Chapter 197 Spring Planting
Before the end of the first lunar month, the spring rain began to fall. Except for a brief sunny day on the second day of the second lunar month when the dragon raises its head, the rest of the time it was either raining or brewing rain.
This year's spring seems to have come especially early and especially quickly.
As the spring rain and breeze blew, the grass in the ground grew rapidly as if it had eaten the nutrients that Koko had mentioned. There were only a few weeds on both sides of the road before Manbao went to bed, but when he woke up, both sides of the road were already green.
Then Manbao went to school carrying her small school box and an umbrella that was much bigger than her.
The Zhou brothers were not treated as well as she was. Although there was a drizzle in the sky, they still had to go to the fields.
Put on a straw raincoat, carry a hoe and a plow and go to the fields.
Even Old Zhou was wearing a straw raincoat and a straw hat, so Zhou Liulang naturally went too.
The Zhou family has a lot of land, and it is difficult to achieve the meticulous work that Koko mentioned. Even the wealthy white landowners cannot do it.
All the fields with good soil and water are planted with rice, the inferior ones are planted with wheat, and the dry land that is not a field is planted with various beans and fruits.
For example, Manbao doesn’t like to eat winter melon, wax gourd, pumpkin, etc.
The Zhou family has a lot of land, but also a lot of labor.
Plowing the fields was almost entirely the men's job, but occasionally Xiao Qian and the others would carry hoes and go down to the fields together to level the land.
This year, in addition to the good fields at home, they also have to be more careful with the three pieces of wasteland they have reclaimed, because they are going to plant very valuable ginger and yam there.
Especially the ginger pieces, even Zhou Sanlang, who just entered the business, took it very seriously. He went to the fields in the dark for several evenings to spread fertilizer, trying to make the land more fertile before planting.
In order to suppress the growth of weeds in the field, Zhou Sanlang and his team spread a thin layer of straw on the wasteland.
This is the secret Manbao discovered last year when he was growing ginger and yam.
Last year, due to large temperature fluctuations, they spread a layer of straw on the ground to keep warm after planting. In the end, they found that there were fewer weeds in the areas covered by the straw.
So they did the same thing this year, and when they planted the seeds, they pulled away the straw in the planting area to expose the seeds after planting.
In this way, the ginger sprouts and grows out before the weeds grow out, which buys them a lot of time.
After all, this is the busy spring season, and they are really busy.
This year, the family has an additional twenty acres of land from Zhou Silang, so they are afraid that they can no longer work as temporary laborers for the white landlords.
This means that they will have one less source of income at the beginning of the spring. Of course, the current reduction in income will allow them to get higher returns than in previous years when wheat, beans and rice are harvested in the fall.
That's theoretically true, if God is kind enough and this year is as prosperous as the past three years.
But the weather this year is indeed a bit strange.
It started to drizzle at the beginning of spring. As the water in the fields gradually increased, Old Zhou had to take his sons to release water. He looked at the sky with a worried look on his face, but within two days, the sky cleared up.
Old Zhou did not dare to delay and immediately took his family to plant the raised seedlings. Even Ertou and Erya went to the fields. Except for the four young ones, Manbao, Santou, Sanya and Sitou, even Qian was busy.
Since everyone in the family worked in the fields, she naturally had to take on the housework. Even though she couldn't do heavy work, she could do things like cooking and cleaning the yard.
Plus, there are Manbao and other little ones to help. In this way, one sick and four young children can help out at home.
Planting in spring is as tiring as harvesting in autumn. The family members are losing weight at a visible rate. Manbao is very distressed. He opens his money box, counts the copper coins inside, and then counts out twenty coins to buy meat.
She thought that although pork was not as delicious as mutton, it was cheap.
In the long run, it is more cost-effective to buy pork, but she feels a little embarrassed. After all, her future sister-in-law's family sells mutton, and the meat stalls of the two families are next to each other.
Datou, who took the money and was responsible for buying meat, obviously knew this. Every time before going to buy meat, he would ask Zhou Silang if he had any words for him to pass on.
Zhou Silang was so busy and tired that he had no time to think about anything else. Upon hearing this, he casually picked a bunch of wild flowers from the roadside and stuffed them into his hand, saying, "Give them to her for me."
Manbao likes to put flowers and plants in his room. When there are no flowers, he can even put wild grass in it. Even Daya and Erya like to put flowers in their room. They pester their second brother to make bamboo vases for them every day.
So Zhou Silang came to the conclusion that girls all like flowers and plants.
He didn't have anything else, but he had plenty of flowers and plants, everywhere on the road and on the mountain.
After he had picked all the flowers on the way, he would pick some beautiful flowers from the mountain and bring them back during his break. He would let Manbao pick the ones and put the remaining ones into a basin to soak in water. The next day, he would give the fresh and clean ones to Datou and ask him to bring them to Miss Fang when he went to buy meat.
So, since the busy spring season, Datou has to go to the market every day to buy meat, mostly pork and occasionally mutton.
But no matter what kind of meat he bought, he would give a bouquet of flowers to his future aunt on behalf of his uncle.
Not to mention the Fang family, even the entire Dali Village knew about it. After dinner, everyone would say, "Don't mention it, the fourth son of the Zhou family really values Erniu. Erniu made a good choice of husband."
As for the Zhou family's behavior of always buying meat from the butcher stall next door, some people were complaining in their hearts in the first few days, and even the Fang family felt a little uncomfortable. But after these flowers had been sent for more than ten days, everyone felt comfortable.
As for not buying meat from Yue's house but going to the meat stall next door, everyone also expressed their understanding from the bottom of their hearts. After all, the meat sold by the two families is different and the price is also very different.
On the one hand, everyone felt that the Zhou family was not as well off as the Fang family and could only choose cheaper pork. But on the other hand, there were not many families in this countryside who could afford to eat meat every day.
At least even the village chief of Dali Village would not bear to eat it like this.
Compared in this way, it seems that the Zhou family is quite well off.
Cheng was relieved. She said, "Although they only buy meat every day during the busy farming season, there may not be many families who do this. Obviously, they still have some money."
At least it was not worse than the families they had seen before. Those families seemed to be richer than the Zhou family, but they did not seem willing to eat meat every day on such days.
The Fang family is a butcher. Villagers from several nearby villages basically come to Dali Village to buy meat.
Therefore, they know best about everyone's family background.
Butcher Fang said, "It's only about two months away. She'll be out of town once the spring rush is over. During this time, tell her to go out less and cover herself up. Maybe her hair will become whiter. I think Zhou Si's other qualities are okay, but his face and mouth are okay."
Obviously, Fang the Butcher also wanted his daughter to match Zhou Silang in terms of appearance.
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(End of this chapter)
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