Lin Heng and Xiulan prepared the ingredients together and cut a lot of antelope beef. Then they called their eldest brother and third father to come over for a nice meal in the evening.
There is not much antelope beef left, and Lin Heng doesn't want to keep it. It doesn't have any special medicinal effects, it's just eaten as meat.
When the freezer is empty, you can put other things in it. The smoked bacon and sausages for the New Year need to be refrigerated.
After dinner, early the next morning, Lin Hengxian, his eldest brother and his third father went to Tongshugou where the pig farm was located to check on the progress there.
After reading it, he nodded and said, "It looks like we can fix this place before April."
Now the area has been surrounded by barbed wire and thorns have been added on the outside to ensure its enclosure and safety.
Moreover, the litter of dogs that Xiongba had last year have grown up. He gave one to his uncle, leaving five dogs, which are just right for working here.
"That's for sure. Building these pig pens is not difficult at all." Lin Xutao said.
There are iron tiles and second-hand wooden boards that Lin Heng got here, so it is very simple to build.
"Don't worry, Third Dad is here for you." Lin Heng said with a smile and handed him a cigarette.
Lin Xutao took the cigarette and asked with a smile: "Nephew, your third mother heard that you want to hire someone to raise pigs here, and she has some ideas. Do you think she is suitable?"
"It's not suitable. This is different from raising one or two pigs. She can't even move the pig feed. I only recruit men, and once you come, you can't leave. You have to work here until the end of the year. Of course, the salary is not low, 500 yuan a year."
Lin Heng immediately said that raising thousands of pigs is a physical job and women cannot do it here.
"Is that so? That's true." Lin Xutao nodded with a smile. He was not troubled.
"Third father, if you are willing to come, I welcome you." Lin Heng said with a smile.
The news had spread and many people wanted the job, but he hadn't decided on a candidate yet.
Many women in the village spoke to him in a nice way and wanted to come over, offering lower wages, but he refused.
This is not a joke. If he fails to raise pigs well, tens of thousands of dollars will be wasted. This was tens of thousands of dollars in the 1980s, which is equivalent to millions in later generations.
"I would like to come, but my family can't do without me." Lin Xutao said with a smile. His family is very busy this year, raising fish, growing astragalus and crops.
After they finished talking, Lin Yue looked at Lin Heng and said, "Brother, I think you need to spend some more money to make cement in those pig pens and warehouses. Even if it is three centimeters thick, it will be much better and it will be easier to remove the pig manure."
"I have an idea about this, and I plan to do it together at the end." Lin Heng nodded.
He thought about it for a while and finally decided to lay a layer of cement. Otherwise, it would be difficult to deal with the feces, and the pigs would turn the pigsty into a mud pit.
After saying this, Lin Heng left. Instead of going home, he went to a forest near his home where a large number of hairy chestnut trees grew.
This place is not far from the apple orchard, only about five or six hundred meters in a straight line, and is located on the other side of the ridge.
In this forest, chestnut trees account for as much as 60%, and most of the trees growing are oak trees and miscellaneous woods.
Although there are many hairy chestnut trees, unlike the Chestnut Mountain at the border of Shimen Village, the trees here hardly bear chestnuts.
The thick hairy chestnut trees are as thick as human thighs, the thin ones are as thick as fingers, and the most common ones are as thick as human wrists or forearms.
It has been more than ten days since the Waking of Insects, and it is not far from the Qingming Festival. Places with abundant water, such as riverbanks, are all green, and the buds of many trees are gradually becoming full.
This period has always been chosen for grafting, as it is the easiest time for the graft to survive.
Lin Heng first took a look and found that it seemed that it was not yet ready. The spores of the trees on the top of the mountain were not full enough, so he could wait for a few more days.
After reading it, he went back and told Xiulan about it.
Xiulan reached out to straighten his collar, and brushed off the spider silk in his hair. She said, "You should clean it up now. You have to cut down the other trees so that you can graft them later."
"I thought so too. I'll go there with Dad in the next two days." Lin Heng nodded.
"I'll come with you. I also know how to graft. I saved many trees by grafting when I was a child." Xiulan said.
"Then I am not that skilled in this area, and I, your husband, will have to teach you." Lin Heng said with a smile, he had specialized in grafting.
"I don't believe it. Let's have a comparison," said Xiulan.
"No problem. Whoever loses will unconditionally agree to one thing from the other party." Lin Heng nodded.
"Okay." Xiulan clenched her fists and snorted.
"Then I'll go get cement now." Lin Heng said again.
