Progress in Shanshui Village has accelerated significantly, and the selected men have gone up the mountain to find trees.
The trees at the back gate are fine; they don't need to be too thick, they're easy to find and cut down, and it's easy to transport them down after they've been cut.
The front gate needs thick timber, but the trees near their village are mostly miscellaneous, and most of them are only about the size of a bowl, so they are cut down and used as firewood. If you want timber as thick as a waist, you need to go to a more distant place to look for it.
Shuiqing was also busy, even busier than usual.
Everyone has work to do. Although the men who transported potatoes have returned, they are even busier than before because they need to build houses for themselves.
The Ding family's wall is expected to be completed in two more days, which means that Li Dani, Erni, and the other three will be able to participate in the construction in two days.
Fortunately, they had already dug the drainage ditch and cut down the trees for the wooden beams during the half-day break they had taken back.
After discussing it, Hong Daniu and the other men decided to build the four houses one by one, together, instead of each building their own.
After all, some groups have more people than others. Tasks like raising the roof beam require several people to work together, and there are many other trivial matters. The more dispersed the personnel are, the more varied and complex the work becomes, and the slower it is.
The last eighteen men were divided into eight older men who were responsible for digging and laying the foundation, and ten men who worked in pairs to make adobe bricks.
One group can make seven or eight hundred adobe bricks a day, and five groups can make nearly four thousand adobe bricks.
Adobe bricks are different from bricks. One adobe brick is much larger than a brick, and can be equivalent to several or even a dozen bricks. They can also be stacked up much faster than bricks.
If all the materials are prepared, twenty or thirty people can start at the same time, and a three-room adobe house can be built in two or three days.
Hong Mancang, Hong Manku, and their group spared no effort and worked diligently and enthusiastically.
After the five women, Li Dani and Erni, joined in, the men took some time to go out and transport back the gray tiles.
In less than twenty days, four new mud-brick and tile houses were built.
They didn't pay much attention to auspicious days for moving; they simply picked a good even-numbered day. Hong Daniu and the others got up early in the morning to busy themselves with moving in.
The other three families all had women who had tidied up their homes early, leaving only Hong Daniu with his two sons, Mancang and Manku.
Fortunately, none of the three were picky eaters; they ate whatever was available, as long as they were full.
The three of them can also cook simple porridge and make steamed buns and pancakes, and they can take care of the vegetable garden, so they have no problem making a living.
Shui Qing also got up early in the morning and discussed with Fan Jin how to distribute grain to the four households.
"Giving too much rice might be conspicuous, but millet, beans, and other whole grains are much more expensive than rice and wheat flour in the mall. Paying expensive money for inferior food is a loss no matter how you look at it."
But giving them all rice isn't enough; they have to be given less.
Fan Jin's gentle face was also full of confusion.
He never understood why millet, corn, and even black beans were more expensive than refined grains like rice and wheat flour.
Especially beans, the price per pound has increased by more than a little bit, it's increased several times over.
“Many people in the village used to trade cornmeal with us for potato seeds, so let’s buy more cornmeal and say that it’s what the villagers traded for, and that we have more than we can eat.”
Shuiqing said that the cornmeal from the village is classified as "organic food" in the market. If you buy it, it costs more than ten yuan per kilogram, while the non-organic kind only costs a little over two yuan per kilogram. It is more expensive than wheat flour, but the difference is not too big.
Cornmeal tastes much better than wheat flour.
"The rice and wheat flour were stockpiled beforehand. They wanted to eat well to nourish their bodies during their first year here, and then supplement their diet with potatoes, millet, and cornmeal. The combination shouldn't be too unappealing."
Shui Qing sighed, "That's all we can do."
When others give rice or flour as gifts, they worry that too little will make it look bad; they worry that too much will make it too conspicuous. Both are equally worrisome.
The two carefully determined the amount of grain for each household and then went into the warehouse.
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