Chapter 81 Digging Fields and Ponds
On the second day after receiving the food, the team members lined up to pound rice.
Lin Qi also wanted to eat white rice, but she didn't want to queue up, so she planned to make a mortar for pounding rice. She told Xu Hexiao about making the mortar and told him, "Don't queue up, wait for my mortar."
Xu Hexiao smiled dotingly, "Okay. Do you need any help?"
"No need, let your cow go." Lin Qi said, turned around and went into the mountains.
When she came out of the mountain at night, she was holding a stone mortar in her arms, which was about the same size as the one in the brigade.
"In addition to the big stone mortar for pounding rice, I also made a small stone mortar." Lin Qi took out a small stone mortar from the big stone mortar, "I can use this to grind chili powder in the future."
"Can I be the first person to use it?" Xu Hexiao's eyes were shining with anticipation.
"Of course. I'll go get the rice." Lin Qi turned around and went to the warehouse.
Xu Hexiao took a rag and carefully wiped the mortar and pestle three times. After confirming that there were no small stones in the mortar, he said, "You can put the rice in now."
"How much? One bowl or two bowls?" It was Lin Qi's first time pounding rice and she didn't quite understand.
"Put two bowls." Xu Hexiao had pounded rice before, so he was quite experienced in this.
That night, they had white rice.
"The rice is delicious." After coming to this world for more than a year, Lin Qi has eaten mostly rice made of mixed grains. She has only eaten such pure rice once or twice.
"This year's new rice really tastes good." Old man Xu said. In the past few days, his appetite has not been very good, but in order not to worry his grandson, he forced himself to eat more every day. At this time, smelling the fragrance of the new rice, complex emotions surged in his heart, and he felt a severe blockage in his chest.
"Starting tomorrow, we will eat white rice for every meal." Lin Qi said seriously.
As soon as she said this, Old Man Xu couldn't help laughing, and tears fell from his eyes. "It seems that we can eat white rice every day from now on."
"Of course. What I grow will taste even better than this." Lin Qi said with certainty.
"Grandpa believes in you. You never brag. If you say it's there, it's there. If you say it's delicious, it's delicious." The more Old Man Xu looked at Lin Qi, the more he couldn't hide his love for her. The appearance of the little girl was like a ray of light, illuminating the lives of the grandfather and grandson.
Even if he passed away tomorrow, he would feel at ease knowing that she was accompanying his grandson.
Xu Hexiao frowned slightly. Was it his illusion? Why did he feel that his grandfather was a little strange today?
Having just eaten white rice the night before, Lin Qi went to the brigade office early the next morning.
"You're here to borrow a shovel again?" The captain looked at her in confusion. "Why do you need a shovel in the middle of winter?"
"Shoveling the dirt." Lin Qi replied.
"Isn't Xu Hexiao's house completed?" asked the team leader.
"It's not the house, it's farming." Lin Qi answered every question.
"What you need for farming is a hoe, not a shovel." The team leader was afraid that she didn't understand, so he explained in more detail, "You can't grow crops in this season, it's too cold. You can only grow two or three cold-resistant vegetables. It's December now, and there could be frost at any time. When it's even colder, it will snow. If you sow seeds now, the chances of success are slim."
It's not that cold in Yao County, but since their Anliang Brigade is in the mountains, it rarely snows in Yao County, but it's not necessarily the case for them.
"This is really not a good time to grow vegetables," the team leader concluded.
"I will clear the land first and plant next year." She plans to dig canals in the mountains to bring more water into her planting area. There are more animals in the planting area, so more water is needed. And she plans to plant rice, which also needs water.
The captain was even more confused when he heard this, "Your yard is full of vegetables, what are you cultivating?"
"Don't worry about it." Lin Qi was a little impatient.
"You come to borrow something from me and you don't let me take care of it? I'm the captain, in charge of everyone in the Anliang team, including you!" The captain looked at her with a squinting face, "You don't want to use your own abilities to open up new land, do you?"
Lin Qi's eyes were wandering, and she was guessed.
"No! Absolutely not!" The team leader said sternly, "The land of the team belongs to the team and is collective. Individuals are not allowed to cultivate it privately. If you are really capable, you can carry a hoe and go to the mountains, to places where no one else can go, to cultivate the land. No one can find you, so naturally they can't report you."
Lin Qi still didn't look at the captain, thinking, you guessed it right again.
The captain spoke earnestly and earnestly to Lin Qi, and she was neither humble nor arrogant, and did not refute. However, it was hard to tell from her expressionless face all day long whether she had listened or not.
He was so thirsty that his mouth dried up. Finally, he waved his hand helplessly and said, "Forget it, go away."
With the arrival of winter, the grass in the mountains turned yellow and some trees lost their leaves, leaving only bare branches. However, some trees remained green, and the cold winter and the hot summer did not seem to have any effect on them.
Unfortunately, the thorns and bushes outside the plantation were the kind that remained green in winter. As for the plants in the planting area, they were out of the laws of nature and grew day and night. Even if animals ate the fruits and were eaten the leaves, their roots grew stronger and stronger under the power, and there was a tendency for them to mutate.
