My 1995 Small Farm.

Chapter 134 Rushing to dinner

Looking at her younger sister's adorable face, Wang Susu couldn't help but laugh: "What's wrong? Is your brother-in-law wrong? When I was your age, I looked forward to going to school every day."

That's how children were back then.

Apart from a few who truly cherish the opportunity to go to school, the rest just wanted to do less farm work and take a break.

Even so, during the busy farming season, some students would be called home by their parents to help with farm work while they were in class.

Seeing that her sister wasn't speaking up for her, Wang Zhenzhen pouted and stammered, "But...but I'm not ready yet."

Chen Ling filled a basin with water next to the well and said with a smile, "Going to school isn't like going to war, what else do we need to prepare? Come and wash your hands."

"You and your sister go ahead and wash."

The little girl pulled over a small stool, rested her chin on it, and said with a worried look, "I'm afraid of strangers when I go to school in the county town."

"What's there to be shy about? I asked around, and there are only about ten people in your class. Just hang out with them more often, and you'll get to know them quickly."

"Besides, I pick you up every day, it's not like you live at school."

Chen Ling comforted her, and Wang Susu also gently advised her from the side.

My sister-in-law is still young, so it's normal for her to feel nervous about going to school in an unfamiliar place.

But little babies are like that at first, and they adapt very quickly.

There's no need to worry too much.

……

I don't have much to do these past two days.

Chen Ling made a trip to the county town and bought the third-grade textbooks his sister-in-law needed. It was only a little past nine o'clock when he returned.

The little girl is young and recovers quickly; she's already out playing again and isn't home anymore.

Chen Ling put the things inside the house, turned around and went back to the yard to find a long bamboo pole. He walked to the jujube tree and knocked down all the remaining jujubes.

The tree had already been cleared once when the house was being built a few days ago, but it wasn't completely cleared. Moreover, Chen Ling noticed that the tree was showing signs of a second crop of jujubes growing, so he picked up a bamboo pole and started knocking it down again.

Unlike other trees, jujube trees generally bear fruit twice a year.

However, letting it grow like this isn't good either, as it will affect the fruit yield the following year. As the saying goes, "If there are jujubes, three poles will yield fruit; if there aren't, three sticks will yield fruit." Jujube trees need to be pruned regularly so that they can produce more fruit each year.

They tapped around the jujube tree for a while.

Then we picked some pears from the pear tree. This year, there were quite a few jujubes and pears. The total weight of the jujubes was about 50 jin (25 catties). Usually, an old jujube tree would only yield about this much when it was in good condition, and a smaller jujube tree would only yield about 30 jin (15 kg) of jujubes.

The pear trees were picked, filling a whole basket.

They hadn't been taken care of before, which surprised Wang Susu.

She remembered that the harvest was nowhere near this level in the previous two years.

The dates and pears were prepared.

Chen Ling then shoveled several shovels of yellow soil across the alley, mixed in the broken reeds to make mud, and used bricks and stones to rebuild several pigeon coops close to the east courtyard wall.

Pigeons are different from chickens and ducks.

Whether wild or domestic, pigeons are monogamous and live together in pairs. Once they pair up, they will live together intimately, build nests, incubate eggs, and manage their own little family.

Unlike chickens and ducks, where only one or two males are kept and the rest are all females that can lay eggs.

Therefore, it is not appropriate to keep all the pigeons together after they have been trained.

Furthermore, it's autumn now, and it gets quite cold in the mountains at night.

Even without these pigeons, Chen Ling would still repair the quail's nest.

After the weather gets cold, the chickens at home will no longer fly up to the trees to sleep, but will go back to their coop. If the quails are still allowed to occupy the chicken coop, they are likely to fight.

That definitely won't work.

After spending a good part of the day repairing the pigeon coop and quail coop, Chen Ling continued to sit on the threshold with Wang Susu, weaving straw mats.

At the same time, they discussed with Wang Susu how many jujubes to keep this year, and if there were too many left, they would sell them.

"Keep ten catties of dates and pears. When you take Zhenzhen to school tomorrow, I'll go with you to sell the rest."

The two women were weaving straw mats and talking. After a while, Wang Zhenzhen led Liu Nier and a group of little children into the yard. After drinking some water in the kitchen, they all gathered around to help the two women weave.

And you know what? Despite their young age, the kids are surprisingly fast. Especially Liu Nier and the other older ones, who clearly learned at home, are knitting quite skillfully and are working with great enthusiasm.

When it was noon, Chen Ling thought that they would be going to school the next day, so he decided to have them stay for lunch. He had been quite free these past few days, so he had time to prepare things for his family and cook meals.

Before he could even open his mouth, they all ran off in the blink of an eye after finishing weaving half of the straw mat.

After preparing lunch, Chen Ling left Wang Susu and her sister-in-law at home to eat before taking his bowl out.

