Chapter 92: Counting the Harvest, a Wealthy Family
"What method?" Xiulan looked at Lin Heng.
"My suggestion is to remove all the lean meat and make it into canned meat tomorrow, keep some of the fat for consumption, and boil the rest into lard."
Lin Heng looked at Xiulan and said.
Canned meat is a dish made by boiling lean meat and then soaking it in lard. When the lard solidifies, the lean meat will be sealed inside, isolating it from air and bacteria. There will be no problem storing it for one or two years.
This is also the method the ancients came up with to preserve pork.
"You and I think the same thing. Lean meat can only be made into canned meat, but do we really have to boil all this fat into lard?" Xiulan looked at so much fat and she felt it was a pity to boil it into lard.
Unlike modern people who like to eat lean meat, people in the 1980s, especially those in rural areas, mostly preferred fatty meat because it has more energy, is easy to preserve, and gives them the strength to work.
Therefore, many people will find it difficult to swallow the fat meat, but their parents’ generation can eat it in one gulp. This is directly related to the poor life they lived in when they were young.
"I don't like eating fat, so just leave a little bit to eat. I think it's better to make lard for cooking, and I can save some to make soap and sell it in town."
Lin Heng looked at his wife and said that he had already thought of all this when he carried the wild boar back.
Xiulan nodded and said, "You've made up your mind, so let's do as you say. Let's hang the meat first and get up early tomorrow to refine the oil."
Then the two of them built a rack and hung the pork in the middle of the main room to keep it ventilated and prevent it from spoiling.
After everything was done, the two of them simply washed up and went back to the house to rest.
Before going to bed, Lin Heng threw some vegetable leaves to the badger cubs and some wild boar meat to the wild cat cubs.
Lin Heng, who hadn't slept well for two days, was in no mood to bother. He just wanted to hold his wife and rest quietly.
Compared to passionate love, this plain and quiet feeling of each other's heartbeat can make people relax their minds.
The next morning, both of them got up after six o'clock. Xiulan wanted to get up early, but she was held like a child and would not let her get up, so she had to stay with him and rest for a while.
"You've stayed in bed long enough, it's time to get up." Xiulan took Lin Heng's hand off her waist and said softly.
"Okay, get up." Lin Heng nodded, sat up and put on his clothes.
Beside the bed, Xiaoxia in the small bed also woke up. She looked at the two of them with her big eyes, without saying a word, but with a smile on her face.
She seems to be imitating Lin Heng.
After getting dressed and washing her face, Xiulan went to take the plum fish out of the well. Under the protection of the low temperature cold water, the fish was still very fresh and had not deteriorated.
"We'll steam one for Xiaoxia and share the other one. What flavor do you want?" Xiulan asked while holding the fish.
"I brought this back to you. You make the decision." Lin Heng said as he wiped his daughter's face.
"Then let's make chopped pepper and spicy fish." Xiulan said after thinking for a while.
"Okay, you make breakfast, I'll take Xiaoxia to feed the chickens, and take the sheep to the door to graze."
Lin Heng nodded and said with a smile.
"You picked a really good chicken. Two of my brother's chickens died the day before yesterday, but none of ours has been harmed."
Xiulan praised Lin Heng.
"Of course. Under normal circumstances, nothing will go wrong."
Lin Heng grinned and took his daughter to feed the chickens.
This has now become a "game" she plays every day. She will get angry if she is not allowed to feed the chickens.
He first fed the grass carp fry, then the chickens and ducks, and took the sheep out to graze. Lin Heng and his daughter played object identification and talking games in front of the door.
"This is dogtail grass, this is leek, and this is cow tongue grass~"
Xiaoxia grabbed the grass leaves and she had already memorized many of them.
"Great, you're right."
Lin Heng kissed his daughter and encouraged her.
"I kiss daddy! Daddy eats grass!"
Xiaoxia tilted her head to kiss her father's face, and after the kiss she took a piece of dogtail grass and stuffed it into Lin Heng's mouth.
"Daddy doesn't eat it, you eat it." Lin Heng smiled and wanted to stuff the grass into her mouth.
"No, no, I want candy~"
Xiaoxia put her hands behind her back and shook her head.
Lin Heng couldn't help but laugh and pinched her little face: "If you don't want to eat, just feed me, right? You are really my good baby."
While taking Xiaoxia to identify the grass on the roadside, Lin Heng picked some pig grass, mainly hemp leaves and goose intestines.
