, so they could be made into hawthorn pit pillows.
It smells good and can also protect your cervical spine.
To prevent insects from getting in, you can put some insect-repelling spices inside the hawthorn seed pillow core.
The new jar we bought was empty after we finished drying sweet potato starch. So, we washed it clean and used it to pickle sauerkraut.
Sauerkraut is easy to pickle.
Remove all the rotten leaves from the cabbages, and layer them with salt in a jar. Once layered, pour in cooled boiled water to cover the cabbages completely. Then, place a clean, large stone on top to weigh them down. And you're all done!
After preparing the sauerkraut, Lai started processing the pitted hawthorns.
First, steam the hawthorns for a few minutes, and then use various methods to mash the softened hawthorns into hawthorn puree.
Pour the hawthorn puree into an iron pot and cook it, adding a lot of white sugar to neutralize the sourness of the hawthorn.
After cooking, spread it evenly on clean parchment paper, smooth it with a tool, and then place it in the sun to dry. Once it sets, it becomes fruit leather.
Actually, baking it in the fireplace would be faster, but the baking time is difficult to control. Ray ruined five in a row and finally gave up on this method.
Although it was a failure, the ruined fruit leather shouldn't be wasted.
After removing the carbonized parts, Ray and Neil shared and ate the rest.
The taste was surprisingly good.
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Author's Note: Thank you to all the little angels who voted for me or watered my plants with nutrient solution between 2023-07-23 22:30:09 and 2023-07-28 23:36:02!
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