Chapter 23
As the weather gets colder, it becomes harder to catch small fish and shrimp in the stream.
Shu Wanxiu thought the shallow waters would be different, so she wore a homemade winter coat made of reeds and straw and braved the cold wind to fish in the shallow waters.
On a freezing day, with the water emitting icy steam, she took off her shoes and went down into the water. The icy wind and the bone-chilling water made her shiver, but after gritting her teeth and working hard for a while, she reaped very little.
I heard that big fish are also hard to catch at this time of year. After several days without any fish going into the trap, my uncle took the trap back.
He comforted Shu Wanxiu, saying that it was time for winter, and that these big and small fish should rest and recuperate for the winter.
So far, they have done business in the county town three times. On the last two occasions, Shu Wanxiu still brought small fish and shrimp and freshly picked vegetables from the field that day. However, the vegetables were no longer the first batch, and she voluntarily reduced the price from three coins to two coins.
In this way, after three trips, Shu Wanxiu earned a total of 520 coins. Apart from the initial purchase of some needles, thread and cloth scraps, she kept the money at home and did not dare to spend a single penny recklessly.
The winter solstice was on the 21st day of the 12th month of the Renshen year.
Last year at home, on the winter solstice, Shu Wanxiu, along with her mother and sister-in-law, made a lot of dumplings filled with pork and cabbage. In the evening, they sat around the fire pit, each of them eating a big bowl of piping hot dumplings, and they all ate until they were warm and sweating.
On this day this year, Shu Wanxiu chose a spot behind the house and dug a deep pit by herself with a hoe.
Before winter, every household in Wupai Village began composting manure to prepare for spring fertilization in the fields next year.
After finishing her business and having two days of free time, Shu Wanxiu followed suit and started preparing with everyone else. She went to the water's edge to cut some evergreen wild grass, dug up some silt from the stream, collected some rice-washing water, and went to the mountains and forests to collect some withered branches and leaves.
According to the villagers, these are all good materials for composting. Shu Wanxiu excitedly followed everyone and brought everything over, only to find that she didn't have a composting pit at home.
When Pang Lizhang's eighth uncle lived alone on the mountain, he did farm and compost, but to save effort, he dug the compost pit next to his own field, just a short walk from the edge of the mountain.
After he passed away, the land was divided among other families, and the compost pit also belonged to someone else.
Now that Shu Wanxiu wants to compost, she needs to dig a new one herself.
She went to the village to see for herself that the compost pits in each household varied in size, and were basically related to the amount of farmland they owned.
Although she didn't receive any farmland, Shu Wanxiu felt that it would be at most three or four mu.
She had already reduced the size of her compost pit compared to others, but she still hadn't finished digging it after two days.
Digging a hole is completely different from turning over soil. The soil gets harder as you go down. In the same amount of time, she could turn over the soil and find several clods of vegetable soil.
The weather was gloomy and overcast, with a north wind blowing from time to time that made people shiver. Shu Shouyi, wearing a padded jacket, warmed himself by the fire in the shed, and every now and then he would cumbersomely go out to bring Shu Wanxiu a bowl of water.
After two months of recuperation, Shu Shouyi did gain some weight, but this heaviness was not due to weight gain, but rather to his clothes.
This year, with no winter clothes available, Shu Wanxiu has put a lot of thought into her winter attire.
She's grown up now, so there's no need to worry too much about her resistance to cold. The family has stocked up on enough firewood for the winter, so she can just sit by the fire most of the time and not go out.
But children are different. Children are most vulnerable to death during the winter. They can catch a cold even from a slight gust of cold wind.
The two of them each had two sets of clothes, which Shu Wanxiu sewed up and turned into one jacket for each of them.
Her own outfit consisted of a large coat over a smaller one, with all the gaps in the front, back, arms, and legs filled with cattail fluff. It looked bulky, but it wasn't actually very warm. To avoid catching a cold, she had to tie another layer of windproof straw over her clothes.
Shu Shouyi's jacket looked the same as hers on the outside, but inside, a whole rabbit skin that Xun Yi had tanned was sewn onto the chest.
This child was already short and stocky, not yet fully grown. He was wearing a padded jacket stuffed with cattail fluff and had a ring of straw tied around the outside of the jacket. No wonder he looked clumsy when he moved around.
"Auntie, would you like to have a seat?"
While Shu Wanxiu was drinking water, Shu Shouyi trudged along and clumsily moved a stool to place next to her.
"No need, Auntie isn't tired yet. You take the bowl and go inside, go sit by the fire." Shu Wanxiu handed him the bowl of water she had finished drinking.
Because she was doing physical labor, Shu Wanxiu was only wearing a lined jacket and did not tie straw to the outside of her clothes, so her movements were as nimble as before.
Shu Shouyi slowly took the bowl and obediently returned to the hearth.
—In retrospect, Shu Wanxiu miscalculated.
She thought the fire pit she had dug earlier would be useless when she hid the money, but she didn't expect that warming herself around the fire pit was the only way to warm herself in winter.
Therefore, after the money inside was transferred out, the hearth was put back into use.
A note from the author:
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