This year, Lijiapo is growing two types of cabbage: one is a local specialty called "Ma Ye Qing" (麻叶青), and the other is a specialty of Shandong Province, Jiaozhou cabbage, commonly known as "Jiao Bai" (胶白).
Ma Ye Qing is a specialty product exported overseas. It can be said to be the king of cabbages, and it is called "China Green" abroad.
The Chinese tallow tree can grow to 45-50 cm tall, with plump leaves and a tight core. It is extremely durable and can be kept until the following spring before it is ready to eat.
Ma Ye Qing has a crisp and refreshing texture, with bright green outer leaves and a golden-yellow heart. It's delicious stir-fried, cold-dressed, or pickled.
Jiaozhou cabbage, also known as "Jiaobai", was called "Songcai" during the Tang Dynasty. It already enjoyed a high reputation at that time and has a cultivation history of more than 1,000 years in my country.
In 1949, when the teacher visited the Soviet Union, the birthday gift he gave to Stalin included 5,000 jin of Jiaozhou cabbage.
The thin, fine-textured stems of the white-skinned vegetable are renowned both domestically and internationally for their white juice, sweet and fresh taste, low fiber content, rich nutrition, and high yield. It is rich in various vitamins and amino acids, making it highly nutritious. When used in soups, it produces a milky white color and an extremely delicious flavor.
The next day we're going to plant cabbages, and tonight many aunties and grandmas are selecting seeds in the storage room.
To grow plump cabbages, you must carefully select seeds, discarding those that are too small or damaged, leaving only the neat and plump ones. This is the key to improving the germination rate.
After selecting the good seeds, soak them in warm water at around 50℃ for 2 hours. Then take the seeds out and mix them with insecticide. This will help prevent pests later.
Another day, early morning.
A gentle breeze rustled the branches, and wildflowers bloomed along the ditches and roadsides: white shepherd's purse flowers, yellow dandelions, purple and pink morning glories, and magenta foxtail grass, all vying for attention and swaying gracefully.
Li Xiangdong carried a bamboo basket covered with a white tarpaulin and held his little sister Li Yan's chubby hand as they walked along the road leading to Nankaiwa.
Zhao Sufang went to work at the cannery, and Li Jin went to the field to plant cabbages early in the morning. The task of delivering breakfast to Li Jin fell to Li Xiangdong.
"Second brother, the flowers are blooming beautifully."
Li Yan is quite articulate and can clearly express her meaning.
People always say kids grow fast, and Li Yan used to be quite thin, but after eating nutritious food for the past month or two, she's become plump and fair-skinned, with a pair of bright, dark grape-like eyes that are both clever and adorable.
Seeing that his younger sister liked it, Li Xiangdong put down the basket in his hand, broke off a few soft willow twigs, and wove a ring according to Li Yan's head circumference.
They picked a large bunch of wildflowers of various colors and, according to their color ratio, inserted them one by one into the willow wreath.
In no time, a beautiful wreath was finished.
Li Xiangdong put the headband on Li Yan, and the cute little girl shook her head from side to side, asking Li Xiangdong, "Second Brother, do I look good?"
Li Xiangdong touched her double chin and answered earnestly, "Beautiful!"
After walking for another ten minutes or so, we arrived at the edge of the Nankai Depression.
Looking out, scattered across the flat, wide land are small black dots—those are people digging ditches, applying base fertilizer, planting seeds, and burying soil.
First, people draw furrows on the flat beds, usually one to one and a half meters wide, and then spread a thin layer of fermented farmyard manure to provide nutrients for the cabbage to grow.
The person scattering the seeds holds a bowl of cabbage seeds in one hand and pinches a small amount of cabbage seeds with their thumb, middle finger, and index finger in the other hand. As they walk forward, they skillfully and evenly scatter the seeds into the furrow.
This is a skill; those who are not skilled at it either sow too few seeds or too many.
Once the cabbages sprout, you'll have to thin them out and replant them.
The person who sows the seeds is followed by someone who fills in the soil. They don't use any other tools; they just use their feet to fill in the soil from the trench, cover the seeds, and then gently tamp it down with their feet to ensure the seeds and soil are in full contact.
In this way, the cabbage planting in one ditch is complete.
Li Xiangdong found Li Jin and handed him breakfast.
Li Jin lifted the white tarpaulin and saw a small side dish of steamed buns filled with fried eggs and cucumbers. "Your fourth sister made this?"
Li Xiangdong grunted in agreement, waited for Li Jin to finish eating, then took the basket, picked up his little sister, and went home.
He had something on his mind, and that was playing mahjong!
Li Xiangdong was a very good marksman. Li Jin taught him how to fire his first shot when he was five years old.
In his previous life, after gun control was implemented, Li Xiangdong went abroad to hunt wild boars and tigers.
With gun control still a long way off, Li Xiangdong decided to find a good gun and go to Northeast China to hunt bears when winter comes.
Of course, he couldn't go to the Northeast now, but these days the sparrows had been eating the sprouting wheat in the fields and they were all plump and fat, so Li Xiangdong decided to practice on the sparrows first.
At that time, sparrows were considered one of the "Four Pests," not the protected animals they later became, so killing some was perfectly fine.
After plucking the sparrow's feathers and cleaning its internal organs, blanch it briefly in water, then marinate it with salt before deep-frying it thoroughly.
First, fry the sparrows in oil at 50% heat, then fry them again in oil at 90% heat. This will result in crispy bones and tender meat.
You can eat it, meat and bones alike, and it gets more and more delicious the more you chew it!
Li Xiangdong took out the shotgun from his house, carefully wiped the parts clean with a soft cloth, and then reassembled it.
He then took out two boxes of lead bullets from the drawer and put them in his jacket pocket.
After entrusting his younger sister to Li Ping and Li Jiabao, Li Xiangdong went out, called for his big yellow dog, and headed north towards Kaiwa.
Behind Beikaiwa, there is a large grove of trees where various birds build their nests.
At first, Li Xiangdong could still see people working, but when he got to the edge of the woods, there was no one there at all.
Suddenly, a large flock of birds flew out in front of us—the fat sparrows!
Li Xiangdong chambered a bullet, pulled the bolt, rested the butt of the rifle on his left shoulder, aimed with one eye at a flying sparrow, calculated the distance, and pulled the trigger with his right hand.
"Bang!"
A sparrow was hit by the arrow and fell straight down from the sky.
The other sparrows were startled by the gunshot and flew around in all directions. Li Xiangdong took the opportunity to fire a few more shots.
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
Four more sparrows landed in response.
Li Xiangdong picked up the dead sparrows from the ground with satisfaction; each one had been blown out of its head.
I need to practice more in the future, and try to shoot through the eye!
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