Chapter 378 One of the happiest things in summer
Mother Lin brought Caiyun with her. The rain was too heavy these two days and the river dam was flooded so she couldn’t go to town. Caiyun didn’t go to school and stayed at home these two days.
"Son, the musk deer gave birth to three cubs last night." Lin's mother walked into the house and said to Lin Heng.
Lin Heng was stunned: "Three kids?"
Caiyun responded: "But the bad thing is that when I woke up this morning, I found that only one was alive, and the other two were all dead."
"Then it would be better to just have two children." Xiulan said in surprise.
Mother Lin sighed and said, "Alas, it is not clear whether the two little ones froze to death or not. The one that survived is a male, and the two that died are both females."
She was very sad about the loss of the two female musk deer, as they were means of production and could help expand the size of the population.
Lin Heng explained: "It's probably a stillbirth. Musk deer usually only give birth to two cubs. Three will not survive."
Mother Lin shook her head and said, "I don't know the details, but your father has already boiled the two dead musk deer and fed them to the dogs."
Everyone just feels sorry for this situation, and there is no surprise, because it is a very common thing in rural areas.
"Then I'll find some time to go over and take a look." Lin Heng said after thinking for a while.
Mother Lin suggested, "Let's talk about it in the afternoon. Caiyun said she would help take care of the children. Let's go up the mountain to pick mushrooms."
Caiyun nodded and said, "Yes, second brother, I will help take care of it while I read the book. You can go up the mountain with your sister-in-law and mother."
"That's fine." Lin Heng nodded in agreement. It had just rained for three days, and he really wanted to see what the situation was like on the mountain.
After making the decision, he and Xiulan packed up quickly. Before Xiulan left, she fed the child again and took out some rice noodles for Caiyun. If the child cried because of hunger, she would feed him some rice noodles porridge.
After everything was done, Lin Heng took Xiongba up the mountain, while Dazhuang and Xiaobai stayed at home to play with Xiaoxia.
The three of them were each carrying a basket and two snakeskin bags. There was no doubt that today's harvest would be very considerable.
“Oh my god!”
“This is too much!”
Even though they had expected this, they were still stunned when the three of them walked into the forest. Everywhere they looked were patches of mushrooms, so dense that there was no place to put their feet.
The most common ones are red mushrooms and boletus, but there are also many unfamiliar mushrooms and other edible fungi.
"I'm afraid we can pick up several thousand kilograms of boletus!" Lin's mother said in shock. The ground was covered with yellow boletus and big-foot mushrooms, also known as wrinkled boletus and delicious boletus.
They usually pick red mushrooms when there are no other mushrooms, because this kind of mushroom is too easy to rot and will break into pieces with a slight touch.
"There are more than several thousand kilograms. It's impossible to pick them all up." Xiulan shook her head. Most of them were the size of a palm and had not yet grown to their full size.
Lin Heng looked at his wife and mother and said, "Don't worry about these mushrooms. Let's go pick the chanterelles quickly. Don't be too late or someone else will pick them up!"
Among the mushrooms in June, the most popular ones are undoubtedly chanterelles. The taste is impeccable whether they are fresh or dried. Porcini mushrooms are just large in quantity and taste average.
As for the most delicious porcini mushroom, the people here don't eat it for fear that it may be poisonous and may harm people.
"Yes, let's go to Daliang quickly. I think there are quite a lot of people there." Xiulan also said.
No one doubts the deliciousness of chanterelles. The most common mushrooms they eat here are chanterelles, pine mushrooms, broom mushrooms, and egg mushrooms. Porcini are the last choice.
The three of them walked quickly up the path. There were all kinds of mushrooms on both sides of the forest path. Some of them had already rotted, and some had just sprouted. This rain had grown too many mushrooms.
However, they did not pick them up. After walking for half an hour, they finally arrived at the tall oak forest at the back and could hear other people talking from afar.
"There are indeed a lot of them. Pick them up quickly." Lin's mother walked quickly and had already started bending down to pick mushrooms.
All you can see are patches of golden chanterelles on the ground under the oak forest. If you pull away the fallen leaves, you will find more. This thing likes to grow in oak forests.
"Let's go to the front." Lin Heng said to Xiulan.
"Okay." The two walked forward and found a deserted place to pick it up.
Chanterelles are not big, with the largest cap being only about five centimeters in diameter. Most of those of that size will have bugs, so they pick those with caps less than three centimeters in diameter, which have fewer bugs.
Holding a stick in one hand, I picked mushrooms with the other hand, turning over the leaves as I picked them. Although those under the leaves were small, most of them did not have insects.
Chanterelles are also very durable and not easy to break, so you can just throw them into the bag. After the three of them started picking mushrooms, they stopped talking and kept picking them up. This situation of harvesting mushrooms everywhere made it impossible to stop, and they just kept following the mushrooms.
