The weather is getting colder every day.
Although it hasn't snowed in late autumn in the north, it's already so cold that you're afraid to even touch your hands.
To prevent the food from freezing, Qiao An'an and the others did not bring the corn from the tunnel up, but instead neatly stacked it in the cellar. To prevent the potatoes from sprouting, they also put the potatoes they had harvested earlier in.
We still use the back bungalow to get in and out of the courtyard and into the mountains, but we no longer dare to plant anything in the courtyard.
They were only able to receive the corn last time because Li Jianguo asked them to help him get revenge.
Someone else might have reaped nothing.
This time, Qiao An'an didn't go to collect firewood with Gu Bei and Chi Xiaoyu, but instead went to the rooftop to tend to the vegetable garden.
Ever since they planted vegetables on the roof, every time they watered the vegetables, they had to carry very heavy buckets of water from the yard to the roof. This kind of physical labor could only be done by her, an adult.
Before carrying water upstairs, Qiao An'an sprinkled a little rice into the fish pond. After she did, the dozen or so fish in the pond didn't move at all. These fish had been fed by Qiao An'an and used to automatically gather around whenever she stood by the pond. What was wrong with them today? Qiao An'an wondered, "Why aren't they eating?"
The elderly are sensitive to the cold. While Qiao An'an and the others were still wearing thick coats, Grandpa Gu Bei had already put on his down jacket.
Grandpa Gu pulled his down jacket tighter and said, "The temperature dropped sharply this morning. I guess the fish are afraid of the cold. Fish eat less in winter anyway. You should feed them less in the future and feed them around noon."
After responding, Qiao An'an carried the water into the house.
She first added some water to the pigsty in the lobby. The pigs had been eating a lot these past few days, and she felt she could hardly afford to feed them anymore. She planned to slaughter the pigs when the first snow fell.
She then went into the chicken coop and took out six eggs from the nest. She put the eggs in the kitchen drawer; these would be their protein source for breakfast tomorrow. They would eat five eggs a day and save one. She had already saved about ten, and she planned to collect 20 before hatching a brood of chicks. A hen's egg-laying cycle is 180 to 200 days, so that when the first generation of hens could no longer lay eggs, the subsequent chicks would have grown up and could provide them with eggs.
After placing the eggs, Qiao An'an carried water up the stairs to the top floor to water the vegetables.
Although it hasn't snowed yet, the weather is already quite cold.
So Grandpa Gu Bei also made a simple shed out of bamboo on the roof, with the entrance being the staircase leading to the roof.
The eggplants and tomatoes in the greenhouse have already blossomed, and the cucumbers have started to climb. The cabbages, green onions, and radishes have all grown quite tall, but it's not time to eat them yet. The water spinach is growing very densely. Qiao An'an waters the plants while picking water spinach. After picking enough for one meal, Qiao An'an carries the empty bucket and the picked vegetables downstairs.
After going downstairs, I found that Grandpa Gu Bei and Ya Ya were actually in the yard.
She stepped forward and saw Grandpa Gu Bei using a needle to scratch the garlic she had planted at the beginning of the apocalypse.
She was puzzled: "Why did Grandpa cut the garlic in half?"
Grandpa Gu Bei deftly pulled a round, strip-shaped object from the sliced garlic.
Qiao An'an looked closer and realized it was a garlic scape. She was surprised: "This is the first time I've ever known that garlic scapes grow inside garlic cloves."
Grandpa Gu Bei smiled and nodded: "Garlic scapes are the flower stalks that grow out of garlic. When the garlic grows to a certain size, you need to manually pull out the garlic scapes, otherwise the garlic scapes will absorb nutrients and flower, and the garlic bulbs growing in the ground will not grow big."
I see.
Qiao An'an suddenly realized.
Ya Ya took the garlic scapes from Grandpa Gu Bei's hand: "Grandpa, didn't you say you were going to stir-fry them with meat for me? How did they turn into garlic flower stalks?"
Qiao An'an used well water to rinse the water spinach and garlic shoots clean.
The vegetables we grow ourselves are pesticide-free, unlike the ones we buy at the market that need to be soaked for a long time; we just need to rinse them clean.
Grandpa Gu Bei walked into the kitchen with the rinsed water spinach and garlic shoots, and took out a bag of cured meat from the shelf behind the rice container: "Isn't this meat? We're having garlic shoots stir-fried with meat today."
This bag of cured pork was from when they first decided to turn off the refrigerator. At that time, there wasn't much pork left, and it wouldn't have been impossible to finish it all at once. However, Grandpa Gu Bei said that if they finished it all at once, it would be difficult to eat pork again. He suggested that they pick out a few pieces and cure them into cured pork.
After it was pickled and dried, it was kept on the shelf behind the rice bin. If Grandpa Gu Bei hadn't mentioned it, Qiao An'an would have forgotten that there was still cured meat at home.
Ya Ya had never eaten cured meat before. Looking at the hard, sturdy cured meat, she asked doubtfully, "Can it taste good?"
Grandpa Gu Bei said confidently, "I guarantee it will be delicious."
Qiao An'an wasn't very good at preparing cured meat. After cooking the rice, she sat behind the stove to help tend the fire.
With a large family, the rice was being consumed quickly. Fearing that the rice would run out by the end of the year if she continued eating like this, she added a few potatoes and ears of corn while cooking the rice.
Grandpa Gu first put some water in the wok and put one piece of cured meat in to cook, saving the other pieces for the next meal.
After the cured pork started cooking, Grandpa Gu Bei cut the garlic shoots into small sections.
Next, separate the leaves and stems of the water spinach. Put the leaves in a separate plate, and cut the stems into sections after slicing them open with a knife.
Then Grandpa Gu Bei chopped a few more cloves of garlic, preparing to put them into the water spinach later.
After all the preparations were completed, the cured pork in the pot was almost cooked. Grandpa Gu Bei poked the cured pork with chopsticks to make sure it was cooked through, then used chopsticks to take it out, rinsed it with cold water, and sliced it into thin slices.
While Grandpa Gu Bei was cutting the cured meat, Qiao An'an poured out the water from the wok and washed the wok clean.
After Grandpa Gu Bei finished slicing the cured pork, he immediately started cooking. He first poured some soybean oil into the pot, and after the oil was hot, he added the cured pork. After frying out the pork cracklings, he added garlic scapes. The garlic scapes, which he picked himself, were super tender. Since the cured pork was already salty, it was still very salty even after boiling. So he just stirred the garlic scapes in the pot for a bit, added only dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, and chicken bouillon, and was ready to take it off the heat. Before taking it off the heat, Grandpa Gu Bei added a little vinegar.
The aroma of stir-fried cured pork with garlic shoots immediately filled the air.
Ya Ya smelled the aroma of the cured meat and exclaimed, "It smells so good!!!"
Grandpa Gu Bei picked out a piece of cured meat with a good balance of fat and lean meat, put it in a bowl, and handed it to Ya Ya.
Ya Ya sat down at the kitchen doorway with her bowl in her arms and happily started munching on the cured meat.
It made even the big black dog drool.
Its tail wagged like a rattle drum.
Seeing how pitiful Dahei was, Qiao An'an found a piece of fatty meat with skin on and threw it to Dahei.
When Chi Xiaoyu and Gu Bei returned from gathering firewood, lunch was already laid out on the table: cooked corn, potatoes, and rice, as well as stir-fried pork with garlic sprouts, water spinach stems with minced garlic, water spinach and egg soup, and soybean paste.
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