Chapter 374: Morel Explosion
Back at the house at the foot of the mountain, Lin Heng sold the remaining seeds to Yang Guiquan, and the two parties signed a contract.
In fact, this contract has little legal effect in this era. It mainly serves as a certificate and has a certain binding effect on people who do not understand it.
Yang Guiquan's wages were just less than the ten yuan he earned from the seeds. After Lin Heng paid Liu Guishan the wages, they left together.
"I hope it rains soon in the next two days so I can go pick some morels!"
Mother Lin looked at the gray sky and said that the temperature of around 15 degrees during this period is most suitable for the growth of morels and pine mushrooms.
"It's probably going to rain. The sky has been gloomy for several days." Lin Heng said, looking at the gray sky. Xiulan also wanted to pick mushrooms when it rained, so this would just fulfill her wish.
After saying a few words, Lin Heng drove his sidecar back to the village. He was very tired from working the past two days and wanted to go home to rest.
When he got home, the first person to greet him was Xiongba. Xiaoxia was having fun pulling a cart in the yard with a group of playmates, and Dazhuang was also forced to do hard labor.
When he came back she just called out "Dad" instead of rushing over to hug him, but it was just the right time for him to go back to his room to rest.
In the main room, Xiulan was sewing clothes for her child. She was a little surprised to see Lin Heng coming back: "Have you finished planting the astragalus?"
"Yes, I have finished planting them all. I am so tired."
As Lin Heng spoke, he put down his tools and prepared to go back to the house to take a shower.
"There is water in the kettle. You can find the clothes yourself." Xiulan looked at him and said.
Lin Heng simply washed the sweat off his body with hot water, then came out of the living room wearing his clothes and cloth shoes, poured a cup of tea and sat down. His two sons were in the cradle and reached out to him for a hug.
"I have bad news to tell you. Jinbao is missing, but Xiaoxia doesn't know yet." Xiulan looked at him and said.
"Missing? Could it be that someone killed it?" Lin Heng frowned. Jinbao is a big golden cat, and its fur is worth a lot of money.
However, it usually does not go out to move around, and at most stays near the house. Lin Heng was also shocked by its disappearance.
Xiulan nodded slightly: "I think it's in danger. It's as well behaved as a house cat. Who knows, someone might trick it into getting it and bring it home to harm it."
After thinking for a few seconds, Lin Heng said helplessly: "Then when Xiaoxia asks, tell her that it has returned to the forest."
Xiulan nodded and said, "Take Xiongba and look for any traces nearby."
Lin Heng nodded in agreement. After a while, Xiulan finished making the clothes, which was a protective dress for Xiaoxia to wear, so that she would not always get the clothes dirty.
"You take care of the baby in the afternoon, and I will make you some pancakes as a reward for our great man." Xiulan pushed the sewing machine aside and said to Lin Heng.
"Okay, I really didn't eat the soft cake after I got better." Lin Heng nodded in agreement.
In rural areas, soft pancakes are considered a relatively high-end food among pasta dishes, because they must be made with medium-high-gluten wheat flour. Other flours will not be chewy and will break into crumbs when baked.
Medium- and high-gluten wheat is much more expensive than ordinary wheat.
Xiulan did even better. She scooped a shovel of high-gluten flour into a bowl, added two eggs, and then added water and stirred continuously until the water and flour were mixed into a gel-like state without any lumps, so that she could use it to make soft pancakes.
Light a fire under the pan, apply oil in the pan, and fry them one by one, which requires skills and techniques.
After making ten pancakes, Xiulan also fried shredded pickled radish with bacon, shredded potatoes, scrambled eggs with Chinese toon, and finally morel mushroom and crucian carp soup.
It was already seven o'clock when the meal was done. Xiaoxia, who had been playing for the whole afternoon, had already washed her hands and was sitting on the bench, looking forward to the meal. As soon as the dish was served, she picked up a piece of egg and put it into her mouth.
"It's delicious~" Xiaoxia praised while eating.
Lin Hengze picked up a soft pancake and spread it flat on the table. He first spread a layer of fermented bean curd and spicy sauce on it, then placed fried bacon with pickled radish, scrambled eggs with Chinese toon, and shredded potatoes on it one by one, and then rolled up the pancake. Every bite had several flavors.
This is food that is irresistible and even moving. The rich flavor and texture are enough to make people linger on the aftertaste after finishing it.
"It's so delicious." Lin Heng said with emotion after finishing two pancakes.
"Then eat some more." Xiulan rolled another one for Lin Heng. Her daughter next to her also wanted to roll one, but she couldn't get it, so she rolled it for her and fed it to her.
The two sons looked at them curiously and seemed to want to eat as well, but they were not even six months old and could not even eat complementary food.