Especially since there are other people here, it is different from when it is all family. Picking mushrooms becomes a kind of competition. If you don’t pick them quickly, they will be picked up by others because everyone is more focused.
Although chanterelles are everywhere, they are not found in many forests. They are only abundant in a few specific forests, and the mountain where they are is one of them.
As Lin Heng was picking up the mushrooms, he realized that someone had already picked up the mushrooms. He then stopped, breathed a sigh of relief, and looked at the number of mushrooms he had.
After weighing it, he found that there were about 30 to 40 kilograms of chanterelles. Since chanterelles are small, it was definitely a great harvest for him to pick up so many in more than two hours.
In normal times, I might not be able to pick up so much in a day.
"Xiu Lan, how many did you pick?" Lin Heng walked up to Xiu Lan and asked. Xiu Lan was wearing a pair of gloves, and she was picking mushrooms no slower than him.
"My mom and I weigh about 30 kilograms each. We came too late, and my mom said that the big ones had been picked up by others."
Xiulan said this and found a rock to sit on. Her waist couldn't bear the pain from bending over to pick mushrooms.
"There's nothing we can do about it. Some people come as soon as daybreak." Lin Heng shook his head.
"More than that, some came yesterday." Xiulan said.
The two chatted for a while, then took their things and went to a hill below to wait for their mother.
There are only a few trees in this place. You can see the continuous mountains in the distance and the neatly arranged terraces in the village. Lin Heng leaned against a tree and Xiulan leaned beside him. The two of them rested while looking at the scenery in the distance.
The sky and the mountains were so beautiful that they seemed to be at full saturation. The breeze blew Xiulan's hair onto Lin Heng's face. Xiulan took a sip of water and handed it to Lin Heng.
The two of them didn't say anything, just feeling the beauty.
After a while, Lin's mother came down and looked at the two of them and said, "Let's go back and take the chanterelles first, and then go pick up other mushrooms. I think the large patches of chanterelles are gone."
"Okay." Xiulan nodded.
On the way back, the three of them picked up some other mushrooms, and they also picked the good ones, such as the green-headed mushroom, some very neat and beautiful yellow mushrooms, big-foot mushrooms, and tea tree mushrooms.
In June, they only have these types of mushrooms. Other types are rare. You have to go to the deep mountains to get shiitake mushrooms. You can't find them near your home.
They took the mushrooms back home and poured them all into a large round winnowing basket to dry. Then the three of them set out for the mountain again. This time their target was more random. They picked up all kinds of mushrooms, but only the beautiful ones.
This time there were more porcini mushrooms. After picking for more than an hour, the snakeskin bags the three of them carried were full and the baskets could no longer hold any more.
"It was a real failure this time. I didn't even pick up a few egg mushrooms or broom mushrooms." Lin Heng shook his head on the way home. All he picked up were fist-sized yellow mushrooms. Although they were very good, he still liked chanterelles and broom mushrooms better.
Xiulan smiled brightly and said, "I was lucky. I picked up five large egg mushrooms and five or six kilograms of chanterelles."
Mother Lin also smiled and said, "Then I was lucky. I picked up about 20 kilograms of broom mushrooms."
The egg mushroom is the orange-capped Amanita, and the broom mushroom is the coral mushroom.
It was already 12 o'clock when they got home. Father Lin came over hungry and looked at the three of them and said, "You really don't know how hungry you are. You've been running for so long."
"Of course, there's always something to pick up so I can't feel it at all." Lin Heng said with a smile. When picking mushrooms, his body was full of dopamine and he didn't feel hungry at all.
Xiulan said, "I'll make it now. Let's all eat here."
"Then you go and do it, we will deal with the mushrooms." Lin Heng nodded. He was a little hungry at the moment.
It is easy to pick up mushrooms but difficult to clean them. You need to use a knife to remove the dirt on the base of the mushrooms, especially small ones like chanterelles, which take time to handle.
Including Caiyun, the other three sat down to work, and after Xiulan's rice was ready, they had only picked half of the chanterelles.
We had rice for lunch, and the dish was a bowl of chanterelles fried with bacon. The chanterelles not only had a strong aroma, but were also very tough and tasted very good. Needless to say, they were delicious when eaten with rice.
While eating, Lin's mother looked at Lin Heng and asked, "Son, do you want us to go pick some Ganoderma lucidum tomorrow? I think there are a lot of them in Baishigou."
"There are a lot of mushrooms over there, you can definitely go and give it a try." Father Lin nodded.
Lin Heng thought for a moment, then turned to look at Xiulan: "Are you going?"
Xiulan shook her head: "It's too far over there. I have to take care of the children. You guys go."
"Okay then, let's get up early tomorrow and take a look." Lin Heng nodded in agreement.
