In those days, houses were all tiled, not single-story, so there were several ways to dry corn.
Erect several wooden stakes in the yard, peel the corn, and hang the husks on the stakes in a braided fashion. Cover the stakes with a tarpaulin from top to bottom. Uncover the tarpaulin when the weather is nice, and cover it up quickly when it is cloudy.
Another method is to simply place them in the yard to dry in the sun, and then quickly bring them in if the weather looks bad.
The last method is to peel the wet corn into kernels, remove the kernels, and then sun-dry them. This is not only easy but also doesn't take up much space.
However, since peeling wet corn is quite troublesome, most families braid it and hang it up, then peel the kernels when they have nothing to do in winter. This is a good way to pass the time, and the corn cobs can also be used to start a fire, so it's a win-win situation.
Harvesting corn, clearing the land, drying corn—by the end of September, the family had already finished the autumn harvest. Even the Mid-Autumn Festival was overlooked because it fell during the busy farming season. Everyone received a mooncake, which my father bought in the county town. Each mooncake cost three thousand yuan, which was quite expensive, but the ingredients were of high quality.
Although it doesn't have the same quality ingredients as Grandma's, it's still worth the price. Mooncakes are just for the atmosphere; it's a token gesture, and nobody eats them as a meal.
My parents didn't come back for the autumn harvest this year, but they will come back after National Day when it's time to plant wheat.
Planting wheat is quite troublesome. It requires someone to pull the machine in front and someone to hold the wheat seed machine in the back, making sure it doesn't deviate from its track.
Otherwise, the wheat will not grow evenly, which will not only affect the harvest, but will also make weeding and watering in the field in the future.
Therefore, growing wheat requires skill, and these children are not skilled enough; they only need to be responsible for leveling the land.
If you can level the ground neatly and make it look flat, then you've done a good job.
The county town was bustling with activity during the National Day holiday. Colorful paper and slogans were posted in the town to celebrate the holiday. However, for the Tao family, who had just participated in the autumn harvest, all of this had nothing to do with them. As soon as the children were allowed to go out and play, the eldest brother and his family even went to Xihe Village with their grandfather.
Ah Jiu and Pan Di stayed at home to take care of the poultry and livestock, while Grandma was busy making clothes and only came out when cooking.
Around noon, my father, unusually, didn't help out at the shop. Instead, he brought a few city folks back to look at the house.
These people are all formal employees in the county town with jobs and conditions. They are not short of money, but their large families do not have enough housing. So they want to buy a larger house in the town so that, apart from those who are working, the rest of the family can live together.
Renting a house in the city is too expensive. After considering all the options, I still think it's more convenient to buy a house in the town.
I happened to have some free time today, so I came to take a look at the house.
Grandma warmly welcomed them, pouring them water, serving them peanuts, and explaining the layout of the house.
The Tao family's three-courtyard house is the best-preserved and cleanest house in town, and the asking price of 30 million is really not high.
But after the city dwellers saw the house, they felt that the price needed to be lowered by ten million, and they wanted to close the deal for twenty million, but the old man directly rejected it.
He can sell the house, but he cannot accept selling it at a low price.
After seeing off the first group of guests who came to view the house, the father did not stay.
“Lingli is still busy, Mom. I’ll go back and help first. We can talk about this later.”
Grandma seemed still immersed in the atmosphere that the house was really going to be sold, and didn't come back to her senses for a long time.
Pandi, who has only lived here for a little over a year, looks heartbroken for her grandmother.
“We’ve only lived here for a year or two, and we’ve already developed a strong attachment to it. Grandma has lived here her whole life, so she must be even more reluctant to leave. Do you really have to sell this house?”
No one can answer this question because no one knows who you will be dealing with in the future. If the G committee doesn't cause trouble, the house will always be yours. But once they do, they have plenty of ways to deal with you, and your house might be confiscated. They don't care how many heroes your family has; they only look at your class status on your household registration.
Since it was a decision made unanimously by the entire Tao family, it means that no one was entirely sure about it, especially since the Tao family had also experienced several dark years.
If Grandpa Tao hadn't reacted quickly and donated everything, leaving only these ten acres of land and a house, who knows what would have been written on the class status list!
The saying goes, "You can't catch a wolf without risking your cub." Money can be earned back, and houses can be rebuilt.
If a person is gone, then they are truly gone!
After the incident involving the flower girl, the children on this street rarely went out, and Grandma didn't dare to take her out for walks.
She wasn't a real child, so she could endure the loneliness and obediently followed her older sister to pick corn at home.
When the corn is first harvested, my family will peel some and grind it into flour or corn grits, which smells delicious.
Although her little hands weren't very fast at picking, she could still pick two or three baskets every day with her older sister.
After entering October, an autumn rain can bring a chill. It's only warm for a short while at noon, and if you don't wear a jacket in the morning and evening, you'll feel damp and cold.
After Grandma finished making the clothes, she immediately wore them out to show them off, and when she came back, there were five or six more pomegranates in her basket.
