When the pears are green

After careful consideration, Jiang Qingzhou demolished the pigpen, expanded the rabbit hive, reduced the area of ​​the chicken coop, and built a spacious silkworm house on the west side of the straw shed.

When the peach blossoms were in full bloom, Jiang Huan learned to roll over. Song Li was even more afraid to leave Jiang Huan, for fear that Jiang Huan would fall off the bed and hit his head.

In April, the mulberry trees grew green leaves and it was the season for raising silkworms. Hu Zhimin helped Jiang Qingzhou buy silkworm eggs from the city.

Song Li and Jiang Huan both stared with wide eyes at the green and purple sesame-sized, flat, round silkworm eggs that were densely scattered on the paper.

"Qingzhou, how many silkworm eggs are there on this one-foot wide paper?" Song Li asked, holding Jiang Huan's hand that was scratching around.

Jiang Qingzhou opened a quilt, wrapped the silkworm paper with cotton cloth and placed it on the quilt and replied: "Boss Hu said there are about 2,000 silkworms. Because we have no experience in raising silkworms, Boss Hu asked us to raise 20,000 silkworms first. A piece of silkworm paper is 350 coins, and these are five taels of silver worth of silkworm eggs. After the silkworms make cocoons this time, we can pick some silkworm seeds for ourselves to keep for moths and eggs."

"If we need to buy silkworm eggs every time, it will indeed be a huge expense. Didn't Uncle Ping say before that he would go to buy silkworm eggs with you? Why didn't he go?" Song Li asked as he walked to the three-layer wooden rack against the wall.

Jiang Qingzhou continued to wrap the silkworm paper and answered, "My second brother bought eight sheets of silkworm paper when he came back from the county town two days ago. Uncle Ping plans to use my second brother's study as a silkworm room."

"Will second brother agree?" Song Li asked curiously.

Jiang Qingzhou turned to look at Song Li and said with a smile: "Second brother really agreed."

Song Li looked surprised and found it a little unbelievable.

Jiang Qingzhou covered the other half of the quilt on the silkworm paper, and then explained to Song Li: "Second brother's family doesn't have an extra room to raise silkworms, and it costs money to cover it with another half. Even if second brother doesn't agree, there is nothing we can do."

Song Li nodded in understanding, and continued to count the wooden racks while holding Jiang Huan. There were six wooden racks in front of the three walls, with a total of eighteen layers. On each layer of the wooden rack was a basket bought from Song Changsong.

Ten days later, Song Xing, who was checking the silkworm eggs as a routine, happily ran into the kitchen and said to Song Li and Jiang Qingzhou who were cooking, "Sister, brother-in-law, the silkworm eggs have become transparent, and you can even see the outline of the silkworms inside."

"The silkworms should be crawling out of the eggs." After saying this, Song Li added a handful of firewood to the stove, and followed Jiang Qingzhou and Song Xing to the silkworm room.

Jiang Qingye held Jiang Huan in his arms and stood in front of the opened quilt. Jiang Huan kept making noises, trying to catch the silkworm eggs when Jiang Qingye wasn't paying attention.

Song Li walked up and patted Jiang Huan's little hand. Jiang Huan pouted and asked Song Li to hug him with tears in his eyes.

Song Li smiled and took over the "actor" Jiang Huan, and together with Jiang Qingzhou, they lay down in front of the silkworm eggs and looked at them again and again. They could indeed see the long strip outline in the silkworm eggs.

The next morning, Jiang Qingzhou first put the silkworm paper into a basket covered with cotton cloth, and then took Song Li and Jiang Huan, who had just finished breakfast, to the mulberry field to pick mulberry leaves.

The rape flowers in the mulberry field are in full bloom. Groups of bees are buzzing in the flower fields collecting nectar, and occasionally there are a few white butterflies flying around.

Song Li picked a handful of rape flowers and held them in her hand before handing them to Jiang Huan. Jiang Huan stretched out his little hand and kept pulling them, leaving a layer of golden rape petals on the ground.

Jiang Qingzhou threw the tender green mulberry leaves he had picked from the tops of the branches into his backpack, and occasionally looked up at Song Li and Jiang Huan who were playing in the field.

The sun was becoming more and more dazzling. Song Li hugged Jiang Huan and hid under the shade of a tree. They both looked at Jiang Qingzhou who was picking mulberry leaves.

Seeing that the mulberry leaves in his backpack were almost full, Jiang Qingzhou picked up the basket and walked out of the mulberry field. Then he reached out to the side of the road, broke off a few willow branches, and weaved them into a willow hat and placed it in front of Jiang Huan.

Jiang Huan waved his little hands happily, sometimes looking at the willow hat in Jiang Qingzhou's hand with his mouth open, and sometimes lying on Song Li's shoulder and laughing "Aha, aha".