Hemp leaves are the leaves of a plant used to make linen clothes and linen cloth, while goose intestines are a kind of harmful weed that is found everywhere. It is said that people would eat it in times of food shortage. Now it is used to feed pigs.
After picking some pig grass, Lin Heng took his daughter to look for cranberries. After all, he had promised yesterday and he couldn't go back on his word today.
"Delicious!" Xiaoxia ate the cranberries and her dimples showed with joy.
While she was eating, Lin Heng picked some in a small bag and left them for her to eat when she took it back.
After playing for more than half an hour, the father and daughter went home.
He put the picked cranberries on the table for Xiaoxia to eat slowly, and Lin Heng threw the picked pig grass to the badger cubs.
The badger is an omnivore that eats grass and also eats animals such as lizards and frogs.
For fear that it would run away, Lin Heng kept it tied up in the front yard. He then used wooden boards to build a two-square-meter pigpen and kept the pig in it.
Of course it is impossible to untie the rope; this is the last line of defense.
After finishing, Lin Heng returned to the main room, where Xiaoxia was squatting on the ground, looking curiously at the kitten in the bamboo cage.
The pork that was thrown away last night is gone, obviously it was eaten by it.
"roar!"
When it sees Lin Heng, it still opens its mouth and lets out a threatening roar.
"Afraid!"
The wild cat cub's threat failed to scare Lin Heng, but it frightened Xiaoxia so much that she ran behind Lin Heng.
"Don't come near me, or she'll bite your hand." Lin Heng picked up Xiaoxia and reminded her.
"Afraid!" Xiaoxia shook her head and folded her hands into her arms.
"It's time to eat. The meal is ready."
Xiulan prepared the meal, two fish, one chopped with pepper and the other steamed, and the rice was mixed with soup. The water was boiling and it would be ready soon.
"Wife, you eat. I'll feed Xiaoxia." Lin Heng sat down holding Xiaoxia and fed her the steamed fish.
This steamed fish was cooked with just salt, and some onions, ginger and garlic were used during the steaming process, but the taste was not bad at all.
"Is it tasty?"
Lin Heng looked at his daughter.
“It’s delicious, I want more!”
Xiaoxia nodded vigorously, her big eyes shining.
Lin Heng mainly fed her, and occasionally ate a piece himself. Looking at the smiling faces of his wife and daughter, he couldn't help but smile foolishly.
Xiaoxia ate the entire one-pound fish and couldn't even eat the staple food or soup.
"Don't leave it to me. I've already grilled several on the mountain."
Lin Heng put the remaining half of the fish into Xiulan's bowl, and poured the chopped pepper into his own bowl and ate it.
"There's really nothing I can do about you." Xiulan had no choice but to finish the remaining half of the fish.
"You're not fat. Eat more. You're not even 100 pounds. With your height, you wouldn't be fat even if you weighed 130 pounds."
Lin Heng smiled and said that he had no future, but he was happy just watching Xiulan eat and being around her.
"You only have 120 yuan, so you should eat more." Xiulan said while eating.
Miraculously, it is a sunny day today. The night before yesterday, it was cloudy and Lin Heng thought it would rain, but it turned sunny again.
After dinner, Xiulan started to make lard, cutting the lean meat into fist-sized pieces, and the fat into slices two or three centimeters thick.
First rinse it with water to remove blood foam and impurities, then add water to the pot, pour in the pork lard and fat and simmer over medium heat.
"There are too many. My hands hurt from cutting them. One pot can't hold them all. I have to make another one."
Xiulan was in pain and happy at the same time. She couldn't suppress her smile as she looked at the big pot of meat.
"We can use the oil residue to make white flour steamed buns or dumplings to eat."
Lin Heng said with a smile.
"Okay, if you want to eat it, then make it. Anyway, the wheat harvest is good, and if it's not enough, we can buy some secretly. Now our family is not short of this little bit of noodles."
Xiulan nodded vigorously and suddenly felt a little touched.
It’s such an incredible thing that our family no longer has to worry about food.
“I’ll eat it!”
Xiaoxia didn't know what her parents were talking about. She probably only heard the word "eat" and kept shouting that she wanted to eat.
Lin Heng was sorting out his recent earnings to see how much money he had.
In terms of furs, there is one badger skin, one suede skin, three rabbit skins and five squirrel skins.
According to the current lowest market price, badger skin is 30 yuan, suede skin is 100 yuan, rabbit skin is 5 yuan, and squirrel skin is 3 yuan.
The total amount is 160 yuan, which is equivalent to the annual income of a normal rural family.
The reason why furs fetch a good price is mainly because they are exported to earn foreign exchange.
