Although the west room of Zhan Honggui's house is not occupied all year round and is mainly used to store some broken things, it is quite bright after being cleaned up.
All the tattered things were piled at the end of the kang, covered with a piece of tarpaulin to make it look quite tidy.
The space from the head to the end of the kang is enough for Wan Feng and Han Guangjia to rest.
The kang mat was wiped clean and covered with a thin blanket that was neither old nor new.
Wan Feng was quite satisfied with this place. At least it was much better than the small houses he and his brother lived in when his family lived in No. 42.
Han Guangjia frowned as he looked at the luggage Wan Feng bought.
"Are your eyes broken? Why did you buy all these mattresses?"
"Look carefully, are these all mattresses? Don't you see that these two are a palm bigger than those two?"
Han Guangjia was speechless: "Just a slap can be used as a blanket?"
"There's no other way. Do you want this quilt? If you don't want it, I'll cover you with it all night."
Zhan Honggui came over at this time and said apologetically, "I'm sorry, brother. My family is in financial difficulty and we don't have any extra new bedding. You'll have to make do with what you have."
"Brother Zhan, it's okay! The temperature is still okay in early October. Just heat our kang a little higher at night."
"Okay, that's no problem."
"Hey! By the way, Brother Zhan! Where's my sister-in-law? Why can't I see her?"
"Your sister-in-law is harvesting soybeans in the fields and won't be back until tonight."
Wan Feng glanced at Zhan Honggui's empty left arm. It was indeed impossible for him to cut soybeans with a sickle with one hand. He could only do some capable work at home.
"How much land do you have?"
"Three acres, two acres of wheat, half an hour of corn, and half an hour of soybeans."
Although this place is located in the Sanjiang Plain, the per capita land area is not as large as that of the Red Farm, because there are many low-lying areas here, which are not suitable for farming.
Half an hour of soybeans, seven and a half acres of land.
Not more, not less, but it is a huge project for one woman to collect it all.
"Do you also harvest soybeans here with sickles and then use stalk pickers to pick up the stalks?"
There are two ways to harvest soybeans in the north. One is to drive the harvester directly into the field and harvest while the soybean stalks are standing. This is called Lianhe.
The advantage is that people don't have to work hard, but the disadvantage is that the loss rate is astonishing. The bean pods will burst when touched by the harvesting table, and the beans will be scattered everywhere. Not even half of an acre of land can be harvested.
Therefore, this method is only sometimes used when harvesting wheat, and almost no one uses it when harvesting soybeans.
The commonly used method is to pick up the soybeans, which is to manually lay the soybeans down into rows, and then pick them up with a picking platform.
Although Shihe also has losses, its loss rate is much smaller than that of Lianhe.
This method of harvesting soybeans was used in the north in the 1980s and 1990s.
"Well! Pick up the rice. Once it's fallen, hire a harvester to pick it up."
Wan Feng didn't say anything else. After spreading his luggage at Han Guang's house, he walked out of the house and looked around in the yard of Zhan Honggui's house.
There was a chicken coop against the wall on the east side of the yard, with more than ten chickens in it, including a red-comb rooster. Maybe Wan Feng was unfamiliar to it, so it stared at Wan Feng vigilantly when Wan Feng approached.
Wan Feng ignored the rooster that was staring at him, walked past the chicken coop and came out of the pigpen.
There was a piglet weighing over 200 pounds in the pigpen. When the piglet saw someone coming, it thought someone was bringing it food, so it jumped out of the pigpen. The piglet ran to the trough and found that there was not even a piece of vegetable leaf in the trough, so it began to grunt in protest.
It's only been three months since the Chinese New Year, and the pig has grown a little small.
Pigs grow very slowly in winter. This pig will weigh another 30 to 20 kilograms, which is enough for it to grow. By the time it is slaughtered for the New Year, it will weigh at most 230 kilograms.
This is considered a piglet.
Although the pigs at that time were not as big as those in later generations, pigs that did not exceed 250 kilograms looked small no matter how hard you tried.
Wan Feng shook his head. Fortunately, there were only four people in the Zhan family, so they had to eat less.
If this is a large family with more than ten people, it will probably take just enough time to celebrate the Year of the Pig.
Zhan Shitou came running back from outside the yard.
"Take uncle to see your family's land."
Zhan Shitou shook his head: "I can't remember."
"Look, I told you you're a little loser, but you still don't admit it. You can't even remember your own land."
"I'm only six years old. I'm a child."
This guy is playing the victim again, first emphasizing that he is a child.
"Your attitude is not good. Children have to face life head on and shout out loud that I am a little glutton!"
"I... am not a glutton!"
Wan Feng was just bored and wanted to play with the child, but he didn't expect that this little rascal would not be fooled.
Damn, the pig kidneys are pretty good!
"Bring your sister back. Does she remember the way to your land?"
"Yeah! She goes there often."
"Then go find it quickly."
Zhan Shitou ran out quickly and found Zhan Ling back in a short while.
"Take me to see your land." Wan Feng repeated to Zhan Ling what he had just said to Zhan Shitou.
"Uncle, does your family also farm?"
“I’ve planted it before.”
"How much land does your family have?" Zhan Ling asked as she took Wan Feng to the land contracted by her family.
"My family has a lot of land, twelve acres in total."
Zhan Ling was surprised: "Wow! Your family has so much land, it must be exhausting. My mother is so tired after just half an hour of planting soybeans that she can't even straighten her back. It's a pity that I'm too young to do it. In a few years, I can help my mother with the work."
What a good child! I remember that in my previous life, during the summer vacation, I tried every means to avoid shoveling the ground.
Now it seems that my awareness was not as good as that of a ten-year-old girl.
You should blush a little here.
Zhan Honggui's family's land is located in a large area at the west end of Manjita Village.
When Wan Feng and his friends came, they came from the road beside this land.
This large piece of land is estimated to be around three to four hundred acres in size, all planted with soybeans. There are about dozens of people working in the field.
No wonder I have only seen an adult, Zhan Honggui, since I entered the village. It turns out that all the adults are here.
Zhan Ling found her family's land very accurately and took Wan Feng to the field.
The cut straw shows that this year's soybean harvest is average. The bean stalks are no more than one foot high, the straw is thin and the bean pods are small.
If nothing unexpected happens, there will be flooding here again this year.
Why isn't rice grown here? Is it because the growing season isn't long enough?
There may not have been rice with a short growing period at that time, but it is estimated that early-maturing varieties of rice will appear in a few years.
I met Zhan Ling's mother about a hundred meters away from the edge of the field.
A middle-aged woman who is actually in her thirties but looks to be in her forties.
Wearing a gray scarf on her head and thread gloves, she looked blankly at Wan Feng who appeared here with her daughter and son.
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