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

You know what, I haven’t been here for a few days, and it rained a few nights ago, so a lot of bamboo shoots and bamboo fungi have grown.

Xia Qingyue was enjoying the harvest and was immersed in it.

I don't know how long it took, but suddenly a long and loud whistle sounded.

"Baibai's master is here." She stood up, packed her things and prepared to leave.

When the white dog heard the whistle, its eyes lit up. It saw Xia Qingyue was about to leave, so it tilted its head slightly and looked at the man and the dog in confusion.

Its clear eyes seemed to be saying, "My master is here to see me, why did you leave?"

Xia Qingyue ran very fast, and when she and Heihei's figures disappeared, the white dog barked at them.

More than ten minutes later, a man with an upright posture and a bow and arrow slung across his back walked into the bamboo forest and found the white dog.

The man saw that the white dog's hind leg was injured, and his eyes showed pity. The wound was wrapped with two sky blue cloth strips, which were obviously bandaged artificially. Finally, his eyes fell on the pile of hemostatic herbs beside his beloved dog.

"Mmmm." The white dog let down all its guard and called softly to the man like a spoiled child.

"Xiaobai." The man walked over to his beloved dog and squatted down, stroking the fur on its back with his slender wheat-colored fingers. His sleeves were half-rolled up, revealing a section of his arm with smooth muscle lines, every part of which showed a strong sense of power.

"Someone saved you. Who was it?"

-

Xia Qingyue returned to the tiankeng under the scorching sun. The sun was so good that she took out all the bamboo shoots, bamboo fungus, fern, mushrooms, water celery, mulberry leaves, loquat leaves and other medicinal herbs and dried them in the sun. The dried ones could be kept longer if they were exposed to the sun.

She looked up at the sky, shielding her eyes with one hand. "It would be nice if it stays sunny like this, so I can find some dry firewood."

After taking a short rest and drinking some water, she went to chop wild grass. She hadn't been to the reed marsh for a few days, so she gathered some wild grass and mixed it with rice bran to feed the chickens and ducks.

After feeding the chickens and ducks, she went on to prepare lunch. She had been very busy recently and wanted to cook more at noon and heat up the leftovers in the evening. It was simple and convenient.

The grass carp had not been eaten yet. If she kept it any longer, it would probably become thinner and thinner. So she killed the fish, removed the scales and internal organs, cut the fish meat into pieces, and fried it in a pan until both sides were browned. She then served it out for later use.

Remove the internal organs of the thumb-sized fish, marinate it with salt, shredded ginger, soy sauce and rice wine for a while in advance. When frying, pick out the shredded ginger and sprinkle some flour on the fish to coat it with a layer of batter.

Put small fishes into the oil pan, fry them until cooked and shaped, then take them out, increase the oil temperature in the pan and fry them again.

She couldn't help but taste one. It was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, with the bones all melted into pieces and a very burnt aroma.

After frying the small fish, remove the excess oil and braise the fried grass carp.

Soak some dried water celery in warm water in advance, wash it and cut it into sections, smash two cloves of garlic, cut the dried chili into sections, after the oil is hot, add the garlic and dried chili to stir-fry, then add the dried water celery and stir-fry.

If you like it a little dry and crispy, add salt, soy sauce and a little sugar, stir-fry for a few times, remove from the pan and serve. If you like it a little soft but still crispy, add a little water and simmer for two or three minutes.

She preferred the former, so she cooked it quickly.

I didn’t finish the millet porridge cooked in the morning, so I continued eating it at noon.

The salty, spicy and dry water celery and the crispy fried fish were especially delicious with rice. She ate quite a lot of these two dishes, and after lunch, she barely touched the braised fish.

She washed the pots and dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. It was still early, probably around twelve o'clock, so she washed her hands and feet, changed into clean clothes and took a nap.

After sleeping for an hour, she felt dizzy and washed her face with cold water several times to regain her energy.

Starting from the afternoon, she will start planting rice. The sun is strong in the afternoon, so she wears a straw hat to block the sun.

First go to the vegetable garden and pull up the grown rice seedlings with their roots and soil, mentally planning to pull up as many as you can plant in the afternoon.

After pulling out the rice seedlings and putting them in a basket and carrying them to the paddy field, she found a wooden stick and stuck it into the ground. She tied a rope to the stick, pulled the rope to the other side of the field and measured to see if it was in a straight line.

Since she was handling this matter alone, there were bound to be deviations. She didn't seek perfection, but only hoped that the seedlings she planted wouldn't be too ugly or outrageous.

It is always better to have a straight line to follow.

After fixing the rope, Xia Qingyue rolled up her trouser legs and planted the rice seedlings backwards from the beginning, spacing them at appropriate distances all the way to the end.

My feet were stepping on the wet and sticky mud, one step deep and one step shallow, which was very strenuous. If I wasn't careful, I would slip and fall into the water.

Xia Qingyue was very careful, but still couldn't escape. She fell twice, and most of her body was wet. There was no telling how much mud was on her hands and face.

She remembered that in her previous life, she followed her grandmother to plant rice in the countryside. There were leeches in the paddy fields. She was young at that time and caught leeches to play with them. Later, when she grew up, she felt sick just looking at those things, especially on rainy days. In addition to leeches, there were also earthworms that she didn't like. Every time she saw them, she would immediately get goose bumps on her body.

She had observed the two paddy fields here and found no leeches, so she felt relatively safe walking in the water.

When changing rows to plant rice, move the shaping rope over as well, and repeat the process.

In half a day, she had planted one-third of the entire paddy field.

On the second day, the third day, and the fourth day, for three and a half days in a row, Xia Qingyue did not leave the sinkhole and was busy planting rice. She planted more than two acres of paddy fields by herself.

She was very tired, but she didn't stop to rest because she still had a lot of work to do.

It has been sunny every day recently and the temperature has risen significantly. She estimated that the maximum temperature during the day would be 30 degrees, and it would be a little cooler at night, around 23 degrees.

The weather was fine, and the dry firewood outside had been dried in the sun and had little moisture, so it was just right for use after being picked up.

Xia Qingyue went out carrying a large backpack, a sack and a basket of vegetables.

Without rain, the mushrooms on the mountain will become fewer and fewer, so we have to get more while there are still some.

The mushrooms that were found were dried, packed into sacks and sealed. There were about 80 to 90 kilograms of miscellaneous mushrooms and more than 10 kilograms of Matsutake mushrooms.

She went to the upper reaches of the stream, which she hadn't been to for some time. She didn't go to the side where the bandits besieged the delivery man last time. She thought about going to the pine forest to see if she could find more matsutake mushrooms. When she came back, she would find some dry firewood near the sinkhole to bring back.

It has to be said that both fresh and dried Matsutake mushrooms are extremely delicious. She was busy with farming these days and had no time to spare. One day, she used the soaked dried Matsutake mushrooms to stew marinated horse meat. The delicious taste is still unforgettable to her.

Horse meat, like pork, is marinated and hung up to be smoked together with bacon.

In addition to cooking with Matsutake mushrooms, she also wants to find more to make homemade Matsutake seasoning, which is a seasoning similar to chicken essence and MSG that can enhance the flavor.

Pine forest.

You can still find Matsutake mushrooms in humid places. I walked around the whole forest and found a basket of them. It was a good harvest.

One and a half baskets of assorted mushrooms.

There was nothing to find in the pine forest, and she was about to leave. When she turned around, the small red fruit growing on the top of a plant in the green grass in front of her caught her attention.

If she was not mistaken, it was not...