Chapter 451 Sour and sweet bayberry is delicious!
Dongkui bayberry matures later than the local wild bayberry. The few wild bayberry trees in the mountains have already turned red around the Dragon Boat Festival. As long as it rains, the ground under the trees will be covered with fallen bayberries.
Because it is too sour, even the children in the village eat less of it.
It is early July now. The sun is very strong near noon, but people can still feel cool when walking under the shade of the trees.
"Xiao Shitou, do you want some bayberry?" Gao Mingcheng held Zhang Chengyuan's son and picked a bayberry to tease him.
"Sour..." Little Stone looked at the bayberry, did not reach out to take it, but said the word "sour" incoherently.
This made Gao Mingcheng laugh.
The bayberry in his hand was of fairly large size and bright red in color. It had just ripened. In a few days, the color would turn dark red.
Gao Mingcheng threw the bayberry into his mouth. As soon as he took a bite, a sweet and sour juice burst out, making his mouth water.
After eating a bayberry, Gao Mingcheng's eyes lit up. He looked at the largest bayberry tree and was in a good mood.
This tree bore fruit the very first year it was planted. With good management this year, there are many fruits on the tree, and the taste of the fruits is slightly better than last year.
It can be seen that the taste of fruit is related to its variety and management.
Apply fertilizers and control pests frequently to ensure the healthy growth of fruit trees, and the fruit trees will reward you with sweet fruits.
The bright red bayberries are not so sour, so Gao Mingcheng put down the small stone, jumped up and picked a dark red bayberry. The sourness of this fully ripe bayberry was even lower and the taste was quite good. Gao Mingcheng picked several in a row to eat.
Little Shitou was originally afraid of sour food, but now seeing his uncle-in-law eating so happily, he also reached out to ask for some.
"Here, I'll give it to you." Gao Mingcheng picked a dark red bayberry and handed it to Xiao Shitou.
Xiao Shitou's hands were small and the bayberries were big, so he used both hands to hold the bayberries steadily. Then he imitated Gao Mingcheng and started to eat them.
After one bite, the juice dyed his mouth red.
"Sweet... sour..." The little gourmet commented with his limited language, which made Gao Mingcheng laugh.
"Wait here for me. I'll go to the foot of the mountain to get a bamboo basket." Gao Mingcheng said to Xiao Shitou. Xiao Shitou is already over two years old, and he is three years old. He can already walk very steadily and can understand what is said.
He stood there obediently, munching on the bayberries, enjoying the food very much.
Gao Mingcheng hurried down the mountain and took a bamboo basket from the shed at the foot of the mountain.
These bamboo baskets are woven by Zhang Chengyuan and Chen Dasong. After weaving, they are placed directly in the shed for use. This way, when they need to pick fruits, they can save time and energy on the road.
When Gao Mingcheng returned to the bayberry tree, he saw Xiao Shitou sitting down on the grass, having finally finished eating the bayberry in his hand.
"Uncle-in-law...I want more." Xiao Shitou pointed at the fruits on the bayberry tree, motioning Gao Mingcheng to pick more for him.
"Okay." Gao Mingcheng responded and reached out to pick one for him.
He let Xiao Shitou eat the bayberries under the shade of the tree, and he started picking bayberries.
Not all bayberry fruits ripen at once, but turn red and ripen little by little, first on the treetops and then under the shade. If the tree is large and bears many fruits, it may take several days to harvest from one tree before all the fruits can be picked.
This bayberry tree is not very big, but it is still a bit difficult to pick the bayberries at the top.
Gao Mingcheng tried, but could only climb up the tree trunk to pick them.
It seems that in order to prepare for the harvest later, he needs to ask Zhang Chengyuan to make a simple scaffolding so that people can stand on it to harvest.
In addition, you can also tie a rope to the branch of the bayberry, then pull it down little by little, and tie the other end of the rope to a large rock.
Over time, the branches will grow outwards instead of upwards due to the force.
This tree shape makes it easier to harvest the fruits later.
Gao Mingcheng decided to start pruning the tree shape after all the fruits were harvested.
He was busy alone and had picked half a frame of bayberries. After picking the ripe ones, he did not pick those that were not yet fully red.
"Oh, you ate so many bayberries? Aren't you afraid of your teeth getting sour? You can't eat anymore. Your uncle-in-law will take you to your mother! Let her spank you!"
When Gao Mingcheng was picking bayberries, Xiao Shitou sat next to the bamboo basket and ate happily by himself. Later on, he threw away the bayberries after taking a bite, wasting a lot of them.
The corners of his mouth were all covered with red juice, and even his clothes and fingers were stained red.
When he heard the word "spanking", Xiao Shitou immediately covered his butt with his hands, as if that way he would not be spanked.
"Let's go down the mountain." Gao Mingcheng picked up Xiao Shitou in one hand, carried the bamboo basket in the other, and walked quickly down the mountain.
