Wang Lan had nothing to say, so she could only shake her head and say, "Let me come and see the chickens."
After looking around the chicken coop twice and wandering around the orchard, he exclaimed in surprise to Qin Xiaozhou, "There are goose eggs here! Oh dear, I was so focused on the hens that I didn't even check if the geese were laying eggs too!"
There were two goose eggs lying quietly under the low peach tree. Qin Xiaozhou looked around again. Geese rarely lay their eggs in the coop like hens. They usually find a place outside to lay them, and some geese will even lay their eggs wherever they go.
So Wang Lan went home and told Zhao Fen about the geese laying eggs. She mainly told Zhao Fen, who was guarding the ducks in Qingzhugou, to keep an eye on whether the geese near the duck pen had also laid eggs. If they had, it would be a loss if the eggs were pecked by the ducks or eaten by other wild animals.
Today, Lu Yu went to let the chickens out but didn't sit down to sew clothes. Instead, she searched all over the mountain for goose eggs. Lu Yunxing was still tending to the orchard. This year, there were only two rains, and the fruit was growing densely. Thinning the fruit was the most important thing.
The homemade bamboo ladder was easy to carry, and only someone as small as Lu Yunxing could climb it. If Qin Xiaozhou were to climb it, the branches of the fruit tree would be broken. Lu Yunxing was a bit weak and mild-mannered, and he would carefully examine each fruit before picking the ones that were not growing well.
Qin Xiaozhou stood under the tree and said, "Second brother, with these hundreds or thousands of fruit trees, your method of thinning fruit trees will only allow you to thin three or four trees a day. It will take you three to five months to finish. But peaches, plums, and apricots can't wait that long. They will be on the market by the end of April or the beginning of May at the latest. Look at me."
After saying that, he used the bamboo pole that Lu Yan used to scare away eagles to tap the branches one by one, and the green fruits the size of a finger fell down with a clatter, and chickens and geese all ran over to fight for them.
Lu Yunxing was heartbroken. "This... how much will we lose?"
Qin Xiaozhou pulled over a plum tree branch. There were four or five small fruits on the nodes of a single leaf. There were at least fifty or sixty fruits on this branch. "Look, this branch is only as thick as my little finger. How can it support so many fruits? At most, only five or six can grow on this branch."
Wang Lan came over and handed the bamboo pole to Lu Yunxing, saying, "Listen to your sister-in-law, hurry up and get to work. Look at these dozens of acres of fruit trees. If you don't work hard, how will you sell any fruit in May? Don't argue."
As the sun set, Lu Yunfeng returned in the last rays of daylight. Wang Lan sighed softly, but seeing that he was back, she didn't say anything. After dinner, Qin Xiaozhou asked about the milk, and Lu Yunfeng gave her an address. "I'm going into the mountains again tomorrow. I'll have Eryun accompany you."
Qin Xiaozhou wanted to go by herself, but then thought that more people would be safer, so she agreed. "Okay, the fruit trees in the orchard need to be thinned properly. These next few days, when you go to let the chickens out, Auntie, please help thin the fruit too. But you still need to learn more techniques so that you don't break any branches."
The next morning, Lu Yunfeng went to the mountains again, while Qin Xiaozhou and Lu Yunxing went to Lijia Dam. It was Qin Xiaozhou's first time here. Looking at the people living around the lake, with their small boats moored and easy to get around, nestled against the mountains and beside the water, it was like a paradise.
The two arrived at the foot of the mountain, where a family lived. Five or six cows were grazing nearby. As they approached, Qin Xiaozhou smelled a rich aroma of milk. Milk, oh milk, here I come!
She seemed to see all sorts of milk-based desserts rushing toward her, eventually turning into golden jewels and burying her in a torrent!
Ah! This is the smell of money.
A man in his thirties was milking a cow. He looked at Lu Yunxing with some surprise and asked, "Second son of the Lu family, what brings you here?"
Lu Yunxing scratched the back of his head sheepishly. He had come twice half a year ago to sell milk to Xiao Si. "Brother Li, I brought my sister-in-law to see your milk. She wants to buy some."
Li Xiang walked out of the cattle pen with a smile, wiping his hands with the cloth hanging around his neck. "That's great! How many do you want, ladies? I just squeezed out a whole bucketful."
This milk is good, rich and fresh. And the cows these days are all raised on natural grass without any additives. Qin Xiaozhou looked at a few cows and called out to Eryun, "How many buckets of milk can Brother Li San usually produce in a day?"
Li Xiang smiled and told the truth, "In winter, I milk less, only one bucket a day. In spring and autumn, I milk more, three or four buckets a day. I usually milk once in the early morning before sunrise and take it to the surrounding villages to sell. I milk once at noon, but less, and keep it to sell in the villages. So one bucket can weigh at least thirty or forty jin."
A pound of fresh milk costs only four coins, but with three or four buckets a day, that's five or six hundred coins in income. Li Xiang smiled, but was also worried. "It's hard to sell. No one can afford to eat milk every day. Sometimes I can't even buy one bucket a day. If I leave it overnight, it will go bad. So I make the rest into yogurt, but not many people like it."
"Yogurt?" Qin Xiaozhou was overjoyed. "Could I take a look at your dairy products?"
Li Xiang didn't mind the trouble and led the two into the house. There were three children in the courtyard: two older boys, the older one about twelve or thirteen years old, and the younger one about ten years old; and the youngest girl, only five or six years old, who stared at the two strangers with wide, curious eyes.
Half of the house is filled with dairy products, including fresh milk and yogurt. There are two or three jars of yogurt, and one large jar is big enough for two people to hug.
He looked worried. “I can’t sell them. Business has become even more difficult in the last two years. This family business should have been inherited by my older brother, but he felt there was no future in it, so he started a business selling cars and people. I’m the only one left to take care of the family’s dairy cows.”
If this continues, he won't be able to hold on any longer. He still has three children to raise, and an elderly mother and wife who all need to eat; they can't just drink milk.
Qin Xiaozhou ordered five catties of yogurt and twenty catties of fresh milk. Li Xiang was overjoyed, but being honest people, he still told her the truth, "Little sister, this stuff doesn't keep well and will go bad. Do you really want this much?"
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