After dinner, we cleaned up the dishes. It was still very early. There were no mosquitoes during the past two days and the temperature was one of the most comfortable times of the year.
They played outside for a while, and after returning home, Lin Heng took another novel to read as a pastime after dinner. Because he often read novels, his reading ability has improved a lot, and he can read unfamiliar books fluently.
In fact, it’s not that they love reading, but mainly because there are really no other entertainment activities in the mountains at that time.
Just like people love to read books and newspapers in the subways in New York and London, it is because there is no Internet there that this is the only way to kill time.
By 9:30 or 10 o'clock, everyone was almost sleepy, so we turned off the lights and lay down to rest.
They got up at around seven o'clock the next morning and were a little disappointed to find that it still hadn't rained. After exercising and having breakfast, Lin Heng took the cow to Red Maple Mountain.
When Lin's father saw him coming, he went to the pen and pulled the one and a half year old dairy cow over for breeding. He put the two cows together and Lin Heng turned and left.
He went to see the pregnant musk deer, whose belly was already quite big and she was not far from giving birth. He put on his water pants and cleaned the pen and disinfected it.
Then I went to look at the fish fry and shrimps. There are too many shrimps this year. When they are ready to spawn, I can catch a batch and take the shrimp roe back to make dumplings.
After looking around here, he went to the top of the mountain to take a look. He could see many black carp fry in the reservoir, and big black carp could be found from time to time.
The number of ginseng seedlings in the ginseng garden is much less than last year, and a lot of them have been eliminated in one winter. It doesn't mean that they are definitely dead, some are just dormant and may grow again in the future.
After a spring of collecting honey, the bees have a full box of honey again. The bee colony is also larger than last year and seems to be swarming. Maybe he can harvest another box of bees in a few days.
These wild bee colonies have strong resistance and can survive stably for many years with a little care.
When he came back from his walk, the cows had finished breeding, so he took them back home.
In the afternoon, I took Xiaoxia to plant a field of sunflowers, and then took home the cultivated seedlings of various vegetables, fruits and some vegetable sunflower seedlings.
Sunflowers, watermelons, winter melons, pumpkins and cantaloupes are all planted in the back mountain. I don’t plan to plant any more in the yard as it takes up too much space.
In the yard, we grow garlic sprouts, onions, ginger, peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes and other vegetables that we eat more often.
While planting vegetables, the plastic film on the strawberries was also removed. The strawberries inside were all green and had small flowers. After the plastic film was removed, bees came to collect pollen soon after.
The next two days were spent doing some trivial chores and hunting near home. Maybe it was because he had been idle for too long, on the afternoon of the 24th, he and Xiongba finally found a wild rabbit by the wheat field, which he shot dead with one arrow from a distance of 20 meters.
When I got home, I asked Xiulan to take out the frozen marinade from the freezer. It tasted pretty good after marinating, and Xiaoxia especially liked it.
The weather has been gloomy. His third uncle and his eldest uncle have been busy growing astragalus recently. After his eldest aunt Zhang Gaolian went back, they really lived with him. Maybe she is pregnant now.
At noon on the 25th, the eldest brother Lin Heng found Lin Heng and called him to the riverside to see the two ponds that his lover had dug in the past two days.
"Brother, do you think it's okay to raise fish in these two ponds?" Lin Yue asked, pointing to the two and a half acre ponds in front of him.
Each of these ponds is about 400 square meters and about 1.5 meters deep. Lin Yue has been hiring people to dig since the beginning of spring. He did not think of raising shrimps like Sandie did, but listened to Lin Heng and planned to raise grass carp and carp.
Lin Heng nodded and said, "There's nothing wrong with raising fish. What I'm most afraid of is the river here. The rising water may wash the fish away."
"It's fine as long as it can be raised. Normally there isn't that much water. This field isn't suitable for growing crops anyway." Lin Yue said with a smile.
Lin Heng nodded: "Then go buy a few big grass carps or carps, I'll teach you how to hatch the fry, and then you can raise them in there."
Lin Yue suggested: "Let's find some time to go fishing together, or use a net to catch them."
"That's fine." Lin Heng had no objection to this. Catching fish and fishing were his hobbies.
After looking at the fish pond, Lin Heng felt water dripping on his face on the way back, and the water was getting more and more. He looked at the sky and shouted, "Oh no, it's raining so fast, let's run back quickly."
"It's not even summer yet and the rain is coming so soon!"
The two of them started running quickly, and when they got back home it was raining heavily outside. After a while, water flowed on the ground.
"Oh my God, the rain is so heavy, so fast and so urgent." Lin Heng ran back home and stood in the house and sighed.
