"I heard that the pig farmer in our village was replaced by the hunter's wife. Why do you think the captain chose her? Can she raise pigs well?"
"I don't know what the captain was thinking. He hired someone with no experience to raise pigs. What if the pigs die? It will be a huge loss for our village."
"It's useless for us to have any objections. After all, she was chosen by the captain himself. I heard that Hunter died during a mission, so the captain took special care of her and found this easy job for her."
Suddenly, several villagers who were discussing the matter fell silent.
Her husband just died. There's no need to rub salt into the wound. That would be really unkind.
Because the smell from the pig farm is quite pungent, especially in the summer when flies and mosquitoes are flying everywhere, it is unbearable, so the team leader built the pig farm outside the village.
The pig farm is far away from the village, but it is only about 200 meters away from Huang Yuelan's home, so it is very convenient for Huang Yuelan to go home and feed the pigs.
Previously, the pig farmers in the village were all selected from those who were capable and, most importantly, had experience in pig farming. However, this time Huang Yuelan was asked to take the position, and the villagers had some objections.
Some people went to the brigade headquarters to reason with the brigade leader, but the leader's just one reason made them discouraged.
"The hunter Wang Jianguo died gloriously. It is not easy for Huang Yuelan to raise eight young children and two half-grown brothers alone. Moreover, two groups of educated youth have come to the village one after another, and there is no shortage of teachers. We can only let her work as a pig farmer. Everyone should be more considerate of her. We can't let her dig the fields with her young children, can we?" the team leader asked.
It would not be realistic to ask Huang Yuelan to go work in the fields of the production team with the other villagers, as there would be no one to help take care of the children.
After the team leader said this, the others really couldn't compare with Huang Yuelan. After all, when it came to comparing misery, no one in the First Production Team could compare with Huang Yuelan.
He lost his mother when he was young, lost his father when he grew up, and was driven out by the Huang family.
Because of her unhappy marriage, Sun Gousheng broke off the engagement. She later married the hunter Wang Jianguo. She thought her life had finally gotten better, but the good times didn't last long. Hunter Wang died again, leaving her with a bunch of hungry children. How pitiful!
Although everyone was a little poor, at least their parents were alive and well, and their spouses lived in harmony, with no one dying or passing away...
In order not to disappoint the team leader's expectations, Huang Yuelan decided to feed the production team's pigs carefully.
After accepting the position of pig farmer, Huang Yuelan arrived at the pig farm and saw that all the pigs were so skinny with shriveled bellies and their ribs clearly visible. They looked so fragile that she was afraid they would be blown down by the wind.
But Huang Yuelan could also understand it. After all, food is scarce for people nowadays, let alone these livestock, which have even less to eat.
Even if the higher-ups give us some pig feed, it’s very little and we still have to rely on ourselves for most of the problem.
So it's no surprise that these pigs are so thin.
Seeing that the pigpen was extremely filthy, Huang Yuelan covered her mouth with a piece of cloth and tied it behind her neck. Then she took a shovel and a dung bucket and went into the pigpen to shovel out all the dirt.
These pig manures are the main fertilizer for the collective farmland of the production team. They must be shoveled out and piled aside, then mixed with some wood ash, fermented, and then used in the fields.
After cleaning the dirt in the pigpen, he fetched a few buckets of water, rinsed the pigpen, and cleaned the pig trough at the same time.
The pig farm is located halfway up the mountain and is relatively ventilated, so it doesn’t take long for the pigpen to become clean and fresh.
Huang Yuelan chopped some more thatch and put some in each pigpen. She also wove the remaining thatch together and placed it on top of the pig shed to keep the pigs warm.
Later, when she was in college, there were relatively fewer courses. Huang Yuelan had nothing to do and liked to go to the library. She would read all kinds of books and even accidentally read a book about pig farming.
The book introduces some methods and precautions for raising pigs, especially paying attention to keeping the pigsty dry and hygienic, keeping the pigs warm, and paying attention to the pigs' diet, etc.
I watched it just out of interest at that time, but I didn't expect it to come in handy now.
It seems that flipping through books when you have nothing to do is very beneficial.
Huang Yuelan looked at the room where the pig feed was kept. There was no feed left in there, not even a scrap.
"It seems I can only wait for the next batch of pig feed." Huang Yuelan thought to herself.
However, it is still unknown when the next batch of pig feed will arrive, but the pigs cannot be left hungry these days, so we have to find a way ourselves.
When we come to the mountain, we find some grass that can be used to feed pigs, such as banana trees, and the water hyacinth by the river can also be used to feed pigs.
After carrying the wild banana trees back, they are chopped up with a machete and then mixed with cooked swill. The so-called swill is just some hot pot water. Now there is almost not enough to eat for every meal, and no one will throw away leftovers and waste food.
Pour the mixed pig feed into the trough, and the pigs will quickly finish it with a smacking sound, as if they had never eaten before.
"Mom, these pigs are really good at eating!" Wang Aihua said with a smile.
Huang Yuelan smiled and said, "You can only gain weight if you eat. You have to eat more."
"But why are they so thin if they eat so much?" Wang Aihua asked a question from the bottom of his heart.
Huang Yuelan: "It's okay, they will get fat soon."
Although there was not much bran or pig feed, the pigs enjoyed the pig feed that Huang Yuelan mixed with slop.
After a while, the shriveled belly became much bigger.
