Chapter 183 182: Tiger Whiskers
The old man made up his mind. Seeing that everyone was happy, he ate a soft bun and sighed, "I never thought that there would be a day when we would eat pure white bread buns."
Father Zhou also felt that life was becoming more and more promising. "Old man, let's plant some winter wheat this year, and next year we'll use the rest of the public grain to grind into flour for our own consumption."
Zhou Huaishan said with a smile: "Old man, I'm afraid we are not used to eating white flour every day!"
Zhou Huaijun: "I think you are a wild boar that cannot eat rice bran!"
"Second brother, I am the wild boar, and you are the wild boar's brother!"
Zhou's mother glared at the two of them in anger, "You are pigs, what have you and I become?"
Zhou Jiakang stood up and said, "I know, Dad and Third Dad are little wild boars, and Grandma and Grandpa are old wild boars!"
"Puchi~" All those who had food in their mouths turned their heads to look outside, "Hahaha..." All those who had no food lay on the table, laughing until they couldn't breathe.
Zhou Huaijun suppressed his laughter and patted him on the back, "You idiot, don't say that again, understand?"
Zhou Jiakang pouted and looked at him aggrievedly, "You were the one who said Third Dad is a wild boar..."
"Still talking!" Zhou Huaijun glared and raised his hand.
"Old Third!" The old man called him with a smile, "What do you think he did? It's you adults who are wrong in your words."
Zhou's mother glared at him and said, "That's right. If the top beam is not straight, the bottom beam will be crooked, and if the middle beam is not straight, it will fall down. You are not paying attention to what you say, why are you hitting the child?"
Zhou Jiakang immediately perked up, "That's it!"
"..." Zhou Huaijun scratched his head, smiled awkwardly and sat back.
The family had their meal happily. Zhao Huifang and her two sisters-in-law were busy picking and washing herbs, while Zhou's mother was busy cleaning up the dishes.
She and her three brothers Zhou Huairong said, "Tomorrow we will open the kiln. Your old man will be there to watch over the kiln. You can come over when you have time and help thresh the rapeseed on the ten acres of land."
"Yes!" The brothers left the table and went to pick herbs.
****
Yang Chunyan woke up feeling relaxed. Listening to the alarm clock next door, she rubbed her face and sat up, muttering to herself, "It's good to be young. I feel refreshed after a good night's sleep."
"Bang bang!" Zhou Huaian knocked on the door, "Yan'er, are you getting up?"
"I'm up." Yang Chunyan put on her shoes, opened the door and walked out. Seeing that it was already dawn, she said, "Wow~ It's rare that you got up earlier than me."
Zhou Huaian looked at her with a smile, "You slept last night, and we fed the dog and went to sleep. I found that when I was really tired, I would feel more comfortable after drinking a few glasses of wine and going to sleep. I didn't even notice it was raining at night."
Yang Chunyan then realized that the courtyard was wet. "It looked like it was raining quite heavily. I didn't hear anything at all."
Zhou Yiding came out in his slippers, "Youngest, are you guys still going to look for the Magnolia officinalis tree today?"
Zhou Huaian: "I won't look for it anymore. I find that I'm very tricky when looking for things. I can't find it when I try hard, but it will appear by itself when I stop looking for it."
Zhou Yiding: "I've been wandering around there for the past two days and haven't been to the forest in front of the house yet. Let's go there today. The pig intestines that Er Niang gave me are still in the cave. We can get some bamboo shoots to braise the pig intestines."
Zhou Huaian: "Yes."
Seeing that the two had reached an agreement, Yang Chunyan said, "I'll go heat up the buns and bring a few more for lunch."
"Okay, I'll go sharpen the machete."
After the three of them finished their meal, they carried their belongings and took their two dogs with them, and headed towards the forest in front of the house.
In the early morning in the mountains, the grass and trees are lush and green. The humid air after the rain exudes the fragrance of grass and trees, the rich fragrance of wild flowers, and the clear, pleasant and melodious chirping of forest birds, one after another.
When she walked to the front of the house, Yang Chunyan saw a lot of Solanum nigrum growing on the open space in front of the house.
