Chapter 83: Digging in the mountains and growing vegetables in winter
The two of them slept outside at night, on a big, heated kang, covered with soft bedding. They sank into it and were completely wrapped up, feeling warm and safe.
After listening to Aunt Huang's words, Mingdai placed two more basins of water in their respective rooms. When she woke up the next morning, her nose was no longer dry or parched.
When I got up early in the morning, it was even colder outside and the water in the big vat had frozen.
Zhou Sinian broke the ice, scooped it into the pot, put a grate on it, took out cornmeal cakes and vegetable dumplings from the cupboard, thought for a moment, and then took out a handful of sugar-roasted chestnuts and put them in.
After lighting the fire, he went to wash up.
By the time Mingdai came out, breakfast had already been heated up.
Mingdai gave him a thumbs up and Zhou Sinian smiled happily.
I made two servings of fried noodles and ate some cold mustard greens and quickly finished my breakfast.
Zhou Sinian carefully wrapped the hot sugar-roasted chestnuts, placed them against his chest, patted them, and when he was satisfied, he pulled Mingdai out the door and walked towards Yezhuling.
Winter mornings are exceptionally cold. Except for those who get up early to cook and fetch water, most people still stay in bed, enjoying the rare peaceful time of the year.
Zhou Sinian put on a military coat he had received earlier, and wore his own red headscarf stubbornly, which looked so out of place that Mingdai didn't want to look at him.
But he was very satisfied. He would look in the mirror before going out and even urged Mingdai to use the half-length mirror in the bathroom, as he thought the mirror outside was too small.
Ming Dai couldn't imagine how he would face himself during this period after he recovered.
Would you want to get sick again?
When passing by the well at the entrance of the village, I met several villagers wearing large cotton jackets carrying water.
Looking at the tall figure pulling the cart and the iconic red headscarf passing by quickly, one of them couldn't help but sigh.
"In this world, even crazy people have brand new military coats to wear, but we are still wearing the tattered cotton padded jackets passed down from our fathers. Who can we turn to for justice?"
Another person then sang: "Oh, my fate!"
This made everyone laugh so hard that the shoulder straps on their shoulders shook, and the water in the bucket splashed around, wetting the well platform and causing it to quickly freeze. An old lady who came over to wash vegetables saw this and started scolding several people. The noise woke up the whole village.
When we reached the foot of the mountain, the road became difficult to walk on as the entire mountain was covered with snow.
The two of them simply parked the car here and walked up.
Zhou Sinian walked up, and Mingdai was still held by him, using his military coat to shield her from the wind.
The two men brought four sacks, found a sunny forest, and dug up the snow on the ground to reveal the frozen humus layer.
Fortunately, Auntie Huang reminded them yesterday to bring a shovel with them, otherwise the shovel would not be able to dig it out.
After prying open the top, the soil underneath is easy to dig.
Zhou Sinian shoveled while Mingdai held up the sacks. The two worked in perfect harmony and soon filled four sacks.
Mingdai put the sack into the space.
After putting them away, I walked around the mountain and put away all the branches broken by the snow nearby. I also unexpectedly found a pheasant that had been frozen into an ice sculpture and took it with me.
Finally, when the two of them left, they dragged a large branch down the mountain with them.
While there was no one around, I put the sacks on the car, secured the branches, and took them back together.
When the two were pulling the cart back to the village, they happened to run into Liu Dazhui.
Seeing him, Ming Dai quickly called Zhou Sinian to stop: "Uncle, where are you going so early in the morning?"
Liu Dazhu crossed his hands in his sleeves and looked at the two people pulling a cart of things. He was also surprised: "I came back from your uncle Dazheng's house and brought him breakfast and boiled medicine. What are you doing?"
Ming Dai pointed to the sack and said, "I went to the mountain to dig some soil. I just came back."
Liu Dazhui remembered what the old woman said, that the educated youth Xiao Ming wanted to grow vegetables in winter.
I didn't expect that these two would start doing it right away?
