An orphan girl from a farming family: Everyday farming in the mountains during natural disasters

The paddy field has been plowed, the rice seedlings have grown taller than the palm of your hand, and the seeds that were planted previously have begun to sprout.

Xia Qingyue soaked a few handfuls of wood ash mixed with ten times more water for 24 hours, and then sprayed the filtrate on rice seedlings and vegetable sprouts. This can effectively prevent and control aphids.

She cut the sweet potatoes into pieces and placed them in a dark place to germinate. After a few days, they could be planted.

The sweet potato field had been plowed but not yet planted, so she dug holes and sowed peanuts, soybeans, and mung beans.

Soybeans and mung beans can be germinated into bean sprouts, and she personally likes to eat mung bean sprouts.

In addition, soybeans can be made into soy products, such as tofu, soy milk, yuba, and bean curd skin.

Mung beans are best used to make sweet soup in summer to relieve heat and relieve summer heat.

After finishing all these, the spring ploughing came to a temporary end. The meat was marinated for a few days. She made small holes in the meat, strung it together with twisted straw ropes, and hung it in a ventilated place to dry.

When I bought it, I felt that I didn't buy enough meat, but now looking at the meat hung in rows, there is still a lot left.

Then she wanted to seize the tail end of spring and go outside to find more mountain products, such as bamboo shoots, mushrooms and wild vegetables. Those that could be dried could be stored and eaten until the next year.

Early in the morning of that day, Xia Qingyue picked up the fish cage filled with lard as bait, carried a backpack and a vegetable basket, and went out. She first put the fish cage away, and then went to the bamboo forest to pick bamboo shoots.

She hadn't been to the bamboo forest for a while, and a lot of bamboo shoots had grown. Some of them had grown old, so she picked out the tender ones.

As she was looking for bamboo shoots, she discovered a white web-like thing growing in the damp and withered bamboo forest. It looked like it was wearing a puffy skirt and had a hat like a morel cap on its head.

"This, this is not bamboo fungus!"

She was pleasantly surprised and pushed aside the surrounding bamboo leaves, carefully picked up a flower and examined it closely.

If you smell it up close, you can smell an indescribable stench.

Ignoring the stench, she beamed with joy, "It's really bamboo fungus!"

She looked around, but there were too many white figures to see anywhere.

Bamboo fungus smells bad, but after being dried and stewed in soup, it has a crisp and fresh taste and is very good at absorbing the soup when used in hot pot.

There was a dish in the hot pot restaurant in her previous life, bamboo fungus shrimp balls, which she particularly liked.

So, Xia Qingyue picked bamboo shoots and bamboo fungus at the same time. She spent a whole morning running back and forth, and finally collected all the bamboo shoots and bamboo fungus in the bamboo forest and brought them back to the sinkhole.

There were at least 300 kilograms of bamboo shoots and 40 to 50 kilograms of bamboo fungus.

It looks like a lot now, but there won’t be much left after it dries.

She spread the bamboo shoots and bamboo fungus flat on a large winnowing basket and put it in the sun to dry.

At noon, she returned to the tiankeng and had a quick lunch without taking a nap. She wore a straw hat and went with Heihei to the stream where they found oyster mushrooms and black fungus last time.

New oyster mushrooms and black fungus have grown on the broken wood. This time she also found shiitake mushrooms, which have a strong mushroom aroma. She likes to eat shiitake mushrooms very much, and she loves them fried with meat or stewed with chicken.

It is said that in the previous life, mushrooms such as shiitake mushrooms and oyster mushrooms were soaked in medicine to keep them fresh. Once she bought a bag of seafood mushrooms, and somehow it fell into a corner. She found it more than half a month later and it was still good, not spoiled.

Since then, she dared not buy those mushrooms in the market unless she was particularly greedy.

What she finds now are all natural, wild and additive-free mushrooms.

She walked and stopped, picking all the edible mushrooms she could see in the area, filling up most of the basket.

With her hands dirty, she walked to the stream to wash her hands. She glanced at the green plants on the shore and her eyes immediately lit up.

The green plants looked very familiar, so she picked one at random, and a scent stronger than celery hit her nose.

"Water celery!"

