Chapter 7 Red Eyes
It's eight o'clock in the morning, fortunately it didn't rain today.
Zhao Yeqing brought the cabbages up from the cellar. Each cabbage weighed two pounds. She kept a few to eat with pork, cabbage and vermicelli stew tonight, and for the rest, she removed the stale outer leaves and put them aside.
She cut the cabbage into eight petals with a knife and threw them into the large stainless steel basin she bought, then washed them all with water. The morning spring water gave Zhao Yeqing a shudder. She rolled up her sleeves and sniffed while washing the leaves, making sure that all the vegetables grown with farm manure were washed clean. She took out the petals one by one, shook off the water, and hung them on a rope to dry, to prevent the moisture from making the leaves grow hair during the pickling process.
The leaf mold that was dried yesterday is almost dry when squeezed by hand, and there is still a lot of it. Some of it can be directly spread into the vegetable garden to improve the soil quality. Most of the remaining leaf mold is spread in the compost bucket made from the cardboard box yesterday, and the kitchen waste from the past few days is poured out. Use a knife to cut the vegetable leaves, bad fruits and peels into as small pieces as possible, mix them with coffee grounds and egg shells, pour half of it on the leaf mold, and then spread a layer of dead leaves. The remaining kitchen waste is covered on the dead leaves, layer by layer, and moistened with a small amount of clean water so that they can fit together and ferment faster.
Cover it with a dark plastic bag and place it under the eaves, waiting for exposure to sunlight. The higher the temperature, the faster the fermentation.
Zhao Yeqing let the chickens and geese out of the chicken coop and found that one of the chickens had lost a lot of feathers. She turned her eyes to the big white goose, and the two geese instantly turned their heads to the other side.
Oh
The chickens in her cage are of different sizes. If she puts these two together, at best the hens will be frightened and stop laying eggs, or at worst the lives of all the chickens in the family will be in danger.
When I built the chicken coop, I forgot to raise geese. Now I can only quickly build a nest for these two.
The goose house is built next to the chicken coop, which can save a wall. The back and side walls can be built with bricks. The door can be temporarily replaced with a universal plastic sheet that can block wind, rain and cold.
Plastic sheeting: If this one is gone, I have to go.
After feeding the chickens and geese, Zhao Yeqing scooped a bucket of water from the reservoir and sprinkled it lightly on the leafy vegetable area of the small vegetable garden. Tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and the like do not need to be watered. In the current climate, too much watering will make them grow too tall, that is, they will only grow stems and leaves without taking root in the soil, which will subsequently lead to underdeveloped root systems and insufficient nutrition, and they will not bloom or bear fruit.
After watering the plants, Zhao Yeqing looked at the fence of the vegetable garden and felt that it would be a shame if he didn't plant some climbing plants.
After searching through the pile of seeds that Feng Lixuan brought, I found that the most suitable one was bitter gourd. If you planted this next to the fence, neither chickens nor geese would eat it.
There was a piece of vacant space on the right side of the small vegetable garden. Zhao Yeqing calculated the temperature and took out watermelon seeds and strawberry seeds from the seed pile.
The tomatoes and peppers that she had gotten from Feng Lixuan had already been grown from seeds into seedlings. After transplanting them into the soil, the seedling box that had previously contained the seedlings was left empty. She did not throw it away, but used it this time.
The seedling box is a small square box with a hole in the bottom, which is slightly smaller than a disposable water cup. The soil used for seedlings should be softer than the soil for normal planting. Zhao Yeqing used a hoe to dig some soil, broke it up and mixed it with leaf mold. In this way, a set of seedling soil was ready.
Fill all the seedling boxes halfway with seedling soil, sprinkle some nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and diammonium phosphate in the middle to prevent the seedlings from growing too tall and make them grow stronger, and then cover them with seedling soil.
Plant different types of seeds, label them to avoid confusion, place them in the vegetable garden, and cover them with transparent plastic film to keep them moist and warm.
It was already past noon when I finished the work.
I opened the refrigerator and found that the leaves of the Chinese cabbage were starting to turn yellow. I had to eat them today.
Boil a pot of water. When the water is boiling, take out the Chinese cabbage, clean it, and pick it into pieces. When the water boils, blanch the Chinese cabbage, then take it out and let it cool.
She couldn't eat much by herself, so she tried her best to cook for each meal. There was not much space in the refrigerator for leftovers, so she estimated the amount and scooped half a cup of flour into a large bowl, beat an egg, added water, salt, and five-spice powder, sprinkled some dried shrimps, and stirred it into a paste with chopsticks.