The grafting will take some time, so let’s just deal with the pigpen first.
"Be careful and drive slower." Xiulan patted her on the shoulder and said.
"Okay." Lin Heng nodded.
He actually wanted Xiulan to be with him, but the child could not be left unattended.
Lin Heng went to Hongfeng Mountain and told his father about this matter, and then drove into the city.
Now he gets cement directly from the cement factory in the city. The price is cheaper than in town, and the same goes for sand and gravel.
It took him a day to bring in all the cement and gravel, and he spent the next two days mixing concrete with everyone else to pave the floor of the pigpen.
At the same time, he also asked people from the power supply station to pull the wires over, install electric meters, and install electric lights in some key places in the pig farm.
After the cement floors of the pigpen, warehouse, etc. were laid, Lin Heng laid the water pipes, trimmed the owner's cabin, and completed the kitchen stove.
Soon it was March 27th. Early in the morning, after they installed the large iron gate at the entrance of the pig farm, the pig farm was completely completed.
"Good luck, good luck and smooth sailing!"
"Raising pigs here is absolutely smooth, there are no problems at all!"
…
With some blessings from everyone, this simple pig farm was finally completed.
Even though it was very simple, including the money for the excavator, it cost Lin Heng more than four thousand yuan, nearly five thousand yuan.
"Okay, we can all leave for now. I'll pay you when you get back." Lin Heng said with a smile.
The construction of the pigpen made him happy, as it was the beginning of making money this year.
"Thank you, Boss Lin!"
"I wish Boss Lin's business will grow bigger and bigger!"
Everyone laughed and shouted, very happy to be paid.
Soon Lin Heng drove everyone back to the village and settled their wages one by one as usual.
"Boss Lin, have you found someone to feed the pigs in your farm?" someone asked.
"This has been found, so there's no need to ask anymore." Lin Heng said with a smile.
One of the candidates was Li Shilei, his aunt’s eldest son, and he was also a childhood friend.
Another person was from the neighboring Shimen Village, named Zhang Feng. He looked honest and simple, only 27 years old, but he had three sons and one daughter to feed, and his parents were still able to work.
The person who came to him to talk about his most satisfied work was him. He felt very reassured about people with heavy family burdens and was willing to help them.
With the job I gave him, his family's situation will be greatly improved, so it can be considered a good deed.
He would not exploit others just because their conditions were poor. He did not want to do such a thing.
After paying everyone their wages, Lin Heng invited his eldest brother and third father's family to come over for a meal.
The bacon and sausage made during the Chinese New Year are especially delicious when fried and eaten with wine.
It was already afternoon when they finished their meal. When Lin Xutao and Li Xue left Lin Heng's house, they happened to meet their eldest brother Lin Xuping.
“Brother!”
Lin Xutao simply greeted him.
Lin Xuping nodded and left without saying anything, regretting in his heart that he should not have been so harsh and arrogant.
Now not only Lin Heng is rich, but some other important relatives of Lin Heng have also made a lot of money. Only his family is still about the same as a few years ago.
What made him most jealous was that Lin Heng actually arranged for Lin Hai to marry Tian Yan, while his youngest son didn't have a wife yet.
He was jealous and wanted to cause trouble before, but he doesn't dare to do that now, because Lin Yue has become a clerk in the village committee, and Lin Heng is also doing well in the village, so he can't afford to offend him.
He felt only regret in his heart and wanted to ease the relationship with Lin Heng's family, but they simply wouldn't accept it. He was more thankful that Lin Heng bullied them instead.
"Dad, has the chestnut tree I planted grown?"
In the room, Lin Heng looked at his father and asked, he had even got some chestnuts to grow seedlings a few days ago.
Since he wanted to create a chestnut forest, he would make it full of chestnuts. He planned to kill the other trees one by one.
"They are all out. All kinds of fruit and vegetable seedlings and astragalus seedlings in the greenhouse are out." Father Lin nodded with a smile.
In the past two years, after Lin Heng started growing seedlings in a greenhouse, he also fell in love with it. Sometimes he would even take some to the town to sell.
"The next step is to graft the chestnut trees, right?" Xiulan asked from the side.
Lin Heng said, "I have another thing to do these two days. I plan to go to the place where I hunted antelopes before and dig up those golden bullets and pine trees. I need someone to help me."
"You really treasure those trees so much that you have to go all the way to dig them up," Xiulan said helplessly.
"You don't understand, wife. This is a hobby, but it is also money." Lin Heng said with a smile.
