Chapter 335: A businessman who doesn't keep his word, and a bumper rice harvest?
The weather is very good today, with the sun shining brightly and no clouds in the sky.
“Ooooooo…”
Lin Heng pushed open the gate of the yard and came in. The two dogs, Xiongba and Fengshou, came to greet him, one on the left and one on the right.
Freshly steamed sweet potato chips were drying on a bamboo dustpan in the yard. They were obviously made by Xiulan. This hardworking woman would find something to do even when she was pregnant.
"Dad!!" Xiaoxia ran over in surprise when she saw Lin Heng putting on his shoes. Yang Qing and Lin Tao, who were playing with her on the mat, both looked curious and envious.
"Come, let daddy hold her." Lin picked her up and kissed her, then touched her face, "Be good at home."
"I'm so good. I even help my mother take out the trash." Xiaoxia said with her little face raised.
"Xiaoxia is such a good girl. Dad bought you pomegranates and apples." Lin put her down and said with a smile.
Xiulan came out of the kitchen and said, "She just ate the wax gourd. Give her less."
"Okay, I got it." Lin Heng nodded, took out three apples, washed them, cut them into 24 pieces and placed them on a plate for Xiaoxia and the others to eat.
"Try it!" Lin Heng took a piece and fed it to Xiulan.
Xiulan blinked, took a bite of half, chewed it twice with her cheeks puffed out, then finished the remaining half, and her red lips touched his fingers.
"This apple is delicious and crispy." Xiulan said on WeChat. She doesn't like apples with a sticky texture.
"Of course, I picked it specially." Lin Heng said with a smile.
It is very easy to choose apples. The apples with white dots on the skin have a sticky texture, and the apples with white stripes have a crispy texture.
"Everything dad buys is delicious~" Xiaoxia praised while eating an apple.
"You are the best at talking."
Xiulan smiled and glanced at her, then turned to look at Lin Heng, "What are you going to do with those wax gourds and hawthorns? If you don't do anything with them, they will go bad. I'm afraid you won't be able to use them before you dry them."
"Well, I'm going to make jam. I also brought back some wild grapes and an old turtle. They were given to me by my parents."
Lin Heng pointed at the things on the table and said.
"Let's keep it for now. I don't want to eat it these two days." Xiulan picked a grape and put it in her mouth, then looked at the daily necessities bought by Lao Bie and Lin Heng.
"Okay, I'll put it in a bucket and keep it there." Lin Heng nodded in agreement, sat down and drank a sip of tea, and then said, "I sold the Ganoderma lucidum and the furs I had saved for a total of 150 yuan, which I put into my passbook."
"That's not bad." Xiulan said happily.
Lin Heng took a rest, gave the money he earned from selling scorpions to his eldest brother's family, and then went home to start making jam.
This time he plans to make three flavors, one is a melon jam, one is a schisandra jam, and one is a hawthorn jam.
This thing is not difficult to make. He soaks Schisandra chinensis and hawthorn in salt water, and then he and Xiulan process the wax gourd first.
They took a basin and placed it on the coffee table. The two of them sat on a bench and took the fruits of the wax gourd and placed them in the basin.
Xiaoxia, Lin Tao and three other children were watching eagerly, wanting to eat but also wanting to help.
"Go and have fun. You can't eat anymore." Lin Heng said to the three of them.
"I'll just look after my second father." Lin Tao said, and Xiaoxia and Yang Qing nodded repeatedly.
"Okay then." Lin Heng said and continued to work. A basket of August melon pulp filled a basin with a diameter of half a meter.
At this time, the sweet potato strips steaming in the pot were also ready. Lin Heng took them out and poured them into a winnowing basket to dry them into sweet potato chips.
Then clean the pot and throw the melon pulp into it, mash it and cook it.
Keep boiling over high heat. The wax gourd has seeds in its flesh, so you need to filter it with gauze after the flesh and seeds are separated.
Then continue to boil the pure pulp, adding sugar and very sour orange juice in the middle to adjust the taste to sweet and sour.
Lemon is a Mediterranean plant and it was not cultivated on a large scale in China at that time, so he used orange juice instead.
"This big pot of wax gourd only produced this little bit of jam." Xiulan said as she looked at the two glass bottles that were ten centimeters high and five centimeters wide in front of her.
The jam of the wax gourd is lavender in color and looks very beautiful when packed in a glass bottle.
"This is considered a lot. Most of the wax gourds are seeds." Lin Heng said with a smile.
"How do we eat this? Shall we make schisandra and hawthorn jam next?" Xiulan asked curiously again.
"You can put a little bit of anything in it. I'm going to roast some potatoes." Lin Heng took a few potatoes and put them in the hole of the pot to roast them.
During this time, he and Xiulan processed the soaked hawthorn and schisandra. They cut the hawthorn and removed the core, and picked the schisandra directly and threw it into the pot. Like the wax gourd, it had to be boiled to filter out the peel and seeds.
