The Dragon Boat Festival is a good time to dig herbs. There is a custom here to stew various herbs on the Dragon Boat Festival. Bones, pork, pig's trotters, big hens, old ducks, no matter what, can be used to stew herbal roots.
Early that morning, Yang Chunyan and her sisters-in-law took Lai Fu and carried a backpack to the back mountain. This time they went to the forest where they dug white hyacinth last time.
Lai Fu went out for a while today and came back to wait for Yang Chunyan. He didn't feel tired from going back and forth. With the dog leading the way, everyone didn't worry about Lao Suo coming out of the bushes and biting people.
The sisters-in-law pulled out some sedge grass on the slope and dug up some thistle roots. Going up, they found a patch of white grass. They cleared away the stones and started digging.
After working for half an hour, I dug about seven or eight pounds of water. I put the water in the backpack and continued walking up the hillside. Not long after I walked, I found some more Adenophora.
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "This stuff is delicious when stewed with chicken. Dig it up and go home to kill a big hen to stew it."
"Mom said to kill a duck and make soup today." Li Qiuyue shook off the mud on the tubers of Adenophora scabra. "The flowers of Adenophora scabra are very beautiful. The ones planted under the wall of my house are all blooming. They are better than growing morning glories."
Zhang Xiuxiang: "The gardenias in the medicinal fields are the most beautiful. This morning, when I was hanging clothes upstairs in the backyard, I smelled the fragrance of gardenias."
Li Qiuyue: "Chunyan, didn't the youngest plant two yellow horn orchids a few days ago? Did they grow well?"
"It's alive. One is planted near the new oven, and the other is planted next to the vegetable field." Yang Chunyan said, looking at the bushes in front of her left. "My sister-in-law has been gone for a while. Why hasn't she come out yet?"
Zhang Xiuxiang: "It's okay. If you need anything, just shout at us so close, we'll hear you."
Before she finished speaking, she saw Zhao Huifang coming out of the bushes with a few vines. She walked closer and handed the vines to Yang Chunyan. "I found this Codonopsis pilosula in the bushes just now. I looked around and it was scattered everywhere."
Yang Chunyan took it and said with a smile: "Yes, there is one more herbal root for stewing chicken today."
Zhao Huifang picked up the medicine hoe and said, "Xiuxiang and I will go over there to dig. You and Qiuyue can dig the Adenophora and come back to us."
"Yes." Li Qiuyue squatted down to clean the roots and vines on the tubers of Adenophora scabra. "I haven't been out to dig herbs for a long time. I wonder how good my luck in the mountains is today?"
Yang Chunyan dug up the remaining few Adenophora affines and said, "Yes, let's go to the old places tomorrow to see if the Ganoderma lucidum has grown yet."
She wanted to go and take a look at the ditch at the forest farm. The golden thread vine left over from the year before should have grown back and could be harvested again this year. She also needed to go and take a look at the Ganoderma lucidum on Fangtian’s mountain and the Bletilla striata in the valley.
Li Qiuyue packed the Adenophora into her backpack and looked at the forest ahead. "It would be great if we could find another mountain like Fangtian Mountain two years ago, with purple Ganoderma lucidum everywhere."
"If you have good luck in the mountains, you can always find it." Yang Chunyan took off her straw hat and fanned herself, then turned her head to look at the top of the mountain in the southeast. "It's much hotter and muggier today than yesterday. Will it rain?"
"Let it rain! If it doesn't rain, where will we get the mushrooms to pick?" Li Qiuyue picked up the backpack, and the two went to the bushes.
Zhang Xiuxiang grabbed a handful of plump native codonopsis pilosula and said, "Look at how fat these roots are. They must be at least 20 to 30 years old."
"There should be more." Yang Chunyan looked at the yellowish-brown Codonopsis pilosula, which had a large head and a small tail and whose rough skin was squeezed together, and said happily, "I won't sell these. I'll dry them and keep them for myself."
Everyone has been exhausted these days, especially the older ones, who sweat a lot after working so hard. This kind of good stuff would be the most nutritious thing to take back and stew hens, pig's feet, etc.
Zhao Huifang also nodded repeatedly, "You two should look carefully at the edge of the woods, there are probably still a lot of them in there."
"Okay!" Yang Chunyan and Li Qiuyue walked down the slope and dug up the vines with thick stems. Some grew in the cracks of rocks and looked good, but there was no way to get them out.
The four sisters-in-law were busy on the hillside for more than an hour and dug up at least ten pounds of local Codonopsis pilosula.
After cleaning and putting them in the backpack, he took Lai Fu and walked upstream along the ditch. The ditch, which was still flowing in March, now only had a thin stream left. No one knew where the mountain crabs and small fish and shrimps in the ditch had disappeared.
The calamus growing by the ditch are green and lush, and are very pleasing to the eyes.
Calamus and mugwort are both must-haves for the Dragon Boat Festival. Zhou's mother got up early in the morning and picked up a few calamus and mugwort from the fish pond. She tied them together with mugwort and took her sisters-in-law to hang a bunch of them at the gate of the courtyard to repel insects and ward off evil spirits.
"Chunyan, look!" Li Qiuyue, who was walking in front, pointed at the big rock in front of her with surprise, "Are those golden thread lilies on top?"
"Let me see." Yang Chunyan walked over to take a look and said with a smile, "It's not golden thread vine, it's stone lotus root. This is also a herb, but it's much cheaper than golden thread vine."
Stone lotus is a perennial herb, also known as blood leaf orchid, stone lotus, and different-leaf blood leaf orchid.
The whole plant is used as medicine, which has the effects of nourishing yin and moistening lungs, cooling blood and stopping bleeding.
It likes to grow in warm and humid places. Its rhizomes creep on stones. When they first grow out, they are white and plump in sections, similar to lotus roots, so it is called stone lotus root.
