Chapter 111 The busy farming season is over
"Aying, Aying! Look, is this adjusted properly?" The Su family was busy at the village chief's house.
The Su family finished their farm work first because they had the least arable land per capita and the most labor.
Without the two troublemakers, Xiao Qinshi and Su He, the seeds were sown and watered in two days.
Many mulberry branches are planted along the edge of the field, which will be perfect for raising silkworms next year.
Nineteen jars of vermicelli had already been dried, and Su Ying brought her family to make vermicelli.
"Yeah, good, that's it!" Su Ying looked at the cooked soup. "Pour it out and let it cool, then add the cornstarch and knead it into a dough. Remember the ratio, don't add too much or too little!"
"Save it, save it!" Everyone was talking at once, making Su Ying's head buzz.
The teenagers get up early these days to review their textbooks, and now they also come to learn how to make vermicelli.
The physical work of grinding flour, kneading dough, and rolling noodles were all done by the teenagers, while Du and Wei were responsible for cooking them in the pot and then taking them out and putting them in cold water to cool them down.
Su Ying and Su Lu took the three little kids to straighten the clothes and dry them in the sun.
The old lady looked here and there, and finally saw the yard full of vermicelli hanging on poles. She felt so happy and accomplished.
After two days all the powder was processed.
Then collect the dried vermicelli, divide it into small bundles and tie them up with twine.
They were neatly stacked and filled eight or nine baskets.
"Wow, so many!" Villagers who had finished sowing came to help one after another, but they didn't expect that the Su family had already finished.
Seeing the baskets filled with vermicelli all over the ground, everyone felt happy and felt like a nouveau riche.
"Yes! These powders look like a lot, but they are actually not much! No more than 200 kilograms at most!" Su Ying said with a smile.
After being dried into vermicelli, it takes up quite a bit of space and not much can be put into a basket.
"Are you done?" The villagers saw that the large vats were empty. "Let's go dig some more!"
There are only a few days left for delivery, and we can make a batch if we hurry up. No one wants to waste time.
There were people sowing seeds in the fields, and people digging fern roots and kudzu roots on the hillside.
"Hey, I found a big one here, come quickly!" Someone dug up a big kudzu and shouted happily.
"Where? Where?" Everyone else gathered around when they heard this. "Oh my god, it's so big! Hurry!"
Several strong men jumped into the pit and dug with their hands, and the atmosphere was filled with joy.
Su Ying didn't go, but ran to the end of the field, as if looking for something, looking around, grabbing things, looking at them, and then throwing them away.
"Aying, what are you looking for?" The three brothers of the Su family sat on the ground to take a break.
After Su Laosan joined, the plowing speed increased a lot. Today was the last one, and after that, the busy farming season was over.
"Find clay!" Su Ying said. The soil in this area is thin and not sticky.
Su Ying looked for the kind of mud that little kids used to play with, which was quite sticky and liver-red in color.
"What do you want the clay for?" Su Laosan asked. Children play with mud, and your niece is also playing with it at this age?
"Make molds and pour chalk!" Su Ying was a little disappointed.
"Do you want to make a mold?" Su Laoer asked. Making molds is often seen in the supervision of generals.
"Yes, Uncle, do you know where to find some clay?" Su Ying forgot that there was a panacea at home.
"How much do you want?" These questions did not pose any difficulty for Su Laoer.
"Well, not much, just ten or eight kilograms will be enough!" Su Ying was silent.
"You go back, your second uncle will move it back for you later." Su Laoer nodded.
When Su Ying returned home, the walnuts and oil tea fruits had already been dried. She had been busy these days and had no time to take care of them.
Collect the walnuts and peel off the dried skin. Wild walnuts are not big.
When you crack it open with a stone, there's quite a bit of meat, but it's difficult to work with.
If you use too much force, the shell and the meat will be smashed to pieces. If you use too little force, the meat will be stuck in the shell and cannot be picked out. It would be much easier if you had a bamboo stick.
