Chapter 457 Slippery
Silkworms are divided into several stages, with molting as the standard of advancement, and grades are divided according to 'age'.
From the moment they hatch, they are called first-instar silkworms. Today is the seventh day. The silkworms have undergone their first round of molting and have successfully become second-instar silkworms. They will molt a total of four times until they become fifth-instar silkworms, when they will begin to spin cocoons.
Zhao Yeqing remembered that the whole process took about a month, and Mu Xi would report the conditions of the silkworms he observed every day to Zhao Yeqing, who would take notes.
By the time the notes had become a small book, the silkworms finally began to slowly crawl onto the grid clusters.
These silkworms were very orderly. After the two people put the square clusters close to the silkworm seat, silkworms were insects that could climb upwards, and they would find their own place to make cocoons on it.
Each silkworm will place itself in a small grid. If it crawls into a room with "people", it will continue to move forward until it finds a room without "people" living in it and then crawls in.
The occupancy rate of the grid cluster is as high as 90%. For a few silkworms that cannot find a place to fall, or that do not touch the grid cluster and do not know how to climb up, the two people will manually catch the silkworms and put them into the empty grids.
While waiting for the cocoons to form, the two went to the fields to harvest the rice. Now that they have all the tools at home, they don't have to pick a special time to harvest the rice from the two fields. One person harvests and the other bundles, and it only takes more than two hours to finish.
Even though the threshing still has to be done manually, there must be a thresher in the village, but the two men looked everywhere they could and couldn't find it. They guessed it was inside those wooden buildings, but they didn't dare to go in for fear that it would collapse, so they decided to do it manually.
After the rice was harvested, it was placed in the yard to dry. Zhao Yeqing sat in the yard and used a wooden rake to turn the rice over. Mu Xi went to the silkworm house in the basement to take down the silkworms that had not successfully made cocoons and dry them.
These silkworms are dead and can no longer make cocoons, but they can be used as Chinese medicinal materials after being dried.
The aluminum barrel was filled with golden rice again, and a sack was left out to be pounded into rice. The new rice is sweet when cooked, and it becomes thick white porridge when cooked over a long fire. Just by smelling the rice fragrance, I can drink two big bowls of white porridge without any side dishes.
The rice bran shaken out from pounding rice was pecked on the ground by the chickens that were released. The chickens seemed to have never had enough to eat and grew fat and plump. The eggs collected every day were so many that they could not be eaten all.
The ewe gave birth, and Zhao Yeqing used goat milk, eggs and flour ground from the new wheat planted this year to make a lot of cakes. He also did not forget to make some biscuits and snacks for the dogs.
It was the slack season for farmers again, so the two of them piled the threshed straw in the hay house. They had not yet decided whether to start autumn sowing, so Mu Xi planned to move back the tools from the village first.
There is a three-wheeled vehicle at the foot of the slope now, and an electric vehicle can be used on the slope. Zhao Yeqing doesn't need to help in the process, and Mu Xi can finish moving everything by himself from morning to night.
The loom, spinning wheel and sewing machine were placed on the first floor of the brick house, and the oil press was also moved back. After the parts inside were disassembled and treated with oxalic acid, they were gently brushed to restore their former metallic luster. After the tea seeds were moved back, they could be pressed for oil.
Two baskets of tea seeds had been picked before. They were picked when they went to dig mulberry trees. After they were picked, they were placed downstairs of the family who had the oil press to dry. They had a movable awning on the first floor, which was especially suitable for drying things, so it was okay even if it rained and they didn't go to pick them up.
The small amount of morning moisture will disappear completely in the afternoon sun until each tea fruit turns dark brown.
Zhao Yeqing sorts the meat in the freezer at home.
The leftover pork was placed in the refrigerator in the kitchen. A small amount of beef from the cattle and sheep slaughtered this time was also placed in the refrigerator in the kitchen, and most of them were placed in the freezer at the kitchen door.
The horizontal freezer was packed full, and there was no room for even two pieces of beef. We ate beef every day during this period.
