Chapter 86 Building a Pigsty
Even if the base is a mess, it's still a base. That's what I thought when I saw the mountain of bricks.
After the truck arrived, bricks were loaded onto it little by little to fill the empty space except for the corn and chaff.
Then I threw two bags of cement onto the truck and asked for two trowels, and that was it, the job was done.
After finishing the installation, I went to the front hall to apologize to the old man.
Inside, someone was chatting with the old man.
"Base Commander, this exchange fair was a great success; everyone was actively exchanging supplies."
The man reported it like this.
Base commander, what exactly is a base commander?
The base's commander? The person in charge?
ah? ? ?
I find it hard to believe that an old man who is always greedy for small gains could be a base commander.
After the man finished his report and left, I directly asked the old man the question that had been bothering me.
"You're the base commander? You're such a high-ranking officer, how did you get promoted so quickly?"
The old man suddenly grinned, "It's just a pack of cigarettes."
That left me completely bewildered. Feeling a little embarrassed, I took out another bag of candy from my pocket and handed it to him.
"Here's another pack for you. When you're feeling tough quitting smoking, just mix it with some sugar water. I'm off now."
After saying that, I turned and left.
By then, the exchange market was almost over, so I drove the car back to the compound.
Upon seeing the male homeowner, she immediately handed him two packets of candy.
"Hey girl, what are you doing?"
The male homeowner kept refusing to accept it.
"Could you and your friend give me a ride? I'm worried about safety as I'm driving with so much stuff."
"Even if you don't give me the candy, I was just discussing with my friends about giving you a ride home. Hurry up and put your things away, let's just go."
The man of the house laughed heartily, handed me the candy, and prepared to go call someone.
"Please accept it quickly! I can't possibly take your corn for free and then have you deliver it for free, can I? I'll keep this sugar to make some sugar water for the kids."
Seeing my insistence, the man accepted it.
The male homeowner and the other two men drove a small, dilapidated three-wheeled vehicle, similar to the one driven by the person who came to my house to deliver the news that day.
So I drove in front, and the rest of them followed slowly behind.
And so they followed us from the border of Baizhen to the border between our village and the town.
I waved my arms vigorously out the window, signaling to them that it was fine to leave it there.
The men didn't stand on ceremony; seeing that I thought it was alright, they turned the car around and headed home.
With my older brother and friends helping me along the way, I felt extremely safe.
The guys left when they reached our town, and there weren't many people on the rest of the journey.
It was already past 8 p.m. when I got home.
I was too exhausted to cook, so I took out a bag of instant noodles, nibbled on it, swallowed it, and then lay down on the kang (heated brick bed) and fell fast asleep.
The next morning, I got up and fed the piglets as my older brother had instructed, and then started planning how to build a pigsty.
Having absolutely no experience, I dug out tutorials from books and looked at them over and over again.
Building a house can go wrong, so you have to thoroughly understand the tutorial.
After watching for more than an hour, I started to work on it.
Near the outdoor toilets in the threshing ground, I cleared out a large area where I plan to build the pigsty.
If you build it once, don't be stingy; if you build it bigger, you might be able to raise other animals in the future.
First, mud is made by mixing cement and sand, then pouring in well water and stirring with a shovel.
The mud was grayish and very sticky; it stuck to the shovel and I couldn't shake it off. My arms and back ached from all the work.
When building a wall, hold the brick in your left hand and apply mud with your right hand, stacking the bricks and cement layer by layer.
The mortar in the brick joints often squeezes out, and with a gentle scrape of a trowel, it can be applied to other places.
Many of them also stick to your hands, and when they dry, they form a hard shell that you can't rub off.
It took five days to build the wall to the height I wanted.
Then we started putting on the roof.
I plan to make it half open-air and half covered, so that people can cool off in the summer.
In winter, the open-air portion is covered with plastic sheeting and boards to keep it warm.
After climbing up and down for two days, my back ached, but it was completely repaired in three days.
Finally, a feeding trough was built inside the enclosure, and a drain was dug next to the latrine pit.
The pig feed troughs in pigsties are now more sturdy and durable.
The drain outlet near the latrine pit allows pig manure to flow directly into the pit.
The pigsty is quite far from the house, and the pigsty is also far from where we go in and out, so the smell is less.
Now all I have to do is wait for the pigsty to dry. While the pigsty is drying, I have other chores to do.
Go to the west wing and move out some narrower planks. Use a nail gun and chainsaw to make a large wooden bed for the piglets.
Even though it's a wooden bed, it doesn't need to be very high, just a dozen centimeters will do.
The main purpose is to let them sleep on it, which can prevent moisture and cold.
It took half a day to finally nail the pig bed together.
Fearing that the burrs on it might prick the piglets, I used a sander to sand the bed inside and out twice more.
It feels so smooth to the touch now; I can even imagine how comfortable it must be for a pig to lie on it.
Place the wooden bed far away from the water outlet so that the piglets can automatically distinguish where to sleep and where to defecate.
Since the pigsty was built, I come and walk around it several times a day to see if it's dry.
I kept telling myself, "Let it dry quickly, let it dry quickly, I really don't want to clean up pig manure anymore."
After waiting for several days, the house was finally completely dry.
I immediately put the three little guys into the pigpen.
They were kept in cages all the time, which made them feel suffocated.
As soon as it entered the pigpen, it ran around looking at everything, and seemed to really like the place.
These past few days have been exhausting. The pig's poop smells much worse than the dog's, and cleaning it every day is incredibly difficult for me.
From now on, you only need to clean it once a year.
Now that I've completely let go of the piglet thing, I need to stock up on as much firewood as possible before the weather gets cold.
The autumn harvest activities were canceled, so I started going up the mountain every day to cut tree branches.
The trees that were cut down were all trees that died during the previous extreme cold period.
Those trees are long dead now, and after being exposed to the scorching sun for some time, they are completely dry and can be easily broken.
If you're quick and efficient, collecting tree branches is quite easy.
Moreover, fruit tree branches taste good, and when made into barbecue charcoal, you can directly use them to grill meat.
They pulled a small cart up the mountain, cut down the branches, sorted them, and bundled them into bunches.
The small cart can be piled up to a height of more than one person at a time, and then they can be tied tightly together with a rope, so that a lot of firewood can be hauled in one trip.
It wasn't a very stressful job. I only collected timber once a day, and in five days I collected a whole stack of firewood.
Every day, besides collecting firewood on the mountain, they also go fishing in the ravine for a while.
It's late autumn now, and the fish are big and fat.
The four puppies have grown up quite a bit and are full of energy. They, along with Little Di and Little Gua, keep me company while I go fishing.
I was fishing here, and several of them were hopping and playing around on the edge of the pond, seemingly fighting each other.
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