As for mushrooms, the total amount of Ganoderma lucidum collected is almost three kilograms. Although it is a little here and a little there, the accumulation is still considerable.
The biggest harvest was in Baishigou, and it was the greatest credit to have so many heroes there.
Even if the lowest price is 40 yuan per catty, Ganoderma lucidum alone can be sold for 120 yuan.
The rest include more than ten pounds of chanterelles, more than eight pounds of blue-headed mushrooms, and more than one pound of musk mushrooms, which together can be sold for more than twenty yuan.
There are a lot of porcini mushrooms, about thirty or forty kilograms after drying, but no one wants to buy them, so I have to eat them myself.
Among herbal medicines, the most valuable one is Dendrobium officinale.
It has been dried in the sun for two days. It weighs two pounds and two ounces. It can be sold for more than 80 yuan at least. If it is in good condition, it can be sold for more than 100 yuan.
In addition to Dendrobium, the herbs Xiulan picked weighed more than four kilograms after drying and could be sold for 12 yuan.
In addition, there are some herbs such as Houttuynia cordata and Artemisia argyi, which are not very valuable and can only be sold for four or five yuan.
Adding all the items together, according to the town's minimum purchase price, they could be sold for more than four hundred and thirty yuan.
If he went to the city, Lin Heng estimated that it would not be a problem to sell it for 600 yuan.
This does not include his thirty-year-old turtle which is worth at least thirty dollars.
With so much money, they are definitely rich people. Not to mention in the countryside, they are also wealthy families in the city. The savings of a normal family in the city are only over a hundred yuan.
In those days, farmers were not allowed to work in the city, and their main source of income was selling mountain products such as herbs and mushrooms.
Dendrobium and ginseng are too rare to be of any use to ordinary people. Matsutake and Ganoderma lucidum are also very rare. Without a Wozi or a dog like Xiongba, most people can't collect them.
The only valuable things that ordinary people can pick are honeysuckle and morels.
The rest are accumulated by quantity.
At the end of the year, the better ones can earn about 150 or 160 yuan, while the worse ones may only have 70 or 80 yuan.
The average annual income is about one hundred and twenty or one hundred and thirty.
Because herbs and mushrooms are seasonal, although the harvest seems to be good in the summer, there is almost no income in other seasons.
Hunting has a high technical threshold and you have to spend money to buy a hunting rifle, so it has nothing to do with most people.
With an annual income of more than 100 yuan, he has to buy salt, some daily necessities, see a doctor, etc., so he basically has no money to buy meat.
Since Lin Heng had six or seven hundred yuan in cash, he was naturally envied by the villagers.
If all the money is spent on rice, at 1.5 cents per pound, I can sell 4,600 pounds. Even sugar can buy more than 800 pounds.
His family is now definitely considered a wealthy family.
“It’s still not enough.”
Lin Heng shook his head. To him, this was still a little too little.
Especially since he wants to purchase Coriolus versicolor, the more capital the better, this is still too little.
After drying the things, Lin Heng decided to go to the city as soon as possible to exchange all these for money.
If I stay at home and get bitten by rats or something, I won’t have anywhere to cry.
After getting everything ready, Lin Heng sorted out the two bamboo fishing rods he had made earlier.
"That's right, let's teach the fish a lesson in the next two days." Lin Heng nodded.
The small fishing rods that were previously made of bamboo have been adjusted to be straight and round, with strong waist strength, so there is absolutely no problem in fishing for stream grouper.
"You might as well try catching it. It's easy to catch fish but it's hard to catch anything," Xiulan looked at him.
Lin Heng shook his head: "Last time it was just the tools that were not good, it had nothing to do with me. There will be absolutely no problem next time, and I will take you fishing then."
He was full of confidence about the next fishing trip.
"I don't want to play." Xiulan felt that fishing had no future.
"It seems I must show off my skills. Next time you come with me and watch me fish."
While straightening the purple bamboo, Lin Heng said that he must let Xiulan know his fishing skills.
He wants to make these three-meter-long purple bamboos into beautiful crucian carp rods so that he can go to Huangtan River to fish for crucian carp and carp when he has the chance.
There is oil being refined in the pot, you just need to check it from time to time and add some firewood.
Xiulan takes care of her daughter while chatting with Lin Heng. Her life is peaceful and warm.
On the other hand, Tian Baishun got up in the morning and went to the Li family in the village who weaved cotton cloth to buy a piece of cloth.
When he got home, he placed the cloth, the pig's head, and a small suede skin on three wooden plates.