Xiulan spread her hands and said, "I don't object to you, I just think it's too far. If you go for a long time, won't it delay the grafting of chestnuts?"
Lin's mother said, "The trees in the deep mountains sprout slowly. You should wait until the chestnuts are grafted before going. I guess those trees won't be green for half a month after Qingming Festival."
Father Lin nodded and said, "Your mother is right. Call more people and I will go with you."
"Okay then, let's go and plant the chestnut tree tomorrow." Lin Heng had no choice but to agree.
The next day, he asked his eldest brother and Old Man Tian from the village to help him go to the chestnut forest.
Xiulan, her mother and her children also came here.
The forage grass here in Hongfeng Mountain has already been planted, and the astragalus seedlings are still being raised. Other work will take time.
They first cut all the other miscellaneous wood with an oil saw, tied them together, dried them, and carried them home to burn.
These trees were tried not to be left alive, and Lin Hengneng even sawed off the roots.
The forest was not very big, only about ten acres. It took them two days to cut down all the weeds, and then they prepared to graft.
The grafted branches were taken from some large chestnut trees in the village.
For thinner hairy chestnut trees, branch grafting is often used. The survival rate of chestnut grafted with chestnut is very high, as long as you pay a little attention to some techniques.
When faced with particularly thick forests, Heng has a way, which is to use bud grafting. Take a full bud and graft it onto the bark. This method actually has a higher survival rate than branch grafting, but it just requires some skills.
"Is my grafting okay?" Xiulan called Lin Heng to come and see her grafting results.
Lin Heng smiled and said, "Of course, you are my eldest disciple, and I have given you all my skills."
The competition between him and Xiulan was over long ago. He dug up some wild kiwis and planted them on the fence at the back of the mountain. Then he and Xiulan grafted some male and female varieties of kiwis respectively to see whose grafting survival rate was higher.
He did all this in order to use kiwis to fence off the back hill. Once the kiwi branches grew up, he would control them to grow along the fence, and it would soon become a living fence.
"You are the only one who would say that this is my own credit, and it has nothing to do with you as my master." Xiulan said softly.
"I still recognize Lin Heng's grafting skills. They are very capable." Tian Baishun said with a smile not far away.
He had heard of this kind of bud grafting, but he didn't expect that Lin Heng could do it. He really admired him.
"Not bad." Lin Heng said with a smile.
There were quite a few chestnut trees, and it took them two days to graft and process the sawed-off branches.
The day it was completed was April 1. Lin Heng looked at it and said with a smile: "As long as this survives, we won't have to worry about chestnuts in the future, and we can even sell them."
Lin's father and mother also nodded. Few people would do something like Lin Heng, who specialized in managing a chestnut forest. If Lin Heng hadn't mentioned it, they wouldn't have had this idea.
But this kind of thing is indeed a long-term thing. With such a forest, I can sell chestnuts in the future.
"Let's go home and make a good meal." Xiulan said with a smile.
"I'm hungry too!" Lin Heng nodded.
They walked back together. The mountains were still bare, but the riverside had begun to turn green and the leaves were gradually sprouting.
Now they have taken off their cotton-padded jackets and put on double-layer coats. The toon buds have not yet grown out, but some ferns have already come out.
On the way back, Lin Heng picked two peach blossoms. He was also kind enough to graft a few wild peach trees on the roadside of the village into shiny peaches.
In his free time these days, Lin Heng grafted a tangerine onto an orange tree and a peach branch onto a plum tree.
He liked to randomly graft fruit trees of the same family or even the same genus, and he was very happy to see several different fruits growing on one tree.
He also brought Xiulan's son with him and told them that this was his magic. The children didn't believe it, so Lin Heng asked Xiaoxia to write it down in a notebook so that they would discover the surprise when they grow up.
For dinner, Xiulan made fried bracken with bacon, and the first taste of spring entered everyone's mouth.
"There should be toon buds in the city now. Lin Heng, have you been there recently?" Lin's mother asked.
"After a few days." Lin Heng replied.
"When the time comes, take Xiulan with you to fold some and play with them at the same time." said Lin's mother.
Xiulan took a bite of food and said with a smile, "No need, Mom. Let's wait for a spring rain, and then let Lin Heng take all of us out to play."
She understood what her mother meant. She felt that she would be bored taking care of the child at home, so she wanted her to go out and play.
But this year is much better and she is looking forward to playing with everyone.
"Yes, when everything turns green in a few days, I will take you to a nice place to play." Lin Heng said with a smile.
(End of this chapter)
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