He hasn't been to a dinner party in a long time; he's going to catch one.

These days, most people in the village like to eat together in groups.

The main problem is that there are no entertainment activities in the village, and there's no television to watch.

When it was time to eat, they would take their bowls and gather with their neighbors and those who lived nearby, eating and chatting about everything from astronomy and geography to national affairs and the latest happenings in the surrounding villages. It was a very lively occasion.

Some people can eat a bowl of rice for an hour or two, eating in front of others and then in private.

Rushing from one meal to another can be quite interesting.

Chen Ling went out to the dinner party today because the village loudspeaker had just announced that the hunting rifles had arrived, and the village was bound to be lively, so he went to see what was going on.

They often gather to eat in the neighborhood and like to go to the front of Cui the Cripple's house.

The main reason was that Cui the Cripple's family had chess, cards, and mahjong sets. When they weren't busy with farm work, they could set up their equipment after dinner and play cards or chess to pass the time.

By now, the area in front of Cui the Cripple's house had indeed become quite lively.

Many children were playing and laughing around the big tree, while the adults were holding large bowls or pots, squatting in the corners of the walls, sitting on chairs, or some even sitting on the ground with a brick.

The gap between rich and poor in rural areas is not large, and the lunches of each family are similar. It is either noodles, dumpling soup, or porridge with some dried sweet potatoes. Some people even take two steamed buns, stick a piece of pickled vegetable in them, and that's it.

The Chen family had been eating light meals these past two days, with only dumpling soup and vegetarian buns for lunch. After coming over and greeting people, they squatted down with Chen Yuqiang, Chen Ze, and a few other young people, slurping their soup and listening to the others talk.

"No wonder people say that the leap year is not the leap year, because the leap year is a time for violence and bloodshed. Look at this year's situation, we've had a flood and now we're plagued by wolves. It's definitely a year of disaster, and there's no peace."

Someone let out a long sigh, which drew a chorus of agreement.

"It's no use talking about it. We're all just ordinary people toiling in the fields. What can we do? The Party Secretary said that a few days ago, our county organized a wolf-hunting team. They rode motorcycles, carrying guns, and went from village to village. They didn't want to distribute hunting rifles to the villagers because they were afraid of trouble caused by family feuds. But the other night, they encountered a pack of wolves coming down from the mountain in Peach Tree Gully, which scared those young men half to death. They almost lost their lives, let alone hunted wolves. Those people from the county are useless. It's only because of this that they finally agreed to give out hunting rifles." "Then, Second Uncle, how many hunting rifles do you think our Seventh Team will get?"

"Well... there should be at least five or six shots. Li Xian and Da Zhi will definitely get one each. That's two shots already. With so many of us left, how can we not get three or four shots? Don't worry if you're not good at it, just practice as much as you want."

"Speaking of which, it's almost our seventh team's turn to keep watch at night. We'll send a few more people, and we'll at least get to handle some guns and fire a couple of magazines."

"..."

These words indeed excited the young people, who chatted excitedly, creating quite a lively atmosphere.

While eating, Chen Ling listened to the conversation and roughly understood the recent situation.

Actually, the current control over hunting rifles isn't that strict. A complete ban on guns won't be implemented until next year, in 1996.

Their situation was so dire a few years ago that people were killed, forcing them to send people to various villages and towns to confiscate weapons, which resulted in many young people in the villages never having fired a gun.

However, since this area is in the mountains and there are many wild animals, they will still be distributed in special circumstances.

However, on ordinary days, the villagers will definitely not be allowed to keep it themselves.

“Uncle Fugui, I told Second Uncle that it’s our Seventh Team’s turn to keep watch on the night of August 20th. I’ll go with Shuiwazi, and you can go too.”

Chen Yuqiang leaned closer to him and said something.

His second uncle is Chen Guoping's brother, Chen Guoxing, the village electrician. Chen Yuqiang is now working for this second uncle and will take over Chen Guoxing's job in the future.

"Okay."

Chen Ling finished his meal, put down his chopsticks, and asked, "The wolves on the mountain have been howling every night lately. Have the other teams seen any wolves coming down the mountain?"

"Wolves coming down the mountain? No way. Xuecheng did tell Uncle Juxiang that he heard some noises, but Uncle Juxiang was sleeping soundly in the middle of the night. When he woke up, he only heard crunching sounds from the cornfield. He didn't know if wolves were eating, but the village dogs didn't bark much."

Chen Yuqiang thought for a moment, then shook his head and answered.

As they were talking, Chen Ze came home and put down the dishes. He was holding a baby wearing open-crotch pants in his arms. He walked over and pushed the baby in front of Chen Ling: "Little Mao, call him uncle. This uncle always carries candy with him. If you call him uncle, he will give you candy."

This is his sister Chen Fang's son. He's coming for the Mid-Autumn Festival and will be staying for two days.

