Chapter 82 081. Winter, when it gets dark early, is the best time for reproduction...
If you are polite, please come in and sit down and give some bread as a gift. If you are impolite, just kick you out and leave the door closed.
However, sometimes when we make too much bread and barbecue, we will invite the village chief and his family to come home to eat together, as well as Miao Fulang and Xiaobao. They will bring vegetables, dried bamboo shoots, meat or mushrooms grown at home.
Fourteen people gathered together and started fighting.
You pick the vegetables, I cut the meat, he makes the fire, and a few kids and two dogs play nearby.
Two stoves and small pots were used, one for cooking winter melon and minced meat soup, and the other for cooking porridge. People don't move much in winter, and hot porridge tastes better than rice, not to mention that it comes with a bunch of side dishes.
The heat provided by the two stoves was sufficient, and there was no need to build another fire for heating.
A large group of people drank broth, roasted sweet potatoes, taro and potatoes, and told funny jokes from the village, the county town, and somewhere else they heard.
The adults laughed out loud, and the children, not knowing why the adults were laughing, laughed along too.
Before I knew it, a day had passed.
It gets dark quickly in winter, and it was dark around five in the evening. Lei Li didn't light the oil lamp. He waited for Zhou Yi to come in after taking a shower and then pulled him to bed.
The opposite of mountain animals.
For the villagers, winter, when there is not much farm work to do and they go to bed early, is a good time to reproduce and thrive.
In spring, all things come back to life and it is time for spring planting and busy farming, so many children plant in winter and harvest in autumn - oh no, they are born in autumn.
The winter in Qingmi County is short, lasting more than a month, from the end of November this year to the beginning and middle of January next year.
There will be a little snow falling, and a thin layer of frost will fall in the late night or early morning. The biting wind will blow day and night, making the leaves rustle, like a group of monsters baring their fangs and claws, howling and screaming.
The cabbages in the field must be harvested in time, but the white radishes will become sweeter and more delicious due to the frost and snow.
Lei Li likes radishes the most at this time of year. He picks two radishes almost every day. In the past, he would cook vegetable and radish soup, adding at most some egg flowers or minced meat. Now that he has money, he stews meat soup.
Let Zhou Yi stew it.
Stewed wolfberry, radish and pork ribs soup, radish and mutton soup, radish and pig's trotter soup, sometimes with some soybeans, or stir-fried shredded radish, or made into radish cake.
The sun comes out occasionally.
Lei Li, Zhou Yi, Lei Dashan and Liu Ye'er would go out to the yard to bask in the sun, because the house was even colder than outside in winter and was kept warm by the fire.
As the daylight hours grew shorter, it was soon the 26th day of the twelfth lunar month, the day for slaughtering pigs and cutting meat for the New Year.
Lei Li got up at around five in the morning, had breakfast, and took a knife to kill the New Year pig.
There are two families in the village who are going to slaughter their New Year pigs, and there are also two families in the neighboring Silihe Village. These are all scheduled for this year.
After slaughtering the New Year pig, in addition to the money for slaughtering the pig, the owner will also give a few pounds of good meat or some offal, such as pig intestines, pig liver, pig heart or pig stomach.
In the past, Lei Li would always ask for these meat and offal. He slaughtered pigs just so that he could give his parents a full meal of meat during the New Year without spending any money.
If they bought it with money, Lei Dashan and Liu Ye'er would always be reluctant to eat it and would like to leave it all for Lei Li.
But Lei Li didn't want it this year.
He had thirteen wild boars at home. He kept one male and two females to raise piglets next year, and two of the best ones to be used as New Year pigs. The rest were sold to the shopkeeper Haiwei.
——Wild boars are uncommon and difficult to hunt, so this kind of domesticated semi-wild boar is also very popular with restaurant customers.
Therefore, Lei Li made another huge profit.
Lei Li first slaughtered the two half-wild boars that his family had left. Lei Dashan and Zhou Yi held the pigs down, used willow leaves to collect the pig blood, and then cut the pigs into pieces.
Flowing like clouds and running water.
Enjoy the silky smoothness.
Zhou Yi looked at it and a phrase came to his mind: "Butchering an Ox" (a Chinese cooking technique). Then he started thinking about beef, steak, and tripe, and then expanded to beef fat hot pot, braised beef, tripe shabu-shabu, and grilled steak...
Suddenly I felt hungry.
Unfortunately, this dynasty did not allow the casual slaughter of cattle, because cattle were the field labor force that contributed to the masterpiece.
——Of course this is a folk saying.
Farmers naturally wouldn't be willing to kill their old cattle for meat after raising them for more than ten or twenty years, but it's unclear whether dignitaries would secretly raise cattle for meat.
However, Zhou Yi thought it was possible, because beef, tripe, and beef bone soup were delicious, and there must be people who coveted the cow's body.
The three wild boars that were bred in the pigpen were frightened by the miserable cries of their companions and began to cry out as well, even trying to escape.
But Zhou Yi discovered that it was blocked, and then he built another wall with yellow mud to reinforce the pigpen.
Lei Li went to the village to slaughter the New Year pig. After that, he rushed to the next village and did not return home until noon.
After hurriedly finishing lunch, he helped Zhou Yi again.
Zhou Yi wants to make bacon and sausages.
He often did this when he was a child at his grandfather's house. When he was in the army, although he could not go home during the Chinese New Year, the army would organize him to help the local people.
For example, cleaning the house for the elderly, visiting left-behind children, and helping them make cured meat.
