Chapter 27: Shampoo, cedar and wormwood juice, wood ash water, rice washing...
"Mother, can I use the garlic mortar in the kitchen?" Lin Shu replied, then began to process the cedar leaves, snipping them into smaller pieces with scissors and mashing them together with the mugwort. Boiling them would have been more effective, but for now, she'd just keep it simple.
After mashing it, add water and stir evenly, then filter it with gauze. Lin Shu then went to the straw pile in the corner of the yard to take a bundle of dry straw, burned it, and filtered it to get wood ash water.
Mix cedarwood sap, wood ash water, and rice washing water, and stir well to create a natural, unconcentrated cedarwood shampoo. Add soapberry and soapberry to the mix, and you'll even lather. Boil it over a fire until it's thick and concentrated, and it's almost like shampoo.
There was half a basin of shampoo, enough for three or four people.
"Come here, Xiao Pu. Sister will wash you first."
In the past, Lin Xiaopu would just squat on the ground and wash her hair, but Lin Shu brought out a bench from the main room and asked her to lie flat on the bench, exposing half of her head. She untied her bun, let all her hair hang down, and put a folded dry towel under her neck.
"Just lie still and I'll make sure your hair is washed comfortably."
Lin Xiaopu grinned, "Okay."
Lin Shu used a ladle to scoop up the warm water and poured it over the little head in her hand. She then scooped up a ladle of cedar mugwort shampoo and poured it on, carefully rubbing the slightly yellowed hair at the ends.
Although Lin Xiaopu wasn't a picky eater, the food at home wasn't exactly exceptional, lacking in nutritional value. Lin Shu had only recently discovered from asking Xiaopu about it that, while Zhou Ye occasionally ventured into the mountains to hunt for wild game, the family generally didn't keep any of it for themselves, instead selling it all in town. Even when the family's old hen laid eggs, her mother would collect them and sell them in town.
This time, we were able to keep some wild boars for ourselves because they were different from the pheasants and rabbits that were sold whole, and there were more of them.
Lin Shu felt that she couldn't let anyone else suffer, and she had to save money. After all, Xiao Pu still needed medicine, and the cost of medicine was not small. These days, people have to bear minor pains and illnesses on their own because going to the doctor or pharmacy is too expensive, and the lower-class people can't afford it.
But eating well and drinking well, with balanced nutrition, can improve one's immunity. A healthy body naturally leads to fewer illnesses, so eating and drinking are also important matters and cannot be neglected. She thought about not selling the eggs at home and saving them for everyone, especially Xiao Pu. In the future, if Zhou Ye hunts any pheasants or rabbits, she will eat them first. If she is short of money, she can set up a stall to sell snacks at the market.
Zhou Ye went to the river to wash his face and felt much fresher. He should have gone back earlier, but he lingered by the river for a long time before slowly walking back.
Lin Shu heard the noise, looked up, and said with a smile: "Brother Aye will have to wait for a while, I will wash Xiao Pu's hair first."
Zhou Ye glanced at her fingers pressing on Lin Xiaopu's hair and replied, "I won't wash it yet. Don't we have to dig a fish pond? I'll wash it after I finish digging the pond today. Just leave some of your shampoo for me."
When Lin Shu heard this, her smile curved even further. "That's good, otherwise I'd be sweating all over again right after washing. Then I won't wash for now. After I finish washing Xiao Pu, we'll go to the fish pond behind the house!"
Zhou Ye glanced at her smooth black hair and said, "Don't worry, wait until you finish washing it. You need a shovel to dig the fish pond. I'll go borrow two shovels first."
Lin Dashan's family had only been separated for a few years, and many things at home were still missing. They didn't have shovels or machetes, and the mortar and pestle, common in almost every household, wasn't even in the yard. The kitchen only had a small garlic mortar, which was used to pound garlic and beans. Since these items were rarely used, they had to borrow them from fellow villagers whenever they needed them.
Lin Dashan's family are all kind people, including Zhou Ye. Ping'er will always return any advantage she gets from other places, so if she wants to borrow something, the villagers are happy to help.