It has more leaves than golden thread vine, and there are five red veins on the leaves, which are very obvious. When it blooms, you can see some white flowers among the leaves, which are fresh and elegant.
After hearing this, Li Qiuyue and the other two were not so excited anymore. They were still happy and picked up the plump lotus roots on the rocks, leaving the small ones to grow again.
After coming back, Yang Chunyan often couldn't understand why there were so many rare herbs and flowers in the forests these days, under the same sky, but these herbs could no longer grow in just a dozen or twenty years?
She planned to pick some good ones and plant them in a big hole. The golden thread vine she planted last time was already alive.
In the big pit, the soil in the mountain area where Dendrobium grows is extremely good. It may be due to the infiltration of groundwater. Even in such dry weather this year, the wild grass and flowers there grow better than in other places.
Zhang Xiuxiang looked at the lotus root on the stone in her hand and asked, "Chunyan, does this thing bloom?"
Yang Chunyan nodded. "It has small white flowers. If you want to plant it, you can get a clay pot and go to the river dam to pick up some nice pebbles. It will look pretty on the windowsill after it grows."
"Then I'll go back and get a clay pot to try." Zhang Xiuxiang carefully picked up a few plump plants along with the rotten soil and placed them next to the basket to avoid them being crushed.
The sisters-in-law pulled all the lotus roots on the stone that could be pulled away, and when they looked back they found that the basket was half full.
Yang Chunyan looked back at the three people and asked, "Should we go to the woods to have a look, or continue to go up?"
Zhang Huifang picked up the backpack and said, "I remember there were maple trees in the forest where we dug white hyacinth last time. Why don't we go there and see if there are any Ganoderma lucidum growing there?"
Li Qiuyue smiled and said, "Last time, the youngest and Yiding went in for a walk and didn't see a single one. It's only been less than two months, there won't be any, right?"
"No one can explain the matter of chasing people in the mountains clearly. Maybe we will be lucky and find it when we go there!" Yang Chunyan said with a smile.
"Okay, let's go over there and take a look." Li Qiuyue patted Lai Fu, "You haven't made any moves today, go catch two pheasants or two rabbits, and we'll take them back to add to the dishes."
Lai Fu turned his head to look at her, then followed Yang Chunyan with his tail wagging. His master had said to keep an eye on the female mistress and be careful of the wild animals in the mountains.
The forest where they were digging for Bletilla striata was still ahead. The sisters-in-law found some more Pyrola minor by the ditch. When they went around behind the rocks to pick them, Yang Chunyan discovered that among the bushes behind the rocks, there were several Sophora flavescens with flowers similar to those of Robinia pseudoacacia.
The leaves and flowers of Sophora flavescens are somewhat similar to those of Sophora japonica. It is also known as wild Sophora flavescens, bitter bone, Sichuan ginseng, etc.
Sophora flavescens: cold in nature, bitter in taste. Has the effects of clearing away heat and dampness, killing insects and promoting diuresis.
The medicinal part is the dried root of "Sophora flavescens". The root is cylindrical, with yellow outer skin, and the stems and branches have irregular longitudinal grooves. It tastes very bitter.
Yang Chunyan It’s a bit of a pity, this thing is suitable for digging in spring and autumn. The medicinal effect is best when dug in autumn. After digging out the roots, remove the roots, wash them, dry them, and slice them.
There is a folk remedy that says washing your hair with water soaked in Sophora flavescens can cure alopecia areata.
After picking the stone wolfberry, the group went up the mountain towards the forest above. Yang Chunyan saw a dead Masson pine on the right. No new branches or leaves had grown on the dead stump, so she called Zhao Huifang and the other two and walked over together.
When they got there, they saw that there was not even a single weed around the dead tree, and there were cracks on the ground around the stump. Yang Chunyan knocked on it a few times with the hoe, and it made a hollow sound.
She pointed to the place where she had knocked just now, "Sister-in-law, dig from here, there must be Poria cocos underneath."
"I'll do it!" Li Qiuyue moved the fastest, picking up the hoe and starting to dig. Yang Chunyan also started digging at the other end. After a while, she dug out a piece of Poria cocos the size of a pottery bowl, with a dark brown skin like old tree bark.
Li Qiuyue also dug out a piece, but accidentally broke it a little, revealing the white mushroom flesh inside.
"It really is!" Zhao Huifang stepped forward and picked up the Poria cocos. "Chunyan, how do you know there is Poria cocos down there?"
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "You see other trees will grow new branches from the roots after they die, but this one has none, and then...Grandpa also knows about it, he also dug it up when he was herding sheep before."
Zhao Huifang and the other two suddenly realized what was going on and happily put the Poria cocos in the basket. "The Poria cocos cakes that mom steamed last time were delicious. These two pieces are enough for a meal."
Li Qiuyue smiled and said, "When Chunyan saw the medicinal root, she suggested to stew it into soup, and the eldest sister-in-law suggested to steam it and eat it. They have become delicious."
Zhang Xiuxiang: "As the saying goes, life is all about food and clothing!"
The sisters-in-law walked forward, talking and laughing, walking on the soft fallen leaves. Lai Fu ran a few steps in front and turned his head to look at the four of them.
When passing by the forest where Bletilla striata grew, I found that some of the Bletilla striata left over from digging out the seedlings had already bloomed, and even the flowers looked wilted and lifeless.
Zhao Huifang smiled and said, "The ones I left last time have grown this big. We can dig here again in two years!"
Li Qiuyue stopped and looked around, "They are not as good as the ones we dug up."
Yang Chunyan: "There is definitely a difference between the cultivated ones and the wild ones. In weather like this, we only water them once in a while. The ones on the mountain can only survive by relying on God's favor." (End of this chapter)
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