Chapter 170: Strength in Numbers
"I have someone to wipe my feet too. If I tell you to, do it! If not, don't touch me at night with the hands you use to scrape slate and rocks."
It's very stinging.
Seeing her stamping her feet in anger, Fu Jingyou laughed and pulled her into his arms, coaxing her for a while.
"Wipe it, can't I wipe it?"
"Oh, you're so dirty!"
Lu Miao hummed and twisted his body.
"It's all dust! Don't hug me!"
"Okay, okay, after we eat and take a shower, I'll apply it together, okay?"
Fu Jingyou was also afraid of dirtying her, so he took the clam oil from her hand and teased her:
"When my hands aren't prickly anymore, and my body isn't dirty or smelly anymore, I'll hug you again, okay?"
“…”
Lu Miao knew what he was thinking by looking at his eyes, and his cheeks suddenly felt hot.
"Don't give me that! Who cares if you want to wipe it or not?"
Lu Miao pushed him away and cursed inwardly, "Shameless."
After flirting and teasing, Fu Jingyou finished dinner and returned to his room after taking a shower.
Lu Miao placed the kerosene lamp on the bedside, held the newspaper in his arms, and asked him to read it together.
"Although these are old newspapers, don't think they are useless."
Lu Miao pointed to the red chronicle section in the newspaper and said:
"Look at the words and sentences used here. If the Gaokao is really restarted in the future and the exam involves Chinese essays, these words and sentences can be used with a little modification."
"So you need to read more and memorize more. There are also quotations and poems by great men. I think there's a book called the 'Little Red Book'? See if you can get a copy. You can read it whenever you have time."
"good."
Fu Jingyou nodded, and narrowed his deep peach blossom eyes slightly to read the contents of the newspaper.
I used to think that newspapers were not suitable for them to read.
Only when he focused on it did Fu Jingyou realize how extensive the content was.
From national affairs to provincial news, and so on.
At first, when Fu Jingyou wanted to read the newspaper, he had to be urged by Lu Miao.
After reading it twice, he was gradually attracted by the content. Every time he came back from work, he would flip through the pile of old newspapers and read them himself.
Sometimes when it was dark and there was no kerosene lamp, he would help Lu Miao light the fire while sitting at the stove door and watching by the firelight.
Lu Miao scolded him, saying that he was going to damage his eyes, but he just rubbed his head and laughed secretly, and didn't even put down the newspaper or book in his hands.
Lu Miao couldn't convince him, so he could only let him do what he wanted, but he would always light the kerosene lamp and place it close to his hand.
Of course, this is all later.
The commune's road construction project has been ongoing, and in the production team, Lu Miao and Gu Ying and their team are also busy working non-stop.
There is strength in numbers, and Gu Ying and her colleagues are all very efficient at their work.
In addition, Ma Tianzao was a local member, and she knew very well what could and could not be moved around the production team, and she invisibly helped several people avoid many "pitfalls".
This time, the compost created by the five people was more than six or seven times larger than before.
Previously, the compost was piled in two large piles in front of the Fu family’s doorstep. This time it was different. First of all, the location was moved from the Fu family’s doorstep to the threshing ground on the side.
The compost body also changed from a cone shape to a large compost body that was chest-high, four meters long and two meters wide.
There are all kinds of leaves in it, including dead branches and leaves, fresh leaves, etc. Among them, reed leaves contain the most nitrogen.
Brown carbon materials are easy to find in autumn, and green nitrogen materials are only available in the form of vegetable leaves and tree leaves.
There are only a limited number of leaves that can be picked from low places, so the reeds by the lake that have not completely withered have become the main material for nitrogen feed.
Of course, this time in addition to the carbon and nitrogen materials, Lu Miao also collected all the wood ash from the ash pit under the stove at home and added it in.
Wood ash contains extremely high levels of potassium and can be used as potassium fertilizer in daily farming and vegetable planting.
Adding compost together and fermenting it will be equivalent to adding an additional element needed by agricultural plants.
This time's composting took some effort, except for collecting materials in the past few days.
A pile of manure was piled up at the back and turned over every few days. The five of us chatted while working and didn't find it too much trouble.
Even after turning the pile each time, Geng Xiaoyun and her colleagues can go back to the west threshing ground to make straw ropes.
There is no delay in the work on both sides.
However, it may be because the nitrogen feed this time is mainly reeds, and the moisture and nitrogen content in them are different from the previous leaves.
The carbon-nitrogen ratio was wrong, so the compost heated up as usual and fermented faster than before, but it produced a strong odor.
The smell is not only pungent, but also a bit irritating to the eyes.
During this period, the girls were very busy, and some of the aunts and sisters-in-law in the team who were not participating came to watch out of curiosity.
When Lu Miao previously called on people to compost together, he briefly explained the principles of composting and clearly stated that it would take about ten to twenty days to produce fertilizer, and that it would not have any smell.
The aunts and sisters-in-law in the team came over to take a look, and happened to see that the compost was smelly and irritating to the eyes. After watching Lu Miao and the others busying around for a while, they all shook their heads and left.
No one said anything openly, but they were all discussing it secretly. What Lu Miao said was inconsistent, so this thing would definitely not succeed.
"What should we do? It wasn't like this last time!"
"It's just that the proportions are wrong, the nitrogen content is too high, there's still hope!"
Geng Xiaoyun and Ren Bingxin thought they were going to fail, so Lu Miao called on them to make timely remedies.
I filled it with a lot of carbon and dry leaves and stirred them around to neutralize the problem. Two days later, I checked again and found that the situation had indeed improved a lot.
The weather is getting colder, but it still can't stop the compost from fermenting.
As time goes by, the volume of the compost continues to shrink, and it once again returns to its previous state of being decomposed into residue and soil.
Geng Xiaoyun was delighted. "It's almost done! Lu Xiaomao, what was that bad smell like last time?"
The others also gathered around and listened actively.
Lu Miao looked at them and smiled:
"There are three things to pay attention to when composting. If the temperature and moisture content are fine, then the problem is definitely the ratio."
Lu Miao entered the room and took out the notes he had written on the letter paper and showed them to them:
"The carbon-nitrogen ratio is either low in carbon or low in nitrogen, and the two situations are easy to distinguish."
Gu Ying took the lead and read the letters carefully.
Only Ma Tianzao was still standing beside Lu Miao:
“How do you tell them apart?”
Ma Tianzao can recognize words, but only a few.
She glanced at the letter paper and didn't recognize most of it.
Especially since there were many chemical formulas on it, which looked like symbols that didn't look like numbers to her, making it even more difficult to understand.
Lu Miao smiled and said, "If the humidity and temperature are suitable, but the compost ferments slowly, it means the nitrogen content is low. At this time, we need to add nitrogen feed to adjust it."
"In other words, if the compost ferments quickly and has an odor, as we encountered this time, it means the nitrogen content is too high and carbon needs to be added."
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