Chapter 42 Raising chickens means our son will enjoy a life of luxury in the future.
It felt wonderful not having to go to work. Qin Xiangxiang slept until a little after eight o'clock, then opened the curtains to find the sunlight shining brightly. The master bedroom was spacious and large, and she didn't want to get out of bed at all.
After a quick wash, I cooked some salted fish noodles with some pickles, and made do with a simple breakfast for the kids. Oh no, Dad Qin Wutong isn't here, and the person who sells fried dough sticks and soy milk this morning is gone.
Qin Xiangxiang fixed her gaze on her young son. "Alright, from now on, it's your turn. Little Fatty, from now on, Mom will give you food coupons and money in the morning, and you can go buy fried dough sticks and pancakes."
She didn't dare let such a young child buy soy milk yet, fearing he might break the thermos and scald himself.
As for safety, there's no need to worry, since they haven't left the family compound. The children are all playing wildly in the yard, and Qin Xiangxiang can keep an eye on them from upstairs, while she herself is too lazy to go downstairs to buy things.
The chubby boy's eyes lit up: "Okay, I want to buy pancakes."
"You can't steal food. If you do, Dad will make you do math problems as punishment."
The chubby boy's eyes widened: "Then I'll steal food every day!"
For the chubby boy, he had to do math problems every day anyway. Whether he ate a snack or not, he still had to do them, so he might as well eat a snack. It wouldn't make a difference if he did a few more problems.
Qin Xiangxiang: "?!"
The chubby boy cheered, "Now I can steal Mom's cookies!"
He's going to buy fried dough sticks and pancakes, and he'll take a big bite out of them, just like his mother used to.
"I won't buy it. Mom will have boiled eggs for breakfast, and then I'll give you boiled radishes."
The chubby boy: "???"
Qin Xiangxiang was indeed too lazy to go downstairs to buy breakfast. She figured that since she had a refrigerator, she could cook noodles with some minced meat every day, or just plain boiled noodles with poached eggs, or seafood noodles, and try not to go downstairs if she could avoid it.
I cooked a little extra rice the night before last, so I could make rice porridge the next morning. Anyway, I brought a lot of her favorite pickles from Shanghai. I'm easygoing and lazy.
"From now on, Mom will cook rice porridge for you every morning." Rice porridge is the most common and affordable breakfast. Many people can't afford to buy fried dough sticks, steamed buns, or flatbread in the morning, so they choose to eat rice porridge instead.
Rice porridge is simply leftover rice from last night, soaked in hot water, or cooked in a pot with hot water.
In this day and age, cooking rice is very troublesome if you don't have a pressure cooker at home. And when you do use a pressure cooker, someone has to keep an eye on it the whole time, making cooking rice a very troublesome thing.
To make it easier to have a quick breakfast the next day, leftover rice soaked in hot water is the breakfast of ordinary people. It is economical and saves money, but it subtly reveals a bit of poverty. A bowl of rice soaked in hot water with pickles and fermented bean curd is what adults eat to save money.
Adults can handle this kind of food, but young children can't; they want to eat flatbread, fried dough sticks, wontons, and steamed buns.
"Mom, I won't steal any more food, I want to eat fried dough sticks!"
After breakfast, Sister Gao came to find Qin Xiangxiang and took her to identify her assigned vegetable plot and register it. "Every new family member can be assigned a vegetable plot. They can grow whatever they want, whether for their own consumption or to give away. It can save a lot of money on vegetables."
Qin Xiangxiang's plot of land wasn't large; it was fenced off and could be used to build chicken coops. She planned to grow some easy-to-grow plants, such as pumpkins, amaranth, carrots, cowpeas, cucumbers, loofahs, radishes, and tomatoes, so she could eat whatever grew.
Qin Xiangxiang mainly planned to raise chickens here. These vegetables were enough for the chickens; she didn't need the few cents for vegetables herself and would buy some nicer ones from the vegetable supply store.
As for the chickens, they can eat whatever they want in the vegetable garden.