The corn kernels are full and grow bigger as they grow, making them especially popular with wild boars.
There were more than a hundred peanuts on a peanut vine, and the most even reached two hundred. Lin Qi remembered that it was rare for Anliang Brigade to have fifty or sixty peanuts. Usually there were a dozen or so, and sometimes only a few.
There are fewer soybeans, and except for the appearance of soybeans, they are almost the same size as peas. Lin Qi has used them to stew pig's trotters several times, and the aroma is rich. Lin Qi plans to build a stone mill in two days and put it in the cave. Then he can grind soy milk, make tofu, water tofu, old tofu, tofu skin, dried tofu, fermented tofu...
I have lived in the Lin family for more than half a year, and the most delicious dish I have eaten is tofu, which I can eat once or twice a month.
I don’t know if she can make it herself.
Sweet potatoes and taro are still being planted, but the planting area is much smaller. However, even with a small area, these two crops are very high-yield crops. The ground is densely packed with their fruits, each weighing eight or nine pounds, and the heaviest weighing more than ten pounds. Lin Qi plans to dig them all up today. If they continue to grow, they may mutate.
There are all kinds of melons everywhere, each one is juicy and tender, and the animals can’t eat them all. Lin Qi plans to sell a batch of them.
Finally, there are all kinds of fruits, grapes, plums, pears, apricots, bayberries... There are seven or eight varieties in total, and there are one or two trees of each variety. Each fruit tree produces hundreds to thousands of kilograms of fruit. Lin Qi only picked them once. She used these fruits to make wine, honey, preserved fruits, and dried fruits.
But these fruits grow again after being picked, and now Lin Qi is too lazy to take care of them.
How about selling a batch and saying they’re grown in a greenhouse?
Lin Qi planned to discuss it with Xu Hexiao first, and then decide whether to sell or not and which ones to sell.
Because she used her supernatural powers to stimulate the growth of these plants every now and then, although there were more animals in the planting area, the food was always in a state of surplus. Lin Qi planned to open two paddy fields, each with an area of about one acre, just to the south of the planting area, where the terrain was low and close to the water source.
Now it is a vegetable field. If you want to grow crops there, you may have to dig some more.
Lin Qi walked over with a shovel on her shoulder. When the animals saw her, they just looked up and didn't pay any attention. Perhaps because she appeared so often, the animals were no longer so afraid of her.
As for larger animals, such as sheep and deer, they would stay away from her.
The only ones who attacked her were wild boars, but they were knocked unconscious by the vines before they could get close. After being knocked unconscious several times, they stopped coming forward and only looked at Lin Qi with fear, ready to run away at any time.
Lin Qi roughly estimated the area of the low-lying land and estimated that it was about four mu. There were two rice fields, each about one mu, and there were two mu left.
Should I focus on farming or continue growing vegetables?
How about digging deeper and raising fish or ducks?
The more Lin Qi thought about it, the more she felt that raising fish and ducks was feasible. In addition to raising fish and ducks, she could also raise shrimp and crabs. She was a little tired of eating chicken, rabbit, wolf meat and pork every day, so she should add more types of meat.
Lin Qi put down the shovel and wanted to roll up her sleeves to work, but when she looked at her sleeves, she saw a touch of elegant blue. It was the sleeve that Xu Hexiao had helped her to roll up.
I can't bear to get it dirty.
So, Lin Qi simply stopped moving. She controlled the roots of the plants, directing them to "dig" out the stones in the ground one by one and drag them away, all the way to the outside of the plant area, a hundred meters away from the planting area.
The vines dragged the stone away, taking with them a lot of soil. Before Lin Qi started digging, many potholes appeared in the area.
Lin Qi raised her eyebrows. This was a good idea.
She continued to control the vines to dig stones. The big stones were dragged outside the plants, and the small stones were used to surround the ridges and ponds.
By the time all the rocks ten meters below the ground were dug out, the ground here had sunk about one meter.
This depth is not enough for a pond, but it is too deep for growing rice.
Lin Qi planned to put two paddy fields on both sides and a pond in the middle. He would dig soil from the pond in the middle and fill the paddy fields on both sides.
When digging the soil, Lin Qi still did not do it herself. The vines turned into winnowing baskets under her control. The winnowing baskets were used to shovel and transport the soil. Finally, the vines were used to level the soil in the two rice fields.
By the time the height of the paddy field was almost right, the pond was already two or three meters deep. Lin Qi couldn't wait to fill it with water, so that he could farm and raise fish.
But before that, she had to deepen the canal and dig a few more in the planting area to facilitate irrigation and drinking water for the animals.
After the canal in the planting area was dug, Lin Qi left the planting area and walked towards the stream outside the planting area.
The canal leading to the stream was also deepened by Lin Qi, and above the canal were vines that curved into an arch bridge shape. They were densely packed and had long thorns, making people afraid to approach.
The water was gurgling, and Lin Qi couldn't help but smile as she watched the water flowing into the pond and rice fields.
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