Since Zhou Ye said so, Lin Shu was not in a hurry. After washing Xiao Pu, the two sisters first dealt with the large basket of Guanyin firewood together.
This time, when she changed the pork, she happened to have a clean large wooden basin. Lin Shu used this large wooden basin to rub the juice. She rubbed a large basin full, then added cedar ash water, stirred it well, and let it stand.
Seeing that Zhou Ye had not returned yet, he added water and asked A Niang and Lin Xiaopu to help wash his hair.
Her long hair was black and smooth, and He Guixiang didn't dare to rub it hard when washing it. After Lin Shu's hair was washed and He Guixiang wrung it half dry with a handkerchief, Zhou Ye came back leisurely with two shovels.
Lin Shu gathered her hair with the plum blossom silk handkerchief given by her third aunt, ran to Zhou Ye, and said excitedly, "Shall we go dig a fish pond now?"
Zhou Ye glanced at her and nodded. "Go get some wood ash from the stove and circle the area where you want to dig the fish pond. I'll dig along the area you've circled."
Lin Shu immediately found an empty bamboo tube and stopped He Guixiang who wanted to help. She was not afraid of getting her hands dirty, so she used a fire poker to move the unburned firewood in the stove. Then she held the bamboo tube in one hand and used the fire poker in the other hand to dig the ash in the stove into the bamboo tube.
"Be careful not to burn your hands! The sparks haven't gone out yet!" He Guixiang warned. But seeing that Lin Shu's movements were so skillful, as if she had been through a fire before, she didn't stop her.
Lin Shu filled a thick bamboo tube with wood ash and turned to Zhou Ye, "Do you have any bamboo nails at home? I want to drill a hole in this bamboo tube."
Zhou Ye guessed her intention and took the bamboo tube from her hand. He pointed his index finger at the bottom of the bamboo tube and poked it in with a seemingly light push. A small hole the thickness of his finger was made in the bamboo tube. Finally, he found a small piece of wood of similar thickness and blocked the hole. "Alright."
Lin Shu's eyes lit up slightly.
She took it with a smile, "Thank you, Brother Aye."
She didn't expect that such great strength could be used in this way. In this way, Zhou Ye could help her do more things!
The two went to the back of the house, and Lin Xiaopu followed them like a little tail.
Lin Shu had chosen the place early in the morning. It was right behind the vegetable patch planted by her mother. Lin Shu opened the wooden stick that served as a stopper under the bamboo tube, and wood ash appeared from the hole. Lin Shu shook the bamboo tube lightly as she walked, and soon she had circled out an irregular oval about six meters long.
Lin Xiaopu exclaimed, "Sister, are we going to dig such a big fish pond?"
Lin Shu felt a little embarrassed when she heard this and asked Zhou Ye, "Is the fish pond I enclosed too big?"
Zhou Ye didn't respond, but just asked, "How deep do you want to dig?"
"It doesn't need to be too deep, four feet will be enough. Expand the edges of the fish pond and dig it into a stepped shape. This will not only be safe but also beautiful. When the time comes, I'll have to trouble Brother Aye to go to the river and bring back some sand and gravel. Fill the pond with sand and gravel, especially those round and beautiful pebbles. Then you can see the bottom of the pond clearly."
"The spring water can be brought in from the rock wall at the foot of the mountain. The spring water will flow out from the rock wall. Let's ask who has a large water tank with a broken hole in it. We can use that tank to store water at the source, set up a long bamboo tube next to it, and use it to guide the water all the way to our fish pond. We can also place a bamboo water flow device where the spring water is brought in. The bamboo tubes will flow from high to low, forming a flowing water landscape!"
"Leave a gap at the end of the fish pond and surround it tightly with a fine bamboo fence. This way, the fish can't escape, but the water can flow. Then we can go to the river or stream to dig up some calamus and water plants and plant them."
"If we could find some bayberry, that would be even better. We could dig up a couple and plant them by the pond. Maybe they'd attract some birds to build nests there. We don't have any lotus flowers here, so if we could plant a small patch of them in the water, the fish would be able to hide under the leaves and cool off in the summer."
Zhou Ye thought he was just digging a big hole: ...
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