Chapter 395 Autumn Harvest, Over 100
After a while, a black goat gave birth and began to expel the placenta. It gave birth to two black lambs, both of which were very healthy.
After the amniotic fluid on their bodies was licked clean, they stood up and called out one after another, running to drink milk.
"What a good start! The first one gave birth to two beautiful cubs." Father Lin said happily.
"Indeed, these two lambs are quite strong." Lin Heng nodded.
On the other side, there was a black goat that had also given birth to two cubs, but one of them hadn't stood up for a long time, but it didn't seem to be a big problem.
The third one was different. It shocked the two of them because after giving birth to the third lamb, it actually started giving birth to the fourth.
"This sheep is really lucky. It laid four eggs at once."
Father Lin looked a little shocked.
"It's rare to give birth to four lambs at one time, but the lambs are a little thin." Lin Heng nodded. These four lambs were obviously smaller than the other lambs.
But it doesn’t matter, as long as you are healthy, this kind of thinness can be compensated by postnatal feeding.
After the sheep excreted the placenta, Lin Heng and his father went in to pick up the placenta, cooked it, chopped it up, and put it into corn paste to feed the sheep.
For the time being, these three ewes will be kept in this compartment and will be put back after being fed.
Seeing the father and son coming down, Lin's mother asked, "How is it? Is everything going well?"
"It went smoothly. Two of them gave birth to two cubs, and one gave birth to four cubs." Father Lin grinned.
Mother Lin was also surprised when she heard this: "Four in a litter, that's really a good fortune for the family."
"I'll go scoop some cornmeal to feed them." Lin Heng didn't say much and went to cook corn porridge for the sheep.
The corn paste was put into the pot, and then the placenta was chopped up with leather gloves and thrown in to provide some protein for the sheep.
After he was done, he left, and his father would feed it immediately after it cooled down.
After returning home, Lin Heng told Xiulan about the situation here. Xiulan was very happy with the good news and said with a smile: "Even if each sheep only gives birth to two, there will be a total of 100 sheep, which can be sold for a lot of money."
"That's for sure. You will become a wealthy woman in a few years." Lin Heng said with a smile.
Xiaoxia innocently interrupted: "Dad, I want to be a rich woman too!"
"Okay, I'll make you a rich woman then." Lin Heng smiled and touched her head.
"It's not that important whether you are rich or not, as long as you have enough money to live a worry-free life."
Xiulan said, "I'll cook some noodles and some cold cucumber salad for lunch."
"Okay, I'll help you in a moment."
Lin Heng nodded.
Xiulan cut the cucumber into shreds, and Lin Heng ate one of the remaining cucumber hearts and threw the rest to the back hill to feed the cows.
The noodles are cold and delicious when eaten with shredded cucumber.
After dinner, Lin Heng rested at home for a while, and then went to the back mountain to clean the cowshed for the cows. He dug holes around the fruit trees and buried all the cow dung he cleaned up in them.
This will not produce odor and will also promote the growth of fruit trees.
In the afternoon, Lin's father called people to help thresh the rice. His family only had four and a half acres of land, so they didn't need so many people. Just calling ten people was enough.
In the evening, two more sheep gave birth. Lin Heng went to help take care of them. Both sheep only gave birth to two lambs, which was relatively normal.
The next morning, the family started threshing rice. After breakfast, Lin Heng and Xiulan took the children to Hongfeng Mountain. He was responsible for looking after the cattle and sheep, while Xiulan took care of her own three children and her eldest sister-in-law's two.
"Son, a sheep gave birth to lambs in the middle of last night. We found out this morning that there were three lambs. One of them died and we don't know how." Mother Lin said to Lin Heng.
Lin Heng thought for a moment and said, "It's probably a natural stillbirth or it was suffocated by amniotic fluid. It's unlikely to have been trampled."
There are only five ewes in a compartment of 18 square meters in the sheep pen, so it is unlikely that they would be trampled to death.
After saying that, Lin Hengjiu went up to take a look. Seeing that no sheep had given birth yet, he came down to help sift the harvested rice and dry it on the ground.
He thought two sheep would give birth today, but none of them did in the morning, so he spent the whole morning helping to dry the millet.
After the millet was harvested in the afternoon, surprisingly, there was not a single sheep left to produce any food. After the sun set and they helped to harvest the rice, Lin Heng took his wife and children to pick up eggs.
After picking up the eggs and carrying them back home, Xiulan planned to make some scrambled eggs with Chinese toon in the evening. There were still a lot of Chinese toon picked in the spring and stored in the freezer.
It was around nine o'clock after dinner. Lin Heng had just finished telling Xiaoxia a story and was about to go to bed when his mother called him from the backyard: "Son, two black goats have given birth and one is having a difficult birth. We don't know what to do."