The road to the ditch has a gentle slope and a path trampled by lumberjacks. You go down the slope and walk for a while before you reach the ditch.
Zhou Huaian pointed to the Polygonatum sibiricum with flowers blooming under the leaf stems at the edge of the ditch and said, "Yan'er, look, there are more here than the one we dug down the slope."
Yang Chunyan smiled after seeing them and said, "These are not all Polygonatum, there are also Polygonatum odoratum."
"Let's go!" Zhou Huaian pulled her anxiously, "This place is close to the yard, come back in the afternoon and dig it up."
Yang Chunyan nodded and followed the two people across the ditch. The water in the ditch was so clear that you could see the bottom. You could clearly see mountain crabs slowly crawling out from the cracks in the rocks.
The two dogs were even more anxious than them, and they jumped to the foot of the opposite mountain.
Yang Chunyan suddenly discovered that there were a few clumps of green plants with purple-black flowers on the opposite side. She hurried forward and stared at the magical purple-black flowers in front of her. She couldn't help but exclaimed, "Tiger whiskers, there are actually tiger whiskers here!"
Tiger's whisker, also known as arrowroot potato, is a perennial herb of the arrowroot family. Its leaves are large, a bit like the leaves of taro flowers. They are green and lush all year round and look pleasing to the eye.
The most distinctive feature is its flowers, a pair of large purple-black bracts surrounded by more than ten centimeters long filamentous bracts that hang down elegantly. From the entire inflorescence, if you look at it a few more times, you can feel that the flower disk is delicate and beautiful with a majestic and cold temperament.
Tiger whiskers are used as medicine with rhizomes, which are bitter, pungent and cool. The whole plant is poisonous. It has the effects of clearing away heat and detoxifying, regulating qi and relieving pain. It is used for enteritis, dysentery, indigestion, sores, swelling and poison, burns and scalds, etc.
In later generations, due to the high ornamental value of wild tiger whiskers, they were over-harvested by humans, and due to natural environmental reasons, they became endangered plants and were later designated as third-level protected plants by the state.
If you see it in the wild, don't pick it casually, and be careful not to step on the sewing machine.
"Yan'er, what good stuff did you find?" Zhou Huaian and Zhou Yiding saw her going over and followed her.
Zhou Yiding took a look and didn't find it strange at all. "So this flower is called Tiger Whiskers! The uncle who was with the old man said it was called Mountain Rhubarb and that it was poisonous and couldn't be touched. So the name my sister-in-law gave is more appropriate."
Yang Chunyan: "He also knows about herbs?"
Zhou Yiding: "He likes to look for Ganoderma lucidum and wanders around in the mountains when he has nothing to do!"
Only then did Yang Chunyan understand why she didn't pick up the Ganoderma lucidum.
Zhou Huaian squatted down and looked at it for a while, then sighed, "I didn't expect there would be such a strange-looking flower. It looks a bit cold."
Zhou Yiding: "There are many strange flowers in the mountains, especially by the ditch. Going up along the ditch, there are many stems on the rocks that look like small bamboos. The white flowers are quite beautiful."
Yang Chunyan thought for a moment and said, "You should be talking about Sunlan."
"I don't know. Let's go up and take a look sometime."
Zhou Huaian: "Yan'er, if you like, we can dig a few and plant them later. Let's go up the mountain first."
"Tiger whiskers are also herbs. Come back later and dig up some bigger ones."
"Yes!" Zhou Huaian asked her to walk to the front, and the three of them continued to walk up the mountain.
After going uphill and entering the woods, the forest became much darker due to the shade of the trees.
Zhou Huaian pointed to a path beside the forest and said to Zhou Yiding, "We didn't see any good herbs on that path yesterday. How about we go up it today?"
Zhou Yiding: "Okay, it's a good opportunity to go up there and take a look. I haven't been there for several days."
Zhou Huaian: "Was the path built by the people in the forest farm?"
Zhou Yiding: "There was no road originally, but as more people from the forest farm walked along it, it became a road."
(End of this chapter)
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