Because of the shortage of pig feed, Huang Yuelan had to rack her brains to think of a way to feed the pigs.
She decided to open up some land near the pig farm and specifically plant banana trees to feed the pigs.
After all, the wild banana trees are very limited. Once you have cut all the ones nearby, it will be quite troublesome to cut those far away. It would be more convenient to plant one yourself.
After listening to Huang Yuelan's suggestion, the team leader asked curiously: "Can this banana tree be used to feed pigs? This is the first time I've heard of it."
"Of course you can. Banana trees are not only nutritious, but also resistant to viruses and plagues, and can enhance pigs' disease resistance." Huang Yuelan said.
After hearing this, the team leader Fan Ming was completely opened up to a new world. It is good to be educated. There can also be new methods for raising pigs, which sounds very scientific.
"Okay, no problem. That hillside has been barren all the time. If you think it's suitable for growing banana trees, you can plant banana trees all over the hillside." Team leader Fan Ming gave Huang Yuelan full rights to develop and plant.
Compared with the captains in later generations, the captain at this time still had great power. Unless there were major incidents such as murder or collective fighting in the village, other matters were basically handled by the captain.
With the support of the captain, Huang Yuelan can do it boldly without any hesitation, no matter who objects.
The hillside where the pig farm is located is quite steep and has many thorns, so it is difficult to cultivate. Therefore, it has never been cultivated into agricultural land, and even the dry land is not used.
Huang Yuelan is not afraid of hard work. In order to feed the pigs on the farm, after feeding the pigs, she would pick up farm tools such as hoes and shovels to reclaim the wasteland near the farm.
Weeds and the like were easy to remove, but those plants with more developed roots and stems were very difficult to clear. Huang Yuelan took a lot of effort to reclaim a large piece of land.
Fortunately, compared with crops, bananas are relatively hardy and do not require very fine soil preparation. Some small stones do not matter, and even some grass does not matter, after all, they can grow very tall in the wild.
Wang Aiguo and his brothers saw their mother working in the fields from home, and found that she was very hard-working, so they all ran over to help Huang Yuelan. The three little brothers were put in the stroller made by their father.
Fortunately, the sixth, seventh and eighth children were all relatively obedient, especially the sixth child. He stayed by himself for the whole morning without crying or making a fuss. He looked at his two crying brothers beside him with a mature face and eyes full of contempt.
There is strength in numbers. Although the children are young, they are very strong and work very hard, so they can help a lot.
Although it is difficult to pull out larger plants, it is no problem for small grasses, and it can also remove weeds.
After about half a month's work, a large hillside was reclaimed.
As for those thorns, which are wild jujube trees, Huang Yuelan did not eradicate them.
One reason is that the root systems of these thorns are extremely developed and difficult to dig; the other reason is that these wild thorns can be grafted, and then sweet or crispy dates can grow next year.
Wild dates can also be eaten, but not only are they too small, they are also sour and not very tasty.
If all the thorns here are grafted, a lot of crispy dates will grow next year, which can be given to the children as snacks.
Things are different now than before. In the past, Wang Jianguo not only sent money home every month, but also sent snacks home. But now, not only is the money less, there are no snacks at all.
Children are in the period of growth, and they are greedy, so we have to find ways to prepare some snacks for them.
"Look, that hunter's wife is just a pig farmer, why is she reclaiming wasteland here?"
"This hillside is not suitable for growing crops at all. I wonder why she reclaimed this wasteland? She seems quite motivated."
"No matter how much we say, it's useless. The key is that the captain let her raise pigs. But if the pigs are not raised well next year, the captain will not be able to take care of her forever, no matter how pitiful her life is. You just wait and see."
The production team's pig farm belongs collectively to the villagers. If you don't raise the pigs well, you won't be arrested, but you will have no chance of doing this job next year.
After a period of feeding, the pigs in the pigsty have become much fatter and are no longer as skinny as before.
This pig gains weight very quickly and can gain dozens of kilograms in a month.
And Huang Yuelan discovered that one of the sows was pregnant!
This was really an unexpected surprise, because if a sow gave birth to a litter of piglets, the credit would be greater than raising the pigs fat, and that would be counted as extra work points.
Ever since she learned that the sow was pregnant, Huang Yuelan would take extra care of it, adding more water to it from the leftovers from the hot pot and the babies that accidentally dropped on the ground.
Although Captain Fan Ming believed in Huang Yuelan's character and knew that she would never secretly take pig feed home to cook and eat like other pig farmers, Huang Yuelan had no experience in raising pigs after all, so he was not completely sure whether he could raise pigs well.
On this day, the team leader came to the pig farm during his break in supervision to see how Huang Yuelan was raising pigs.
The captain took a look inside the pigpen and was immediately frightened.
Oh my god, I haven't been to the pig farm for just over a month, and the pigs have become so fat. Especially the one living in the single room, its belly is so big that it's about to touch the ground.
Not only did the pig grow fat, but the pigpen was also cleaned inside and out. He had never seen such a clean pigpen!
The reason why team leader Fan Ming didn't come here for a month or so was because the previous pigpen was in a terrible condition. He could smell the pungent smell of pig manure from a distance, and if he came nearby, flies and mosquitoes would swarm over him like locusts.
But this time, I don’t know what method Huang Yuelan used, but there weren’t so many flies and mosquitoes. There were only two or three occasionally, just like usual at home.
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