Chapter 84 Homemade Cement
After she finished eating, she asked, "What did you do at home today? Did you herd the sheep?"
Mu Xi shook his head. "I cleaned up the house and followed the rules you outlined. I cleaned the sheepfold and measured the dimensions. Tomorrow I will go cut down trees, clean up the house and sheepfold, and dig a toilet."
Then, as if recalling what happened in the afternoon, he added, "It was as if the dog had set an alarm. Just as the sun was about to set, it came out, opened the sheepfold, and went to graze the sheep on its own."
Zhao Yeqing was amazed.
"Where are the puppies? Why don't they go out?"
When Mu Xi heard her question, his expression became a little serious.
"After the big dogs went out to graze in the afternoon, I went to check on the smaller ones and found two holes on the leg of one of them, like teeth marks from some animal. I tried to move it and found that the leg was broken."
Is this why Big Dog hid the kids in the house?
It may be that after the owner passed away and the children were injured, the big dog had a stronger desire to protect the children, fearing that they would encounter danger.
Zhao Yeqing suggested, "Why don't we go get the dog out and give him a bath."
The two went to the hay room and took the big dog out to give it a bath first.
After spending these two days together, Gou Zi no longer rejected the two of them and even felt somewhat close to Mu Xi.
Zhao Yeqing was very envious.
She found a pair of scissors in the house and used them to trim the dog's hair.
The clumps of hair on the dog's back could no longer be combed out, so Zhao Yeqing had to cut it. Fortunately, the dog's hair was long enough and it didn't look bald after the cut. The areas without clumps were also cut smoother than the trimmed areas.
Dogs do not have sweat glands. The sweat glands are concentrated on the tongue, nose and paw pads. The belly and sides should be trimmed shorter.
Mu Xi took the shower gel to give the dog a bath. Zhao Yeqing had never seen such an obedient dog before. He didn't even shake off the water during the whole process.
After it was clean, Mu Xi wiped off most of the water on its body, stood up and walked away, and then it shook its body hard to shake off the water on its fur.
Mu Xi walked into the hay room, picked up a puppy, and wanted to go out to give it a bath.
The big dog came in and barked. Mu Xi patted its head and said, "Don't worry. I'm just taking your kid to take a bath."
After washing the little one, Mu Xi returned the nicely washed cub to the big dog and said, "Bring your other cubs here."
The dog woofed, went back into the house, and brought the two puppies over.
The dog, who had been washed clean and white, was still unwilling to get close to Zhao Yeqing, which made her very depressed.
I can only comfort myself that there is still a long way to go.
The main house had been cleaned thoroughly, and the old bedding on the bed had been taken away and replaced with the bedding she had just brought back today.
The bed frame was wiped with a towel soaked in detergent. The strange smell was gone and it exuded a faint fragrance.
This is the joy of coming home from work to find someone at home has prepared dinner and cleaned up everything for you.
Mu Xi walked into the room, "Do you want to take a shower first? The water is ready."
Zhao Yeqing thought to himself: How virtuous.
The bucket full of water was the one she brought back today. It was a large plastic bucket used to hold things and it was very clean.
It was placed at the back of the house so that when she took a bath she could see the faint light from the candles in the house coming through the window at the back.
The buzzing sound in his ears was very annoying. Zhao Yeqing took off his clothes and washed faster, but he was still inevitably bitten by mosquitoes.
The nights on the meadow are much quieter than those in the mountains.
The moon seemed very large, as if within reach, emitting a soft halo that made the empty meadow seem a little gentler.
Mu Xi spread out a sleeping bag in the house, lay down on it, said good night and then blew out the candle.
A dreamless night.
On the second day, Zhao Yeqing went down the mountain to carry supplies again. Mu Xi went to check the trap early in the morning and caught two rabbits.
Zhao Yeqing intended to restart the rabbit breeding plan, but unfortunately both rabbits were male, so he had to cook them with tears.
After Zhao Yeqing left, Mu Xi still followed her down the mountain. Seeing that she had encountered a snake and dealt with it safely, he felt relieved and changed his route into the woods.
There is no bamboo in the forest near the meadow area. He wants to build a toilet and needs to use bamboo for pipes.
Dry toilets are unhygienic, so we still have to dig a few septic tanks and make them flush toilets.
In order to save water, he collected the buckets that had been used for many years in the wooden house and used them to store the dirty water after washing vegetables, hands, clothes and dishes. He planned to move them to the toilet and use a scoop to scoop the water for flushing.
Wooden squat toilets are not durable and difficult to clean.
He thought that after the toilet building was built, he would go down the mountain to knock back other people's ceramic squat toilets and install them there.
When Zhao Yeqing came back, he expressed his idea.
Zhao Yeqing's face wrinkled in disgust, "Won't this be dirty?"
"Probably not. The one we stayed at a few days ago, no one usually lives upstairs. It might be a room for children who work outside. The toilet is as good as new, so it probably won't be dirty."
After hearing this, I felt that what Mu Xi said made sense. It would definitely be much more convenient to have a ceramic one.
"So if you use bamboo as a sewer and a ceramic squat toilet, and there is no cement, how do you connect and seal it?"
The toilet must be sealed, otherwise there will be odor.
Mu Xi took out the old man's notes from the cabinet. "It's written here, how to make your own cement."
As the saying goes, an old person in the family is like a treasure.
At this moment, Zhao Yeqing couldn't help but pay high respect to the deceased old man.
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After some research, the two felt that the method of making cement in the notes was reliable and not difficult.
In addition, there is a step of high-temperature calcination, which requires a relatively closed furnace.
There was an iron draft in the tool room, so Mu Xi took it out and used it to chisel stones to build the stove. Zhao Yeqing prepared the cement materials at home.
In the kitchen fire pit, branches, bark and hay are burned all year round, leaving a lot of wood ash.
She dug out all the ashes from the fire pit, sifted them through a bamboo basket with small holes, and removed the unburned wood, charcoal, and residue.
Add water to the screened wood ash and stir it. Let it sit for a while and then pour out the liquid on top.
Because wood ash contains potassium alkali, which is soluble in water, the remaining slurry after pouring away the water is a calcium compound that is insoluble in water.
It’s a pity that there is no sweet potato field, otherwise this water would be very useful as potassium fertilizer for irrigation.
Zhao Yeqing did not forget to wear gloves as the mortar would burn his hands.
Knead the mortar into balls and then dry them in the sun.
By the time Mu Xi had moved all the stones back and built the high-temperature furnace, the gray balls that had been exposed to the sun for most of the day had become hard and hard.
A hole was left under the stove to hold the firewood, and hardened ash balls were placed on top of the firewood, which was then lit.
After watching the fire burn, cover it with stones.
The temperature inside the closed furnace was extremely high, the flame had turned orange-red, and the heat could be felt even from ten meters away.
Wait until the fire is extinguished and let it cool overnight, then remove the covering stones and take out the ash balls inside.
At this time, the gray ball, after experiencing high temperature, turns into calcium oxide and becomes very brittle. It turns into powder when squeezed by hand.
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