After stirring, he touched the cabbage and it was still a little hot. Zhao Yeqing blew on it and squeezed out the water from the cabbage with his hands. He chopped it up on the chopping board, then put it all into the batter and stirred it evenly.
Heat oil in a pan, add the vegetable paste when it is 30% hot, lift the pan and shake it left and right to allow the paste to evenly spread on the bottom of the pan, then fry over medium-low heat, shaking the pan slightly from time to time until the formed pancake can rotate with the pan and the wheat aroma of flour mixed with the fragrance of cabbage penetrates into your nose, then turn it over and fry it until cooked.
Zhao Yeqing's appetite is not small, so she needs to eat two of these pancakes to feel full.
After the vegetable paste was fried, a total of two and a half sheets were made.
This is the cake my grandmother often made when I was a child. It is simple, convenient and delicious. After it is made in the morning, my grandfather can grab two cakes and go out to patrol the forest.
After eating the pancakes, she took out the pork belly from the refrigerator to thaw it, took out the carrots, apples and pears, crushed them and added a bag of hot sauce. This is the quickest way to make spicy cabbage marinade. Although it is not very authentic, it is delicious to her.
Today the sky is grey and breezy.
Normally the wind should be strong, but in the mountains the trees blocked the wind and only a gentle breeze remained.
The moisture on the surface of the cabbages hanging on the ropes has been blown dry. Pick them and make most of them into sauerkraut and a small part into kimchi.
Stack a layer of cabbage and a layer of salt in the kimchi jar. When it is full, put a stone on it and seal the top with salt water to prevent air from growing white hair.
Evenly coat each leaf of the other half of the cabbage with hot sauce, put them in the box and cover it.
It takes more than half a month for sauerkraut to be eaten, but kimchi can be eaten after a few days.
It was already getting dark when Zhao Yeqing finished her work. She drove the chickens and geese, which were unusually active and squeaking today, back into their roosts. She squatted down and closed the doors of the chicken coop and goose coop. Before she stood up, she looked through the crack under the gate and saw a pair of scarlet eyes staring at her.
Zhao Yeqing's heart skipped a beat! He subconsciously took a few steps back and fell to the ground, his mind blank and he almost couldn't breathe.
The scarlet eyes at the door seemed to have noticed Zhao Yeqing's fear, and they widened even wider, and tried desperately to reach in through the crack in the door.
When we were making the gate, we didn't want to make a threshold. In order to prevent the gate from wear, moisture and rust, a gap was left at the bottom. We also wanted to prevent snakes from entering, so a five-centimeter-high twill wire mesh was installed in the gap under the metal gate.
The man outside couldn't reach in, so he roared and banged on the metal door madly. The huge noise brought Zhao Yeqing back to his senses.
She climbed up and picked up her homemade spear, clenched her hands tightly against her chest, took a deep breath, and quickly looked around to see if there was anything she could use.
If what was said on the Internet was correct, then the infected person still had normal human strength and should not have been able to break open the metal door. She only had to wait for two days and he would die of weakness on his own.
But...what if?
What if he knocks it open?
Zhao Yeqing didn't dare to gamble.
She took the spear, picked up a brick and went up to the second-floor terrace, where she could clearly see the people outside.
He was a man wearing a blue overalls with the words "Nanfang Communications" written on his clothes.
Zhao Yeqing felt that she was unlucky. This person must be an employee who went to repair the signal tower at the end of the road outside. No one lived on the mountain. He probably found out that he had a fever when he went up the mountain a few days ago. He became an infected person in the past two days and came to her.
She is the only living person within miles.
Zhao Yeqing raised the brick high and threw it on the ground. The whole brick was too heavy. The house was about ten meters away from the wall, and the wall was more than two meters high. If the other party did not step back or look up, he could only see the top of his head. Even if she could throw it, there was no guarantee that she could hit it accurately.
The brick broke into small pieces. She picked it up and was still hesitating whether to smash it. What if she couldn't knock him out and he got angry?
But when she saw the man outside raising his head and revealing his scarlet eyes and ferocious face, she was afraid that no matter how angry she was, she would not be as angry as she is now. She thought to herself that if she hesitated, she would be defeated, and if she hesitated any longer, it would be in vain.
Zhao Yeqing picked up the brick and put it into the big pocket on the front of her sweatshirt. She unfolded the folding ladder that she usually used to climb up to the second floor to repair the roof, climbed onto the roof, and saw the infected person fully exposed in front of her. She grabbed a brick from her pocket and smashed it at him with all her strength!
The first one hit the opponent right on the forehead!
Blood oozes out from his head, but the man seems to feel no pain and keeps banging against the door desperately, making the metal door make banging noises.
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