Then he went out and found two younger generations to help carry the things.
"Old Man Tian, what are you doing?"
Wang Cheng, who came to help, asked in surprise.
"That's right, it's so grand, it's not worth the money."
Another person named Tian Jin also looked curious.
"Of course I'm going to thank Lin Heng for the gift. He saved my life twice this time, so I can't go without some token of appreciation."
Tian Baishun explained, and then said: "You two, just help me carry the things, don't talk nonsense, each person will be paid ten cents."
As he said this, he carried the pig's head and walked in front, and the other two followed behind, carrying the cloth and suede.
"Tian Baishun, what are you doing?"
Old Man Tian's movement immediately attracted the villagers, and many people asked questions.
"Go and repay Lin Heng for saving your life." Tian Baishun said seriously.
"For saving my life?" someone asked curiously.
"I fell into a quagmire while hunting, and it was Lin Heng who found me and rescued me."
He explained that by constantly spreading the news along the way, the news that Lin Heng saved his life spread quickly.
His gratitude made many people feel good about him and think that he is a good person who knows how to repay kindness.
“Bang Bang!!”
Lin Heng was talking to Xiulan when there was a knock on the door outside the yard.
"I'll go and take a look."
Lin Heng put down Zizhu and walked over.
"Who is it?"
Lin Heng asked as he opened the door.
He was stunned as soon as the door opened. There were about ten people standing outside, and some people were watching in the distance.
"Tian Baishun, what are you doing?" Lin Heng asked Tian Baishun in front of him.
"Old man, I'm here to repay you for saving my life." Tian Baishun said with a smile.
Lin Heng: “…”
"Take it back quickly. The pork you left last night is enough to repay you."
Lin Heng waved his hand and was about to close the door.
Tian Baishun stepped in and looked at Lin Heng and said, "If you don't accept it, do you want me to kneel down in public to repay you?"
As he was about to kneel down, Lin Heng stopped him and said speechlessly: "That pork is really enough, there is no need to do this, I did it casually not for your reward."
"If you don't let me in, I will kneel down and thank you." Tian Baishun shook his head.
Lin Heng really wanted to turn around, close the door and ignore him, but there were so many people watching. If he really did that, he might not be able to survive in the village in the future.
"Okay, okay, if you want to spend money, just spend it." Lin Heng spread his hands and opened the door.
Tian Baishun led the two people behind him into the house and placed the things on the large cabinet in the main hall.
"Don't be surprised by this little thing. Compared with my life, it's nothing."
Tian Baishun said with a smile.
Lin Heng didn't know what to say, so he shook his head and said, "I really didn't save you for your reward. I can't accept this thing no matter what."
…
He used the most tiring way of speaking to express his original intention of saving people, which was not for the sake of money or repayment.
Instead, he simply did what he could and didn't want Tian Baishun to die in front of him.
There is no way to refuse this kind of gift, but you have to be polite, otherwise people will say that you are greedy for a reward. This is called social etiquette.
In the end, Tian Baishun stayed for lunch while the other villagers left.
The news about Lin Heng saving people and Tian Baishun repaying them spread quickly.
Lin Heng's reputation became better, and everyone's impression of Tian Baishun also changed.
After having lunch at Lin Heng's house, Tian Baishun went back empty-handed. Of course, he couldn't take anything back with him.
His attitude has also changed when he meets people. Not only did he used to be harsh in the past, he would slander everyone and look down on them.
Now his attitude has become amiable and approachable, which has greatly improved his image in the village.
I don’t know whether he did it on purpose or whether he experienced life and death and gained a deeper understanding of life and changed completely.
But at least in the eyes of the villagers, they all felt that he had changed after experiencing life and death.
"What should we do with these things?"
Tian Baishun left, and Xiulan pointed at the things on the cabinet and asked.
"Just take it and use it."
Lin Heng spread his hands and said that once this thing was given out, it would be impossible to take it back.
But to be honest, his impression of Tian Baishun has indeed changed. After all, no one dislikes someone who is grateful.
As to whether he did it on purpose, Lin Heng was not sure as they had no intersection in their previous life.
But I remember that the old man lived quite a long life, and died when he was over seventy years old.
Among the three items on the counter, the suede is the most valuable. Although it is not big, it can still be sold for thirty or forty yuan.
Including the other two items and yesterday’s pork, the total value is about one hundred dollars.
"Okay." Xiulan nodded.
She felt that there was nothing wrong with accepting it. In rural areas, one would go to the door to express gratitude for saving one's life in this way.
(End of this chapter)
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