Chapter 447 Grid Cluster
She rubbed her eyes and went downstairs, then in a daze she walked over and hugged the person she hadn't seen for several days.
"Why are you back so early?"
The weather is warm now. Mu Xi went to the stream to take a bath last night, thinking that he would come back tonight. Now he could smell the fragrance of soap.
Mu Xi washed her hands as soon as she entered the room, and hugged the person in her arms. After a while, she lowered her head and kissed her on the forehead, "I brought you something good."
"You haven't got the loom back yet, have you?"
How can one person carry such a heavy object back? Even with an electric car, it is impossible.
Zhao Yeqing followed him to the yard. There was only a backpack and a black plastic bag in the yard. No one knew what was in the bag, which was very light.
Mu Xi took out a small box from the back of his backpack and handed it to Zhao Yeqing.
She took it and opened it, and saw that it was full of densely packed small black dots.
"Are these silkworm eggs?" Zhao Yeqing widened his eyes.
Mu Xi nodded: "That family raises silkworms themselves, so they must have grown mulberry leaves. I looked around and indeed saw a mulberry leaf field with wild silkworms. I was lucky to find these silkworm eggs."
Zhao Yeqing was a little at a loss, "But we don't know how to raise them. Even if we raise them, we don't know how to reel silk."
"It's a little difficult to reel silk, but what about making a silk quilt?"
Zhao Yeqing suddenly realized, "You mean to open the cotton directly?"
Silk reeling is the process of drawing out silk threads, while cotton opening is not that troublesome. You just need to soak the cocoons in hot water, take out the silkworms inside, and then forcefully stretch open the tight and round cocoons.
Silk quilts are indeed okay, and the requirements for silk cocoons are not that high.
Zhao Yeqing thought this was a solution, "but what about the feed? The silkworms might eat it."
To raise silkworms, you must plant mulberry trees. It’s okay in the early stages, but in the later stages, the silkworms become big eaters.
Mu Xi took the box of silkworms and counted the eggs inside:
"The number here is not large. To make a silk quilt, a lot of silkworms are needed. I remember that one kilogram of silk quilt requires nearly 600 silk cocoons. In the early stage, we will not consume much mulberry leaves. We can plant them first and then breed them in large quantities next year."
Zhao Yeqing...it's not too late to give up now.
But then I thought, it would be really uncomfortable to live in the mountains without finding something new to do. So I might as well keep it for now. If there will be trouble later, I won't keep it.
Mu Xi had the same idea: "If it doesn't work out, just keep it as a toy."
The silkworms will be raised in the breeding basement, and the loom will be placed on the first floor of the brick house. Since the two moved the room to the second floor, the first floor has been vacant, and now it can finally be filled with something.
"The loom and spinning wheel are ready, but I don't know how they work. I don't have the materials to test them. Let's move them back and install them in a couple of days. We also need to get the sewing machine back. It's a bit heavy and can't be disassembled yet."
When passing the village this time, Mu Xi brought gasoline with him. After filling up the small tricycle in the village with gas, he found that it could be started. The original electric car was no longer useful. This time he could ride it back and put it in the trunk of the car and wait to ride it next time he went to the woods.
There is no problem transporting the sewing machine with a gasoline tricycle, but the three devices together are too heavy, so it will probably take three trips to transport them.
The most troublesome thing is how to transport them up from the bottom of the slope.
The original lifting device used to pull the gasoline barrel was fixed to the edge of the cliff and had expansion screws installed, so it could not be removed and used here. Once the wooden device and metal nails were disassembled and assembled once, there would be more or less some gaps and shake in the future.
Zhao Yeqing thought of following the smooth path that was previously washed out by the water, loading it on a cart with wheels, and then tying a rope to have one person push and the other pull it.
The bottom of the slope is solid. The two men checked and found that it would not collapse due to the presence of heavy objects on it.
Mu Xi said, "When you have time, take a pickaxe and carve a row of stairs out of the slope. It should be wide enough for one person to pass through. With stairs, you don't have to worry about sliding down the slope."
As he spoke, he moved the bamboo that had been cut earlier as a backup to the middle of the yard.
You have to make some racks for raising silkworms and containers for the silkworms first.
In the silkworm house in the village, there are two ways to raise silkworms on the racks. One is to spread mulberry leaves directly on the racks. The racks are divided into three layers, and each layer of partitions is not solid, but mesh.
Zhao Yeqing didn't know what the benefits of raising silkworms this way were. Maybe it was for ventilation? Or was it to make it easier to clean up the silkworms' feces?
There is also a shelf with round winnowing baskets on it. Mulberry leaves are spread in the winnowing baskets, and the silkworms are placed on top.
Zhao Yeqing didn't know anything about raising silkworms, so she could only follow their example. She learned from the way that family did it, and then made her own choices after summarizing her experience. After all, they were professionals and they must have their reasons.
(Pictures available here)
The winnowing baskets used for raising silkworms do not require such good ones, so Zhao Yeqing kept the new winnowing baskets he had woven for daily use and took a few half-new ones that he had used before and placed them on the shelf to raise silkworms.
Generally, silkworm eggs will hatch in more than a week, and they cannot be exposed to water during this period. She knew this, but that was all she knew. When she was in elementary school, one of the extracurricular activities was to raise silkworms, which was the same as papermaking. She couldn't remember much and could only figure it out slowly.
The rack made of bamboo poles is simple to make. Mu Xi can make a large rack in an hour. Making the cluster device is more troublesome.
The clustering device is generally a square grid cluster, which is made of small grids about the size of mahjong pieces pieced together to form a board. When the silkworms mature and are ready to spin cocoons, they will crawl into the grids to spin cocoons.
(Pictures available here)
This thing is also available in the silkworm house in the village. The material used for the square cluster made by that family is kraft cardboard. This material is not available now, so the two can only spend more effort to split the bamboo into thinner bamboo strips before they can put them together.
There was no rush to make the cluster device. They had to make the hollow partition in the middle of the large frame first. The two took the size of the cluster device into consideration. They had to hang it on the silkworm seat. The silkworm seat was the partition of the frame where the silkworms usually lived. There had to be enough space to hang the square cluster, so the frame could only be made in two layers.
Each floor is six meters long, which is not long considering the scale of silkworm breeding, but it is enough for the two people who are only in the experimental stage. The space in the basement is sufficient, but the height is average, not as high as the silkworm house in the village. They can only reduce one layer of shelf, and then add another shelf if the breeding is successful.
The original plan was to slaughter sheep and cattle after Mu Xi returned, but the silkworm eggs disrupted the plan. It took three days to make the rack, winnowing basket, and so on.
As soon as the things were ready, the two of them hurried to the village again. This time they were not in a hurry to move things, but to dig mulberry trees.
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