In her dream, Qin Xiangxiang grew vegetables, but the vegetables she grew were utterly unappetizing, while the female lead, Lin Xiuqin, tended her vegetable garden beautifully, creating a stark contrast.
Qin Xiangxiang was secretly jealous and made a determined effort to tidy up the vegetable garden, but no matter how hard she tried, it was just a broken garden full of rotten melons and vegetables. Forget it, she gave up.
"I'll take you to the production team later to get a brood of chicks. It's a perk for new family members, given away for free." Chickens are allowed to be raised in the military family compound. Newcomers can adopt a brood of fluffy chicks, but the number of adult hens cannot exceed the number of people. Each family can raise a maximum of five chickens, and fluffy chicks don't count.
As the chicks grow up and their sex becomes apparent, most people will kill the rooster and keep the hen to lay eggs.
Qin Xiangxiang's family consists of three people, and they can raise three hens here.
"The fluffy little chicks are so cute!"
Qin Xiangxiang and her son came to the production team to get chicks. There happened to be a brood of chicks with yellow down and tender little eyes. They were very cute, and the little chubby boy liked them as soon as he saw them.
The chicks were placed on a winnowing basket; there were eight of them in total.
When the chicken production officer saw that Qin Xiangxiang was such a beautiful new family member, and heard that she was from the city, he sighed inwardly that this brood of chickens probably wouldn't survive to become adult hens. Many families had lost their chickens, so they stopped raising chickens altogether.
The chubby boy gently stroked the chicks: "Mommy, let's take the chicks home and raise them. I want to sleep with them!"
Sister Gao watched with amusement, thinking how amusing it was that city kids were, even sleeping with chickens.
Qin Xiangxiang said, "If a chicken poops on your bed, you'll have to clean the sheets yourself."
"You can also collect the chicken droppings and use them to fertilize our vegetable garden."
The chubby boy silently gave up the idea of sleeping with the chicks; he was unhappy being surrounded by poop.
The mother and son were taking the chicks home when they ran into Li Jianzhi, who was carrying some things. Li Jianzhi's eyes lit up when he saw the chicks. "Are we going to raise chickens at home?"
"Can you even raise chickens here?"
Qin Xiangxiang was impressed by the father and son's excitement. "They'll be raised in the vegetable garden. The family has been allocated a plot of land here, and our plot is over there. Go and tidy it up later."
"You're even dividing up land?" Li Jianzhi was excited. He was someone who grew up in the city and often drifted on the sea. He longed for a pastoral life like farming, but he didn't have the time or energy to rent a piece of land to manage, so he could only farm in the clouds.
On board, vegetables are refrigerated or bean sprouts are grown. For the naval men, seeing a bite of fresh, green vegetables is a sight to behold.
"Then let's take good care of our vegetable garden, raise some chickens, and carefully plan what to plant."
Qin Xiangxiang: "I mainly plan to grow it to feed the chickens."
Sister Gao: "?"
"Honey, you're so thoughtful. Let's buy vegetables to eat, and we can grow our own to feed the chickens." Vegetables were really cheap back then. Tomatoes were only five cents a pound, and you could even pick the prettier ones. As for homegrown vegetables—only videos of people growing vegetables showed pretty little vegetables, and the comments section was full of all sorts of weird things.
Li Jianzhi didn't believe he could grow vegetables that "people" could eat. When buying vegetables, he could pick out the ones that looked good, but the "crooked and cracked" vegetables he grew were too disgusting to eat.
Qin Xiangxiang: "?"
Sister Gao: "?" No, what's wrong with you two? Why don't you plan your vegetable garden properly? Then grow vegetables for the chickens to eat.
"Growing is mainly about having fun."
Qin Xiangxiang couldn't find a way to refute him and supported the man's opinion. If she had known that Li Jianzhi thought the same way, why would she have bothered competing with the female lead in planting vegetables in her dream? Buying vegetables doesn't require coupons, so lazy people should just buy vegetables.
