Chapter 170: Hand in the Task Pig
Lu Mingjiang couldn't say for sure: "Whether it's enough or not, we'll just go there one day and use the team's big scale to weigh it."
There are certain rules to follow when it comes to livestock. You can't just talk about slaughtering them until the day is up, and you can't go through the trouble of weighing them in advance. It is said that pigs are sometimes intelligent and will know that their time is up, which will lead to a poor appetite and further weight loss.
The next day was another busy day. I had to correct the submitted notebooks over the weekend so that the grades could be distributed on Monday.
On Sunday night, Wen Wan gave Lu Dongping some money and said, "Go to the commune tomorrow and buy me some stationery."
Lu Dongping took the money and put it in his trouser pocket and asked her, "What do you want to buy?"
"Well, let's see if there are any nice pencil cases. Buy three. Then buy some pencils and notebooks. Twenty pencils would be fine, and twenty notebooks as well. If there's any candy, buy some too. I've got the midterm exam results. Those who did well and showed great progress should definitely be rewarded. Verbal praise isn't as effective as tangible praise, so buy some stationery as a reward. I'm planning to organize an activity in the next week or two. Singing, reciting, or giving speeches will all be fine. Give the kids a chance to perform and then we'll give out prizes."
Lu Dongping sighed: "I'm a little envious of the students in your class!"
I am really lucky to be able to go to school at the right time and meet such a teacher.
Wen Wan looked at him with a smile: "Last time you said that you would learn Russian from me. I recorded a tape and copied down the lyrics in both Chinese and Russian. If you have time, you can listen to the tape and familiarize yourself with it. This way, you will be my student too!"
Lu Dongping chuckled, walked over, pinched her ear, leaned over and said, "Okay, Teacher Wen, remember to teach me well!"
To prepare for the event, one must definitely make time. Wen Wan reported to Wang Xiannian, made a plan, set a time, and invited several teachers from other classes to serve as judges.
Before I even got there, the family had to hand over the task pig.
Wen Wan had never seen the task of feeding pigs before. It happened to be Sunday that day. Early in the morning, Zhang Hongying was afraid that the weight would not be enough, so she indulged herself for once in a year and scooped some corn grits and wheat bran mixed with pig grass, and chopped some pumpkin, making the two pigs' bellies full.
Lu Dongping ran to the warehouse to borrow a beam scale. The good days of the pigs in the pen would end after a meal. Lu Dongcai and Lu Minghai helped, and several men held down the pig that looked a little bigger and tied it tightly with a brown rope. The hysterical howling continued until it reached the scale and did not stop.
Looking at the weight on the scale, Zhang Hongying finally felt relieved. One hundred and fifty-nine pounds, five pounds more. Even if she took another shit on the road, it would still be enough to weigh the same amount.
After finishing here, they went to weigh Lu Minghai's family. Both families are hardworking people. They take care of the pigs more carefully than they take care of people, so they will not be short of weight.
After weighing, the pig's hooves were removed, a rope was wrapped around the neck, and then passed under the front legs.
The person in front holds the rope, and another person follows behind with a bamboo stick, chasing the pig. If the pig doesn't move, he will hit it twice, and it will run away very fast.
Lu Donglin had been assigned this task. Normally, he was the one who got beaten up, but today it was his turn to beat up someone else, no, a pig. This was a great opportunity, and he had to take advantage of it.
The pigpen felt empty with one pig missing. Zhang Hongying and Gao Xiulan, the sisters-in-law, stood there gossiping: "Now that we've got one pig gone, we've completed our mission for the year. We'll have the remaining two months to take care of this one. I hope it performs well and grows some weight."
Gao Xiulan hugged Chuyi and said, "This beast is just like a human. It eats through its mouth. It can't grow anything if it doesn't eat anything. People live in poverty, so how can we feed it anything good?"
"After all, one head is easier to feed than two, so don't be reluctant to give it up. Dongfu is picking acorns. Take the time to peel and grind them. He should be fed when he needs to. Sieve the corn grits and add some of the corn on top. The oil and water for the whole year depend on him. You are lucky. We have to be careful now. Wenwan hadn't married yet at the beginning of the year. She said that her family wanted bacon, so we bought several pieces here and sent them back. I figured that now that they are married and we are a family, there is nothing valuable at home. If we sent it at the beginning of that year, we will have to send it again in the spring of next year."
By December, the weight would be no more than 200 kilograms at best. After removing the internal organs and the pig's brain, there wouldn't be much meat left. After smoking and drying it, there would be even less.
Gao Xiulan sighed, "Stop talking. I'm not any better than you. Dongcheng used to be alone in the army, but now we're married and we're a couple. He even wrote to me last time saying he wouldn't be back for the New Year this year. I figured I'd send him something in the spring, so I made him two pairs of shoes and sent them along."
"Did you receive a letter from Dongcheng? Didn't he say if there was any movement from Shengxia?"
Chuyi in her arms kicked her legs and moved inside the quilt. Gao Xiulan lifted her up and said, "It wasn't mentioned in the letter, so probably not. This kind of thing, as long as both of you are healthy, it will happen sooner or later, just let it happen naturally. Chuyi didn't get pregnant until two years after getting married."