The families who helped them invited them to dinner and gave them bacon, sausages and fruit. If they said no, they would just force them into the army's vehicle.
Zhou Yi couldn't help but feel nostalgic when he thought of those years. Now that he is in Sanlihe Village, he cannot abandon the tradition of making sausages and bacon - mainly because he likes to eat them.
Zhou Yi made two kinds of sausages, sweet and spicy, and placed them in the yard with the pickled bacon to dry. If the weather is good, they can be eaten in half a month.
Don't worry about the meat going bad when it's cold.
Half of the two wild boars were made into cured meat, and the other half was kept for fresh eating and hung on the corridor outside the house. Whenever I wanted to eat it, I would cut off a piece.
—
The morning of the 30th day of the twelfth lunar month.
Every household in the village put up red couplets and red window decorations. Those who had money to buy big red lanterns and flower lanterns also hung red lanterns and gave small flower lanterns to children to play with.
Lei Li's family also put up couplets and window decorations.
The window grilles were cut from willow leaves, and the couplets were written by Zhou Yi, which are very easy to understand - "No illness, no pain, no worries, with gold, silver and culture", and the horizontal banner reads "Always smile".
Lei Li, Lei Dashan and Liu Ye'er were all very satisfied.
When Liu Xiaocao came to visit and saw the couplets, she also thought that the couplets were very good and much better than those bought by some scholars on the street, but their couplets had already been posted, so she agreed with Lei Li to let her husband write one next year.
Lei Dashan made red lanterns and flower lanterns.
In the past, every winter, Lei Dashan would make a lot of lanterns, and Liu Ye'er would embroider some patterned handkerchiefs and let Lei Li take them to the town market to buy. But this year, the family was richer, and Lei Li was afraid that making lanterns would hurt their hands and eyes, so he didn't let them do it.
I won’t make handkerchiefs anymore.
You must have lanterns and decorative lanterns.
I didn't make too many, just two to hang at the front door and two at the door of my house. I also made a few lanterns as promised to relatives and friends, and a few more lanterns to decorate the house.
There are pink lotus lanterns that can open and close, white rabbit lanterns with rotating ears, golden pagoda lanterns that can be stretched, and green grasshopper lanterns with lifelike tentacles and legs.
Delicate and exquisite.
Lei Dashan didn't intend to do such a troublesome thing, but Zhou Yi saw it.
"Wow, Dad can also make lanterns?"
"How is it made? How can it bloom? And how can it have rabbits with ears that can turn?"
“It looks better than those sold on the street.”
"I feel like this pagoda can be sold for one or two taels. It really can be sold for one or two taels. Many people will spend money to buy something they like when they see it beautiful..."
Zhou Yi spoke seriously, without any exaggeration or pretense - he himself was the kind of person who would buy expensive things without thinking when he liked something.
If Lei Li was present, he would definitely be able to hear it and roll his eyes at Zhou Yi, calling him a spendthrift.
But Lei Dashan, who was frugal and simple, could never imagine the extravagance of those who were easily impulsive.
While saying "it's not that good-looking" and "who would spend a pound on this", I lost myself in the praises and worked meticulously without realizing it.
Zhou Yi watched and wanted to learn how to make one for Lei Li. Under Lei Dashan's design and careful guidance, he spent several days making a firefly.
But Lei Li refused.
"How dare you give me such an ugly thing?"
to be honest.
It’s really no wonder that Lei Li thinks it’s ugly.
Although it was taught by Lei Dashan himself, it was still really unbearable to watch. Not only was it not exactly the same as what he designed, it was completely unrelated.
"That's really strange..."
Lei Dashan also made one himself, a small golden firefly, which is delicate and cute. It can even simulate flying by pulling its wings.
It's clearly a copy and paste process, but I don't know why Zhou Yi was able to produce such a mess...
Zhou Yi also felt that it was inappropriate.
He obviously carves beautiful carvings for cooking and is good at needlework, and his mother says he is talented, so why is it so hard to describe his skills in making lanterns?
"Maybe I made a mistake before. Let me try making a lotus. This one is easier."
Don't destroy it easily.
Zhou Yi looked at the thing in his hand, pondered for three seconds, and then threw it away as if nothing had happened.
——Maybe this is what they mean when you are not destined to meet, it is difficult to hold hands.
—
New Year's Day.
The first day of the new year.
Early in the morning, Sanlihe Village set off firecrackers. The villagers raised funds to buy large firecrackers, which were so long that they could be stretched from the beginning to the end of the village, just from the village chief's house to Lei Li's house.
Once lit, it exploded with crackling sounds and bloomed all the way, and everything was red, which made the Nian beast afraid to get close to the village.
The adults listened to the loud sound of firecrackers, smiled and said auspicious words to each other.
The children covered their ears and ran to pick up small firecrackers to play with after the firecrackers stopped going off. Some were thrown into ponds or rivers to explode in the water, some were thrown into the soil to explode in the mud, and some were stuck in cow dung to explode in the cow dung.
If you accidentally hit someone, you won't be beaten or scolded, because you can't hit or scold anyone on the first day of the new year, otherwise you will have bad luck for the whole year.
But it doesn’t mean you can’t play the next day.
Therefore, children who are too naughty on the first day will be severely beaten on the second day of the first lunar month. There will be no firecrackers on the second day, and the loud crying of children can scare away the Nian beast.
——Although many children think that this was made up by adults to beat them.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
