Chapter 246 Lin's Father's Versailles
Today is the Lantern Festival, so we have to celebrate at night. The lights must be on all night, and every household must light a lamp until midnight.
In addition to the Lantern Festival, today is also Xiaoxia’s second birthday.
However, Lin Heng and Xiulan did not plan to say it out loud, otherwise they would have to trouble everyone to give red envelopes or something, which was really unnecessary.
Before dinner, everyone looked at the saplings and seeds in the house.
In addition to buying a large number of apple, grape and kiwi fruit trees, Lin Heng also bought a small number of sugar oranges, pear trees, plum trees, peach trees, apricot trees, and cherry trees, but the number was not large, and he bought them to plant in front of and behind his house for his own consumption.
There are many varieties and there is food for every season, which is a very happy thing.
Lin Heng pointed at the fruit trees and said with a smile: "Uncle, uncle-in-law, and third father, each of you can take four or five of each seedling and plant them back. These are all good seedlings. The fruits are much better than those grown locally. They will be big and sweet."
Li Baiquan grinned and said, "I'm not polite."
After saying that, he picked some seedlings, wrapped them in plastic wrap and put them aside.
Sandie's family took some without hesitation. Although the fruit trees were not very expensive, the cost of traveling from Ancheng made the price different.
Of course, we are very happy to be able to take some home for free to plant.
Lu Honghai smiled and said, "Lin Heng, I will just take two saplings. Give me a handful of ginseng seeds. I will go back and plant some."
"Okay, uncle, I'll catch some for you when you leave." Lin Heng nodded with a smile.
After taking a look at the remaining saplings, he decided to plant them on the back hill so that they would be close enough for his family to pick whenever they wanted to eat.
When the time comes, cut down the trees on the back mountain, and wrap the stumps with some black film paper. The new branches that grow out will not be able to photosynthesize and will die on their own after a summer.
"It's time to eat." Lin's mother walked out of the house and said.
"Wash your hands before eating."
"Let's go and have dinner." Lin Heng also nodded. Today's meal was prepared by his eldest brother's family.
In the evening, we prepared two large tables of dishes and cooked rice wine and glutinous rice balls. The rice wine and glutinous rice balls left a satisfying aftertaste of the New Year.
After dinner, Lin Heng and Xiulan took Xiaoxia back home.
Xiaoxia played in the room for a while. Xiulan brought a small bowl of noodles and placed it in front of Xiaoxia. She looked at her and asked with a smile: "Xiaoxia, do you know what day it is today?"
"I know, Dad said today is the Lantern Festival." Xiaoxia said quickly, raising her little hand.
"That's right, but not entirely." Xiulan nodded and asked, "Xiaoxia, do you know when you were born?"
Xiaoxia tilted her head and thought for a long time, then shook her head, but couldn't figure it out.
"You were born today two years ago. Today is not only the Lantern Festival, but also your birthday." Xiulan said, touching her face.
"After tonight, you will be two years old. You are growing up." Lin Heng also smiled.
Hearing Lin Heng say this, Xiaoxia jumped up immediately: "Great, I'm grown up."
"It's your birthday, there are red envelopes and longevity noodles, come and eat them." Xiaoxia took out a red envelope and said with a smile.
"This is the birthday present I bought for Xiaoxia."
Lin Heng took out a colorful small ball, a paper-cut painting book, and a small Rubik's Cube and handed them to her with a smile.
These gifts were carefully selected by Lin Heng. They are not only interesting, but also can exercise the coordination of hands and feet, which is beneficial to the intellectual development of children.
Xiaoxia was stunned to see so many gifts. She realized that celebrating her birthday was so great.
"Just give me a kiss and say thank you, then you can eat the noodles." Xiulan said with a smile.
"Thank you, mom and dad."
Xiaoxia couldn't wait to play with the toys, so she kissed them both on the face and started to eat the longevity noodles.
Xiulan didn't order much noodles, so Xiaoxia finished them in two bites, then crawled over, grabbed the small ball and started hitting it, giggling happily.
“Boom boom boom!”
"Open the door, son."
Just at this moment, there was a knock on the door from outside by Lin's mother.
"Mom, why are you here so late at night?"
Lin Heng opened the door and said with a smile.
Mother Lin snorted lightly: "Of course it's a red envelope for my precious granddaughter. Do you really think we don't know Xiaoxia's birthday?"
Xiaoxia’s birthday is on the same day as the Lantern Festival, which is easy to remember, but she didn’t mention it during the meal.
After saying this, Lin's mother walked towards Xiaoxia and said, "Xiaoxia, I'll give you a red envelope. I hope you will be healthy in the future."
"Thank you, grandma." Xiaoxia ran over with the ball in her arms. She was so happy to receive the red envelope that she kissed her grandma on the face.