"Here it comes." Lin Heng replied, turning his head to look at Xiulan helplessly, "I really admire this sheep. It chooses to give birth at night."
"I'll go with you. It should be okay since the child is asleep." Xiulan said as she prepared to get dressed.
Lin Heng stopped her and shook his head: "You go to sleep first, there is no need for one more person to stay up late."
Xiulan wanted to go with him, but after being called "good girl" twice, she just lay on the bed obediently and refused to go.
Lin Heng put on his clothes, took his keys and went out. Lin's mother was waiting for him outside, very anxious: "This sheep is really tormenting, but there is nothing we can do."
"Go over quickly." Lin Heng nodded.
The two of them walked quickly to Hongfeng Mountain. Lin Heng took out the oxytocin he had bought in advance from the warehouse and brought it up. He found that the black goat was indeed having a difficult delivery, so he gave it an injection of oxytocin.
However, the effect of injecting oxytocin was not very good. The lamb was stuck halfway through. Lin Heng could only ask his mother to get some vegetable oil and pour it into the channel to lubricate it, and then manually pull the lamb out.
Taking a look at the lamb that had just been delivered, Lin Heng smiled and said, "It's still alive. It wasn't in vain."
"Just be alive."
Both Mr. and Mrs. Lin breathed a sigh of relief.
Lin Heng helped deliver the other lamb in her belly. It was already early in the morning when he was done, but there was nothing he could do, that was how farming worked.
He had no other skills, so to accumulate his first pot of gold he could only start from this difficult industry that he was most familiar with.
After taking a bath in the mountain stream, it was already one o'clock when he returned home. But when he got home, he found that the light in the bedroom was still on. He walked in and saw Xiulan changing the child's diaper and feeding the baby.
"The two little guys have peed again." Lin Heng came over to help. Taking care of children is also a very hard job.
Xiulan nodded: "Yes, but I have already changed the feeding, you just need to help Luming fall asleep."
Lin Heng looked at Lin Luming who was moving around on the bed, picked him up, put him in the cradle beside him and rocked him to sleep.
"After he turns one year old, you can feed him milk and food, and he can also start to control his urination." Lin Heng said as he coaxed him to sleep.
Xiulan finished feeding Du Heng, shook her head and smiled, "There will be even more troublesome five or six years old in the future, and it will be even more difficult to take care of than now."
"That's better than having to get up in the middle of the night to take care of them now. As long as we educate them from the time they are sensible, they won't necessarily be particularly naughty." Lin Heng said, looking at his two sons.
"Look, the two little guys are laughing, they don't believe it." Xiulan said softly. Little boys of five or six years old are really disliked by everyone.
The two chatted and soon coaxed the two little ones to sleep. After putting them in the crib, the two could finally have a good rest.
After turning off the lights, the two of them covered themselves with a summer quilt and rested. The next morning, when Xiulan woke up, she put one hand on Lin Heng's neck. It was a bit cold in the morning, so she leaned close to him.
"It's eight o'clock. We have to get up and help." Xiulan woke up first and woke up Lin Heng.
"It's so late."
Lin Heng yawned, hugged Xiulan into his arms tightly and then let go. Her soft body against his was also a different way of waking him up.
"Get up quickly." Xiulan said to him and put on her clothes one by one.
Today was the big millet party for his eldest brother's family, and his eldest uncle, third uncle, and uncle's family were all here. Their tasks were the same as yesterday, Lin Heng took care of Hongfeng Mountain, and Xiulan helped his eldest sister-in-law take care of the children.
Lin Heng fed all the livestock, but this year again no sheep gave birth. The same thing happened over the next two days. Lin's father and mother went to other people's homes to help thresh the grain, while Lin Heng watched over them at Hongfeng Mountain.
After the millet was harvested, his family's rice had also been dried. This year's yield was not as good as last year, with only 900 kilograms per acre, and 4,500 kilograms of rice produced from 4,000 acres.
But everyone in the village was very happy. They used new rice seeds and had a much better harvest than in previous years.
When the rice in the village was almost harvested and everyone had some free time, Lin Heng called people to help collect Astragalus seeds. More than 130 kilograms of Astragalus seeds were harvested from the ten acres of land in Hongfeng Mountain, plus the previous 300 kilograms.
In addition, he also collected the astragalus from his third father, eldest uncle, and younger uncle-in-law. He bought the seeds at a low price. The three families collected 350 kilograms of astragalus seeds, and together with his own, the total was 580 kilograms.
After the seeds were harvested, we had people help dig the astragalus, turn the seeds over and bury them deep in the soil, and then help harvest the grass.