Hearing Chen Ze say that, he called Chen Ling "uncle" and looked at him expectantly, waiting for candy.

"Oh dear, Uncle didn't bring any candy with him today."

Chen Ling patted his pocket, but didn't put any candy in it. He just found a cigarette box: "How about Xiao Mao has a cigarette first? This is a really good cigarette from your uncle."

Chen Ze glared at him and said, "You rich kid, you even make a fuss with the kids."

This amused Xiao Mao so much that he giggled and actually reached out to take it.

Chen Ling picked the child up and said, "Haha, Uncle was just teasing you. You can't take this. Come on, Uncle will go buy you some candy."

The cripple's shop was right there, so he didn't go home. He spent five cents to buy a few pieces of each kind of candy and filled Xiao Mao's pockets to the brim.

"After you finish eating, go to your uncle's house to get more. Your uncle has plenty of candy."

"I know, uncle."

This kid is quite well-behaved. After we bought him candy, he sat quietly on the rock behind Chen Ling and Chen Ze, listening to them talk.

After chatting for a while, Chen Ling saw that the men had started to gather together to play chess and cards. Having heard everything he needed to hear, he didn't stay any longer, turned around, picked up his bowl and chopsticks, and went home.

With nothing much to do in the afternoon, Chen Ling took his wife for a nap.

I woke up around 3 a.m. and was just about to get a glass of water when I heard a commotion of chickens and dogs running around in the yard. I looked outside and saw that it was those three little rascals who had nothing better to do than go to the chicken coop to cause trouble again. Our own chickens are quite strong, and they've been burned before, so they don't dare to mess with us anymore.

These are some free-range chickens that Wang Zhenzhen brought over. They haven't been killed yet and have been kept in the chicken coop. As a result, these three little guys think they've met someone easy to bully and come over to provoke them every few days.

Unfortunately, these chickens are terrified of weasels. They get scared as soon as the weasels come over and are constantly chased around the yard, which emboldens the three little weasels to come and cause trouble whenever they have a chance.

"Go away, Little Jin, chase them out."

Chen Ling had just woken up and was a little annoyed by the commotion. Without even leaving the house, she asked Xiao Jin to chase the three little rascals out.

These three little creatures have grown up now. Their grayish fur has changed twice and is now brownish-yellow, not much different from adult weasels.

Xiao Huang and Xiao Pang stopped paying attention to them and stayed in the old house during the day, only coming out after dark to help catch the mice and snakes hiding in the house.

Wang Zhenzhen was quite surprised for a while when she first arrived.

But these weasels ignored her, and she gradually lost interest.

At this moment, Wang Susu also got out of bed and looked outside: "Zhenzhen ran out again? That girl, didn't I tell her to eat and take a nap?"

There was a commotion in the yard just now, and Wang Zhenzhen didn't come out. Wang Susu assumed that her younger sister had gone out to play again.

"I don't know, I'll go check."

When Chen Ling walked into the east room, he saw the little girl quietly squatting by the bed, cutting paper according to the size of the textbook, making a notch at the spine, leaving space, and then folding, pressing and smoothing along the pages, looking extremely serious.

This is for covering books.

The paper used to cover the book was the same kraft paper that Zhao Dahai used to wrap the oil paintings. It was tough and sturdy, and not easily worn out, but it didn't look as nice and delicate as calendar paper after it was wrapped.

But that's nothing. When Chen Ling and his friends were kids, they used cement bags and urea bags, and they still managed to get by, didn't they?
Nowadays, dolls don't care about this anymore.

"Zhenzhen, you're covering your books. Your sister thought you ran off to play again."

Chen Ling went over to take a look. The newly bought pencil case, notebooks, eraser and pen were all on display. This thing really looked like something he was looking for.

Wang Susu also came over and said, "Put the textbooks under the bedding after they're wrapped up, and leave them overnight. I've sewed up your schoolbag, and it's hanging on the wardrobe. Go get it."

"understood."

The little girl nodded, turned around, wrinkled her nose, snorted at Chen Ling, and swung her braids as she headed towards the main room.

Chen Ling was completely bewildered: "What... what did I do to her this time?"

Seeing this, Wang Susu smiled and said, "You must have had a bad nap at noon and are throwing a tantrum. I'll go boil some water and give you both a haircut later."

"Okay, you can trim Zhenzhen's hair first, and I'll go cut some reeds."

After taking a nap at noon, Chen Ling wanted to go out and stretch his legs.

So he drove the oxcart to the old river bend south of the village and cut a load of reeds. These reeds need to be cut in advance and dried before they can be used to weave straw mats.

In previous years, there would have been no need for this effort; we could simply haul some straw back from the straw stacks outside the village. However, this year, the straw stacks were all washed away by the flood and left to rot in the fields, turning into fertilizer long ago.

I wanted to use ready-made wheat straw this year, but I couldn't find any.

(End of this chapter)