Speaking of Chuyi, Zhang Hongying remembered Li Laiying again: "How has he been lately? I see he is even less talkative than before. He used to smile when he saw everyone, but now, apart from Dongcai, he doesn't smile when he sees anyone. And you are still the one who leads Chuyi."
The two sisters-in-law talked about everything from pigs to people, from adults to children and then back to adults. The topic went off the rails without them realizing it.
"Then I can't control those things. As long as the couple can get by, that's all that matters. As long as she works, I'll take care of her on the first day of the new year. This child is really strange. Even at such a young age, she knows who likes her and who doesn't. I can carry her, whether on my back or in my arms. As long as she's not hungry and doesn't poop or pee, she's very well behaved and doesn't make a sound. Her mother can't do that. Once I hold her, she cries endlessly and won't stop no matter what I do."
Zhang Hongying reached out and tugged at the blanket, looking at those bright eyes and smiling, "Don't mention children. The younger they are, the more sensitive they are. They can sense who likes them and who doesn't, even if adults can't." Then she looked at Chuyi in amazement, "Isn't it, Chuyi? Such a smart child, even though he looks young, he actually knows everything we know."
Chuyi responded to her with a childish "oh oh" sound, which was so cute.
Gao Xiulan hugged Chuyi and said, "It's done, it's done. We've paid what we owe to the government, and whatever's left is ours! Let's go back with my mother-in-law. Your third mother-in-law has to get busy too."
Zhang Hongying really had nothing to do at the moment. She had already taken care of her private plot. She only had one pig, so she didn't have to pick pig grass every morning and evening or plow the land. These jobs required physical labor, and she couldn't help with them. So she just took up the shoe soles and continued to knit.
The only thing missing from the pair of shoes I promised to make for Xu Qingming is the heel, which will be ready in less than two days.
Poking with a needle, she called out to Wen Wan, "Wan Wan, the soles of your brother's shoes are almost done. Have you made the pads on top? And the uppers, remember to give them to me when you're done so I can put them on together."
Wen Wan was busy all day long. The shoe uppers had been glued on, but there were still some rough edges that had not been hemmed.
Hearing Zhang Hongying's words, he finally remembered. He came out of the house and sat down beside her. Looking at the small section of the shoe sole still unsewn in her hand, he asked, "Is this the second one? Is it almost finished now?"
"Well, that's all there is to it. I hope it doesn't delay the afternoon."
"Mom, you're amazing, so fast!"
Zhang Hongying pulled the thread she had twisted in her hand and laughed, "I don't call that amazing. Women here, no matter what their family conditions are, have to learn these things like sewing and mending soles. Not everyone is taught when they are young, many of them learn it by themselves. If there's no cloth, we'll need it when clothes get torn. We learn how to mend to save thread and cloth, we all learn by trial and error. It's the same with shoe soles. The adults at home have to work and take care of the whole family, so they don't have the time to take care of this and that, so they just become so tight."
Wen Wan sighed: "But I can't."
"It's actually not that difficult. It looks so thick that a needle definitely won't work. Don't you have a needle awl and a clamp? Come, let me teach you. First, poke it with the needle awl. There'll be a hole. Do you see? Then use the needle. You don't need to pull the needle out with your hands. Just hold the needle tip with the clamp and pull. See, it's right out."
Wen Wan was eager to try: "Let me try." She understood everything he said and thought it seemed easy, but if she didn't try it herself, it wouldn't mean she knew how to do it.
She was naturally happy that she wanted to learn from Zhang Hongying. Even though it was just making shoes, she couldn't make shoes for them forever. When she was old and couldn't even sew, she couldn't not wear shoes at all.
It was not as difficult as she thought, but it was still very strenuous. Zhang Hongying taught her how to do it step by step, and then watched her sew a few stitches by herself. After all, she had the skill. After two or three stitches, she was able to find the feeling. The stitches were very even, and she didn't look like a beginner at all.
Wen Wan was thinking that this was her first time sewing shoe soles. Although it was just a heel, it was still her first time. Xu Qingming was so lucky. Having such a clever and caring sister like her was a blessing in his previous life.
After the thousand-layer cloth base is sewn, a layer of cotton padding is placed on top, and then you walk around it, and then put on the upper.
It's not the kind of wedge-shaped shoes, but the kind with a big, slip-on upper. It's slightly higher than the upper of ordinary single shoes and is also filled with cotton.
After the shoes were made, the work in the fields began. This was the last busy time of the year. Compared with the rush to harvest and plant, planting wheat was the easiest job.
The old worker led the young laborers in the team to turn the land early and feed the pigs. The members took the initiative to carry the manure that had been fermented early up the mountain in baskets. The women used hoes and rakes to dig up the manure. The oxen were replaced with plows and used rakes to rake the plowed soil clods together with the manure. Then they sowed wheat seeds, raked the ground back and forth twice, and waited for a rain to water it so that the wheat could take root and sprout in the ground.
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