Jiang Qingzhou handed the willow hat in his hand to Song Li, then reached out to take it from Jiang Huan.

"Xiao Li, let's go back." Jiang Qingzhou said as he carried Jiang Huan under the shade of the tree.

Song Li followed behind Jiang Qingzhou, teasing Jiang Huan with a willow hat.

After returning home, Jiang Qingzhou took out some mulberry leaves and placed them on the newly made chopping board, stacking every twenty mulberry leaves together. After cutting off the stalks, he cut them into thin strips, and then put the remaining mulberry leaves into a ceramic jar to prevent them from being dried out by the wind.

Song Li held Jiang Huan and Jiang Qingzhou to go to the silkworm room to feed the silkworms. Most of the silkworms had crawled out of the eggs, and the eggs had turned white or light yellow.

Jiang Qingzhou scattered the shredded silkworm leaves into the basket. When Jiang Huan saw this, he reached out to grab the silkworm leaves in the bamboo basket that Jiang Qingzhou was holding.

"Here, here you go, but don't put it in your mouth."

Jiang Qingzhou stuffed the silkworm leaves into Jiang Huan's little hand, then held Jiang Huan's hand and scattered them into the basket.

Jiang Huan flapped his hands around and even started yawning.

Song Li quickly took the silkworm leaves from Jiang Huan's hand and carried Jiang Huan to the east room to sleep.

Four or five days later, Song Xing and Jiang Qingye stood in front of the basket and frowned as they looked at the motionless silkworms.

"Sister-in-law, why aren't the silkworms moving?"

"Sister, are you dead?"

Song Li calmly flipped through the "Silkworm Care Notes" given by Hu Zhimin, and told the two people who were emitting an uneasy atmosphere: "This is the first time the silkworm sheds its skin, and it will turn from black to brown. The silkworm needs to sleep for eight to nine hours before it can eat again, so you don't need to be nervous."

Song Xing happily hugged Jiang Qingye's shoulders and said, "So that's how it is, Qingye, come back tomorrow morning and see."

After Song Xing and Jiang Qingye left, Song Li carefully checked all the baskets. Seeing that all the silkworms were sleeping, he sprinkled some quicklime evenly into each basket.

I asked the old doctor in the town's clinic to buy quicklime together with gypsum powder.

It suddenly started raining at night.

There were only a few mulberry leaves left at home. After returning from the restaurant, Jiang Qingzhou held an oil-paper umbrella and went to the mulberry field to pick mulberry leaves.

Silkworms are too small to be fed directly on rain-soaked leaves.

Jiang Qingzhou took out the long hemp rope used to dry vegetables in the fall and tied it between the wooden frames. Then he placed the mulberry leaves with branches in the backpack on the hemp rope and gently vibrated the hemp rope with his hands, and the rain water on the mulberry leaves dripped down.

There were also some mulberry leaves on which the rain water did not completely fall off, and some silkworms began to have diarrhea after eating the mulberry leaves.

Jiang Qingzhou hurriedly picked up all the silkworms with diarrhea and put them into the same basket, but in the end most of them did not survive.

Song Li comforted the somewhat frustrated Jiang Qingzhou: "Qingzhou, just be careful next time. Besides, we are still novices."

After Jiang Qingzhou threw away the dead silkworms, he took Jiang Huan and Song Li back to the east room to study the book "Notes on Silkworm Breeding" carefully.

As dusk approached, Jiang Ping knocked on the gate of the Jiang family's courtyard with a sad face. Standing in the rain, he asked Jiang Qingzhou helplessly: "Qingzhou, have your silkworms had diarrhea?"

Jiang Qingzhou hurriedly invited Jiang Ping to come into the main hall to talk, but Jiang Ping refused to come in. Jiang Qingzhou had no choice but to stand beside Jiang Ping with an oil-paper umbrella and answer: "Uncle Ping, some silkworms had diarrhea. Some of them survived, but some died."

Jiang Ping sighed deeply and said to Jiang Qingzhou: "It's the same in my family. A whole basket of people died. Why is that?"

Jiang Qingzhou hurriedly explained to Jiang Ping: "Uncle Ping, you can't feed the fish with rain water. You can dry the rain water first before feeding."

Jiang Ping suddenly realized what was going on, thanked Jiang Qingzhou and hurried back home.

As the silkworms grew bigger, the wide basket seemed crowded.

Jiang Qingzhou quickly divided the baskets for the silkworms, increasing the original ten baskets into thirteen.

On the tenth day of silkworm rearing, the silkworms begin to shed their skin for the second time. This time the dormancy period is longer, and it takes ten hours to shed their skin.

Song Li continued to sprinkle lime. When she went to feed the silkworms mulberry leaves the next day, all the silkworms had woken up and their color had become lighter.