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

It was dark, and everything was pitch black. She groped her way to the stove, used a flint to light the pine needles, and burned the dry wood. The fire burned brightly.

Without taking a rest, she hurriedly processed the horse meat, evenly spread salt on it, and put it in a basin to marinate.

There were three full basins and two wooden barrels, estimated to weigh more than 200 kilograms.

Afraid that it would rain again at night, she washed her red hands stained with horse blood and went to collect the things that were drying at the bottom of the sinkhole.

In fact, after the horse's skin was peeled off and its meat was cut, her body was stained with a lot of horse blood and she smelled fishy.

She only had breakfast in the morning. She hadn't eaten since noon and was extremely hungry. She didn't even get to eat the scallion pancake she brought out for dinner. It was already very late, so she simply ate the scallion pancake and the leftover millet porridge from the morning.

After eating, I boiled a pot of hot water on the stove. When the water boiled, I took the small fish and shrimps in the wooden basin to feed Heihei, chickens and ducks.

She scooped some of the boiled hot water into a wooden barrel, added cold water to adjust it to a suitable temperature, put the soapberries in and rubbed them to make bubbles. This was her traditional shampoo.

Although I used the traditional shampoo to wash my hair, its not as smooth as before, but this is the only way I can do under the current conditions. It does wash my hair clean.

She planned to find some Polygonum multiflorum, Platycladus orientalis leaves, and even better if she could find ginseng, and grind ginger and soapberry into fine powder to make a shampoo bag, which would be additive-free and pure and natural to nourish hair.

It’s a pity that I haven’t found enough Polygonum multiflorum yet, so the plan has been put on hold for the time being.

Put your long hair into the wooden bucket, wet it with foamy water, massage your scalp slowly with your fingertips, and finally rinse it clean.

The hair just after washing was rough and could not be combed, so I fixed my hair with a wooden hairpin and washed my dirty face with the water used to clean my hair.

After taking a hot shower and putting on clean clothes, Xia Qingyue felt like she was alive again. While waiting for her hair to dry, she lit a fire to burn cypress leaves and smoked bacon.

I didn’t have a hair dryer to dry my hair, but luckily there was wind at night, and after more than an hour, my hair was dry.

The hair is smooth and refreshed after drying.

She was really tired today and her whole body ached, but she did not take the opportunity to make excuses for being lazy. She pinned her hair up, did horse stance for half an hour, and did aerobic exercise for half an hour.

After finishing, she was sweating all over and regretted not taking a shower and washing her hair before finishing. Her body felt sticky and uncomfortable. She felt better only after wiping her body with a cloth soaked in warm water.

Lying on the bed, she closed her eyes comfortably and fell asleep in less than a minute.

In the morning, Xia Qingyue got up and felt sore all over. She endured the pain and completed her morning exercises.

It rained from the first half of last night to the second half of the night, and the ground was still wet.

The air is exceptionally fresh, the greenery is lush, and occasionally birds fly over the tiankeng, chirping crisply.

The years are quiet.

Xia Qingyue withdrew her gaze from admiring the beautiful scenery in the pit. It was a new day and time to work.

Only by doing what you should do can you lie down as soon as possible.

The sky was grey and she didn't take anything out to dry.

While cooking the porridge, she fed the chickens and ducks and fried a plate of scallion pancakes.

It’s better to wrap the leftover scallion pancakes in large leaves, as they might not be back at noon.

What happened upstream of the stream yesterday made her worried that the bandits would come back, or that some ferocious beasts would be attracted by the smell of blood and stay there. She didn't want to go there again in the short term, so she decided to go downstream of the stream today.

Before going out, Xia Qingyue stuffed the dagger into the hidden pouch in her sleeve to protect herself in case of any unexpected accident.

Downstream stream.

The water was flowing gently, and lush green plants grew on both sides of the bank, including water celery, cattails, and some other plants that Xia Qingyue had never seen before. As she searched, she found edible watercress.

Watercress grows very well and is very tender. It is great whether cooked in soup or stir-fried. It likes to grow in places with water and can grow well without any care.

It's good, but in her previous life, when she bought watercress from the vegetable market, she saw leeches while washing it several times, which left her with psychological trauma.

Fearing leeches, she found a stick and dug up the piles of watercress. After looking for a long time, she only saw sand and roots at the bottom of the stream.

"It looks like there isn't any. We can get some back and keep them in the canal later."

