Chapter 282 Cornstalk Silage
Zhao Yeqing put the boiled spice water aside and waited for the chicken to be soaked. As the spice water cooled down, the spices in it gradually diluted and released fragrance. Then he brought the chicken in to soak.
At night, Mu Xi covered the persimmons in the yard with plastic sheeting to prevent them from being soaked by dew.
The peeled persimmon peels were also drying outside. He reached out and pinched it, and found that it was almost dry, so he put it in.
Zhao Yeqing curiously asked what this was for.
When I was in Meishan, my grandmother would also dry the persimmon peels, but she never used them on herself.
Mu Xi raised his eyebrows and smiled, "You can use it this winter."
Zhao Yeqing hated people who kept things a secret the most, so he pinched and squeezed Mu Xi's ticklish spots, "Hurry up and tell me!"
Mu Xi raised his hands in surrender, "Tell me... This is for you to sober up."
Zhao Yeqing stopped messing around and pinched the dried persimmon peel, and suddenly realized, "No wonder I didn't use it before, I guess it was all given to Grandpa."
Last winter, Zhao Yeqing got himself drunk. Mu Xi was worried that it would happen again this year, so he hurriedly prepared in advance.
Speaking of wine, Zhao Yeqing exclaimed, "Yes, this year's sweet wine hasn't even been made yet!"
"Make it so early?" This homemade liqueur cannot be stored for too long, as it will easily grow bacteria.
Zhao Yeqing muttered, "Let's give it a try. What if last year's yeast is bad?"
Mu Xi understood now. How could the koji go bad? It was just that someone was greedy.
Making sweet wine Laozao is not difficult and is very simple to make.
Mu Xi first took out the chicken that had been soaked yesterday and wiped off the moisture on the surface, then put it into the cooled spice water to continue soaking. It would take nearly two more days.
After preparing the chicken, take out the glutinous rice and soak it.
After feeding the chickens, Zhao Yeqing went to cut a bunch of sweet potato vines to catch wild boars.
Mu Xi said that she was childish, but after a while he picked up a sweet potato vine and joined the game.
The rain on the meadow has dried up today, and the cattle and sheep were taken out by Dahuang to graze.
Zhao Yeqing thought that a few days wouldn't matter, so why not harvest the grass today and dry it into hay.
Mu Xi's plan was to go back to Meishan before winter came and bring back their own winter clothes.
You can't wear last year's big red cotton-padded jacket with auspicious clouds during the Chinese New Year this year, right?
When Mu Xi came back, he had a three-in-one windbreaker in his backpack. There were also some old clothes brought back from previous years in the closet at home, which were always better than wearing other people's clothes.
Zhao Yeqing had more clothes. There were clothes in the box he dragged back, and two large boxes were sent back by courier.
"How about I go back with you this time? I haven't been back for a long time."
"OK."
Mu Xi nodded. It would be best for Zhao Yeqing to go back by herself. She knew best what she could bring back from home.
This time the harvest was not like the previous rush to harvest crops. The two of them harvested slowly. Anyway, the pasture was right at the doorstep, so after the harvest, they only had to carry the crops a few steps and put them on the cement floor in the yard to dry.
Planting and harvesting are not so hard as long as the weather is good. There is a slight cool breeze, and it is neither too cold nor too hot. I did not feel tired after harvesting both pastures.
After two days of harvesting, the harvest was almost complete. Zhao Yeqing stayed in the field to finish the work, while Mu Xi went home to take out the soaked chickens and dry them in the sun.
It's been windy recently, so you can just hang the soaked chicken in a vent to dry it. If there's no wind, you'll have to use an electric fan to dry the skin.
The chicken is done when the skin is completely dry and the neck has hardened.
Zhao Yeqing left a small portion of the alfalfa unharvested. There weren't many flowering plants in the mountains recently, so he planned to keep this little bit as a source of nectar for the bees, which would be better than nothing.
The grass placed in the yard to dry has to be pressed down with bricks, otherwise it will be blown away by a gust of wind.
The next crop of forage grass cannot be harvested until more than a month later. Now, except for the newly built silo, the original one is also almost empty. There are many livestock at home and the grass is consumed very quickly.
By the time the next batch of grass is harvested, the feed in the silo should have been eaten up, just enough to fill it up.
All the timings are just right, and I feel inexplicably comfortable in my heart.
After all the forage grass was collected, Zhao Yeqing grabbed two handfuls of fresh grass and put them in Xiaohong's trough.
The weather has been good recently, so we let it out to play by itself from time to time. I don’t know if Xiaohong is particularly human-like, or if it’s because the weather has been bad for a long time that it realizes that it’s best to live with them.
In short, after being let out several times, it didn't run around. After eating and playing enough, it came back by itself in the evening.
Horses do not ruminate like cows and sheep, so it is best for them to eat small meals frequently. They like the freshly harvested green grass the most, so Zhao Yeqing gave them two handfuls of it and saved them for a midnight snack.
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The sweet wine that Zhao Yeqing had been longing for was ready to drink, and it was also time to harvest the corn stalks.
According to the original plan, more than twenty corn plants were left on half an acre of land, and the rest were harvested for silage.
She remembered that there had been a case in the past where after farmers had planted corn and wheat, the buyers pushed the price too low, resulting in the farmers being unwilling to plant corn and wheat.
Even after planting, the corn or wheat will be harvested before they bear fruit and are just green corn stalks or wheat seedlings.
Selling it to feed dealers or farmers as silage can make more money than growing wheat and corn, and it is less time-consuming. There is no need for final harvesting or waiting until maturity, and most importantly, the price will not be forced down by unscrupulous buyers.
However, doing so is also prohibited by the higher-ups as it is an act of destroying grain, and we must ensure that every grain is stored in the warehouse.
Merchants also complained that the market was difficult and they could only lower costs. Everyone had their own opinions and reasons.
Low grain prices hurt farmers, and in the end only the poorest farmers are the ones who suffer.
Mu Xi was not quite clear about these things. While cutting corn stalks, he listened to Zhao Yeqing talking about the changes in recent years.
"I haven't been back very often in recent years. My eldest nephew talked to me about this when he was renovating the small building."
The Feng family's store is an agricultural supply store that sells farm tools, seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. They wish they could hear a hundred people complain about this kind of thing every day.
We chatted while doing farm work, and with the good weather, we didn’t feel tired after a day of harvesting.
The two of them are now very nimble. When they just came back, it would have taken them two or three days to finish the harvest, but now they can finish it all in one day.
The moisture content of the corn stalks at this time is very high, nearly 65%. After peeling off the outer skin, Zhao Yeqing took a bite like eating sugarcane. The moisture inside is slightly sweet. It cannot compare with sweet stalks and sugarcane, but it is also one of the favorite snacks of children in rural areas.
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