After returning home, they found that the old ox had been almost processed thanks to the hard work of Zhang Chengyuan and six other people.
It is true that there is strength in numbers!
But the cow was too thin. After cutting it, there was not much meat left, just bones.
Gao Mingcheng looked at the mountain of bones and immediately said, "You two families can take some more bones later."
Aunt Liu agreed with a smile and said, "Mingcheng, why don't you have lunch at my house today? I'll take some meat home to cook!"
"Then take more!" Gao Mingcheng said, and went forward to take two more pieces of meat for Aunt Liu. The good meat, bones, and some offal almost filled the basket.
Aunt Liu had some difficulty lifting it.
Chen Duofu immediately took the basket and said, "Mom, I'll carry it for you."
"Okay, you take it back first, light the fire, and steam the rice. I'll go to the field to pick some more vegetables." Aunt Liu said, and the two of them divided the work.
Chen Dasong pointed at the cow's head and hooves and asked Gao Mingcheng what to do with them.
Actually, this thing is delicious, but it is very troublesome to make.
Gao Mingcheng said: "Just light a fire, burn the fur clean and then wash it."
"That's fine. I'll go get some firewood for the fire." Chen Dasong went to get some firewood, piled it up randomly, and then took a handful of dry pine needles to start the fire. Once the match was lit and thrown into the pine needles, the pine needles would quickly burn.
These pine needles are good for starting a fire, and the villagers would use homemade iron claw tools to go to the mountains to collect fallen leaves.
Soon, the fire was burning fiercely. Chen Dasong threw the cow's head and hooves directly into the fire to burn off the surface hair, and then used tongs to pull and turn them over so that the fire could burn all the hair.
The fire made crackling sounds from time to time due to the cow hair and grease, and there was a strange smell in the air, which was between the smell of stench and the aroma of meat.
Chen Dasong was roasting the cow hair while Zhang Chengyuan went to the kitchen to boil a pot of hot water to wash the cow hair more cleanly. Some of the offal also needed to be boiled in water, then washed and boiled again, and finally fried. The process was very complicated.
Gao Mingcheng kept some delicious offal, and gave all the difficult-to-clean ones to Zhang Chengyuan and Chen Dasong's families.
In addition to the internal organs, he still had eighty or ninety kilograms of good meat and about fifty kilograms of bones. The only thing left was a piece of cowhide.
If you sell this cowhide to a leather tanning workshop, you should be able to get more than ten dollars.
After busying around for most of the day, he finally finished all the work. The ground was covered with blood, so Gao Mingcheng fetched water to wash the ground.
Xuanyu had already taken Xiao Shitou back to cook, but she was always slow, and besides, she had a child to take care of, so Zhang Chengyuan probably wouldn't be able to have lunch before three in the afternoon.
When Gao Mingcheng passed by earlier, he found that Zhang Chengyuan's house was still the same, seemingly unchanged, so he asked, "Brother, are you not planning to build a house this year?"
Previously, the two sisters had a grudge against each other because Xuanyu was criticized for asking Xuanmei to borrow firewood to make bricks. In addition, Gao Mingcheng was always busy and had no time to keep an eye on Zhang Chengyuan's family affairs.
But it's already early July, and if we don't start construction, it will be too late.
Zhang Chengyuan's house is in such poor condition. It leaks in the winter and leaks in the rain. This winter will be colder than the previous two years, so Gao Mingcheng suggested that they build the house this year.
Zhang Chengyuan works fairly fast and steadily, but he just doesn't have many ideas. He's the kind of person who can't get anything out of his job even if you hit him with a stick.
Hearing Gao Mingcheng's question, he hesitated for a long time before saying, "We won't build it this year."
Gao Mingcheng was surprised because when he proposed to build a house before, Zhang Chengyuan was obviously in agreement and very happy.
Zhang Chengyuan said with some embarrassment: "Something happened to my mother. She stole other people's goods and was caught and beaten. She said she had to pay compensation. A few days ago, my eldest brother came to tell me and asked me to take some money."
Gao Mingcheng was stunned for a moment before he remembered that this was indeed the case in his previous life.
Zhang Chengyuan is the youngest son in the family. He has an older brother, and his mother lives with him.
The place where they live is called Huangyang Village. The village is adjacent to Jieshan Mountain, and there is a dirt road on Jieshan Mountain leading to other county towns, so there are cars on the road all year round.
However, the slopes of Jieshan are steep, and the current tractors do not have enough horsepower, so the speed will be very slow when pulling goods.
At this time, people can climb onto the truck bed from the back and steal things.
Anyone who is brave enough in Huangyang Village would do this. Sometimes they would steal some food, sometimes they would steal some fruit, and once, someone even stole an old bicycle.
(End of this chapter)
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