Chicken and eggs are relatively expensive, so growing your own vegetables to feed the chickens can save a lot of grain. Of course, it's not that the vegetables can feed the hens, but that growing vegetables attracts insects, and the protein from the insects can supplement the hens' nutrition.
"Let's plan it out properly tonight. Chickens seem to like eating tender shoots, so let's plant more seedlings for them to eat."
Li Jianzhi: "Wife, you're so smart! You'll definitely raise our chickens to be big and strong, and they'll lay two eggs every day."
Qin Xiangxiang: "..." You can't hit someone who's praising you.
"Dad, I want to raise chickens too! I want to grow vegetables and feed them!"
"Okay, you and Mom will raise chickens together."
Sister Gao sighed in admiration at the young couple's good relationship. Indeed, it's unrealistic to expect a city girl to grow edible vegetables. Comrade Li is also very considerate of his wife.
Sister Gao now had a higher opinion of Li Jianzhi, thinking that this man had a lot of emotional intelligence.
"Xiao Qin, your man looks cold, but he's the most emotionally intelligent man I've ever met."
"You all live your lives well from now on. I'm going home now."
Qin Xiangxiang was speechless, thinking to herself that this man had an abnormally low emotional intelligence.
"Think about it, I just ordered milk tickets. There are thirty tickets here, one ticket is for half a catty of milk. On days when milk is available, you can use them to exchange for milk." The milk supply on the island is unstable, sometimes available and sometimes not, depending entirely on the weather. After ordering milk, you get milk tickets, which you can exchange for milk on the days when it is available.
Besides cow's milk, there is also goat's milk, but goat's milk has a strong fishy smell that most people can't stand. However, some people buy cheaper goat's milk to supplement their children's nutrition.
“I also bought a bag of milk powder specifically for you to supplement your nutrition, because you are too weak.”
Qin Xiangxiang nodded. Yes, yes, she wanted to improve her health.
"Li Jianzhi, you're so kind!"
“There’s something even better.” Li Jianzhi winked mysteriously. “I got some popsicle molds. When our refrigerator is open tomorrow, I’ll make you popsicles and ice cream.”
Qin Xiangxiang and the chubby boy's eyes lit up at the same time: popsicles! Ice cream!
The little chubby boy, in particular, was groping incredulously on his father's trouser leg. That was an ice pop that could only be eaten in the summer. Could he make it at home in the future?
When can we open the refrigerator?
Li Jianzhi sighed inwardly. The mother and son's excitement about the refrigerator made him feel happy, but also sad.
So he decided to make a chocolate-coated ice cream for his wife and children.
"The engineer said that it should be left to stand for 24 hours before being powered on, and nothing should be put in it for the first six hours."
"We have to wait another day before we can use it."
"Hmm, let's wait a little longer."
Li Jianzhi: "I also bought a new pressure cooker for the family. Honey, please read the instruction manual carefully and be careful when stewing meat or cooking rice in the future."
"Okay, okay, I'll cook some eight-treasure porridge later."
Pressure cookers were considered expensive items in those days, costing fifty yuan each. They were very convenient for cooking rice, but their drawback was that they could easily explode if used improperly.
When Li Jianzhi was a child, his family used a pressure cooker. It was terrifying when it released pressure. He often saw news reports of pressure cookers exploding, but ordinary people usually don't encounter such an explosion during normal use.
"How big is our land again?"
Qin Xiangxiang shook her head: "It's not very big, maybe a dozen square meters."
"Then I'll build a chicken coop inside, and a bread oven next to it to bake things. Honey, I'll make you a kiln-roasted chicken."
Qin Xiangxiang: "...Okay, if it doesn't taste good, then give it to our son."
The chubby boy: "?"
Li Jianzhi: "Then our son will enjoy a life of luxury from now on."
The chubby boy: "???"
Upon reaching the stairwell, Qin Xiangxiang suddenly noticed an elderly woman pushing a wheelchair out to sunbathe in a corner apartment on the first floor.
Qin Xiangxiang: "!!!!"
I remember now, isn't that the old lady who pretended to be lame? She actually lives downstairs.
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