When Yang Chunyan and her partner went down the mountain and walked to the back of the house, they saw Zhou's mother making compost next to the vegetable patch.
These days every household makes compost. Some families pile the compost into round mounds of earth, and then use a crowbar to pound it compactly, allowing the dirt, manure and grass ash inside to ferment into mature fertilizer.
The Zhou family had a large population and many fields, so they dug two large pits next to the vegetable fields. They usually dug soil, picked up leaves, cut dead grass from the mountains, added rapeseed hulls, wood ash, and garbage swept up from the floors, and piled them in the pits to make fertilizer.
Pile it up and sprinkle a layer of manure water on it, then cover it with straw and let it ferment slowly. It can be used to plant rapeseed, sweet potatoes, potatoes, etc. Later generations called this kind of fertilizer organic fertilizer.
Zhou Huaian said: "Mom, pile more, otherwise it won't be enough next year."
Mother Zhou glanced at the two of them and said, "Of course the two compost pits here are not enough. Your eldest brother and his friends will dig a compost pit in the woods south of your house this afternoon, and they can dig theirs tomorrow."
Yang Chunyan had never thought about this. "We even forgot to dig the compost pit."
Zhou Huaian smiled and said, "Don't worry, my brother and the old man are here!"
"Yes, your old man and big brother are here!" Zhou's mother poured the manure water from the dung bucket on the dirt, put down the dung bucket and looked at the two of them, "Have you picked the gardenia yellow?"
"I picked it. I'm so tired that I won't tell you anymore." Zhou Huaian walked straight into the yard with a basket on his back.
Yang Chunyan handed over the basket and said, "Look, we found so many myrtles."
"Oh~ the basket is full." Zhou's mother looked at her happily, "The ones nearby have been picked up by the children a long time ago. There are more wild fruits in the forests farther away." After thinking about it, she reminded her again, "Don't feed the kids too much, otherwise they won't be able to poop."
Yang Chunyan smiled and said, "It's okay. I mixed some salt water for them to drink. They will be fine after they eat it."
"Is that all?"
"Yes! My old man said so."
"That year, the youngest child ate too much myrtle and almost died of suffocation. Later, his grandmother went to get some herbs and boiled them in water, which helped him to defecate."
"Huaian just said that in the woods."
Zhou's mother poured the last bit of manure into the pit, and Yang Chunyan helped cover it with straw. One of them carried the myrtle, and the other carried the manure bucket, and they walked back together.
When Zhou Huaian got home, he put down his backpack, took out the urea bag containing gold ore, and walked towards the room.
Zhou Jiakang and Zhou Xiaoru chased after him and asked, "Dad, did you get the honey?"
"I have honey, so why don't I give it to you?" Zhou Huaian rubbed him, "Aunt is carrying the myrtle, go get it from Aunt."
"Oh!" Zhou Jiakang turned around and waved to Zhou Xiaoru and the others, "Let's go, Aunt Yao has Myrtle."
The few people who were playing catch stopped catching, and Zhou Jiaming and the other two who were doing their homework stopped doing their homework. They took Zhou Xiaolin and ran to the backyard.
Zhou Huaian went back to his room and looked around, feeling that it was not safe anywhere he put it.
But the room is so small that only Yang Chunyan's dowry chest can be used to store some things, but such large piles of things cannot be put into the mezzanine.
After thinking for a while, he finally put it together with the black thing in the cabinet and locked it with a small lock.
Yang Chunyan returned home surrounded by several children. She poured them some boiling water mixed with salt water before letting them start eating.
"Delicious, so sweet!" Zhou Jiakang ate several of them in succession, "Aunt, where did you pick them? I'll go with you tomorrow."
"Greedy cat!" Zhou Xiaoqian imitated Zhou Huaian and stroked him, "You'd better forget it. Not only can you not do anything if you go with me, but you will also need Auntie to carry you back."
Seeing the children bickering, Yang Chunyan smiled and scooped up some hot water to wash her face. She returned to the room and saw Zhou Huaian lying on the bed with his hands on his head. "What are you doing lying there? Why don't you go wash up?"
