Chapter 232 Chapter 231: Going up the mountain
Kiln firing requires very particular attention to the temperature. The fire cannot be too strong or too weak. If the fire is too strong, the bricks and tiles produced will have nodules.
If the size of the fire is right, the bricks and tiles fired will be round in shape and uniform in color. Otherwise, the bricks and tiles fired will be uneven and the color will also vary in depth. The temperature of the fire needs to be controlled by Liu the kiln master and his son.
After the bricks and tiles in the earthen kiln have been burned to a certain degree, the kiln is filled with firewood, the kiln door is sealed with bricks, and then the kiln door is pasted tightly with pre-prepared clay to prevent fire and air leakage.
The top of the kiln should be sealed with mud, a small round pool should be built with clay, and then the kiln roof should be sealed with clay to prevent smoke and water leakage.
Finally, water needs to be continuously poured into the pool. It will take five or six days before the water pouring is stopped. After the fire in the kiln chamber has cooled down slowly, the kiln can be taken out.
A dozen people worked until dark to fill the earthen kiln and light the kiln fire.
Zhou Huairong and Zhou Huaijun took turns letting their grandfather and father go home to rest, while the two brothers took turns guarding the earthen kiln with Liu the kiln maker and his son, adding firewood into the kiln day and night.
The next morning, Zhou Huaian and Zhou Huaishan went out together. One of the brothers went to Ning'an to deliver vegetables and herbs, and the other went to the oil press in the town to press oil.
Zhao Huifang came out of the kitchen, "Chunyan, where are we going to find herbs today?"
Zhang Xiuxiang: "The hill behind the house has been searched everywhere. The only way to find it is to go into the mountain."
Yang Chunyan thought about how many times Yang Xiaoxue had called her, "Let's go to my cousin's place and call her to go to the back hill of her home."
“Yes!”
The sisters-in-law packed up their things, took their dry food and other supplies, and headed towards the Fangtian Brigade.
Zhao Huifang pointed at the rice stalks that were propped up in the field and said, "They were all blown down by the strong wind that day. When the land was divided, everyone complained that the foot of the mountain was not good. The few plots of millet at the foot of our mountain were not blown down."
Li Qiuyue sighed, "I thought we would have a good harvest this year, but I didn't expect there would be a heavy rain and strong wind during the grain filling period."
Yang Chunyan: "It's like this when you rely on the weather for your livelihood. If the weather is favorable, you will get a harvest. If the weather is not favorable, not only will you have to work hard, but you will also have to go hungry."
The three of them nodded in succession, "That's right, look, the rice fields of Fangtian Brigade are suffering the most!"
Yang Chunyan recalled what she saw when she went to Ning'an yesterday, and frowned, "I wonder what's going on with Xiaoxue's family?"
The four sisters-in-law chatted and soon arrived at Yang Xiaoxue's house, where they happened to meet Fang Zhiqiang who was pushing a bicycle out: "Brother-in-law Fang, is my sister here?"
"Yes! She's also going up the mountain!" Fang Zhiqiang shouted to the courtyard, and then said, "You guys go in and sit down. I'm going into the city."
Yang Chunyan nodded, "Slow down!"
Yang Xiaoxue hurried out in her boots and saw that the four people were carrying baskets on their backs. "Are you leaving now? Come in and sit for a while!"
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "No, let's go quickly. The sun will come out soon and it will be very hot in the forest!"
"Okay! I'll go back and get some freshly-picked young corn, and we'll take it up the mountain and roast it."
After saying that, Yang Xiaoxue ran back, picked up a dozen corns, came out carrying the basket on her back, and the five of them went up the mountain together along the path next to her house.
The wastelands beside the road are planted with corn, beans and vegetables. Going up there is a shrub forest, and further up there is a bamboo forest.
Yang Xiaoxue said: "Yan'er, this is my family's bamboo forest. Bring some bamboo shoots back to eat when you go back."
"We have some at home, too. We sent some to the guesthouse a while ago, and we also dried some bamboo shoots at home."
"Oh! I got some sun, too."
