"How about I give you an extra sweet potato tonight as a reward?" Xu Han affectionately patted Peanut's head.
Seeing this, the other dogs also became very excited and began to search for prey.
"Don't go too far! Just stay around here! What if you get caught and eaten by other wild animals?" Xu Han shouted from behind.
"It's alright, they should be back soon, don't worry! Dogs are very intelligent, look, Blackie and Rice Ball are still here!" Lu Chuan said softly.
Then the two continued washing the sweet potatoes. They washed half of them in one afternoon, and the rest they would wash the next afternoon.
As darkness fell, Lu Chuan and Xu Han led the dogs home.
Before I even entered the house, I heard the Taoist priest say loudly, "You guys have been out having fun all afternoon, haven't you? Did you have a good time?"
He was met with a constant barking, as if the dogs were genuinely responding to him and telling him about what had happened that day.
After washing her hands, Xu Han filled the large iron pot outside with sweet potatoes and water, intending to cook a big pot of sweet potatoes so that everyone could have sweet potatoes as their staple food that night.
It's been a long time since we've eaten like this. Everyone is enjoying the sweet potatoes and sweet potato porridge, and the food is delicious.
"The foundation is almost finished today. We'll just need to do some finishing touches tomorrow morning. What's the next step?" the Taoist priest asked while eating a sweet potato.
"Are you almost done digging? That's pretty fast. If we finish repairing the edges and corners tomorrow morning, we can start laying the foundation!" Xu Han said.
"Yes! The stones we found earlier have already been fitted with handles! They're ready to use. And the one you mentioned for pressing down is also finished. We'll try it out later to see which one works better," Lu Chuan replied.
Before they started digging the foundation, Xu Han had Lu Chuan build a pile driver.
Some machines use the lever principle to press, which is less strenuous. There's a lever at the top, a support column, and a hammer made of wood and stone. The hammer has a wooden handle, and below it is a smooth rectangular stone, roughly the same width and size as the excavated foundation.
This one was quite heavy and might not be easy to use, so Xu Han asked Lu Chuan to make two smaller ones, one with a handle and one with a hammer. These would need to be hammered by hand little by little.
This is quite laborious and tiring. The key is that it's not easy to do. In the later stages, not only the foundation needs to be leveled, but the yard and the house also need to be compacted and leveled before you can move in.
Generally, people here use hand hammers to build houses, but Xu Han felt that this was too inefficient and laborious, so she made a labor-saving lever pile driver.
"Okay, let's try it tomorrow morning, and then wash the sweet potatoes in the afternoon."
The water flow at the waterfall has slowed down, so let's take advantage of the water flow to quickly clean up anything that needs washing!
"Although we have a reservoir, the water in it isn't very much, and it won't last long under normal use," Xu Han continued.
“I agree with what Xiaohan said. Tomorrow you can just continue washing sweet potatoes. We'll take care of laying the foundation! You don’t need to worry about it,” Grandpa Zhao agreed.
“Yes! Your Grandpa Zhao and I may not be young, but we're still very strong,” the Taoist priest chimed in.
Although the Taoist priest said that, he was not very old, only 43 years old, while Grandpa Zhao was 52 years old.
In modern times, he would be in his prime, but in ancient times, a Taoist priest of that age would already have a grandson who is already quite old, and Grandpa Zhao would be old enough to be a great-grandfather. Wouldn't that make him an old man?
Xu Han was well aware of the two elderly people's physical condition, so she didn't say anything. She just reminded them, "Take a rest if you're tired. We're not in a rush to build the house. We can make changes slowly. We have plenty of time!"
"You don't need to ask that. We're not the kind of people who would tire ourselves out," the Taoist priest laughed.
After dinner, the four of them sat outside for a while before going back to their room, as the nights in early October were still a bit chilly.
Although the daytime temperature is still very high, it becomes unbearable to stay outside at night.
A good night's sleep...
The next morning, after breakfast, the group took the two newly made tools to the backyard.
Lu Chuan first tried out the pile driver with the labor-saving lever he made. After a few tries, he felt it was indeed quite good. The Taoist priest next to him couldn't wait to try it out as well.
"Let me try, you give it to me first." With that, he snatched the pile driver from Lu Chuan's hand.
"This is really easy to use, not tiring at all, and you can see how tightly it's pressed down." The Taoist priest said as he used the pile driver.
"Yes, it's definitely much better than the traditional ones. I've seen similar ones before, but they're not as convenient to use as this one," Grandpa Zhao agreed.
"Have you seen anything like this before?" Xu Han asked. She was puzzled as to why Lu Chuan had said he hadn't seen anything like it when they were doing it!
“Hmm, I’ve seen it before when I was in the Ministry of Works, but it’s not as good as this one. The principle is about the same, right?” The Taoist priest joined the discussion.
"Yes, ordinary families usually use large hammers to build houses; only wealthy families rarely use these kinds of things."
“No wonder I’ve never seen this before! Maybe I’m just not used to these kinds of things! When this house was built a few years ago, they used these big sledgehammers too,” Lu Chuan chimed in.
“However, this is useful, but you can see that it still can’t reach these corners and edges. You’ll still need to use a hammer to get them there,” Xu Han said.
“Yes, then we’ll use this to test it once, and then use a hammer to check it. The houses we build are for us to live in, so they need to be sturdy. We can’t cut corners,” Grandpa Zhao added.
"Okay! I'll go and smooth out the edges first. You guys can use the pile driver to drive the foundation!" Lu Chuan said.
"I'll go with you, it'll be faster." Grandpa Zhao also joined the team returning to work.
No matter when you build a house, laying a solid foundation is crucial. It determines how sturdy the house will be. If the foundation is not solid, no matter how well the house is built, it will eventually collapse within a few years.
So the four of them wasted a lot of time on the foundation work, and it wasn't until October 11th that the foundation was finally completed.
Early that morning, Lu Chuan and the Taoist priest were in the backyard gathering materials needed to build the house.
Not only that, today we also need to move the bricks from outside the gate to the backyard to start building the wall, which will definitely require bricks and tiles.
Xu Han could easily move the bricks and tiles herself. Since she was making breakfast, she decided not to work on the bricks and tiles yet, but would do so after breakfast.
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