Chapter 286 Red and Green Beans
Zhao Yeqing stood there in a daze, and was knocked to the ground on the soft grass by Huhu who ran over.
She raised her hand and stroked the fur twice, pushed Huhu away and sat up, pointed at the strange leopard and asked it with wide eyes, "Your brother-in-law?"
......
In the yard.
Zhao Yeqing sat on a chair, looking at the three leopards in front of him.
She didn't say anything for a long while, until the strange leopard seemed to feel a little uncomfortable. It stood up and paced back and forth, and finally stood next to the snow cake and rubbed its head against it, as if it was acting coquettishly.
Zhao Yeqing turned his head away in disdain and finally accepted the fact.
Mu Xi had already prepared dinner and also prepared food for the leopards.
He wanted to kill a chicken, but Zhao Yeqing wouldn't let him.
"Why eat chicken? There is no chicken at home, so just eat fish."
Mu Xi, feeling both amused and helpless, went to the fish pond and caught three big fish.
While eating, Zhao Yeqing ate boiled mutton, and did not forget to prepare special dishes for porridge and snow cakes, feeding them a piece from time to time.
He simply ignored the other leopard that was looking at him.
Suddenly a leopard appeared at this time. Zhao Yeqing was a little surprised but it was also expected.
The two leopards had grown up in the spring, and now they were both adults.
The autumn before winter is the breeding season for clouded leopards. If everything develops normally, we will probably see clouded leopard cubs tomorrow.
Mu Xi added fuel to the fire and said, "Maybe you have it in your stomach now."
She glared at the leopard again angrily.
But if you think about it together, all the recent events have been a wake-up call for the two of them.
The temperature suddenly started to drop some time ago. In just one month, the average temperature has dropped by nearly ten degrees.
There are fewer and fewer living things near the meadow, but the lower the altitude, the more living things there are.
Huhu and Xuebing, who had been away from home for such a long time, also came back. She didn’t think that these two clouded leopards were smart enough to bring their partners back to see each other.
They only speculated that this winter would not be easy.
After two days of observation, perhaps because Xuebing and Huhu had told them in advance, they discovered that this new leopard would not attack cattle, sheep, or chickens, so they felt a little relieved.
The three leopards go out hunting in the morning. Sometimes they come back in the evening, and sometimes they come back only once every two days.
As the days passed, Zhao Yeqing watched the beans and sesame seeds in the field gradually become full. It was almost time to harvest, so he and Mu Xi took sickles and went to the fields to harvest all the crops, including the plants.
They are first piled up in the yard to dry, just like the soybeans. After they are dry, they are spread out and beaten with a flail until all the beans and sesame seeds are beaten out.
Mu Xi piled the remaining dried bean stalks in the space inside the brick wall so that they could be used as fire starters when making a fire.
Zhao Yeqing cleared the watermelon vines in the basement as they were no longer suitable for growth.
After cleaning it up, the winter melon seedlings were planted in the original place.
As the weather turns cold, watermelons have to be pulled out while strawberries thrive.
The maximum ground temperature is only 15 degrees every day, but the planting basement can still have a constant temperature of 20 degrees. This is when it is only covered with PC boards without soil. If the boards are covered with soil, the temperature can be higher.
The slightly cooler weather greatly increased the sweetness of the strawberries. When Zhao Yeqing came out of the basement, he picked seven or eight red strawberries.
I cleaned it and put one in my mouth. I guessed it would be sweeter than the previous ones, but I didn’t expect it to be so sweet.
There is not a trace of sourness, the strawberry flesh is pure sweet and has a slight milky taste.
She squinted her eyes in enjoyment. It was worthy of the careful care she had taken. When it entered the fruit-bearing period, she also deliberately controlled the water content. Water control could increase the sweetness of the fruit.
I covered the remaining beans with beeswax cloth and put them in the refrigerator, leaving one to feed Mu Xi who was dusting the beans.
"After we finish harvesting this batch of beans and sesame, it's almost time to harvest the sweet potatoes."
Zhao Yeqing was still a little reluctant. If he didn't harvest the sweet potatoes, he could feed the pigs with the sweet potato leaves. After harvesting them, he would have to cook a lot of pig feed every day.
However, when they harvested the beans a few days ago, they dug up the sweet potato field and found that the sweet potatoes planted here were indeed more productive than those planted in the vegetable field.
Zhao Yeqing guessed, "It should be related to the soil. The soil in the vegetable field was thick and moist before, which is not suitable for growing sweet potatoes. The wheat field here has been deeply plowed and exposed to high temperatures, so the soil is lighter than that over there."
But no matter how good the harvest is, it is not easy to feed six pigs.
Mu Xi also felt a little regretful. "When I brought them back, I thought I only needed four, but I was afraid they would die, so I thought I would have a higher margin of error by bringing two more. I didn't expect them to adapt so well."
Not only did I adapt well, I could say I was enjoying it very much.
In just two months, the pigs had grown to about 70 or 80 kilograms.
The weather was already quite cold. Zhao Yeqing's hands had turned red from washing the strawberries with cold water. He rubbed his hands together and exhaled a few times, saying:
"Chinese New Year is less than a month away. How about we kill a pig first?"
According to this growth rate, it is estimated that it will be no problem for the pig to gain ten to twenty kilograms a month, and the weight will reach about 100 kilograms. Even if the pigs weigh 100 kilograms, they will be profitable.
Mu Xi nodded, "Okay, I'll listen to you."
The harvested red and mung beans were weighed and found to weigh only about 50 kilograms. The average yield of red and mung beans per mu is about 100 kilograms, and the high yield can reach 150 kilograms.
The area of their land is less than half an acre each, and they don't have any special fertilizers or pesticides. A yield of 40 to 50 kilograms is already very gratifying.
I can’t eat that much beans, but these few dozen pounds can probably last me a whole year.
Mu Xi put all the beans and sesame seeds into the hay room. After coming up to wash his hands, Zhao Yeqing grabbed him and took him to the fire to warm his hands.
He said, "Didn't you say a while ago that you wanted to find the car of the group of people who escaped first? There should be some medicines and other supplies on it. I'm afraid it will be a difficult winter this year. Medicines are the most important. The more the better, just in case."
It is easier and less troublesome to find the car than to go back to Meishan. Just drive there.
It should not be a problem to go back and forth on the same day. After all, the ground cracked before, and the way out was probably blocked long ago. It must be no more than a few dozen kilometers.
Zhao Yeqing responded: "Then let's go find them first, and then come back to harvest the sweet potatoes."
The sweet potatoes can’t escape from the house, and there are many uncontrollable factors outside, so it is safer to get them back first.
The temperature at night was less than ten degrees.
Zhao Yeqing sat by the fire early in the morning, playing with his phone, watching videos or chatting. The two of them rarely left the kitchen.
At dinner time, she wanted to try the mung beans that had just been harvested and planned to cook some mung bean porridge, but the weather was still too cold, so Mu Xi only used freshly ground sesame seeds to make some sesame cakes for her as a snack.
Zhao Yeqing chewed the sesame candy and thought of a snack his grandparents would buy during the Chinese New Year when he was a child. "Do you still remember the candy that we ate during the Chinese New Year? It was an oval-shaped strip with a fluffy empty middle and sprinkled with sesame seeds?"
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