My previous experience of being bitten by a venomous snake on the east side of the lake did not serve as a wake-up call; I still believed that I could overcome any difficulty.
Just like my previous trip to the east side of the lake, the seeds of evil have been sown, and time will only provide the nutrients for their rapid growth.
These are all things for later. I am currently quite satisfied with my life. At least regarding the issue of migratory birds flying south, it has only caused me some trouble and has not aroused my desire to explore it.
Top and I often go for a stroll by the lake to see the unidentified water birds.
Sometimes I would stare blankly in the direction the waterbirds were flying from, as if they were flying over from the other side of civilized society.
When the weather gets cold, I lose my source of fresh live fish. The chickens I raise used to eat fish innards, but as fish became scarcer, I had to chop them up and use the meat to feed them.
Fortunately, there are many waterbirds here, and they are quite large. So I came up with a good idea: hunt some migratory birds like swans and geese, and cut off their meat to feed my chicks.
In a civilized society, swans are far more valuable than pheasants. But I don't care about that. Pheasants are like family members to me, and how could I not think of my family members?
Now even the chickens I raise are living the life of eating swan meat every day. This outrageous behavior is something that even the most evil capitalists would be furious about.
January arrived, and the weather grew even colder. The sun, having grown accustomed to staying in bed, hid behind its blankets, refusing to come out.
The area around my residence was gloomy all day long, starting in the morning.
The biting wind relentlessly tore at the surrounding trees; many trees were either broken by the hurricane or large sections of branches were snapped off.
Several hurricanes scared me half to death.
A massive hurricane swept through, even ripping the roof off my shed. The thick logs looked as tiny as dust in the sky, and the high-speed logs resembled terrifying cannonballs.
The impacts either broke the trees or snapped them in two. That day, even Top and his monkeys followed me into a low-lying, windproof spot, trembling with fear.
Stones and logs whizzed overhead, and the cracking and snapping of trees echoed incessantly. Many ferocious beasts groaned and trembled.
Faced with the might of nature, the power of any carbon-based life form seems so vulnerable.
Afterwards, I returned to my residence to check. The two trees that were used as tree beds and storage were relatively lucky; they were not broken or snapped.
However, this is related to my awareness that I should have taken appropriate measures when I witnessed a hurricane that was not yet that powerful.
When I first encountered a hurricane, my treehouse and warehouse survived unscathed. But being prepared is my standard of conduct, and this hurricane served as a reminder.
The next day, I cut off all the large branches of the two trees. Almost all that remained of the two trees were the branches that supported my weight.
This action greatly reduced wind resistance, saving the two trees from destruction.
After that, I came up with many strange and wonderful ways to reinforce my treehouse and warehouse. For example, I made thick ropes and tied the entire warehouse to the tree like a rice dumpling.
Or I could thread thousands of bamboo strips through my treehouse to make a fine net, similar to a funnel web or spider knot, to wrap the treehouse, and then tie 49 icicle knots on the tree trunk for anti-slip and fixation.
It was precisely because of these proactive measures that the damage to my treehouse and warehouse was minimized.
Even so, my three buildings were damaged to varying degrees, with the shed that was built first being the most severely damaged.
Because I hadn't thought that far ahead, my shed was almost instantly razed to the ground by the hurricane.
Apart from the few pillars that were blown about and remained in place, the rest of the debris had flown off to some unknown mountain.
The firewood I had stored in the shed was also destroyed. It took me two whole days to collect the scattered firewood.
Even so, a large portion of the firewood was taken away by the hurricane, and I only managed to salvage about a third of it.
The loss of firewood this time has had some impact on me, but fortunately, many tree branches were broken after the hurricane, so it was easier to collect them than before.
Secondly, there's my warehouse. Even though I tied it up as tightly as a rice dumpling, the top was still blown off by the hurricane and is nowhere to be found.
Fortunately, I had already made an outward-opening door using bamboo strips and bamboo slats for the door that I hadn't made before, and the principle was the same as my treehouse door curtain.
Fortunately, the octagonal structure effectively dispersed the wind; otherwise, the consequences for my warehouse would have been unimaginable.
Nothing inside was stolen, except for the loss of the roof's protection. The hurricane's massive backflow flooded the warehouse, blowing out everything in the bamboo baskets and leaving a mess on the floor.
It took me almost a whole day to pack everything up. The dried fish were relatively easy to handle. But the chestnuts and smaller pine nuts mixed together were a real headache.
In the end, I had to make a sieve with the right mesh size to separate the pine nuts from the chestnuts.
Actually, if it weren't for the large quantity of nuts I had stored, I wouldn't have bothered separating them. However, unlike pine nuts, chestnuts are prone to insect infestation after the start of spring when the weather warms up.
If you don't store them separately, the worms in the chestnuts will indirectly affect the pine nuts. It's better to keep only one type than for both to get infested.
Previously, I only focused on putting food in and didn't bother to keep track of how much there was. After this inventory check, I now know exactly what my current wealth is.
The largest quantity of food was dried fish, which accounted for about 80 percent of the food reserves. There were fifteen large baskets in total, with each basket estimated to weigh around 40 jin (approximately 20 kg), so the dried fish should weigh over 600 jin (approximately 300 kg).
Next, there are about six baskets of chestnuts left. Chestnuts are more compact, and each basket weighs about 20 pounds more than dried fish, totaling more than 360 pounds.
Then there was a basket of smoked wild ducks and swans, five smoked rabbits, and a smoked beaver that had eaten some.
What hurt me the most was the raisins that had been drying. I only realized this when the first hurricane hit.
When Top and I arrived, most of the grapevines had already disappeared. We finally found some left on some vines, and it took us a whole day to barely manage to harvest a load.
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