"These were given to me by your grandma, who grows pomegranate trees. Knowing that I have a little sweet tooth, she specially picked a few for me. Try them, they're very sweet!"
Yang Shiliu is three years older than her. Her full name and nickname are both Shiliu. She is also the older sister who is loved by her grandmother. So, in this era, there is still a preference for sons over daughters, but there are also granddaughters who love their granddaughters. Grandma Yang is a kind person. Every time she visits, she gives her delicious food. Just now, when Grandma visited her, she remembered to give them Shiliu. She is a generous and hospitable grandmother.
The pomegranate wasn't very big, and it didn't have soft seeds, but hard seeds. It tasted quite sweet. Grandma was worried that she would get pomegranate juice on herself, so she quickly put a smock on her. She peeled a piece and immediately handed it to Grandma.
"It's sweet, Grandma can have it."
The other half was given to the third sister, and she kept the remaining small piece for herself.
"My dear granddaughter is so filial. Thank you, Xiaojiu. But Grandma has already eaten at your sister Shiliu's house. You two eat, I'll go cook."
Their family has an old-fashioned large millstone that has been passed down for generations. When they moved away, their grandparents said they wanted to take the millstone with them. In the past, when they raised donkeys, they relied on donkeys to pull the millstone. Now that they have sold the donkeys, they can only push it by hand, and they can't push much millstone in a day, mainly because it is too tiring.
After washing and drying the freshly harvested corn kernels, pour them into a millstone and grind them round and round to sift out the cornmeal. Leave the coarser corn husks to feed the chickens and ducks. The peeled corn grits are also a good thing. Boil a pot of corn grits to drink. It's sticky and filling, but it takes too much firewood and you have to soak it in advance.
Local corn is not as sticky as corn from Northeast China; corn from Northeast China is better for making soup.
My aunt sent back some sticky corn stubble, a specialty of Northeast China, in both white and yellow varieties, along with a lot of beans and rice.
My aunt is such a kind person; this time she mailed back fifty pounds of rice, thirty pounds of corn grits, and over twenty pounds of beans.
That adds up to 100 jin of grain, and the postage alone cost a lot of money.
Although my aunt is not short of money, my grandparents are really worried about the postage and want to tell her not to go through all that trouble in the future.
“Oh dear, you know it’s not easy for me to come back. What else can I bring but food? And the food from Northeast China tastes better than the food here. Wasn’t the Northeast rice good last year? Let’s try some Northeast corn cob this year. If you like it, I’ll send you some more.”
These days, nothing is more precious than food, and sending anything else is not as reliable as sending food, because it can save lives in critical moments.
Grandma already knew from Sister Cuihua that a famine had started in 1959. The elders who had experienced the famine of 1942 had long since begun to hoard various things.
Wild vegetables, summer-grown vegetables, autumn-dried sweet potatoes, vermicelli, and other items that can be stored for a long time are all stocked up.
The Tao family never had a moment of peace. They would hoard as much as they could, and even said that in winter they would start to cut back on food and clothing, eating only two meals a day when they weren't working, and saving the one meal they saved up to eat during difficult times.
Ah Jiu really wanted to say that not only did her sister have precognitive abilities, but she also had a whole space full of fresh food. Even if she ate it for twenty years, she wouldn't be able to finish it, let alone during a famine.
If it were just consumed by her own family, it would take twenty years to finish eating it all, unless she sold it.
However, given the Tao family's financial strength, she shouldn't need to go out to earn money to support the family.
It's only 1953 now, and she'll have to endure at least another 20 or 30 years before her living conditions improve. So, she absolutely cannot just take all this stuff out to sell. As long as she can make ends meet, she has to rely on her own hands to create value.
Before the Frost's Descent, her grandparents, her older sister, and she went to harvest sweet potatoes and potatoes, which are necessities for getting through the winter.
We planted potatoes in the backyard of the old house, and vegetables in the front yard, including pumpkins and winter melons, which have climbed all over the wall and produced quite a few. However, we can wait a little longer and harvest them when it gets cold. One big pumpkin is enough for the family to eat for two meals. Winter melons and pumpkins are both necessities for winter storage.
Grandma planted these potatoes and sweet potatoes in the fields. Although the space is small, she can store so many!
They even cleared the riverbank land. Adhering to the principle of harvesting whatever they could, after three to five days of hard work, they managed to dig up five or six hundred catties of sweet potatoes and about three hundred catties of potatoes. For the whole family, it was a bit little, but for farming in any spare moment, it was quite a lot.
"See? Heaven is watching. You reap what you sow. This fertilizer wasn't wasted. We'll have enough sweet potatoes and potatoes for this winter, and maybe we can even make some vermicelli!"
We harvested over 400 jin of sweet potatoes from the riverbank. This was barren land, completely dependent on the weather, but the harvest was unexpectedly quite good.
After the sweet potatoes were harvested, the sweet potato vines were all brought home without a moment's delay. Sheep and rabbits love to eat them, and we absolutely couldn't let others have them.
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