Qingmiao smiled and said, "Our young master really knows how to coax people."
Zhang Zhaoci said, "Didn't you ask the two Li girls if they wanted to come with us to the estate?"
Xu Di said, "Aunt Li has to stay home to help take care of her sister-in-law. If she doesn't go, it's not appropriate for us to take our two younger sisters with us. Let's just forget about it this time and ask again when the rice is harvested in the fall."
Zhang Zhaoci then said nothing more.
Last year, Xu Zhi came with us to harvest wheat. This time, because her mother was pregnant and needed someone to take care of her, Xu Zhi busied herself helping to take care of her mother. She didn't go to the fields, but she helped with boiling water and cooking at home.
Last year, Zhangjiazhuang also planted wheat. This year, the harvest is good, and the wheat in the fields is growing well. It's time to harvest the wheat, and everyone has prepared their sickles and other necessary tools early on, hoping that the weather will be kind after the harvest begins and that it won't rain so that everyone can harvest the whole crop.
Before the wheat harvest, there is a sacrificial ceremony in the village. The village head leads the villagers to set up an offering table in front of the village ancestral hall, offering three kinds of sacrificial animals, and praying to heaven for good weather and a good harvest. After the sacrificial ceremony, the village head gives an order, and several strong young men with bare chests swing sickles and begin to harvest wheat.
Summer harvest is all about rushing to harvest. At this time, it often rains or is cloudy, and the bad weather is not conducive to drying wheat. So, when the sun is shining, we have to do our best to cut, harvest, thresh, dry, and store the wheat.
Xu Di hired a lot of people from outside to harvest wheat. They paid them well and provided them with three meals a day. With the help of Zhao Zhuangtou and five uncles and elders from the village, the wheat from the hundred-odd acres was harvested and brought to the large threshing ground in front of the village in just three days.
"Farmers have few idle months, and May is a busy time." Not only were the farms busy harvesting wheat, but Xu Rao also led the county government's yamen runners to the villages below to supervise the wheat harvest. The entire Hexi County was filled with a spectacular scene of bustling wheat harvesting.
Although Zhang Zhaoci didn't experience morning sickness, she felt weak all over, even her bones felt limp. She lay half asleep in the house, and heard Xu Zhi, Granny Lu, and Sister-in-law He discussing what to cook for lunch in the courtyard.
Sister He still came to the village to cook, and even Qingmiao and Qingsui were assigned to deliver mung bean soup to the fields. Before the three of them could decide what to cook, Qingmiao and Qingsui came in carrying several earthenware jars.
The two of them had gotten quite tanned these past few days, but they were still willing to go outside. When Granny Lu told them to put on veils, the two of them said that wearing them didn't fit the local working scene. They said, "Look at all the young women and wives in the village. They all go to the fields to harvest wheat with sickles. If we go to the fields wearing those things, won't people laugh at us to death?"
Qingmiao put down the earthenware jar and said to Granny Lu, "Granny, when we came back just now, we saw someone selling tofu over in the village. We haven't had tofu in a long time. Why don't we buy some and cook it?"
Upon hearing this, Granny Lu said, "Alright, I'll go right away."
Qingmiao smiled and said, "Granny, do you really need to go there yourself if you want to buy it? You wait here, I'll go and call the person over."
The tofu seller was a man in his fifties. He introduced himself as being from the next village, and said that his family had been making tofu for generations. Hearing that everyone here was busy harvesting wheat, he made a few slabs of tofu and brought them over to sell.
Granny Lu bought a whole tray of tofu and instructed the tofu seller to deliver one tray every morning until the wheat harvest was over. She also instructed him to bring a bucket of thick soy milk with the tofu.
The tofu seller naturally left with profuse thanks. Zhang Zhaoci heard the commotion outside and came out of the house. Standing at the door, she leaned on the door frame. Xu Zhi saw this and quickly came over to help her, saying, "Mother, why don't you sleep a little longer? It's not mealtime yet."
Zhang Zhaoci laughed and said, "Well, I can't just sleep and eat all the time. I heard you guys were having a lot of fun outside, so I came out to see. Did you buy tofu? We can slice the tofu into thin slices, fry them, and then stew them with vegetables."
Granny Lu said, "We can also make tofu balls, which are delicious. I'll have someone deliver a bucket of soy milk in the morning so we can fry dough sticks. We can have soy milk and fried dough sticks for breakfast. It's oily and we have something to drink, so we'll have energy to work."
The workers that Xu Di hired lived in the front yard of the manor. The Xu family provided them with three meals a day and paid them wages every day.
Upon hearing this, Zhang Zhaoci laughed and said, "Sure, I haven't had fried dough sticks in ages."
Since we bought tofu, we'll make tofu for lunch. We picked a lot of spinach from the garden, blanched it, and cut it into sections. We sliced the tofu and fried it in oil. Then we heated oil in a wok, stir-fried the spinach, and added the tofu to stew.
There were many people eating, so they made a big pot full of food and steamed vegetarian buns with tofu and chive filling. Qingmiao and Qingsui put the spinach and tofu stew in a big bucket, and then put the buns in a large basket used by the chief editor who was in charge of dry rations. They then used a wheelbarrow to deliver the food to the field.
Everyone was satisfied with the meal. Xu Di let others eat first, but he hadn't had enough of the vegetarian buns. He told Qingmiao and Qingsui to save a few for him to eat later that evening.
Qingmiao and Qingsui responded with smiles. Seeing that everyone had finished eating, they cleaned up the dishes and utensils and pushed the cart back to the village.
After lunch, I rested for a while, and then I had to think about what to make for dinner.
Zhang Zhaoci was most impatient with cooking. Watching Li Mama and He Saozi discuss, she said, "Mama, are there so many rules to cooking?"
Granny Lu said, "Of course. When people come to help us, we have to make sure they are well-fed. But well-fed doesn't mean fancy dishes. Everything has to be cost-effective, right? We have to figure out how to make sure everyone eats well without spending too much money. Look, at noon we made spinach stew with tofu. The spinach was from our own garden, and the tofu was bought from outside. But can we make this dish again tomorrow? Of course not."
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