Chapter 60 Picking bayberries is rich in protein.
Perhaps it's because Chinese people have the blood of the dragon in their bones, and they all love planting. Li Jianzhi was also reluctant to give up his thriving vegetable garden. If he wanted to get through the summer, he had to plan it well, especially in terms of shading and water retention.
He took some time to buy water tanks and earthenware pots, and also went to ask farmers for some rice straw. The most traditional way to keep vegetable gardens moist in summer is to lay a layer of rice straw on the ground, which is like putting a sun protection coat on the land. It can keep the soil moist and reduce the need to water the vegetable garden.
In addition, a straw sunshade should be built for the chicken coop to provide the chicks with a wider, cooler place to rest. The climbing loofah and cucumber vines have also been fitted with arched trellises, and the green vines winding around them are also a good way to provide natural shade.
The low-lying plants nearby also need to be supported by trellises. If the sun is scorching and the weather is dry, straw mats must be placed on the bamboo trellises to provide shade.
Making these preparations in advance can reduce a lot of unnecessary trouble.
Li Jianzhi called Xiaopang over to work together, and took his son to cut bamboo. He taught him how to build a bamboo irrigation system in the vegetable garden. Bamboo is the most natural and oldest irrigation tool for farmers, and people in the mountains use bamboo to draw water.
Two bamboo strips crossed on the ground form a support. A section of bamboo is placed on it, and one section of bamboo after another is placed on top of the other, from high to low, until finally pointing towards the plant on the ground.
The father and son set up the "bamboo irrigation" device. They scooped a ladle of water from the other end and poured it into the bamboo pipe. The water flowed down the pipe, passing through each section, and finally watered the tomato leaves in the corner.
"Dad! This is so much fun!" The chubby boy clapped his hands.
Li Jianzhi chuckled and pinched his cheek. He thought with a bittersweet smile: If this were done in the future, it would save several thousand yuan in land rent.
In the future, many wealthy families in Shanghai will rent a small plot of land in the suburbs for several thousand or even tens of thousands of yuan a year to cultivate their children's ability to connect with nature, so that they can experience the joy of planting together with their children.
"Dad will take you to experience the joy of planting without spending any money."
"Let's go cut some more bamboo later, and Dad will help you make a bamboo water feature. We'll put it in the house, and the sea breeze will make the house much cooler."
The chubby boy cheered, "Yes, Dad!"
Although he didn't understand what a bamboo water feature was, he figured it must be something fun.
"Li Jianzhi, look, our vegetable garden is growing very well, and the chickens are growing well too." Qin Xiangxiang didn't care about bamboo or anything like that; she was focused on her vegetables. "These chives are ready to eat; they're growing so fast."
Qin Xiangxiang cut a large bunch of chives, preparing to make chive, egg, and shrimp dumplings.
The children from the neighbor's house brought them some gourds. That evening, the whole family made dumplings together and also made gourd soup.
Qin Xiangxiang was making dumpling filling, while Li Jianzhi was kneading and letting the dough rest with his son. The father and son made dumplings together, but Qin Xiangxiang didn't. She had asked someone to pick some palm leaves for her, intending to use these yellow-green palm leaves to weave a pretty sun hat herself.
Her hands moved incredibly fast, weaving seven strands into seven braids, pressing down one and picking up two, weaving continuously. Once one strand was finished, she would start another... By the time Li Jianzhi finished making the dumplings, she had already woven a very long strip. She tried rolling it up and was already able to roll out the basic shape of a hat.
"Don't steal the dumplings. Let Mom, who works the hardest at home, eat first." Li Jianzhi slapped his son's little hand away, put a big bowl of dumplings out of his son's reach, and took the dumplings out to feed his wife.
Every time Qin Xiangxiang heard him speak like that, she felt that he was deceiving himself. She didn't do anything on weekdays, but Xiao Pang had been trained by Li Jianzhi to be a laborer. He fed the chickens and watered the vegetable garden every day. Li Jianzhi was even more so. After finishing his work, he would come back to work. He would tidy up the vegetable garden whenever he had free time, and he would also take time at night to write something to earn royalties.
This guy can actually earn a few dollars in royalties for writing an article.
He himself works like a slave every day, yet he says she works the hardest and is the most tired, probably because he's afraid she'll run away... His worries are unnecessary. It's hard to say about other places on the island, but summers are better than in Shanghai. The sea breeze here is cool, making it a natural summer resort. Except for water shortages in summer, but apart from places with lots of rain, isn't water shortage a problem everywhere in the country during summer?
She now sleeps for more than ten hours every day and is very comfortable.
"Li Jianzhi, my hands are busy, you feed me." Qin Xiangxiang pouted in a particularly coquettish way, and the man smiled as he fed her the dumplings in his hand.
She liked that Li Jianzhi always put her first.
These dumplings with chives, shrimp, and egg filling are absolutely delicious! The eggs are tender, the shrimp are sweet, and the chives are fragrant. They taste so good!
"Homegrown chives are just as delicious!"
"Really? Let me try it." Li Jianzhi fed the remaining half of the dumpling into his mouth, chewed it, and said seriously, "It's really delicious."
The chubby boy's eyes welled up with tears: "...I want to eat it too!"
"Feed your mother another one, and I'll fill a bowl for you."
After finishing the three-delicacy dumplings, Qin Xiangxiang braided long strips of palm leaves under the lamp, sewed them together with needle and thread to form the shape of a straw hat, and then added lace ribbons as decoration.
Li Jianzhi: "Why are you in such a hurry to make hats?"
