50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 106 9 The fragrance of laurel flowers
In the summer, the four-H extermination campaign continued, but the sparrows had been almost all killed, so this time the mice were the focus of the work.

The command center that was canceled last year has been established again, this time targeting rats.

At the weekend, Sun Ailai stood in front of Sun Zhiwei again.

Sun Zhiwei was now in a state of headache: "Classmate Sun Ailai, you know there are no mice in our house. Where can I go to catch mice for you?"

Having said that, he definitely had to help his sister. He didn't want this girl to run into the gutter to look for rats.

"How much does the school require each person to pay this time?"

"Five rat tails per person per week." Sun Aila raised his hand.

"Not many, okay? I'll go find some for you, but I have one request: you're not allowed to look for rats in the gutters or else you'll get your clothes dirty and you'll have to wash them yourself."

The deal was done, and Sun Ailai happily went out to play, leaving the difficulties to his brother.

If Sun Zhiwei really wanted to catch mice, it would be easy. He just had to find a place where there were mice and use Space to catch them.

Where in the city are there the most rats? The granaries, and there must be a lot of them too.

Seeing that it was not dark yet, Sun Zhiwei pushed his bicycle out, circled around several nearby grain stores, and then returned home with dozens of rat tails.

After returning, he found a small paper box and placed it at the door, then threw the tail directly from the space into the box.

This time he brought back more than twenty tails, enough to meet the school's three-week submission requirement.

During dinner, he told Sun Ailai the location of the rat's tail at the door, and then emphasized that rats are very dirty and can only be caught with gloves and not with hands.

The girl agreed readily. She was not stupid and knew that mice were dirty.

A week later, the rat-catching campaign reached its climax, and newspapers were reporting various methods of eliminating rats.

The command center began to increase the workload again. The original 5 tails per week were increased to 7, and Sun Zhiwei had to get back more than a dozen tails.

As for the rat's body, of course he threw it outside. Maybe someone could pick it up and hand in the task. Not every unit would collect the tail.

However, it can be clearly seen that there are fewer rats in the city. Last time, I only went to two grain stores and caught more than 30 rats. This time, I went to 5 or 6 stores and only caught a dozen or so.

The next week, a large-scale battle broke out in the city, and methods such as fumigation, flooding, burning, clamping, and beating drums and gongs were adopted at the same time.

A large number of rats were eliminated in three days, and many of the remaining rats ran around everywhere, even a few of them entered Sun Zhiwei's house.

These days, he would sweep the house every day when he came back. When he caught a mouse, he would cut off its tail and throw it into the box at the door. He would throw the mouse's body outside, and it would be picked up by someone soon.

The rat-catching campaign lasted for more than a month. Almost all the rats in the city were caught, and the command center was disbanded again.

Sun Zhiwei felt that this action was very meaningful. If it were carried out once a year, the city’s sanitation would definitely be very good.

However, this is also because supplies are not abundant enough, so we need to concentrate manpower to exterminate rats.

When supplies become more abundant in the future, rat poison, mousetraps, and rat-killing boards can be purchased at any time. Each family, community, and unit can organize rat-killing operations on their own, and there will be no need to organize such large-scale activities.

In July, the jujube trees in the yard began to bloom. To increase their fruiting rate, Sun Zhiwei began to spray them with water every night for the better part of a month. By August, the trees began to bear fruit. This year, the weather was dry, and he saw that there were fewer fruit on the trees than last year. The climate change had already begun to affect the city.

When the jujube trees began to bear fruit, Sun Ailai was looking forward to it. He often looked up at the fruits on the branches, waiting for the jujubes to ripen.

The same thing happened last year. Sun Zhiwei had already told her at that time that it would take at least three months for dates to mature from the time they start to bear fruit, and four months is possible.

The jujube trees bloomed late this year, and it might be near winter before we could eat the jujubes, but she still couldn't help but look at them every day, and Sun Zhiwei let her.

By September, before we could eat the dates, the osmanthus tree next to us started to bloom. The branches were soon filled with yellow osmanthus flowers, and the rich fragrance was so refreshing that it could be smelled even from the two surrounding streets.

Osmanthus is a good thing. In order to avoid waste, Sun Zhiwei spread a piece of cloth under the osmanthus tree. When the osmanthus flowers fall, they will fall on the cloth and will not get it dirty.

When the osmanthus flowers are in full bloom, he starts picking them and then asks Tong Jiajia to make osmanthus food with the fresh osmanthus flowers, mainly osmanthus cakes and osmanthus jam.

Osmanthus cakes are divided into several types: steamed cakes, pulled cakes, rice cakes, cold cakes and crystal cakes. This kind of food has a short shelf life. After Tong Jiajia made it, she asked Sun Zhiwei and Nannan to go out and deliver the goods.

They all need to be sent to my godmother's house, Lao Zhang's house, Aunt Liang's house, and Daxiang's house.

So, after making a batch at home, Sun Zhiwei would ride his bike with his daughter sitting on the back seat, holding a basket of osmanthus cakes, and eat as he walked.

Fortunately, Sun Zhiwei rode his bike fast, otherwise, she would have finished the food before reaching the destination.

Osmanthus jam is simpler. Just wash and chop the osmanthus flowers, then heat them in salt and sugar water to make syrup. If you want to be more extravagant, you can add some honey and plum meat, and finally seal it for storage.

Osmanthus sauce tastes sweet and salty, and is delicious when dipped in bread or steamed buns.

This can be stored for a long time. Only a small can was given to each family, and a lot of the rest was put in glass bottles of canned fruit and kept for the family to enjoy slowly.

The flowering period of osmanthus is more than a month. More osmanthus flowers are picked and dried into dried flowers, which are then brewed into osmanthus wine in October.

By the end of the year, the situation in the countryside had become very bad.

Once I met Daxiang, he brought me a piece of news. Lao Zhang's parents came to Beijing from their hometown. It was said that they almost died on the road and are still in the hospital.

That night, Sun Zhiwei went to Lao Zhang's house with a bottle of honey, two cans of meat and 10 kilograms of millet.

Although he knew the guards at the gate, he had moved out of the compound, so he needed to register before entering.

After registering at the gate according to regulations, he and Tong Jiajia went to the family area and knocked on the door of Lao Zhang's house.

The one who opened the door was Zhang Guizhi, the eldest daughter of the Zhang family. When she saw Sun Zhiwei, she smiled and called out "Brother Zhiwei, sister-in-law", and quickly let them into the house.

"Dad, Brother Zhiwei and his sister-in-law are here."

Old Zhang came out from the inner room after hearing the sound, greeted them, and sat down together at the table in the outer room.

"I heard that Grandpa Zhang and Grandma Zhang were coming, so I brought some nutritional supplements with me." He took out the things in the cloth bag one by one.

"You come to my place and bring things with you. Do you earn as much as I do?"

(End of this chapter)