Zhou Huaian carried the chickens home and drove the tractor to Zhou Huaishan's yard and parked it to prevent him from knocking on the door early in the morning and disturbing his sweet sleep.
After returning and locking the gate, he walked to the main hall door and said, "Mom said we're going to catch piglets tomorrow, so we've brought the rice bran and straw bran and put them in the pig pen."
"I haven't checked yet!" Yang Chunyan put down the ball of thread and followed him to the backyard. "Put the chicks in the pigpen first, and in the alley behind the house during the day."
There was an alley more than two meters wide behind the pigpen. Yang Chunyan asked Zhou's father to block both ends with fences and keep the chickens and ducks inside to prevent them from running around the yard.
"Yeah!" Zhou Huaian carried the chicken coop into the pigsty. Yang Chunyan saw two sacks placed in the corner, one filled with rice bran and the other filled with straw bran.
"I didn't think of preparing these at all. Luckily, mom thought of preparing them for us."
Zhou Huaian said with a headache: "Three piglets need to eat a lot every day. It seems that I have to go cut some pig grass."
Yang Chunyan thought for a moment and said, "Go and talk to our third brother and ask him to bring us some flowers, grass, and ramie seeds to plant on the open space beside the vegetable field. Once they grow, we won't have to cut grass for the pigs everywhere."
Zhou Huaian nodded repeatedly, "Yes, I'll go talk to him later."
The two of them looked around and walked back. Yang Chunyan asked, "Where are you going to find a beehive tomorrow?"
"Alas!" Zhou Huaian sighed, "During the off-season, the nearby forests may have been searched by others. That day, I ran around with Ding Ding Cat for a whole day and found several kilograms of honey. Oh! There are also a few yams. I will dig them up tomorrow to avoid losing them again."
After hearing this, Yang Chunyan thought of the short video she saw in her previous life, "I have a way to find the beehive."
Zhou Huaian went forward and embraced her, "Wife, you have also learned to brag!"
Yang Chunyan glanced at him and said, "If you don't believe me, you can try it."
"Okay, let me hear it!"
"After we get up the mountain, we'll first find a place where flowers are still blooming and see if there are any bees collecting pollen..."
"I know that!" Zhou Huaian interrupted her with a smile, "I used to follow the bees to find the bee trail, but there are fewer bees now, so it's harder to find them."
"Why are you in such a hurry? Listen to what I have to say first." Yang Chunyan glared at him and continued, "Dirty some honey water with it, go up the mountain to find a place full of wild flowers, and spray it on the petals..."
Zhou Huaian suddenly realized, "Oh, I see. If we use honey water to lure the little bees and attract a large group of them, we can better observe the bee path."
Yang Chunyan thought about what was said in the short video, "Well! There are still wild flowers on the mountain these two days. It should be easy to find them if you bring some sugar water with you."
Zhou Huaian praised: "My wife is so smart. Is there any other way to make a beehive?"
Yang Chunyan thought for a moment and said, "There is another way to get rid of wasps. Use pork..."
"It turns out this method really works!" Zhou Huaian looked at her excitedly, "People say that men who listen to their wives will get rich, and it's true!"
Yang Chunyan said angrily, "Stop joking. I'm tired after a day. Go back and wash up and go to bed."
Zhou Huaian grabbed her hand, "Yeah! I've wanted to say this for a long time."
"I don't want to bother with you. Go to my third brother's house quickly. They will be asleep soon." Yang Chunyan pushed him away and walked towards the kitchen.
After the three of them washed up and went back to their room to sleep, it was already past nine o'clock.
Zhou Huaian closed the door, drew the curtains, and then held Yang Chunyan in his arms, gave her a loud kiss, and looked at her proudly, "Haha, now we don't have to act like a thief."
Yang Chunyan looked at him with a smile in her eyes, "Speak softly, Mom can hear you."
Zhou Huaian lowered her forehead, looked at the reflection in her eyes with a smile, and picked her up, "It's so far away and there are two doors between us, you can't hear it."
Yang Chunyan glared at him with a mixture of anger and smile, "..."
…
The next morning, Zhou Huaian walked out of the room refreshed and saw water stains in the yard. "Hey! Did it rain last night?"
Hearing the noise, Yang's mother came out from the kitchen. "It started raining at dawn. It rained for about half an hour and then stopped."
"I didn't hear any noise at all." Zhou Huaian walked to the basin rack and picked up the porcelain basin. "Mom, what are you doing up so early?"
"It's getting late. I cooked some sweet potato porridge. We can eat it after it simmers for a while."
"Yes!" Zhou Huaian saw a basket of vegetables on the kitchen table, "Has my mother been here?"
"I'm here, and I brought some vegetable leaves to feed the chickens." Mother Yang turned on the fire in the stove and prepared to cook.
Stir-fry the autumn peppers with salted vegetables and some cabbage with oil residue. Yang Chunyan also got up and went to the kitchen.
After the three of them had breakfast, Zhou Huaian took the trap, carried steamed cakes, thick honey water, and a basket of belongings on his back, and walked away with Wangcai under Lai Fu's pitiful gaze.
After Yang Chunyan and her daughter had finished packing, they took their hoes and shovels and went to the vegetable field. They cleared about half an acre of land and dug a compost pit next to the bushes.
All the tall and miscellaneous trees in the shrub forest have been cut down, leaving only some small mulberry trees that cannot be used as firewood and some hemp.
Most of the trees here are small mulberry trees, which are also called goat milk trees because they have milky juice when their branches and leaves are broken off.
The paper mulberry is dioecious, highly adaptable, drought-resistant, and full of treasures. When the male flowers of the male paper mulberry are in full bloom, they often spray pollen into the air like fireworks, so people call it the "smoking" tree.
The bark of the paper mulberry tree is an excellent raw material for making paper; its roots and seeds are both medicinal materials; even the pulp it contains can be used to treat skin diseases.
The leaves of the paper mulberry tree have a high crude protein content and are an excellent pig feed.
The Chinese medicine name of paper mulberry seed is also called Chushizi: sweet and cold. It has the effects of nourishing the kidney, strengthening bones and tendons, improving eyesight and diuresis.
Leaves: sweet and cool. Has the effects of clearing heat, cooling blood, promoting dampness and killing insects. Peel: sweet and neutral. Has the effects of diuresis, swelling and rheumatism. External use for treating neurodermatitis and ringworm.
Cut the bark of the paper mulberry tree and take out the white milky slurry to apply externally, which has the effect of diuresis, swelling and detoxification, and can also treat edema, ringworm, snake, insect, bee, scorpion and dog bites. As a folk remedy, the lotion is used to treat neurodermatitis, external skin ringworm, eczema, bee stings and insect bites.
But it is not welcomed by people living in the mountains because it has many branches and is not useful as firewood. Its core is hollow when burned and it produces a lot of smoke and dust. As long as it grows in front of or behind houses, most people will treat it as a weed and remove it as soon as possible.
Mother Yang looked around and saw mulberry trees and hemp in the forest. "Yan'er, there are a lot of hemp and mulberry trees in the forest. When we catch the piglets, cut the mulberry leaves and hemp and cook them to feed the pigs. We used these two things as pig fattening feed when we were in the production team."
Yang Chunyan turned her head and looked around. "We can keep the mulberry, but forget about the hemp. The children are all here. If they play in the woods and get stung by accident, it will be troublesome."
"Wait a minute and put on gloves when you get home, dig them up with the roots, dry them, and send them to Doctor Wang's house. You can sell them for a few dollars!"
Mother Yang nodded and said, "It's not easy to find herbs in the city. When your husband needs them, he can just go and pick them." (End of this chapter)
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