Late May and early June is their summer harvest season.
Because once wheat matures, it cannot be delayed; otherwise, a sudden downpour could lead to a series of problems.
Once dry wheat gets rained on, it will make harvesting difficult. Wet wheat is not easy to cut. Heavy rain will wash the plump wheat grains into the ground, resulting in reduced yield. In less than a month, the wheat will cover the ground, which will bring endless workload. Therefore, the summer harvest is more intense than the autumn harvest.
Older generations of people would observe the weather, because the rainy season begins in June, and it can rain anytime, anywhere, which can be unexpected. Light rain is tolerable, but if there is heavy rain, strong winds, and hail, the harvest will almost be wiped out.
So once the wheat harvest was planned, even Tao Changyi and his wife, along with Cuihua, closed their doors and came back to harvest the wheat.
This year, with many people in the family harvesting wheat, Grandma devoted herself to cooking at home with Cuihua. After cooking, the three of them would come back to eat and then deliver the food to others. Because some people would take advantage of the harvest, someone had to be there to watch over their grain at all times, no matter how hot it was.
Fortunately, there were many trees in that era. As long as there was shade, people could bear it. Compared to the high temperatures of 35 or 40 degrees Celsius in later generations, in an era before industrial pollution, the temperature was not particularly high. It could reach above 30 degrees Celsius, but not 35 degrees Celsius, which was definitely bearable. After all, there were no fans or air conditioners, and the body had to regulate its own temperature.
When it gets cooler in the evening, Grandma will take her and her brother to the fields to help pick up the fallen wheat ears.
Before dark, the wheat was brought to the threshing ground, and each household used its own methods to thresh the grains from the ears of wheat. This is when the advantage of having livestock became apparent.
For any family that raises livestock, which one doesn't have ten or so acres of land to work on? Borrowing is definitely not an easy task. Fortunately, they have a large family, so they can work together to go to the threshing ground and use heavy objects to beat the grain, which can also help with threshing.
While Tao Changyi led the whole family, big and small, to dry and turn the wheat, Grandma would lead her and Tao An to pick up wheat in the fields from dawn till dusk. They would not only look at their own fields, but also at other people's fields. This was the case in other people's fields as well. So in those days, you could hardly see any leftover wheat grains in the fields. Yes, not wheat ears, but wheat grains. It was an era when not even a single wheat grain was left behind!
Sweat drips onto the soil beneath the crops; who knows the food on the plate?
This truly demonstrates the hardships of being a farmer. In her previous life, Ning Meng had also visited the countryside, but back then it was the age of mechanization. After the machines harvested the wheat, few people bothered to pick it up, not even on their own land. It was mostly elderly people who had lived through that era who would carry sacks to pick up the wheat ears every day. Their thinking was simple: they felt that the flour from the flour mill didn't taste good, and only the flour they ground themselves was fragrant. So they picked it up for health reasons, not for basic sustenance.
In the 21st century, there are very few families on their plains who go hungry, unless they are brought down by disease. Even in rural areas, there are no truly poor families.
Every time Xiao Jiu went out with the old lady, she felt heartbroken watching her hunched over, repeatedly squatting down to pick at the wheat grains in the ground.
No matter how heartbreaking it is, we have to work together, because these tiny grains of wheat can be ground into trays of white flour!
"Grandma, look! There's a worm! A worm! A worm!"
The young man's sudden scream disrupted her rhythm. She stood up and looked over, and she was startled as well.
I quickly grabbed the old lady's arm and almost jumped on her, because she then realized that the "long worm" was actually a snake!
It was a patterned snake. Although there were almost no venomous snakes in the plains, this was the first time she had seen a snake since she transmigrated here.
Grandma reacted quickly, picking them both up at the same time while comforting them.
"It's alright, look, it's already run away. It's probably because the wheat was harvested and it had nowhere to hide. Every year when we harvest wheat, we encounter a lot of snakes. You wouldn't believe it, your grandpa and dad saw several this year. As long as you don't touch it, it won't bite you. Snakes are very intelligent animals."
Xiao Jiu is most afraid of these cold-blooded animals, especially that snake just now. It was not small at all; it was thick and long, and it looked quite creepy.
After the snake slithered away, when she went back to glean wheat, she would constantly look around at the fields, as if haunted, afraid that another one might suddenly appear.
He even subconsciously nibbled on a cornbread to calm his nerves.
After the wheat is completely dried, stored in the granary, and handed over to the government, what's left is yours.
This year, their family planted wheat on six mu of land, yielding four to five hundred jin per mu, with a total weight of less than three thousand jin. After handing over thirty percent of the weight, they were left with about two thousand jin of grain, which would last them a year.
Their family has twelve members. If each person eats an average of six liang (300 grams) of grain per day, they need seven jin (3.5 catties) of grain per day, 210 jin (100 catties) per month, and 2,600 jin (1300 kg) per year. That's only two thousand jin of staple food. How can that be enough?
Even if there were corn, sweet potatoes, and potatoes in the second half of the season, they were only basic food. We still had to hand over grain to the government. So, in those days, we were really stingy with food. It was calculated by the tael. Six taels per person per day was the minimum. Even if it was calculated by the jin, it wasn't much. If it was calculated by the jin, the harvest from the land was barely enough to eat throughout the year. That's why people had it so hard!
With a large family, if they don't start a business and earn some capital, they really won't be able to survive.
The grain used for business is all bought from various places. How can the grain produced on our own land be enough?
It's really hard to calculate how much each person eats every day. When you have a good appetite, you eat more, and who can say anything about that? When you don't have a good appetite, you don't eat much. Even the chickens, ducks, and geese at home need to eat. Who would calculate exactly how much grain they consume every day?
This is only because the Tao family has some wealth. If they had no foundation at all, no matter how capable Cuihua is, they still wouldn't be able to support her.
Unlike now, everyone has their own responsibilities at home and outside, and the atmosphere is so good that we're practically a real family.
Regarding the issue of the three sisters settling down, they had inquired in the town. Since the country is currently conducting urban population statistics, their area will be next. It wouldn't be too late to settle down once the street starts issuing household registration certificates. However, the land will still be allocated according to the current system. Having more people doesn't mean you'll get more acres of land. The Tao family knew this, so they didn't take it to heart.
After all, the government can now give their family ten acres of land, plus a vegetable plot of one-tenth of an acre per person. Although it's a vegetable plot under the trees, at least it's a vegetable plot. With land and vegetables, what else is there to ask for?
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