"Okay, okay." Lin's mother immediately smiled happily.
After chatting for a while, before Lin's mother left, Lin Heng saw his elder brother, younger uncle-in-law, and eldest uncle coming in with red envelopes.
"No, why are you all like this? It's unnecessary." Lin Heng spread his hands helplessly, how come you knew everything.
"What's wrong? Can't I celebrate my granddaughter's birthday?" Li Honghai had a tough attitude. Not only did he take a red envelope, he also took a shuttlecock made of golden rooster feathers. It was obvious that he had prepared it in advance.
"That's right. It's all our gift. We didn't celebrate the first birthday before, so it's just right to give it to him now." Li Baiquan also said with a smile.
Lin Heng spread his hands, not knowing what to say. Xiaoxia was so happy to receive a lot of red envelopes that she jumped up high.
The two men called everyone into the house to have another meal, but after giving everyone their red envelopes, they all left.
"Just give it to me. As long as Xiaoxia is happy, I can return it later."
Lin Heng said with a smile.
"This is the only way." Xiulan also nodded.
Xiaoxia played for a while and was taken into the house to sleep. Before going to bed, she opened all the red envelopes and put them into her piggy bank.
In addition to the money, there was also a rag doll with a bell that Caiyun gave her during the day. This was made by Caiyun herself, and Xiaoxia's name was embroidered on it, which took a lot of thought.
Xiaoxia always holds her dolls when she goes to sleep, and several little dolls sleep in the same quilt with her.
The next morning, Lin Heng and Xiulan got up early to wash and exercise.
The weather is a bit gloomy today, with quite a few dark clouds in the sky. After exercising, I walked to the back mountain to feed the livestock and milk the cows.
"hiss!!"
Red Date roared again and kicked the wall in dissatisfaction. It had been three days and it was still sleeping under the eaves. It could only eat a little fresh grass every day, and the rest was all hay.
"You can move back today." Lin Heng looked at it a little embarrassed.
The original plan was to build a cattle pen as a prerequisite, but planting fruit trees is more critical. These fruit trees are bare-root and cannot be left for a long time, otherwise there is a high probability of seedling death.
Lin Heng temporarily got some corn stalks for the cows to eat while Xiulan was busy milking.
Boil the milk and call everyone over to drink it.
"Caiyun, do I need to go to register this year?" Lin Heng looked at her and asked.
Caiyun finished drinking the milk and looked up and said, "It's all right. It depends on yours, second brother."
"Then go by yourself. I'll help you plant the fruit trees. You can use the extra money to buy notebooks and pens." Lin Heng took out twenty yuan and handed it to her.
"This is too much, brother." Caiyun shook her head.
"Take it, buy whatever you need and live with dignity. Your brother doesn't need this little money." Xiulan patted her hands and said with a smile.
"That's right, study hard so that you can work for me in the future." Lin Heng also smiled.
After both of them said so, Caiyun could only nod and accept it, then go back and prepare to go to school.
After breakfast, Lin Heng and the others went to continue planting fruit trees. They got up early today and finished planting a total of 1,000 kiwi fruit trees on ten acres of land in the morning.
Just plant it. It will rain soon, so we need to hurry. Wait until the plants come back to life, then slowly weed and fertilize.
"It's finally done." Seeing that the kiwis were planted, Lin Yue felt relieved.
"How many years will it take for this thing to grow?" Li Shiwei beside him asked curiously.
"Kiwifruit and grapes will bear fruit next year, and they will reach a high yield in three or four years. Apple trees will take four or five years to reach their peak fruit-bearing period, and then they will continue to produce high yields for decades."
Lin Heng said with a smile. He chose a very good time this time. By the time these fruit trees have fully grown, it will be around 1990.
By that time, market economic reforms will take place, people's living standards will improve, and market demand will increase greatly. Their fruits will just be in time for this, and they will have no trouble selling them.
The same goes for the Chinese medicinal herbs he grows, and they can all be sold at a very good price.
You won’t make money if you wait until there is market demand before you start planting. Only by preparing in advance can you stand at the forefront of the trend.
"It's difficult to grow crops on our mountain, otherwise we would have built an orchard." Li Shiwei said with emotion.
There is nothing anyone can do about this. Planting and transporting fruit trees in the mountains is a big hassle.
"Let's go back and have dinner. We still have to plant for Sandie and the others in the afternoon." Lin Yue said with a smile.
Everyone nodded and walked back. At lunch, Lin Heng's third father gave Xiaoxia a birthday red envelope and scolded his mother severely for not telling them about this matter.
Lin Heng did not stop her and let Xiaoxia accept it. It would be inappropriate if she took everyone else's and not his third father's.
