In the yard, Zhao Meiya was killing a chicken.
Wang Taozhi helped by boiling water in several pots and transferring it into a knee-high wooden bucket with an iron ladle.
Throw the chicken in after cutting its neck and draining its blood, and pluck out all the feathers while it's still hot.
Chicken feathers cannot be thrown away. They should be collected and put aside to dry. Not only can they be sent to the supply and marketing cooperative to exchange for money, but they can also be made into feather dusters.
The two previous yards were connected, allowing the scale of breeding to be further expanded.
He Qiu Sheng's yard has a pig and two sheep, and a total of sixteen chickens in the two yards. Every morning, the yard is extremely lively with the sound of either sheep bleating or chickens crowing.
The neighbors nearby did have some complaints, but every time they came, Zhao Meiya would push them away.
Afterwards, He Ruixue hired a mason to raise and thicken the courtyard wall, and similar complaints decreased.
We raise ten roosters, and basically kill them for meat after feeding them for half a year. The hens are usually kept for a while longer because they can lay eggs.
However, the weather has been too cold recently, and the hens are not very keen on laying eggs. They look listless.
Zhao Meiya was worried that the chicks would get thinner if they were kept for a few more days, so she decided to kill them all and bring back some chicks next year.
She also tried to hatch the eggs herself, but due to her lack of experience, the loss rate was too high and it also caused a lot of delays.
From then on, I no longer had to go through so much trouble. I used my cloth coupons to exchange for chicks that someone else had raised for half a month. It was both hassle-free and cost-effective.
She cut open a chicken's stomach and found a lot of eggs inside that hadn't been laid yet. She threw them aside and said, "This is an old hen. I'll stew it later to nourish Dongbao."
As for the others, they were all gutted, cleaned, and placed in a wooden basin with salt and spices.
Two strong and majestic dogs stood by, with their paws in front of them, their eyes following the movement of her hands, always ready to be fed.
Zhao Meiya didn't treat them badly. She cut off the chicken's heads and necks and threw them on the ground.
Chenchen and Brother Wolf scrambled to stuff the food into their mouths, making a crunching sound as they chewed.
She kept nagging, "You guys are enjoying it too. This thing is a good thing even in the countryside. Strong laborers eat the chicken, and the others gnaw on the bones. There's a lot of meat on the chicken head and neck, and you can make a whole dish out of it."
"Remember, you can eat meat thanks to my daughter. From now on, you must guard the house well. If you see a bad guy, pounce on him and bite him. Don't let anyone bully her."
My goodness, her mother doesn’t even let the dog go, she will pua it when she gets the chance.
Of course, the chicken offal will not be thrown away. Clean it and stir-fry it with chopped chili peppers and pickled radish to make an appetizing dish.
He Qiu Sheng stood in front of the stove and cooked the food himself. Although he was not as good as his master, he waved a big spoon in one hand and flipped the iron pot with the other, and he really looked like a chef.
A few children came back from school and skipped into the gate.
Tomorrow is a holiday, and tonight is the customary dinner time for the family.
They all expected that there would be delicious food, so they hurried home as soon as school was over and turned down all the invitations from their friends.
What a joke! Only a fool would leave the delicious food at home and go out in the cold wind to dig insects for fun.
Zhao Meiya drove them all into the house, added a few old tree roots to the brazier in the living room, and pointed to the yard next door. "Chunsheng, find some time to clean out the pigpen. Do it quickly while the smell is still low. I need to continue raising pigs next spring."
This year's pig was just slaughtered, and it weighed nearly 200 kilograms including skin and bones. It was not the white-skinned pig of later generations, but a small black pig native to the countryside, which is not easy to gain weight.
Their family has good food, and there is a lot of oil in the leftovers, which allows the pigs to gain weight.
However, because of the different breed, the meat is not very fat. Two tenderloins can be removed and used to make soup. It is very fragrant even with just salt.
Last year, the pig's hind legs and hooves were made into ham. They were hung for a year and one was sent to He Xiasheng.
During this period, a lot of meat sauce and bacon were sent over there, and of course there were a lot of return gifts. They were all specially provided for the cadres in the army, and they were good things that could not be bought with money.
He Chunsheng was repairing a light bulb and nodded when he heard this. "Look at the weather, it might snow tomorrow. I'll go after the snow stops.
Xiaoai, what did your teacher say? Will you still be able to go to school next week?"
He Xiaoai is twelve years old and in junior high school. She was squatting beside a wooden basin picking up scattered chicken feathers.
Occasionally, if I find one or two with bright and beautiful fur, I will collect them and tie them into shuttlecocks.
"The teacher said we can't go if the snow is too heavy."
She half raised her head, and the red hairbands on her two medium-long braids were bright and colorful.
Over the thick cotton-padded jacket was a jacket with small floral patterns, which was the one He Ruixue had worn and altered in the past. The pants were picked up from her sister, with two patches on the knees.
He Xiaojie accidentally fell while riding a bicycle, and two holes were immediately torn in her pants. She had to stay in bed for three days.
After she recovered, she refused to see the pants again. Wang Taozhi scolded her for being a spendthrift, but did not force her to wear them.
Anyway, there are many children in the family, so if the size is reduced, there will always be someone who can fit in.
He Chunsheng shook his head. "You have more and more free time to go to school now. You can go when you want to, and you can skip it when you don't want to. Xiaoyou hasn't been to school for half a month. I don't know if he has learned all those high school books."
He Xiaoyou is sixteen years old this year. He has already begun to show the demeanor of a young man. He is handsome, but his skin is a little dark.
Perhaps because he was still growing, he looked extremely thin. His legs were not as big as the thin tree trunks in the yard. He Chunsheng was afraid that the wind would blow him down.
In fact, he has the biggest appetite in the family. He eats three big buns in the morning, and two and a half bowls of rice when he comes back, and still feels hungry in the middle of the night.
Fortunately, He Chunsheng got a salary increase this year, so he doesn’t have to worry about the two older ones. Otherwise, the family would have been bankrupted by these children sooner or later.
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