Zhou Huaian stood up and looked at her with a smile, "I wonder what that black thing is?"
"Have you taken it out to look at it again?"
"No, you can smell the fragrance when you open the box."
"Did you also put the things you found today in the closet?"
Zhou Huaian looked at her with a smile, "Our room is so small, we can only put it there!"
"Yeah, we can hide it anywhere when we move there."
"Yeah! Go wash your face." Zhou Huaian glanced at the cabinet, then looked at her, "Yan'er, I still feel like I'm dreaming."
Yang Chunyan looked at him with a smile in her eyes, "It's still a sweet dream!"
Zhou Huaian nodded and said with a smile: "Go wash your face!"
The two came out of the room, and Yang Chunyan found a few winnowing baskets and asked Zhou Huaian to pour the gardenia yellow into them and spread them out to dry.
She went to get a few sheets of brown paper and put one sheet of paper inside the dustpan, then poured out the golden sand vine and spread it out to dry inside.
The sea sand inside the spore leaves of the golden sand vine fell on the kraft paper with a rustling sound.
Mother Zhou came out carrying two handfuls of spinach. "It's getting dark, and your sister-in-law and the others haven't come back yet. Youngest, go check on them."
"Yes." Zhou Huaian stood up and walked towards the gate of the courtyard.
Yang Chunyan put the dustpan on the bamboo rack in the backyard and came back to help Zhou's mother pick the spinach. "Mom, do you want to eat it cold or stir-fry it?"
"It's better to eat it cold." Mother Zhou put down a handful of picked spinach. "The meal is ready. Your third brother bought some bones and a pig's stomach this morning. I peeled a winter melon and stewed it in a pot. I also roasted some tiger-skin chili peppers and mixed them with soy sauce."
"Chili peppers mixed with soy sauce go best with rice." Yang Chunyan swallowed her saliva, "I see the chili peppers in the field are starting to turn red. Are we going to make fermented bean paste? It looks like the fermented bean paste hasn't been covered yet!"
When she was alone, she liked to pick some tender green peppers and bring them home. When cooking, she would bury them in the ashes and simmer them until cooked. After they cooled down, she would tear them into thin strips, add some sesame oil, minced garlic, coriander, soy sauce, vinegar and salt and mix them well. It was the perfect dish to go with rice.
"The moldy bean curd will be ready for the Dragon Boat Festival, and tomorrow we will pick red peppers to make bean curd."
Yang Chunyan thought of the pea sauce that Zhou's mother had made, "How about making some more pea sauce?"
Most people here use pumpkin leaves to cover the bean paste, but Zhou's mother's family tradition is to cover it with stinky wormwood. Maybe it's because of the stinky wormwood that the bean paste and pea paste she makes taste better than those of other families.
Zhou's mother smiled and nodded, "Yes, we have some wheat bran at home. I'll fry some and soak it in a pot after dinner. I'll cut some stinking wormwood tomorrow morning to keep it warm."
"Yeah! Do more."
"Yes." Zhou's mother said happily, "The sows from the Lai family and the Xu family have all given birth, so my family and I have ordered three for you. It's just right to keep them in the big pen, and you can keep them in the small pen next year when we have more grass. Do you think it's okay?"
Yang Chunyan thought for a moment and said, "Okay! Let's buy two more yellow cattle and a few black goats in the spring, otherwise we won't have enough manure at home."
Zhou's mother said disdainfully, "Sheep stink. It would be better to raise two more oxen so that the cowshed can be easier to clean. If there are only two of you, how can you have the time to clean up those?"
"You're right. Then raise two more cattle."
"Huifang said you were planning to release the cattle into the big pit?"
"Well! If you leave the cattle there, you don't have to worry about them running away and having to look for them everywhere. The bad thing is that the slope is too steep. We have to dig it before we can drive the cattle down."
"No, the west side of your mountain is not steep at all. If you drive the cow there, it will go down by itself."
"Is that so? I saw vines everywhere and I didn't even look at them carefully." (End of this chapter)
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