Chen Chunhua picked mushrooms very quickly. She filled a large basket in just over an hour. Her clothes were completely wet, but she had collected almost all the mushrooms with flat caps, and the rest could still grow longer.
She looked around the current warehouse and found that it had expanded more than four times compared to the original mushroom house. The demand for mushrooms in the market has also increased a lot in the past two years, and many restaurants have demand for mushrooms.
Every morning, Wu Ni and Liu Ni get up earlier than the chickens and pick some mushrooms first so that the Chen Chunhua can be delivered together with the eggs, but the supply still cannot meet the demand.
She started raising mushrooms as an experiment. She was short of money at the time, so she figured every penny she could earn was a penny. Unexpectedly, she ended up making a fortune from it.
Chen Chunhua thought seriously about Liu Ni's words. She said she wanted to take the mushroom class. In fact, Chen Chunhua supported it from the bottom of her heart. After all, all her current experience in mushroom cultivation came from the short videos she watched in her previous life. If she really wanted to scale up, she would definitely have to learn.
But the child is still too young and is already taking breeding classes at night school. It’s better not to put so much pressure on her before she graduates from junior high school.
Moreover, further expansion will require more manpower, including the poultry nearby. Now, the iron gate is often locked and the chickens, ducks and geese inside are left to fend for themselves. We can only wait for them to finish school, farm or deliver goods, and then take turns to come and take a look.
It's not like chickens and ducks haven't been stolen before. Earlier this year, Lin Guoqing caught one in the middle of the night and sent him to the police. But there's nothing they can do. They simply don't have the manpower or energy to take care of things anymore. They've only been able to raise the walls higher and higher, piercing them with broken glass as a warning.
Is it time to hire people? Chen Chunhua thought as she walked out of the factory carrying mushrooms, drove away the chickens that surrounded her and wanted to peck at the mushroom baskets, locked the iron gate, and then slowly walked towards the field.
If she were to hire someone, she wasn't really keen on hiring someone from her own village. She wasn't sure how much to pay them. Too much would make outsiders jealous, too little would lead to gossip. It's embarrassing to give orders to someone you know too well.
But now there are not many outsiders coming south to work. Even if there are, most of them go to places like the Special Economic Zone to work in factories. Who would travel thousands of miles from their own rural home to work in someone else's rural home to make money?
It costs money to recruit workers, it costs money to expand the scale, and it costs money to build houses. Without money, they can't recruit people, let alone expand the scale. Oh, this is really a vicious circle.
They had already reached the edge of their own field. Seeing Lin Guoqing carrying up a basket of fish, all wet, Chen Chunhua's face showed the same disgust as Liang Shengdi's.
"If someone didn't know, they'd think you went fishing in the river. How come even your shoulders are wet? I've already picked all the mushrooms, and you only have one basket of fish? If it were your mother, she'd have at least three baskets."
Lin Guoqing's heart was completely broken after being hit so hard today. He raised his hand and wiped the sweat off his face.
"Mom is used to it. The last time I slacked off was when my little girl was just born! I've lost touch with it a long time ago. It always takes time to get back into the groove."
"Oh, then you've almost recovered after taking that basket. Do you not need my help anymore?"
Lin Guoqing stood silently on the ridge of the field, watching the fish swimming back and forth in the muddy paddy field.
"Wife, do you know the idiom 'like adding wings to a tiger'? If you come down and help me, maybe we can catch all the fish today, drain the fields tomorrow, and have the harvest the day after tomorrow!"
Chen Chunhua rolled her eyes and said, "You dug a hole underground? You can drain the water in one day? The autumn harvest is the day after tomorrow. Will we have to eat grass next year?"
After saying that, she waved at him and said, "Alright, alright, come up quickly. Go home and change your clothes so you can go to the factory. It's almost lunchtime."
When Lin Guoqing heard that it was almost time to go to work, he stopped arguing with her and hurriedly carried the fish basket up, and also picked up the crab cage and eel cage that Liang Shengdi had put down in the morning. He wiped his feet, put on his shoes, and went home with his wife.
After walking a few steps, they saw Lin Yulan coming up from their fields with a small basket. She was surprised to see Lin Guoqing and his wife.
"Why are you two in the fields in the middle of the day?"
"Ah, Mom said she's going out boating this afternoon and asked us to catch some fish and pick some mushrooms so she can take them with us. Sister, why are you in the fields too? Aren't you taking a nap?"
Lin Yulan had given birth to too many children, and her foundation had been damaged. She could not stand the wind or the sun. Even Old Mrs. Ma was afraid that she would faint in the field, so she asked her to do some lighter work.
It was almost two o'clock, when the sun was at its highest. Lin Yulan didn't look like she had just come out of the water. She smiled and showed them the fish in her basket.
"We have a lot of fields, and they all go to school or work during the day. It's not safe to come down at night. I can't sleep, so I might as well go out and catch some fish. If I don't catch too many, they'll all dry up once the water is released."
Lin Guoqing looked at the few fish in her basket and smiled.
See, he's not the only one who's slacking off.
"School will be out tomorrow. Let's have the kids go help you with the fields. You can eat what you can, and let mom sell the leftovers. We can even make some money."
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I've seen a lot of friends commenting recently, asking why they don't buy houses in the city. I think I've explained this in my previous articles, so I'll give you a unified answer here. This is the conclusion I came to after researching a lot of information and interviewing many elderly people, which is -
Before the grain certificate was abolished, it was unrealistic for rural residents to move their entire family to the city.
City dwellers' food was distributed on a per-household, per-person basis using their food coupons. Each person was given a fixed number of food coupons each month. If you didn't have enough, you had to buy on the black market. And each kilogram of food coupons on the black market was more expensive than a kilogram of grain at the grain and oil store.
Rural residents did not have food coupons because they owned land. Before the reform and opening up, they used work points from the production team to buy grain. After the reform and opening up, they grew their own food anyway, so the land could not be left idle. Not only did they need to eat it themselves, but they also had to hand over a proportion of the annual harvest as public grain.
Even students had to bring food or food coupons to school. Schools were also based on household registration. Except for high school, where students with good grades could go to the city, all other schools were assigned based on the principle of proximity.
It was not until around 1983 that the Special Administrative Region began to sell high-priced grain without food coupons, but the price was very, very high.
In the early 1980s, if a person left the village to work, he could probably survive by saving money and enduring hardships. The whole family depended on buying food, and even the wealthy people with a salary of 10,000 yuan could not afford it. (Of course, the figures here are for ordinary people)
Those who move their families to the city will really starve to death.
Also, the geographical location of Sihe Village is actually not bad. Life in the southern countryside is not lacking in anything compared to the city. This book mainly tells the daily struggles of that generation of rural people. The town plot will slowly unfold with the times and rhythm. Please read it patiently~~
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