Looking around, there was a large field of water celery growing on the shore, stretching as far as the eye could see.

Water celery is delicious when fried with bacon. It is fragrant and crispy. It can be used to pickle sauerkraut and pickled vegetables, and can also be dried to make dried vegetables. When you want to eat it later, soak it in water, cut it into sections, and stir-fry it with lard and dried chilies. It will be a simple and delicious dish to go with rice.

Xia Qingyue picked up the sickle and started cutting excitedly. She cut a large handful of water celery at a time. The sound of the blade cutting through the water celery was crisp and very pleasant and relaxing.

After a while, the backpack and the basket she brought could no longer hold the water celery, so she had to carry it back and come back to cut it.

After running back and forth three times and cutting over 100 kilograms of water celery, she was a little tired. You can't eat hot tofu in a hurry. There is plenty of it on the shore anyway, so it will be the same if she cuts it slowly later.

It was probably around three o'clock in the afternoon, neither early nor late. The sun hid in the clouds and the clouds in the sky became gloomy.

Xia Qingyue looked up at the sky and muttered, "Is it going to rain?"

She collected a fish cage, picked out small fish and shrimps as bait, and took the basket to the reed marsh.

After a few days, the reeds that decorated the basket had turned yellow, so she replaced them with new ones, set the trap, and hid in the dark.

If possible, she would like to catch more pheasants and wild ducks and raise dozens of them. Not only would she be able to have meat and eggs freely, she would not have to worry about fertilizer for farming and could also save the duck down to make clothes and quilts in winter.

After waiting for more than ten minutes, two wild ducks quacked and came towards the trap. They smelled the fishy smell of fish and shrimp, stuck their heads out to peck at the food, and gradually walked under the basket.

She pulled the rope and got two wild ducks.

Xia Qingyue happily put the wild ducks into the backpack and covered it. She took the basket and moved to a new place to wait.

This time she didn't have to wait long before a rustling sound came from the front, and the next second, a white shadow passed by her eyes.

Xia Qingyue's heart was in her throat. She thought it was a pheasant or a wild duck, but it turned out to be a big white dog.

The big dog ran to the bottom of the trap to smell the scent. After sniffing, it raised its head and glanced sharply towards Xia Qingyue who was hiding in the dark. Its eyes were as deep as water, and it took steps and approached her step by step.

Xia Qingyue opened her eyes wide, wondering where this dog came from. Its white fur was shiny and smooth, its body was clean, and its limbs were well-proportioned. It was obvious at first glance that it was not wandering alone in the wild, but was raised by someone.

Is there anyone nearby?

Thinking of this, she was confused and panicked for a moment, but soon calmed down.

Heihei ran to the reed marsh to have fun, and no one knew how far he was.

She now had a sickle in her hand for self-defense. She stared at the white dog without looking away, and her hand silently touched the handle of the sickle.

The white dog walked a few steps in front of her.

Suddenly, a loud whistle sounded, seeming to be far away and near. The white dog heard it, pricked up its ears, turned around and ran away.

Only when the white dog ran out of sight did Xia Qingyue breathe a sigh of relief. Her hand holding the sickle trembled slightly. Although the crisis was resolved, the tension in her heart became even tighter.

There really is someone else on the mountain besides her!

She had actually thought about this problem a long time ago. Xia Dasong had told the original owner before that there was a bandit's den on the other side of the mountain, where lived bandits who committed all kinds of evil, including killing, looting and plundering. Considering safety issues, he never let the original owner and her mother go out alone.

Chirp chirp.

The sound of chickens crowed brought Xia Qingyue back to her senses. She turned around and saw five chickens and a pheasant coming towards the basket.

With a clang, the basket fell to the ground.

Xia Qingyue quickly walked out from the darkness and put the five chicks and a pheasant she had caught into her backpack. The reed shoots for feeding the chickens and ducks were gone, so she bent down to look for them and put them into the backpack.

"Whirring whirring."

When a strange noise was heard, Xia Qingyue, who was already nervous, became alarmed. She gripped the handle of the sickle and was about to exert force, but found that it was Heihei who came back.

A false alarm.

"Come on, Heihei, let's go back!"

She had to take some defensive measures!