The water celery growing in patches by the stream would probably become ripe in half a month, so she wanted to find a time to harvest them all and make them into pickled mustard greens.

Xia Qingyue walked and stopped, and found two plants of Polygonum multiflorum and three plants of Bupleurum chinense. Like she usually did when she went out, she would pick up any medicinal herbs she saw, to prevent herself from getting sick in the future and having no medicine to cure her illness.

Before she knew it, she had been walking for over an hour. Just as she was feeling thirsty, she saw a very familiar tree in the woods beside the stream. There were some bright yellow fruits on the tree.

“It’s loquat!”

She ran over happily, and when she got under the tree, she was dumbfounded.

None of the loquats on the tree were in good condition. They were all pecked by birds and gnawed by insects, and were damaged and rotten.

You can also smell the unique sweet scent of loquat in the air.

"What a pity." She said regretfully, looking lost.

Loquats cannot be eaten, but loquat leaves can be used as medicine and are a good choice for relieving cough and reducing phlegm.

She picked up a sickle and cut loquat leaves, then cut a few handfuls and stuffed them into her backpack.

"Wang Wang Wang!"

I don't know when Heihei ran to a small slope in the distance.

Seeing it barking at her, Xia Qingyue guessed that it must have found something good, so she took the thing and ran over.

As she got closer, she saw the green plants on the slope covered with black and purple fruits. Her eyes lit up, "Isn't this a mulberry tree? There are so many mulberries!"

There are three mulberry trees growing not far from each other on the slope, and each tree is bearing mulberries.

She picked a mulberry and put it into her mouth. The juice, which was nine parts sweet and one part sour, burst between her teeth.

Full of juice.

too delicious.

She grabbed a handful of mulberries and threw them into Heihei's mouth, and he ate them happily.

After taking a bite, she couldn't stop. She grabbed some food for herself while feeding it to Heihei. Soon, her hands and mouth turned black and purple.

She didn't need to look in the mirror to know what a horrible state her teeth had become.

After eating a lot of mulberries, she not only quenched her thirst but also felt about 60% full.

Some of the mulberries had signs of being pecked by birds, so she avoided them and picked the good ones in a basket.

Mulberry leaves are also a good treasure. After drying, they can be soaked in water with summer cypress and wild chrysanthemum to drink. It is equivalent to summer mulberry and chrysanthemum granules. It can clear away heat, detoxify, clear the liver and improve eyesight. It is a good tea to reduce fire in summer.

She picked several handfuls of mulberry leaves.

There were still a lot of mulberries on the tree. She couldn't eat all of them at once, so she left them for the birds.

Xia Qingyue did not go back at noon. She found a good place in the woods where there were ferns, mushrooms and shepherd's purse. She and Heihei ate scallion pancakes and mulberries to fill their stomachs.

In one afternoon, she picked more than 100 kilograms of mushrooms, filling her backpack, sack and basket. She also picked dozens of kilograms of fern and shepherd's purse, and dried the leftovers.

She also saw wild garlic sprouts in the grass. Just as she was about to go over, Heihei suddenly scurried away into the grass in front of her.

With a flutter, five or six snakes with white stripes fled out in all directions. One of them disappeared in a flash, and the remaining ones entangled with each other and crawled in a winding manner.

Her stomach churned and Xia Qingyue, with a pale face, raised her hand to cover her mouth. She almost vomited and was filled with fear.

That is the poisonous five-step snake, also known as the centipede!

If Heihei hadn't discovered the snake and ran over to chase it away, she would have been bitten as soon as she went over.

After resting for a while, she walked over to look at the wild garlic sprouts.

But the garlic seedlings at this time of year have already grown old and have grown garlic stalks.

The garlic sprouts are long and very tender.

There were a lot of garlic sprouts growing around, and she pulled them all out. When pulling them out, she paid special attention to her feet, fearing that a snake would suddenly jump out.

I quickly pulled out the garlic sprouts, which weighed more than two kilograms in total.

She was disturbed by this place and hurried away, returning to the familiar stream.

"The mountains are still the best. You can find different mountain products every day."

Xia Qingyue couldn't help but sigh.

Putting aside the dangers of ferocious beasts and bandits, hardworking people will never starve to death living in the mountains.

I don’t know whether Aunt Yuzhen and the others have gone up the mountain. What’s the situation outside?