The dogs were enjoying the meal, and Zhao Yeqing thought it was good at first, but after a while he couldn't stand it anymore and still wanted to eat some pork.
Except for the brisket, the rest of the beef is lean. Zhao Yeqing would fry the fragrant and greasy pork belly every once in a while. The leftover beef was made into beef sausage and hung in a drying room, which was smoked over a fire even in the hot summer.
Before the ground cracked, every Spring Festival, we could see news reports about a family’s house burning down because of smoking bacon.
The two were also worried about this problem, so they smeared a layer of yellow mud mixed with straw stalks on the inner wall of the drying room early on and pasted it on the wall to prevent burning. They originally thought of applying cement, but felt that it was unnecessary.
There was no such problem in the past two years. The weather was still humid and rainy in the summer. But this year, the summer rain was nearly half less than last year. Every change in the terrain will cause the wind direction to change.
Zhao Yeqing wondered if it had something to do with the landslide? Perhaps it was blocking a gust of wind blowing from the distant sea?
There are coastal cities in their province, so the annual migration to the south is particularly serious. Zhao Yeqing thought that it would be great if they lived near the sea not far from this mountain range. Maybe they could find a way out and get a seafood meal. At this time, there would definitely be no one to grab their seats if they went to the sea.
If you can't eat seafood, you can still eat stream and river fish. There are a lot of crabs during this period. If you move a stone in the stream, you can see small crabs fleeing.
Still following the old rules, he brought it back to make porridge. Zhao Yeqing picked up a crab, bit it, and gently sucked the sweetness inside, letting out a comfortable sigh: "Do you think this can be raised? If it is raised artificially, it should be bigger."
Mu Xi didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "One pond is for raising fish, another pond is for growing lotus, and you want to make a crab pond?"
Zhao Yeqing was just talking. He had silkworms that were about to hatch at home, so he definitely didn't have time to take care of the crabs.
Thinking of this, he picked up another piece and took a big sip to satisfy his craving.
Speaking of the lotus pond, it is now the season to harvest the lotus roots. If they are not harvested later, the lotus roots in the mud will rot at the bottom of the water and become nutrients.
The lotus pods on the water surface were fresh and plump, and the lotus seeds were swollen and about to fall out. Zhao Yeqing stretched out his hand and picked one near the edge of the pool. He immediately peeled off the green skin, removed the lotus core, and put the fresh lotus seeds into his mouth.
The tender green lotus heart was hidden in the palm of her hand, and the lotus seeds were sweet. She peeled another one, took out the lotus heart inside and threw it away in front of Mu Xi. When she stuffed the lotus seeds into his mouth, she maliciously stuffed the lotus heart hidden in the palm of her hand into his mouth as well.
Seeing that his brows were tightly furrowed as soon as he chewed, Zhao Yeqing had already run into the yard with a lotus pod in her hand, holding back her smile. Ever since the last incident, she always felt angry in her heart. It was not anger, but a feeling she couldn't describe.
I was full of anger, but after today's incident, the anger finally dissipated. Now every time I see him, the unspeakable sound of water is no longer in my mind.
Mu Xi knew that she was uncomfortable, so he just stayed where he was, not wanting to spit out the lotus seeds. He stiffened his neck and swallowed the bitter lotus seeds, then took off his shoes and jumped into the pond to feel for lotus roots in the mud.
When putting the mud in, they forgot to sift out the stones inside, so when walking, they stepped on something that hurt their feet. Mu Xi did not shirk his duties. He bent down to pick out the stone and threw it away, so that Zhao Yeqing would not hurt his feet next time he came down.
She couldn't stand this kind of pain. Before, on the sandy beach by the lake, she screamed in pain when she stepped on a smooth stone with her bare feet. Among the clothes and shoes she collected, there were wooden-soled slippers with massage stones on the soles, but she never wore them because she said they were painful.
As Mu Xi was touching the stones, he just opened his hands under the water and suddenly felt something slippery between his fingers.
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