Lin Heng didn't go anywhere for more than half a month. He just stayed at home to help deliver the sheep. It was not until September 20 that all 25 ewes gave birth.
These days, sheep often give birth at night or in the morning, so he doesn't get a good night's sleep.
At noon on the 20th, Lin Heng and his father came to the sheepfold with fodder. After feeding the cattle and sheep, they counted the number of lambs.
After counting, Father Lin asked, "57 lambs, right?"
"Yes, 57." Lin Heng nodded. There should have been 61 lambs, but four died. This is unavoidable in breeding. No matter how well they are taken care of, there will always be various accidents.
"When these little guys grow up, we will have more than a hundred sheep in our family," said Father Lin happily.
As Lin Heng walked out, he said, "Yes, I'll take a few days off and find an excavator to dig the foundation."
Now the busy farming season in autumn has basically ended. Most of the crops have been harvested. What remains is to dig sweet potatoes and harvest soybeans, but the quantities are not large. Then we will start planting rapeseed and wheat.
"It's time to take a two-day break. I'm going to find some time to go fishing by myself." Father Lin said with a smile. He was tired from working all the time.
"You should have more fun. There is always work to do." Lin Heng nodded.
The two of them walked down the mountain while talking. Lin Heng took a ripe cantaloupe from here and walked back.
Mid-Autumn Festival is on the 29th of this month, which is still nine days away. The mountains are still green now, and the leaves will not turn yellow until mid-to-late October. That is when they go to hunt bears.
Inside the house, Xiulan was tidying up the vegetable garden, pulling out the green beans and planting garlic, coriander and radishes.
"Is everything done over there?" she asked when she saw Lin Heng coming back.
Lin Heng nodded: "Yes, all the sheep have given birth, but the cows seem to be in heat soon, so we need to find a bull to breed with them."
"Then you can finally have a good rest for a few days." Xiulan nodded and said, "It's very easy to breed cattle. There are many big bulls in the village, all of them are yellow cattle. Or you can use that dairy cow for breeding."
"We'll talk about it later. After two days of rest, we should go into the city, sell the Ganoderma lucidum we got before, and contact an excavator to dig the foundation." Lin Heng said as he helped Xiulan.
"Take your time, there's still a lot of time. Let's do those things after the Mid-Autumn Festival." Xiulan said softly.
"That's fine. I'll go to the city to sell Ganoderma lucidum in the next two days." Lin Heng nodded.
The two of them took the green beans and cowpea seeds to the back mountain and left them there, waiting to dig the land after the sun went down in the afternoon.
After returning to the main room and calling Xiaoxia over, Lin Heng killed the cantaloupe and shared it among the three of them. After lunch, Lin Heng didn't want to go out in the afternoon, so he stayed at home and helped Xiulan with some chores.
When the sun went down, he dug the ground and planted garlic, coriander and radishes with Xiulan.
After planting, the two washed their faces and sat on the bench to rest. They looked at the sky for a while and then went into the house to cook.
Lin Heng enjoyed this peaceful and tranquil life. The next day, he stayed at home again. He slept until early in the morning and played with mud with Xiaoxia in the afternoon. They used the yellow mud to knead some small animals and put them there to dry. They were going to paint them later.
Early in the morning on the 22nd, he called his eldest brother and father into the city to sell all the herbs and other things he had dug earlier. Normally, he was too lazy to sell these at his own purchasing station because it was very troublesome to calculate the income.
He went to the purchasing station less frequently in recent years, only once a month, and mainly relied on Caiyun to help him look at the account books.
When they entered the city, they sold all the herbs they had obtained before. Lin Heng's Ganoderma lucidum, other herbs and roe deer skin were sold for 1,090 yuan.
Then he sold two roe deer whips to Li Chengguo for 50 yuan each, making a profit of 100 yuan, a total of 1,190 yuan.
After selling the two roe deer penises, he still had a bear penis and a sika deer penis at home. These things would only be worth a lot of money if they were sold to someone who needed them, so he was not in a hurry to sell them.
He hasn’t sold the mountain cold-water turtle yet and plans to wait until next time.
With this one thousand yuan to fill the gap, the total amount of money he now has has reached twenty thousand yuan. He has spent more than two or three thousand yuan on buying shrimp feed this year.
His father's stuff sold for 620 yuan, and his eldest brother's stuff sold for 510 yuan. This year, the three of them made a lot of money by picking Ganoderma lucidum.
After the things were sold, Lin Heng first asked his father and eldest brother to go buy things, and he drove to the factory to take a look. He was a little worried as he hadn't been there for a long time.
He went in and took a look to make sure everything was intact before going back to buy daily necessities and things needed for the Mid-Autumn Festival. After finishing these, Lin Heng still had to deal with two very important things.
(End of this chapter)
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