Chapter 216 Rice Field Harvest!
The wheat must be dried before it can be stored, or husked and ground into flour.
In the past, villagers at the foot of the mountain would place their crops on drying mats to dry, but the original owner didn’t have any, so they could only place them on the cement floor to dry.
However, the temperature is not very high now, so Zhao Yeqing took out the plastic sheet and spread it on the ground. Due to limited area, he could only dry the wheat in batches.
Fortunately, it hasn’t rained recently. By the time the wheat is almost dried and the rice fields are also dry, they can be harvested.
Zhao Yeqing and Mu Xi discussed whether they should wait until the autumn planting of rice was completed before planting another crop of wheat.
Mu Xi shook his head. "We harvested 500 kilograms of wheat, and the rice doesn't look like it has a very low yield. Planting two crops of rice is tiring enough, and when the weather gets hot, we have to go out and take care of so many fields. It's not necessary."
The same goes for this.
The flour ground from wheat, plus the output from one season of rice, is enough for two people to eat for a year.
But there are still chickens, cattle and sheep at home that need to be fed. Adding some rice and corn to the chicken feed can help them lay more eggs. Cattle and sheep also need straw mixed with silage, and occasionally some corn as concentrated feed.
It is enough to grow two crops of rice.
She felt extremely relaxed instantly.
It’s like when I was in school, I finished all my summer homework in the first week of summer vacation. I felt so relaxed without any worries.
After the wheat was dried, Mu Xi planned to harvest the rice and glutinous rice by himself.
He stopped Zhao Yeqing who was also going to the fields with him, "You go to the vegetable garden, the sweet potato vines need to be taken care of. If you don't, all the nutrients will be in the leaves, and the sweet potatoes underneath will probably be no bigger than a finger."
Zhao Yeqing was particularly diligent in taking care of the vegetable garden, and served the vegetables there deliciously.
Sometimes the more carefully you take care of the food, the worse it turns out.
Zhao Yeqing looked at the lush sweet potato vines and without hesitation took up his sickle. In just a few strokes, he cut the sweet potatoes into short flat heads.
Zhao Yeqing picked the tenderest sweet potato vines and put them in the kitchen, planning to fry them in the evening. He threw the rest into the cowshed and sheep pen.
Remove the first inflorescences of peppers and tomatoes to allow them to continue growing upwards with nutrients.
The fennel sown in the leafy vegetable area has also grown, so it seems that it is a foregone conclusion that we will be able to eat fennel dumplings.
There is just not enough meat to make dumplings.
The beef and mutton at home have all turned into jerky. Now the only meat available in the mountains is either chicken from home, fish from the lake, or rabbit meat from the meadow.
Zhao Yeqing shrugged his nose, feeling that it was weird to use fennel with any kind of meat to make dumplings.
After tidying up the vegetable garden, she walked to the front yard to watch Mu Xi harvesting rice.
At Mu Xi's current speed, it is estimated that the rice will be harvested by evening, and only half of the glutinous rice will be harvested.
Zhao Yeqing rolled the threshing barrel to the edge of the field, intending to thresh and harvest the grain at the same time.
During the busy farming season, you have to hurry, otherwise if it rains, the undried food will be useless if left indoors for two days.
Seeing her coming to help, Mu Xi just said, "Take your time and let me do the rest. When it gets dark later, although it will be hard to see clearly when cutting rice, it will still be possible to thresh the millet. With a flashlight, you can thresh half a field of millet in the dark."
Zhao Yeqing nodded, pushed the threshing bucket to the small pavilion beside the field, and slowly threshed the grain.
When it got dark, only half of the glutinous rice field was left to be harvested. Zhao Yeqing stopped Mu Xi from working and said, "Don't harvest anymore. Wait until tomorrow to finish. Be careful not to cut your hands and legs when it gets dark."
Bend down to cut rice, grab a handful of rice stalks and cut them off at the root with a sickle. The blade of the sickle is pointed inward, so if you cut too quickly, it is very easy to cut yourself.
Mu Xi threw the last bunch of rice stalks he had cut to his feet and said, "Then put it there first. I'll do it."
Zhao Yeqing handed the threshing task to Mu Xi, walked back to the room and took out the solar flashlight.
There is a braided rope loop at the end of the flashlight, which can be put on your wrist when you are outdoors to prevent your hand from slipping and dropping the flashlight.
She hung the braided rope loop of the flashlight on the top of the small pavilion. When she turned on the flashlight, it was like a small lamp hanging on the pavilion.
"Then you fight first, I'll go cook."
Mu Xi: "Just eat something, don't cook, it's too tiring."
Cooking in the kitchen in this season is not much easier than working, Zhao Yeqing nodded. She had cooked a pot of porridge long time ago. Now all she had to do was stir-fry the sweet potato vines and bacon together, steam a sausage, and pair it with the dried radish in the kimchi jar.
It’s simple to make, the wood-burning stove is burning brightly and you can have dinner in half an hour.
After Mu Xi had eaten his fill, he went out again to thresh the grain.
The sun is bright during the day and the moonlight at night is as bright and clear as last summer.
Mu Xi turned off the flashlight. The entire meadow was now illuminated by the moonlight and everything could be seen clearly.
The only hours when lighting is really needed are the first few hours after dark.
After Zhao Yeqing finished his bath, he saw that it was almost twelve o'clock, so he walked to the edge of the field.
"Don't do it, go take a shower and go to bed first."
Mu Xi knocked the handful of rice in his hand clean, and the plump grains fell into the threshing bucket.
"Okay, I'll go get a basket and put it in the house, otherwise it might get robbed at night."
The animals that steal rice in the mountains are wild boars, rabbits, voles, sparrows and the like.
The rice could not be harvested completely, and there were still a lot of rice stalks with rice ears piled up in the fields. Mu Xi was still worried when he took a shower and went to bed.
I moved the rocking chair to the edge of the field, planning to sleep there at night.
After sprinkling floral water on his body, he was not afraid of mosquito bites. Zhao Yeqing did not stop him. In this weather, it was cooler to sleep outside than in the room.
Seeing Mu Xi sleeping outside in the yard, the dog at home also followed him to sleep by the field, wagging its tail.
Facts proved that Mu Xi had foresight. Not long after he fell asleep, Da Huang caught the thief while barking.
It is a round vole.
Mu Xi was half asleep and casually put the vole into a small ceramic jar.
The next day, after waking up and having breakfast, I remembered that there was a thief.
Mu Xi walked to the pottery jar, opened it and almost dropped it on the ground.
The field mice inside gave birth to more than ten cubs overnight.
Voles look similar to mice, except that their ears and faces are slightly rounder. Their offspring are also small, red, hairless, and born.
Zhao Yeqing hated mice very much and felt terrible when he saw one.
People here eat field mice, and there is a saying that "eat one mouse, equivalent to three chickens", but she really cannot accept field mice that look like mice. Bamboo rats are the limit of what she can accept.
Mu Xi had no intention of releasing them into the wild. Summer was the peak season for these animals to separate into litters, become pregnant and give birth. Each litter would have around ten babies, and they could give birth to seven or eight babies a year.
Even these red baby mice only need two more months to reproduce.
They reproduce in a very frightening way and are extremely harmful to the fields.
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