Yang Chunyan saw a small bulge under a dead leaf with a little white exposed. She thought it was a bamboo fungus egg, so she went forward and poked it with a bamboo stick, and saw a milky white fungus that looked a bit like a brush mushroom.
She squatted down and looked, looking at the people waiting for her in front with surprise, "Come quickly, there are cicada flowers in the forest!"
The four of them gathered around and looked at the cicada flower in her hand. "It looks a bit like a tree fork hit by frost!"
Zhao Huifang took it and looked at it. "I saw this thing in the bamboo forest when I went to dig bamboo shoots the other day. Is it useful?"
Yang Chunyan wiped off the rotten soil on the sclerotium and peeled off the fungal film, revealing a brown lazy cicada. Several people exclaimed in surprise as they watched.
"Oh my god! The mushrooms are growing from the cicada's head!"
Yang Chunyan pointed to the sclerotium that still retained the shape of a lazy cicada: "This thing is the larvae of the lazy cicada underground. After being infected by fungi, it grows into this. This thing is called cicada flower, and some people call it Cordyceps."
Yang Xiaoxue looked at her in surprise, "Yan'er, you know so much!"
Yang Chunyan said hurriedly, "I also saw it in a medicine book. I heard that red ones are poisonous and can't be kept. Only this kind of thing can be picked up. This thing is not bad in price. Can you guys look in the woods to see if there are any more?"
"Oh!" The four of them started looking separately.
Cicada flower is also known as golden cicada flower: cold in nature, sweet in taste, non-toxic. It has the effects of dispersing wind and heat, calming nerves, improving eyesight, and improving immunity.
The root of the cicada flower is the cicada pupa or the larvae of the mountain cicada, and the flower is a flower-like bud that grows from the heads of a single or 2-3 cicada larvae.
It is about an inch long, with flowers and branches growing from the top, and looks a bit like the horns growing from the head of a cicada. It is a strange creature with both animal and plant characteristics.
The earliest record of processing cicada flowers can be found in Lei Gong Pao Zhi Lun written by Lei Jue during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. The efficacy of cicada flowers was also recorded in Zheng Lei Ben Cao written by Tang Shenwei during the Song Dynasty, and in Compendium of Materia Medica written by Li Shizhen during the Ming Dynasty and in later pharmacopoeias.
When cicada flowers emerge, they are particularly conspicuous in the forest.
After a while, Zhao Huifang exclaimed in surprise, "I found one!"
Yang Xiaoxue also shouted in surprise, "I found one too!"
Yang Chunyan took out a sickle, bent down and looked carefully at the woods. A small white mushroom appeared in front of her eyes. She picked up the sickle and inserted it next to the cicada flower. With a little force, she pried up one of the mushrooms, wiped off the rotten soil on it and put it into the net bag given by Zhou Huaian.
I picked up four flowers in a short while. In the past life, this kind of flowers could be sold for five or six hundred yuan per kilogram. I don’t know what the price is now.
It took them an hour or so to finish walking around the bamboo forest. Yang Chunyan yelled into the forest, walked out to wait for a few people, and counted them by the way. She found 32 cicada flowers and a few mosquito bites on her arms and face.
Yang Xiaoxue and Zhang Xiuxiang came out together. She pointed at the basket and said, "Yan'er, I picked up more than a dozen flowers. How about you?"
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "Thirty!"
Yang Xiaoxue took a look and said jokingly, "Your luck has improved since you got married! We used to go up the mountain to pick mushrooms together, but you couldn't pick more than me."
Zhang Xiuxiang also said: "Chun Yan has the best luck in the mountains. Every time she goes up the mountain to look for herbs, she finds a lot and good ones.
Li Qiuyue smiled and walked forward, showing the ones she had picked up, "Look, we only found about ten flowers, and Chunyan's eyes are the brightest!"
Yang Chunyan and others put cicada flowers into cloth bags and said with a smile: "Let's go, let's go, the sun is out."
As the group walked up, they all felt that the terrain on the Fangtian Brigade's side was flatter and easier to walk on than the road to the forest farm.
(End of this chapter)
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