After finishing all these, the baked potatoes were also ready. Lin Heng peeled the skin, crushed them slightly and put them on a plate, then added two spoonfuls of freshly made melon jam.
"Try it!" Lin Heng said with a smile.
"Let me eat first~" Xiaoxia ran over and said in a baby voice.
Xiulan took a spoon and scooped some and fed it to her. Xiaoxia took a bite and her eyes suddenly lit up. She said in surprise, "That's great. I want more."
She picked up a spoon and started eating. Xiulan tasted it and nodded, "It's really good, sour and sweet, and goes well with the roasted potatoes."
Lin Heng took a bite himself and said with a smile: "You can eat it with steamed buns, rice, or anything else. You can even drink it with water. It doesn't have to be potatoes."
"I understand." Xiulan nodded.
After eating the roasted potatoes, Lin Heng turned over the dried sweet potatoes, and continued to make schisandra jam and hawthorn paste with Xiulan.
These two are sweet and sour in nature, just add some extra rock sugar.
The two of them were busy for an entire afternoon and produced a bottle of schisandra jam, a bottle of hawthorn paste, and some hawthorn cake.
Life is about three meals a day. Although it is troublesome to make, both of them are very interested in it.
When I finished making the jam, the sun was setting. It was a pleasure to sit on the bench in the yard and watch the red glow in the sky fade away.
Without their parents-in-law around, they live a more comfortable and relaxed life.
"Then do you think watermelon and cantaloupe can be made into jam?" Xiulan turned her head and asked curiously. She had made soybean paste and broad bean paste before, but this was her first time making this kind of jam.
But it feels like the door to a new world has been opened.
"Indeed, it can be done, but the jam we make ourselves doesn't last long. We have to steam it in water every two days, otherwise it will go bad easily."
Lin Heng nodded and said that if he had money, he really wanted to buy a refrigerator. With a refrigerator, the shelf life of many things could be extended.
"That's okay. I'll try it myself some other day. If I can't finish it, I can give it to someone else." Xiulan said, leaning on his shoulder.
After watching the sunset for a while, Lin Heng dug up a big taro and steamed it. Originally, the taro tasted bad when steamed directly, but now it tasted very good with the jam.
In the blink of an eye, it was the next morning. The sun had almost dried up after two days, and his rice could be harvested. Father Lin called Lin Heng to help him prepare the tools for harvesting the rice, and went to ask for help.
Because his rice seeds and fertilizers were purchased, many people wanted to see them, so they came uninvited.
At noon, Lin Heng had just finished his meal and was drinking tea when he heard a shout from outside: "Lin Heng, someone is looking for you."
Lin Heng walked over curiously, opened the door and saw Ge Qingshan and his father.
"Lin Heng!" Ge Qingshan greeted him warmly.
"Uncle Ge, Qingshan, please come in!" Lin Heng smiled and invited the two into the house.
"Your home is really nice!" Ge Qingshan praised repeatedly as soon as he entered the house.
"Yes, it's good and has a lot of romance." Ge Qingshan's father Ge Yuanhai said with his hands behind his back and nodded slightly, with the attitude of a leader inspecting.
"It's just a mess. Let's go inside and talk." Lin Heng took the two of them into the house. After they had some tea, he took them to Red Maple Mountain and did not let them stay here for long.
Arriving at Hongfeng Mountain, Ge Yuanhai put his hands behind his back and praised: "Your breeding base is pretty good!"
He originally thought that Lin Heng's place was just a few rotten puddles where he raised his livestock casually, but he didn't expect it to be so well made, like a manor.
Ge Qingshan also said: "No wonder you like to stay in the mountains, the environment is really good."
"Let's take a look at the shrimps directly?" Lin Heng asked.
"Okay." Ge Yuanhai nodded.
Lin Heng called his father and went to collect a ground trap so that they could check the quality of the shrimps.
His prawns are of top quality, uniform in size and graceful in shape, and are all farmed with mountain spring water.
After looking at it, Ge Yuanhai nodded and said, "The quality is OK. I'll give you 1.3 yuan per pound and I'll buy all the shrimps you raise."
Lin Heng turned his head and looked at him, showing a hint of a smile and asking: "Uncle Ge, didn't we agree on one dollar and fifty cents in the city?"
"With this price, the quality of your product doesn't even meet the standard of one dollar and fifty cents, and doesn't it cost me money to transport it over such a long distance?" Ge Yuanhai said with a somewhat impatient attitude.
Lin Heng didn't say anything. He looked at Ge Qingshan, who looked calm and composed. He said indifferently, "Lin Heng, this price is not low. We have to make some money too."
"Then why did you promise one dollar and fifty cents at the beginning?" Lin Heng asked.
"We said that if the quality is good, it would be $1.50, but my dad thinks the quality is not up to par." Ge Qingshan spread his hands.
Lin Heng couldn't help but smile and deleted this person from his friend list.