"Because I'm going to Xiaoyun's hometown to pick bayberries with her. It's Sunday. Are you free? Do you want to come?" Qin Xiangxiang put on her pretty palm leaf hat and admired herself in the mirror. If it weren't for the trip to pick bayberries, she wouldn't have worked so hard.
When it comes to loving beauty, she certainly won't give in.
"Going to pick bayberries? Of course I'll go with my wife and kids. Let's pick a lot and make some bayberry wine for my parents-in-law."
In the 1970s, there was generally one day off on weekends, and there was no two-day weekend. Only Sunday was designated as a day off. However, generally speaking, Saturdays were only busy for half a day. Officers like Li Jianzhi, who had families, did not have important tasks on Saturdays and Sundays and could take turns going home to rest and spend time with their wives and children.
Qin Xiangxiang said, "Then I'll knit a hat for you too."
Li Jianzhi stared at the beautiful yellow-green hat, pondering for a moment. Was it a yellow hat or a green hat?
“Teach me, and I’ll make one for Little Fatty too.”
On the day of picking bayberries, Qin Xiangxiang and her husband both wore sun hats woven by Qin Xiangxiang, while the little chubby boy wore a crooked, cracked hat made by his own father. It looked okay from a distance, but up close it was full of knots, holes, and rips.
"Dad, why does my hat look like this?"
Li Jianzhi: "This is a soldier's hat, this is your heroic badge for charging into battle."
Fatty: "?"
"Dad, why are the soldiers' hats green?"
Li Jianzhi said expressionlessly, "This is a yellow hat."
Lai Yiu-wai picked them up in a Jeep and they went to Liu Xiaoyun's cousin's house together.
Looking at the hats on the heads of the family of three, Li Yaowei felt a mix of envy and amusement. "Jianzhi, what color is your hat?"
Li Jianzhi coldly scoffed, "Yellow."
Actually, it's yellowish-green, mainly yellow with a touch of green. The palm leaves are so tender, and Qin Xiangxiang felt that since the weather was hot, she liked this refreshing color.
She's a bit of a drama queen and doesn't care about being cuckolded.
Little Fatty: "Uncle, this is a soldier's honor badge hat."
Lai Yiu-wai chuckled: "Really?"
"My dad knitted it for me by hand."
Lai Yiu-wai laughed even harder, "And what about your dad's hair?"
"It was my mother who made it."
Does your dad like it?
The chubby boy sighed sadly, "My dad listens to my mom in everything. My mom has to eat the dumplings first, my dad takes the second bite, and I'm the last one to eat them."
Lai Yiu-wai laughed so hard, "You speak very fluently, and you're becoming more and more sensible."
The car drove along, and since the island wasn't very big, it took more than an hour to reach the outskirts of the village. Walking into the bayberry grove, even though she was mentally prepared, Qin Xiangxiang was still shocked by the bayberry trees in front of her. They were so tall, and all of them were covered in black bayberries.
"Pick as many as you like, eat as many as you want, pick the best ones."
Fruits like bayberries aren't worth much locally. If outsiders want to pick bayberries, they only need to give the owner of the bayberry tree two or three cents, and they can pick as many as they want and eat them.
Waxberries don't keep well and only last a few days. If you don't pick them all, many will rot on the ground. So farmers pick the prettiest ones and eat them while they're still on the tree. They also pick the best ones to make wine.
"The trees are so tall." The chubby boy was dumbfounded, holding his basket. His parents said they were going to bring him to pick bayberries, but these bayberry trees were huge to him and he couldn't reach them at all.
“This bayberry tree is over a hundred years old,” Liu Xiaoyun’s cousin said with a smile.
The locals climbed the bayberry trees with great agility, reaching the top in the blink of an eye. They then leaned against the trunk to pick the large, dark red bayberries without washing them, eating them directly as is.
Qin Xiangxiang pressed down on the hat on her head. She was a little scared. The bayberry tree was too tall, and she didn't dare to climb it.
"Ah! Li Jianzhi, are you crazy!" The man beside her picked her up and let her sit on his shoulders. Qin Xiangxiang hugged his head and realized that not only were people around her watching her, but villagers in the distance had also come to watch her. It was so embarrassing that she wanted to disappear into the ground.
"Let's go pick bayberries." Li Jianzhi dared not let his wife climb the bayberry tree, afraid that she would slip and fall, and he would be heartbroken.
He didn't trust the tree; he trusted himself. The two of them together were about 2.5 meters tall. He carried Qin Xiangxiang to the tree, and Qin Xiangxiang could reach the lower red bayberries with a simple reach.
Qin Xiangxiang picked several bayberries. She hesitated for a moment, but seeing that everyone in the village was eating them directly, she decided to stop and took a big bite. The bayberry was full of fruity aroma, and the juice burst out, sweet and sour. It was very sweet, but not just sweet; it also had an enticing sourness.
They're so addictive, I ate one after another.
She bent down to feed it to Li Jianzhi, who remained silent for a while, staring blankly at the beautiful bayberries in his wife's hand.
"Go ahead and eat it, have a taste."
Li Jianzhi could only tell himself: It's rich in protein.
To avoid being beaten by his wife, he opened his mouth and gulped it down. It was delicious, but when he thought about how it was rich in protein... Li Jianzhi fell silent again.
Although there are many insects in bayberries, these insects are harmless to humans and are all standard proteins. As long as you don't pay attention to them, they won't exist.
They grow inside bayberries, so how can they not be part of the bayberry? Even insects are clean insects.
Qin Xiangxiang: "Li Jianzhi, I feel like throwing up..."
Li Jianzhi: "Think about it, did you eat a bug?"
Qin Xiangxiang: "???!!"
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