Chapter 51 When Spring Blossoms 2
The next morning, I woke up and the first thing I saw was dryness.
Take out the strongest thread, thread a needle through it, and skewer the beef that has been marinating overnight.
Then, a simple clothes drying rack was made inside the windshield using wire and wooden sticks.
It's simply two wires wrapped around the top of the windshield, and then a wooden stick is hung up to make a simple clothesline.
I made three of these clotheslines inside the windshield.
Remove one end of the clothesline, hang the beef skewers inside, and then put them back on.
Three rows of clotheslines were wide enough to hold all the beef skewers.
And just like that, the windshield became a dense forest of flesh.
These past two days, I've been startled every time I pass by, because it looks really bloody.
I felt relieved that the beef wouldn't spoil after being hung up.
Then they brought over the large vat used for pickling sauerkraut and started making cured pork.
Curing bacon is very simple; it's a method that everyone in the eastern province of Montreal knows how to do.
Wipe the pork dry, then coat it with salt and stack it layer by layer in the water tank.
Then seal it.
The meat won't spoil. When you want to eat it, just wash off the salt and you can either stir-fry or boil it.
I didn't know how long this kind of meat could be preserved, so I only marinated 100 jin (50 catties).
Finally, 200 jin of pork were left, which were prepared to be made into smoked bacon.
Before cooking, the entire 200 jin (100 catties) of pork was coated with salt.
Then place it in a large basin and weigh it down with something heavy.
At this point, I have nothing to fear anymore, and I don't have to work from dawn till dusk anymore.
Because these 200 jin of pork will not spoil for many days while they are being marinated.
So I started seriously looking for a smoking room.
I spent a long time choosing a location and hesitating about where to do the smoking.
I initially wanted to use the back room, but I couldn't bear to make it so black with smoke, so I gave up on that idea.
Then I wanted to choose one of the west wing rooms, but the items in the three west wing rooms were very clearly categorized, and I didn't want to mix them up.
Finally, I decided to build my own smoking chamber.
Because of burning a lot of firewood and straw over the past year, a section of the yard has become empty.
So they decided to build the smoking room in the yard.
Connect a storage battery to the nail gun.
They brought over a bunch of planks and started tinkering. The house didn't need to be sturdy; it just needed to have a shape.
First, draw an area of 4 square meters on the floor.
Following the outline of this square, lay bricks on the three sides, to a height of three layers of bricks.
After the bricks were laid out, a piece of wire mesh that had been bought earlier was laid on top.
The walls were made of wooden planks to form the shape of a small house, and nailed together with a nail gun.
Leave one wall untouched by nails, so you can open the house at any time and use it as a door.
Nails were driven into the interior of the small house, and even the roof was covered with a dense array of nails.
After finishing the work, it was already dark. The pork needed to be cured, so we'll start smoking it tomorrow.
The next day, they hung pieces of pork on nails in the small house.
Then place blocks of wood under the bricks and wire mesh and light them.
Starting a fire is now my best skill, and I'm very proficient at it.
However, you can't use an open flame to smoke cured meat.
The most authentic way to do it is not to use wood blocks, but to use some pine and cypress branches and leaves.
But I'm still too afraid to go out, so I can only make do with the smoke from the wood.
After lighting the wood, sprinkle a small amount of water on it, and thick smoke will rise from the wood.
After the wood smoke rose, I went back inside and found some old bed sheets, which I then used to wrap another layer around the small house.
They would check the firewood under the wire mesh from time to time to see if it had caught fire.
If there are many open flames, just sprinkle a little water to extinguish them.
The beef jerky has been hanging up for two days and it's already a bit dry.
While watching the smoking process, I took all the beef jerky off the grill.
Place it in an iron pot and start steaming over high heat.
After steaming for 60 minutes, hang it on the clothesline in the wind.
The beef is cooked after steaming; it can be eaten once it's a little drier.
The cured pork was smoked for a day and a night.
I don't know if the cured pork is cured properly, but I've already turned into an old lady from the smoke.
My two yellow puppies have been dyed dark soy sauce color.
Seeing that the cured pork looked good, I decided to stop smoking it here.
Afterwards, in addition to the west wing room where honeycomb briquettes were stored, the other two west wing rooms were all fitted with wire clotheslines.
Hang rows of bright red smoked bacon inside.
If you leave it like this, it should keep for a long time.
After doing all that, I felt completely relaxed.
All the frozen food has been dealt with; it's either frozen, rendered into oil, or made into cured meat, dried meat, and smoked meat.
After I finished doing all that, I stopped working.
There are no plans to grow vegetables or grains or move the chicken coop out for the time being.
Because I'm not sure if this warming is temporary or if the extreme cold and apocalypse are truly over.
I'm going to wait and see for a while longer.
Once I'm certain that the extreme cold and apocalypse have truly passed, I'll start planning how to live in normal weather.
So I observed for another half month, during which the temperature slowly rose, reaching 14 degrees Celsius.
I am finally convinced that the extreme cold apocalypse is over.
What awaits me next is springtime, blooming flowers, and the revival of all things.
The snow outside has almost completely melted, and most of the water has flowed out along the small slope outside the gate.
I don't care much about the small amount of water; it will dry out in the sun.
After the snow melts and the soil dries a bit in the sun, the road will be passable.
But the extreme cold and apocalypse had just ended, and power and internet had not been restored. I don't know what the situation is like outside now.
So I don't plan to go out anytime soon. I'll make a decision when I hear some rumors about it.
Now that the weather is confirmed to be warm, I'm going to move the chicken coop out.
There is an open space between the west wing and the main house.
I didn't pile anything up, and the area isn't too big, so it's just right to use as a chicken coop.
Behind it is a mountain wall, and on the left and right sides are the walls of the small west room and the west wing, respectively.
All I need to do is put a wire mesh between the walls of the small west room and the west wing, and that will create a sealed chicken coop.
I took out the other chicken coop that my older brother had nailed for me and placed it in the corner of the wall near the west wing.
Then, one by one, the chicks were taken out and placed in this open space.
When we put them back in their coop at night, they can roam freely in this small area at other times.
The chicks were a little scared at first, just like when the puppy first discovered the yard.
Later, it lost its fear and began to wander around curiously, scratching at the ground with its claws.
Seeing them like this, I feel that chicks must be more comfortable living outdoors than indoors.
As the weather warms up, the chicks are adapting to the outside temperature without any problems.
But the outdoors is different from the indoors, so we have to herd all the chicks back into their coops at night.
Then cover the outside of the chicken coop with wire mesh to protect their safety.
When I was little, I often heard my grandma say that something had bitten the chick to death or carried it away.
I absolutely will not allow anything to kill my chicks, so I will give them the strongest protection.
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