He encouraged with a smile: "Plant well. If it really grows, I will apply for permission to plant it in the village. When the time comes, we can send it to the county's purchasing station, which will also bring in more income, and we can pay off the village's foreign debt sooner."
After all, she is a leader. She hasn't even succeeded yet, but the captain has already assigned her a task.
"I don't know if it can grow. If it does, I'll pick a handful for you to taste."
Liu Dazhu laughed heartily, in a very good mood: "Okay! I'll wait!"
Before Zhou Sinian got impatient, Mingdai said goodbye and left.
Looking at the backs of the two people leaving, Liu Dazhu sighed. The three men in his family were not as good as one educated youth named Xiao Ming. How great it would be if she was his daughter!
When they got home, they broke the branches and placed them outside, brought the sacks into the space, dumped them in the yard, spread them out, and broke up all the lumps so that the sun could bask in them.
After making some space, Mingdai asked Zhou Sinian to dismantle some broken shelves in the kitchen and make some new grids with wooden boards so that the baskets could be placed on them.
In the afternoon, the soil was almost dry.
Mingdai took out a bamboo basket, laid a layer of straw underneath it, and then put the dried soil in it. After filling most of the bamboo basket, she dug a hole, buried the leek roots that had grown new roots, and poured some water to secure them.
Mingdai planted six baskets of leeks of different sizes. She planned to grow three baskets of raw leeks and three baskets of leek greens.
Mingdai used the remaining baskets to plant green vegetables, spinach and garlic sprouts.
Several large baskets were also filled with soybean sprouts and mung bean sprouts.
All the vegetables were piled in the storage room, and the basket of bean sprouts was placed on her kang.
After thinking for a while, she took out a few pounds of wheat, soaked it, poured it into a large drying basket and spread it evenly, covered it with a white cloth, placed it on Zhou Sinian's kang, and told him not to touch the ground.
The storage room is very small. After everything is cleared out, it is just the right place to put these things, and the temperature can also be raised.
Mingdai took out all the charcoal she had collected after going to the countryside, placed it in the middle of the storage room, used an unused basin to set up a charcoal basin, put the charcoal in it and started burning it. Soon, the temperature of the whole room rose.
This is the temporary solution this year. If it is feasible, we need to build a dedicated firewall so that we can grow vegetables on a large scale.
Two days later, the two of them found all the corn pulp left over from rubbing the corn.
The two of them worked hard for a whole day, crushing all the corn cobs into as much powder as possible, and then added some potassium permanganate to mix it.
Mingdai's small medicine box just happened to contain some anti-inflammatory and antibacterial drugs, and Director Gao gave her a lot of them.
Add some wheat bran, stir well, add water to keep the powder at 60% humidity, and shape it into cylinders.
When Mingdai and Zhou Sinian were looking for medicinal herbs in the mountains, they also collected a lot of dead wood covered with mushrooms, and now they are all placed in the small woods in the space.
She selected a dead tree covered with oyster mushrooms, removed the mycelium, and buried it in wet material made from corn husks. After planting all around, she placed it on a wooden rack in the storage room.
Mingdai went there regularly to spray water, and after a few days, small mushrooms began to emerge from the wet material.
Zhou Sinian has an extraordinary reverence for food. Whether it is the vegetable plots in the space or the vegetable planting baskets outside the space, most of them are taken care of by him.
As long as he was outside, he would go into the storage room to change the charcoal at the appointed time, and Mingdai didn't need to set the alarm.
Even in the middle of the night he could get up by himself to change the charcoal or light a fire.
This also caused their firewood to be consumed very quickly. Fortunately, there were several heavy snowfalls later, and many branches on the mountain were broken.
When the weather was good, the two of them would go up the mountain to collect firewood. Others also went there, mostly to see if there were any pheasants that had been frozen to death. Unfortunately, the harvest was very small.
Seeing that Zhou Sinian was so well behaved, Mingdai planned to make something delicious to reward him.