Some people are like this. They seem nice when they are playing, but they immediately change their attitude when the critical moment comes.
This price was what they had agreed upon before, but now that they were at the scene, they both changed their minds. He hated people who didn't keep their promises the most.
Ge Yuanhai picked up the shrimp again and looked at it, then said calmly, "Let me put it this way, I'll give you 1.4 yuan at most. Without me, you won't be able to find a buyer, and you don't even have a truck to transport it."
"Then we can't reach an agreement. Sorry for bothering you to make the trip." Lin Heng smiled and saw the guests off.
"Think it over carefully. I won't offer you this price if you come to me again." Ge Yuanhai stared at him.
Lin Heng nodded calmly: "Yes."
"Okay then, let's go." Ge Yuanhai looked at Lin Hengyi and left with his son.
Ge Qingshan glanced at Lin Heng, feeling somewhat unhappy, as if he felt that he was a little ungrateful.
Hearing the roar of the motorcycle, Father Lin said, "We didn't reach an agreement. What should we do next?"
"Don't worry, there are other channels." Lin Heng waved his hand.
Good quality products will never be hard to sell. Ge Yuanhai probably thought of taking advantage of the situation because he is young and a farmer.
Little did he know that Lin Heng had eaten more salt than he had eaten rice, so how could he not see through her thoughts?
"That's right, our products are so good." Father Lin nodded, feeling worried.
Lin Heng went home and told Xiulan about this matter. Xiulan comforted him, "If these people look down on us, then we won't sell him. At worst, we can just sell him to a state-owned store."
"I thought so too." Lin Heng nodded. He was not unhappy or angry about this. This was a very trivial matter to him.
After staying at home for the whole afternoon, he went to the fields to help with some work in the afternoon. Early the next morning, a group of people gathered at Red Maple Mountain.
Lin Hengsan’s father’s family, his uncle’s family, and his eldest uncle were all there.
"Let's go!"
After packing up everything, Father Lin said loudly.
Twenty people came to the field in a lively manner. The work had already been assigned. Eight women were responsible for harvesting the rice, and 12 men were responsible for threshing the rice and helping to carry it back.
There are two people at Hongfeng Mountain helping with the secondary screening of rice and other work.
"The rice ears here are fuller than usual. It looks like the yield can really reach over a thousand kilograms." Li Baiquan said loudly while looking at the rice.
"Of course it will work. I will buy some seeds next year and give it a try." Lin Xutao said with a smile. This year he only took a few seedlings from Lin Heng's house to plant. Now he regrets it very much after comparing them.
Lu Honghai smiled and said, "Hehe, thanks to my nephew, I planted two acres of rice. Although I didn't use fertilizer, it's much better than in previous years."
Father Lin grinned and said, "Next year when we plant, I'll ask Lin Heng to buy some for you."
He was particularly happy and proud today, thinking that his son was really useful. After living a whole life, he finally had the chance to hold his head high in the village.
Lin Heng's aunt Lu Hongyun reminded: "Stop talking, and get started, we have already cut so much."
"Okay, here we come." Everyone nodded, put away the wooden threshing barrels, and began to thresh the grain one by one.
This year I got two threshing buckets, which makes it faster.
Lin Heng's family now has four and a half acres of rice fields left, and the team harvested half of them in one morning.
At noon, Lin's mother prepared a large table of sumptuous dishes, including pork, fish and shrimp. Everyone ate happily. The Lin family's meals have not been bad since last year.
What makes people most happy is the bumper rice harvest. Last year, the Lin family could harvest six snakeskin bags of rice from one acre of land. In recent years, they could harvest twelve bags of rice from one acre of land.
The cultivated land has decreased, but the food produced is still more. Although it is incredible, this is the fact.
In the afternoon they finished threshing another two and a half acres of rice fields and harvested all the rice.
In the next three days, Lin's mother and Lin Heng helped to process the newly harvested rice at home. They first dried it and then used a windmill to remove the shrunken rice grains, leaving only the intact rice grains.
By the afternoon of June 28, three days of strong sunshine had completely dried the rice, and the rice was also completely washed.
After bagging, they were weighed one by one. Finally, Lin Heng totaled all the weights. His parents and Xiulan surrounded him and watched expectantly.
"Guess how many pounds of rice there are in this harvest?" Lin asked with a smile after he finished calculating.
"I estimate it's about 5,000 kilograms." Lin's mother said with a smile.
Father Lin shook his head and said, "Five thousand kilograms may be a bit too much. Four thousand five hundred kilograms should be about right."
Xiulan blinked and smiled, "Then I'll be bold and guess 5,500 kilograms?"
"I only weigh 10,000 pounds!" Xiaoxia made trouble.
Lin Heng glanced at everyone and said with a smile, "This time we harvested a total of 5,235 kilograms of rice."
When Lin said this number, everyone was stunned.
"hiss!!"
Then they all couldn't help but gasp.
“Oh my god!!”
(End of this chapter)
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