I took great pains to smash two of them and ate a little bit of meat. The meat was thick and had a sweet taste.
Su Ying looked at the small walnuts and thought they would be good for making butter walnuts. After buying an iron pot, she would think about it slowly. Maybe she could take them to the provincial capital and sell them during the New Year.
"Sister!" Xiaotao, Su Lu, Zhao Yan, Bing Yan and others ran back with sweat on their foreheads.
Su Ying's little tails heard that Aye was at home, so they all ran back to follow Ajie to get some delicious food!
"What a bunch of little greedy cats!" Su Ying smiled helplessly and cracked a few walnuts for her younger brothers and sisters to eat.
Even though they are wild walnuts, no one would be willing to eat them. Walnuts are not common in the city, so people only buy some as snacks during the Chinese New Year.
"Oh, sister, fresh walnuts are so delicious!"
The walnuts that the children used to eat were dried walnuts that had been stored for a long time and were heavy in fat. The taste of these freshly dried walnuts is completely different, they are sweet and have no greasy taste.
"I'll make something more delicious next time!" Su Ying scratched the little kids' noses.
"Okay, let's listen to sister!" The children were very sensible. They tried it for the first time and didn't ask for anything else. They just worked together.
The walnuts were cleaned and filled a basket. The green skins were dried and removed, and there were half fewer walnuts than when I carried them in.
After picking walnuts, I picked tea fruit. Tea fruit cannot be picked too early. If you pick it too early, the tea seeds will have less oil content and will not produce much oil.
Unripe tea seed fruits are pale, while ripe tea seed fruits are plump, shiny black and large.
Most of the dried tea seed shells naturally crack into four petals, while a few do not crack.
The children picked out the tea seeds one by one.
"Keep the tea oil shells, they are useful!" Su Ying put the shells in a basin separately.
"Sister, what is this for?" the children were curious.
"The oil-tea camellia shell consists of two parts: the oil-tea camellia fruit and the oil-tea camellia seed. It has medicinal and other uses."
Su Ying is not an encyclopedia, so she can't say much at the moment. She mainly remembers that tea shells can be used as shampoo and hair care ingredients, and that activated carbon can be made from fruit shells.
"Oh!" The children put away the husks.
After peeling the oil tea fruit, use a winnowing basket to expose the kernels to the sun for more than ten days to increase the oil content, and then they can be fried, crushed, and pressed for oil.
There is not much chestnut flour left in the winnowing basket. There is only a small basket left, and it will be gone after two or three meals.
The sour jujubes were dried in the sun, six or seven baskets of them, but now only two baskets are needed. I will go to the village tomorrow to grind them into powder, which will be sour jujube powder, and mix it with porridge.
All the cleared winnowing baskets were used to dry in the sun to dry the tea seeds. There were seven or eight winnowing baskets, which contained only about forty or fifty pounds of oil tea seeds. After drying and shelling a hundred pounds of oil tea seeds, only this much was left.
A conservative estimate is that more than ten kilograms of tea oil can be squeezed out, mainly because there are no special oil-pressing tools.
Boil water, cook porridge and prepare dinner.
She ate chestnut porridge continuously, even though it was cooked rather dry. She hadn't eaten any cooked food for three months, and all she had was watery porridge. Su Ying felt hungry and had no appetite, and she missed cooking in an iron pan so much.
I helped the women plow the fields these days, and each family sent a basket of vegetables to express their gratitude, including radishes, cabbage, eggplants, and a few pieces of ginger.
Just use a clay pot, chop it up and mix it into the porridge, then cook it and it's done.
The old lady gave two of the pheasants and rabbits she brought back to Old Man Yang's family, and used the rest of the Suying marinade to satisfy everyone's cravings.
The Su family thought it was delicious and ate it with relish.
Only Su Ying found it difficult to swallow. She felt that the taste of pheasant and rabbit was overwhelming because there was no oil.
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