As it grew darker, I waved and called out to the diligent monkey.
"Top, it's getting dark. Let's call it a day and head back."
Top quickly tied the last rope, then jumped down from the tree, a bunch of grapes still in its hand.
It had eaten quite a bit with the monkeys in the tree before, and this string of food seemed to be a token of friendship between old friends. It had specially brought it down for me to eat.
I smiled and took the bunch of grapes from Top's hand; the monkey was still as well-behaved as ever.
Back at our lodging, the monkeys were quite tired after a long day's work. Instead of going back up the trees, they simply sat or lay down in my shed and started to doze off.
That makes sense. They only needed to fill their own stomachs, and they never experienced the high-intensity labor of human society. It's only natural that they would get tired.
The few grapes the monkey ate were obviously not enough, so I picked some wild vegetables from the garden, then cooked them with my dried fish in a big pot.
Since we're all brothers, we should naturally share the good times and occasionally treat these monkeys to a treat.
However, this kind of thing can't be done too often, otherwise cooking and reasonable allocation will become another problem.
The monkeys were probably eating cooked food for the first time, and they were so engrossed in eating that their eyes were practically spinning. They never imagined that there could be such delicious food in the world.
Top was much calmer than the others; it had recently learned to use chopsticks. It was using its own chopsticks to rummage through the pot, seemingly tired of these things and finding them unpalatable.
Watching this scene, I smiled and shook my head. The way the monkey flipped the pot was so similar to my old picky dog, Big Yellow.
With the grape harvest finished, I felt much more at ease. If the weather is good, I estimate I can get two or three hundred pounds of raisins by drying all the grapes.
After resting for a day, I went back to the place where I had previously discovered the yellow muntjac and set up several bouncy traps. In our area, we call these bouncy traps "ghost-pulling traps".
I didn't intend to let that sugarcane field go either. I originally planned to use rope traps to catch the wild rabbits there, but considering that the teeth of these rodents are very sharp, they would easily bite through my ropes.
So I plan to use a different trap to deal with these cunning rabbits. The materials I'll use are simple: just some ready-made stone slabs.
Lift the stone slabs and prop them up with thin branches to form an unstable lever. Place these slabs in the path of rabbits that frequently cross the land; they are highly likely to trigger the trap and be crushed by the slabs.
To increase the success rate, I also placed some chopped sugarcane around the stone slabs. Rabbits love sweets, and this sugarcane will effectively attract them to forage for food.
After that, I organized a troop of monkeys to go to that pine forest and pluck all the pine cones from it. This harvest wasn't as bountiful as the wild grape yield.
However, we still harvested nearly a load of pine nuts, which are a great thing and perfect for passing the winter.
That chestnut grove yielded much more than pine nuts; we went to that chestnut grove twice just to collect pure chestnuts.
The first harvest yielded four loads, the second three loads. A total of seven loads of chestnuts weighed down my shoulders and made them ache for days.
During this time, Top's family also received good news: several newborn monkeys were added to their group.
The mother monkeys weren't afraid of me at all, and they would often come to my enclosure with their babies looking for food. I would also occasionally feed these mother monkeys with their babies.
Over time, they figured out my eating habits. At mealtimes, these female monkeys would bring their babies to my shed to wait.
Knowing that these baby monkeys will also be members of our big family in the future, I always cook extra food to feed the mother monkeys.
…………
Time flies, and it's already mid-September. Today is the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, which is also our traditional festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Today is a day for family reunion, and I've long considered those monkeys as family. Today, I will spend this holiday with these guys.
To avoid overthinking on such an important holiday, I got up very early in the morning.
Since autumn has arrived and the weather is not as hot as before, the fish in the lake have started to feed again.
The first thing I checked was my longline fishing spot by the lake, and it didn't disappoint me today. I caught two large carp weighing five or six pounds each, more than ten mandarin fish weighing one or two pounds each, and some other fish.
After such a long time, I can finally eat fresh fish again.
After that, I went to the sugarcane field. Because the traps were made with stones, and the rabbits were quite large, several of the stone traps, when triggered, did not kill the rabbits but instead allowed them to escape.
After all, this kind of trap is best suited for dealing with small rodents like mice, and it's a bit of a stretch to deal with rabbits.
However, I eventually found two unlucky rabbits in a corner. Their heads were stuck in the stone slabs, so they didn't have time to run away.
This must be what they mean by getting your head caught in a door.
I went to check out the bouncy traps on a whim, but several traps were triggered, and I didn't catch anything.
Until they reached the last elastic trap, the rope of which was not empty. However, what they caught was not a yellow muntjac, but a yellow mountain squirrel.
Generally, these traps pose no threat to squirrels. Even if they are caught in the snare, their sharp incisors can easily gnaw through the snare and escape.
However, this Huangshan squirrel was exceptionally unlucky; it was locked up right around its neck.
After being locked up, this little thing must have struggled desperately out of fear, causing the rope to tighten and tighten until it strangled the poor creature to death.
Ah... it's a stick in length, and a piece of meat in size. I didn't mind, and as usual, I threw it into my basket.
On my way back, as I passed a meadow, I heard a clucking sound coming from the bushes not far away.
I listened for several minutes, and the voice was still calling out in the same spot.
Based on my past experience hunting with my father in the mountains, this should be a young pheasant, what we usually call a wild pheasant. And it's a female, as its clucking is similar to that of a domestic hen.
The fact that it keeps calling in one place proves that its nest is definitely in that location, and that it has just laid a wild egg.
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