Xiulan was very happy: "It's great that it's raining. I can pick mushrooms after it rains!"
Xiaoxia was also jumping and cheering: "I want to pick mushrooms with my mother too!"
Lin Heng naturally also likes this rain. When it rains, both the forage grass and astragalus can germinate smoothly, and the fruits and vegetables at home can also grow smoothly.
However, what he didn't expect was that the rain lasted for three days in a row, and several people were stuck at home for three full days.
I watched the mountains and rivers on the opposite side change from beautiful light green to dark green, and the whole mountain looked like a piece of jade.
The rain finally stopped on the afternoon of the 28th. As soon as the rain stopped, Lin's mother came into the house wearing rain boots and raincoat and called Xiulan: "Let's go pick mushrooms. I guess the forest is full of pine mushrooms and morels now."
"Mom, wait a moment. I'll feed the babies' milk." Xiulan said this and turned around to feed her two sons. Then she put on her rain boots and raincoat and carried the basket up the mountain.
She doesn't like staying at home all the time, and she doesn't like doing nothing. She thinks doing some work is what she should do and it will make her energetic.
Lin Heng had no objection to taking care of the children at home. He took his son out and put him on the sofa to play with him. They were only three months old and could not crawl very well. They could only raise their hands and crawl a little distance.
At five o'clock in the afternoon, Xiulan came back happily, carrying a basket full of orange-yellow pine mushrooms, and she also carried a 20-pound bag, which was also full of mushrooms.
Lin Heng was a little surprised: "You have made so much in just over three hours!"
Xiulan put the things down and took off her raincoat while smiling, "This year is definitely a great year for mushrooms. These were picked right at my doorstep. Tomorrow I will go up the mountain to pick some morels."
"You can go, take Xiongba with you, I'll take care of the child." Lin Heng nodded and smiled, and it could be seen that Xiulan was very happy.
As he spoke, he took out a round dustpan and a knife to help clean up the pine fungus.
These are considered to be quite delicious, especially when they are fresh, the taste and texture are quite good, but they are not good when they are dried.
That night, Xiulan fried a large pot of it and made some pine mushroom noodles.
The next day after breakfast, she went out with Lin's mother again. When she came back, she brought more than ten kilograms of pine mushrooms and more than ten kilograms of morels.
This was a huge harvest, unprecedented in previous years, and she went there again in the afternoon excitedly.
And the next morning, he ran all day long until he had searched all the mountains near his home.
There were indeed a lot of morels collected, and after drying, there were still ten kilograms left, which means that Xiulan picked nearly one hundred kilograms of fresh morels, which was definitely the best harvest in recent years.
There were more than ten kilograms of dried pine mushrooms, and that was because she was busy picking morels.
The villagers also picked up a lot of mushrooms, and every household was drying them.
Unlike other people in the village, Lin Heng’s family did not sell the morels but kept them for themselves.
This is a good thing. It is rich in nutrients, has a smooth taste, and a strong fragrance. Eating it is very beneficial to the human body.
This is a kind of mushroom that people will never get tired of even if they eat it every day.
As May approaches, the temperature rises and morels rarely appear.
Xiulan returned to her life of taking care of the children, but because the temperature was high, she could take the children out often. When Lin Heng was not working, she could also go pick some wild vegetables.
These days, Lin Heng helped harvest all the rapeseed and wheat at home. Because they used purchased seeds and fertilizers, the yield was very good.
Then the fields are plowed and watered in preparation for planting rice, and at the same time corn and potatoes are started.
He was busy like this throughout the early part of May. Starting from the 10th, his uncle and aunt came down every day to buy various things in preparation for the wedding.
On the 11th, the weather was very sunny, with a gentle breeze and the temperature around 20 degrees. Lin Heng, Xiulan, and Xiaoxia pushed their child and came to Hongfeng Mountain for an outing.
Today, Red Maple Mountain is no longer the same as it used to be. The hillside is covered with neat ryegrass, alfalfa, and astragalus seedlings.
At the foot of the mountain is an emerald green pond. The surrounding fences are covered with rose vines. The sparse rose flowers of various colors emit a faint fragrance, making this place look like a paradise.
Even though there are cattle and sheep pens on the mountain, there is no smell. This place is open and ventilated, and the manure is covered with tarpaulin to decompose, so there is no smell as long as you don't get close.
Lin Heng and his team stopped beside a long pool of water below the small reservoir.
Lin Heng used a tarpaulin to create a shaded area and placed the two children's strollers underneath.
Then, Xiulan and I packed up our fishing rods and prepared to go fishing in the deep pool in front. Although there were many fish in this shallow water, the fish that people could see would not take the bait and could not be caught.
(End of this chapter)
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