The whole family not only finished the meal, but also the fried meat with chanterelles was not left. After eating their fill, they continued to process the mushrooms in the afternoon. With Xiulan's participation, the speed was faster and they soon finished all the chanterelles.
After finishing, wash them twice with water and then put them in a winnowing basket to dry. Fresh and good mushrooms do not need to be blanched.
Although there are a lot of porcini mushrooms left, they are easier to handle due to their large size and can be handled faster. After cleaning, they are directly sliced and dried in the sun. With the current strong sun, they can be half-dried in an afternoon.
After the mushrooms were dried, Xiulan stayed at home. Lin's mother and Caiyun went to pick mushrooms behind Hongfeng Mountain again. They wanted to go to the place where Lin Heng picked egg mushrooms last time.
Lin Hengze and his father went to see the newly born musk deer. This one looked normal and there was nothing wrong with it, but the two dead ones probably had problems.
"Let's wait until December this year and let this lame musk deer reproduce again." Lin Heng thought for a while and said, by then there will be three female musk deer that can reproduce.
There is the original female musk deer, and the two female musk deer born from the intact male musk deer last year and the original female musk deer. These three female musk deer have no blood relationship with the lame male musk deer, so the reproduction is relatively good.
Father Lin suggested: "I think it would be better to arrange the original female musk deer with the intact male musk deer. Isn't the lame musk deer not suitable?"
"That's fine, as long as we try to make sure there is no kinship between them." Lin Heng nodded. These musk deer all had ropes of different colors hanging around their necks, which were marks he made to make it easier for them to distinguish.
After looking at the musk deer, he and his father took the fish cages they had made earlier and went to the reservoir on the top of the mountain. The water in the reservoir was still relatively clear at the moment, and they could see the big carps that had been released.
In addition, there are a large number of fish fry. These naturally bred fry do not eat well and are very small in size. They can hardly be distinguished from the fry of stream grouper.
After they fixed the cages, they went back to catch the fry of the salmon and transferred most of the fry to the cages on the mountain for centralized breeding in one afternoon.
Finally, the cage must be covered with a large-mesh net, which will not affect the feeding of feed, but can prevent water birds from catching the fry and eating them.
After finishing, the two of them sprinkled a few handfuls of powdered feed. These fish have developed the habit of eating the feed, so they only need to be fed every day.
"I don't know how many will survive in the end?" Father Lin said to himself as he looked at the fry.
Lin Heng shook his head: "I don't know about that."
After watching the fish for a while, they went down the mountain and went home. The shrimp pond was still drained of water, as it had not been drained due to the rain.
When Lin's mother and her friends came back in the afternoon, their harvest was not very good. Almost all the mushrooms they picked were porcini, with chanterelles accounting for only a small portion, and no egg mushrooms were found at all.
"Let's set off at six o'clock tomorrow morning." Father Lin looked at Lin Heng and said.
"Okay." Lin Heng nodded in agreement.
After returning to the village, he went to his eldest brother's house to ask. His eldest brother and his wife went to pick mushrooms early in the morning. They harvested more chanterelles than them, and also a large number of porcini and tea tree mushrooms.
Lin Yue smiled and nodded: "I was just about to call you, that's perfect, let's go take a look tomorrow morning and go hunting over there."
After agreeing, Lin Heng turned around and went back home. At this time, the sun had set and Xiulan was collecting the half-dried mushrooms. The mushrooms that looked so plentiful in the morning had shrunk by more than half. Usually, ten kilograms of these mushrooms are dried in the sun, and most of them are water.
Seeing Lin Heng coming over to help, Xiulan smiled and asked, "Did you put all the fry on the mountain?"
"Yes, I've got them all." Lin Heng nodded with a smile, and then asked, "Do you want to eat plum fish? If you do, I'll catch one for you."
Xiulan shook her head slightly and said, "Let's go fishing when we have time. Yellow thorn catfish are easy to catch."
"That's fine." Lin Heng nodded.
After putting away the things, the two sat down on the bench. The sky was blue, there were green mountains in the distance, and fruits and vegetables were blooming in the yard.
Xiaoxia was picking strawberries at the edge of the strawberry field and put them into her mouth without washing them. Fortunately, it had just rained and these strawberries had not been sprayed with pesticides.
Today is undoubtedly the happiest day in the past few days. We harvested a large number of mushrooms together. We enjoyed the fun of harvesting while also enjoying the scenery and taking a walk.
After a short rest, Xiulan turned around and asked, "What are we having for dinner?"
"How about fried noodles?" Lin Heng asked with a blink.
Xiulan thought for a moment and said, "Then let's make fried pancakes. I'll make some soft pancakes and fry them."
Lin Heng smiled and said, "Sure, I said fried noodles because I thought fried pancakes were troublesome."
(End of this chapter)
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