We each ate another bowl of noodles before we were finally satisfied and helped each other out the door, much to the dismay of the shop owner.
Because he was watching us the whole time, we didn't drink any alcohol at all, so there's no question of us getting drunk; we were just too full.
The past is always so wonderful; I could hear everyone's laughter every day. How wonderful it would be if I could stay young forever, remaining in those carefree days of childhood.
I sighed; my stomach, after a period of rest and recuperation, was finally much better.
After eating and drinking my fill, and with the cool breeze blowing through the cliff face from the mountainside, my eyelids gradually grew heavy, and drowsiness crept in.
When I woke up the next day, as usual, I drew a horizontal line in my diary with ink. Looking at the dense tally marks in front of me, it represented the number of days I had been here.
Sigh! I don't want to think about it anymore. Anyway, it's good that I'm still alive. I splashed cold water on my face, and my drowsy state was lifted.
There's one more important thing to do today: those dried meats can't stay on the ground any longer.
This is not only a hygiene issue, but more importantly, I'm worried that those insects might carry viruses or something similar, and it would be troublesome if I ate them and got sick.
I was lucky once before, managing to survive from a viral infection. But I don't believe I can be that lucky every time; relying on luck to survive in the wilderness is unlikely to last long.
I plan to use pottery techniques to build a granary. The main drawback is that it's a bit heavy. However, it's sturdy and waterproof, and with a pottery lid, snakes, insects, and rodents won't be able to get in.
However, the materials for building the granary have been exhausted, and if they are to build it, they must go out and find some more clay.
Considering that I may store a lot of supplies in the future, the earthenware jars for storage need to be made larger.
This leads to another headache: my kiln is of limited size, and large pottery pieces simply cannot fit inside, let alone be fired.
I thought about it for a while, and if it's pottery for storage, the standards don't need to be so strict.
The materials don't need to be too particular; there's yellow clay in the nearby mountains and forests, so firing that kind of low-temperature pottery shouldn't be a problem.
I estimated the size of the pottery to be fired; if this kind of pottery is to be used for large-scale storage, it would need to be at least one meter in diameter.
The bottom of the cylinder is estimated to be several tens of centimeters in diameter, which the turntable can barely support.
I came to the woods on the other side of the stream. Because it had just rained, some parts of the mountain had collapsed, exposing yellow clay underneath.
I made several trips back and forth, bringing back quite a bit of yellow clay from the other side. After bringing it back, it still needs to undergo preliminary cleaning to remove large pebbles and other impurities.
Because the impurity removal process requires adding water and stirring to form a fine, thin slurry before filtering, it takes a considerable amount of time.
It took me half a day just to filter the soil with a crude vine net, and the filtered soil still needed to settle for at least two hours before the clear water on top could be removed.
To speed up the extraction of water from the mud, I used a lot of palm fiber to sew five or six layers of fine, dense bags.
I scooped the soil out with a wooden ladle and poured it into this bag, then folded the bag opening several times to seal it, and weighed it down with a large stone.
Soon, under immense pressure, the moisture was squeezed out from between the soil particles. This method inspired me to observe how people use molds to press tofu when making it.
The state of the mud is similar to that of unprocessed tofu pudding. Since tofu can be dehydrated and shaped by extrusion, mud should also be fine.
After pressing it with a stone for five minutes, no more water droplets fell from the brown wool bag, indicating that the moisture content inside had decreased considerably.
I opened the brown wool bag, and sure enough, the mud inside had been squeezed into a lump of soil, similar to the state of well-mixed clay.
Next, I used the same method to process the remaining mud, dehydrating it into semi-dry clay.
A large lump of clay is placed on the turntable, and the rotor below is turned. The clay then spins rapidly under the drive of the base's axle.
Because this pottery piece is more than twice the size of the water tank I made before, the clay almost completely filled the base.
I carefully made a rough shape for the base first, with only enough clay in my hands for a third of a clay jar.
For the remaining part, I could only first pat the clay into long strips, then add them layer by layer to the third of the shaped clay body, gradually expanding the middle part to give the jar a belly, so that it could hold more.
Each time, I dared not add too much clay at once. I would add a few layers and then rotate the base to smooth and solidify the clay strips before continuing to add more clay strips.
The first earthenware jar was finally completed after half an hour. Because of its weight, the jar was still somewhat soft when it was first made, so some parts sagged slightly.
To solve this problem, I scooped out some wood ash from the stove and spread a layer on the surface of the clay brick.
Wood ash is highly absorbent. As soon as it comes into contact with the surface of the clay, the clay, which already has little moisture, immediately loses its luster and becomes harder.
I planned to make the remaining clay into earthenware jars like these. After a while, I made two earthenware jars of the same size as the first one.
Then repeat the previous steps, using dry grass and twigs to build up a mud mold, and then burn it to harden it.
The outside was still sealed with branches, and firewood was piled up around it to bake it until the moisture in the pottery inside was completely evaporated.
By the time the three earthenware jars were completely dry, it was already dark, so it seemed they would have to continue firing the jars the next day.
Since there was a canopy above to protect it from the rain, I left the three earthenware jars in the mud pile.
I packed up some tools and took Top, who was getting sleepy from waiting, back to our lodging.
I didn't go hunting today, so I had to stay home and eat what I had saved. I quickly prepared yesterday's smoked fish and cooked it.
I only cooked the remaining half of the fish, and I added some taro to it. This taro was a little bit that I had specially saved for Top when making taro starch.
To be honest, I probably ate too much yesterday, because I don't feel hungry at all today even though I haven't eaten.
Normally, half a fish wouldn't be enough for us at night, but this time, Top and I think it would be just right; any more and we probably wouldn't be able to eat anymore.
Fortunately, I think I can finish my work tomorrow and get everything in order, so I can start training the harpy eagle that I've been working with for so long.
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