Lin Wei and a few others chased Xiaoxia to play ball and ran around in the yard.
After dinner, they went to Lin Hengsan's father's house in the afternoon and planted the one thousand one-year-old kiwi seedlings that Lin Hai bought.
The land is right next to the road, so you don’t have to go far and planting is quick.
It was done at 5pm. After finishing, Li Baiquan smiled and said, "I won't eat anymore. Let's go back."
"That's impossible. Let's finish our meal first." Lin Hai ran over and grabbed the man.
It was impossible to leave, so they were eventually asked to stay for dinner. After dinner, it was already dark, so the two had no choice but to stay at Lin Heng's house and leave early the next morning.
After breakfast in the morning, Lin Heng drove to the town, bought some black film paper, and then brought back several bags of fertilizer that Li Chengguo had brought up.
"Dad, you guys are pretty fast."
When Lin Heng came back, he found that his father, brother and uncle had all finished sawing the trees on the back hill and had started to build a fence.
"There is a diesel saw." Father Lin said with a smile.
"Then I'll wrap the tree roots."
Lin Heng said this and wrapped all the tree roots inside the fence with black film paper.
They have been continuously expanding the area behind the mountain and now it has two acres of land, with a slope of about 30 to 40 degrees.
When they were done, they planted thirty fruit trees here, three or four of each kind.
There are more than a hundred pear trees, peach trees, plum trees, apricot trees and other trees left in the house. We bought very few of them to begin with, so only about ten are left.
This is also easy to handle. We then planted it on the edge of Red Maple Mountain to consolidate the soil, and the excess was given to the villagers as a favor.
After planting the fruit trees in the morning, his uncle came home with the saplings and ginseng seeds in the afternoon. Lin Heng, his father and his eldest brother continued to build the cowshed for the dairy cows.
The cowshed is built with wood, and it is a fenced type of cowshed instead of a fully enclosed type.
The advantage of this type is that it is well ventilated, so Niu Ye is not prone to getting sick. There is also a fence to block the wind when you lie down at night.
The ceiling above is still nailed with wooden boards, and then covered with multiple layers of film paper for waterproofing, and a layer of straw is added on the outside to prevent the film paper from weathering.
Whether it is a cattle pen, a horse pen, or a pen for other livestock, they are all built behind Lin's father's house. There is nothing like these behind Lin Heng's yard.
It's not a problem of smelly feces. They are not far from the Shiban River and the wind is strong all year round, so there is actually not much odor and you can't even smell it in the yard.
The main reason was that there was a well behind Lin Heng's house. Although it was groundwater, the feces water that had seeped into the ground had been filtered out. But for his own comfort and safety, he did not build a livestock pen behind.
Moreover, the slope behind his parents' old house is gentler, making it more convenient to build cattle and horse pens.
"Finally it's done."
At around four o'clock in the afternoon, Lin Heng let out a long sigh.
"It's really tiring." Lin Yue sat down next to him.
It took three people more than four hours to finish the work. The new cowshed is six meters long, three meters wide, and 18 square meters in size.
The room is divided into three compartments, with one cow in each compartment, to prevent the cows and calves from being together. The newly weaned calves are very restless.
There is also a grid that is perfect for storing hay, or for raising calves in the future.
"Let's go and get the cow. Hongzao has been living under the eaves for several days." Lin Heng stood up and said.
"Don't you need to look for a good day?" asked Father Lin.
"Today is a good day." Lin Heng waved his hand.
He pulled the big cow, and his elder brother pulled the small cow, and they found a new home for them.
"Moo~~"
As soon as the two cows arrived at their new home, the big yellow cow in the cowshed not far away let out a loud cry.
"Why are you yelling? You've been castrated for many years."
Lin Heng took a glance and gave the cow some more fodder. This grid was three meters long and two meters wide, enough for a cow.
"I have to work harder to collect grass for the cattle in the future. We have more and more livestock at home."
Father Lin sighed as he looked at the livestock in the back hill. Now his family already had three cows, a horse, a sheep, and two musk deer, all of which were big grazers.
But he was both happy and sad, which showed that his family had become wealthy, something he would have never dared to think about last year.
"In a few days, you can find a few fields, cut down and burn the trees, and then plant the forage grass I bought. You won't have to cut grass everywhere. These high-quality forage grasses grow fast and are nutritious." Lin Heng said with a smile.
"I know, I'm just expressing my feelings." Father Lin smiled naively. He was in Versailles. It was difficult for other families to have such troubles these days.
"Let's go home." Lin Heng hugged his father and eldest brother's necks and hung them in the air.
On the way back, Father Lin asked again, "By the way, son, when will you plant those Chinese medicinal herbs, and when will you start working on Red Maple Mountain?"
(End of this chapter)
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