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

When the mother rabbit was eating, the other rabbits smelled the fragrance and came over, so Xia Qingyue moved them away.

She let them go only after the mother rabbit had finished eating.

It seems that I have to raise the mother rabbit separately from other rabbits in the future.

In fact, she intended to build a rabbit house and a chicken and duck house. However, in winter, the bamboo fence was drafty and very cold.

Last winter, the temperature continued to drop and heavy snow fell. Some of the poultry raised by the original owner froze to death. Later, they kept the poultry in the main room of the cave and managed to survive the winter.

It would be best to use earthen bricks to build the poultry house, but a cave is needed to burn the bricks. In the fall, she also wanted to go out and find a lot of wood to make charcoal, which also required a cave.

Originally, Zhu Erniang built a small cave to make pottery. The space was not large, but it could be used. She thought that since she was going to burn earthen bricks and charcoal, the cave must be large, so it would be better to burn more at a time.

A large cave must be dug, but the pond has not been completed yet. She doesn't like to do things piecemeal, so she will consider building the cave after the pond is completed.

Thinking about these things, she came out to the kitchen.

In the morning, she washed some young cowpeas and cut the eggplants in half to drain the water. Now that they were drained, she stuffed them into a jar that could hold about 15 pounds.

This jar was made by Zhu Erniang last year. It has some flaws, but it doesn't leak and is usable.

Although there were only two wild yellow chili peppers, they produced quite a lot of peppers, which filled the branches. She picked more than a dozen and put them in a jar, along with a handful of dried green peppercorns, a few pieces of ginger and garlic cloves. She poured in cold salt water, enough to cover the ingredients, and finally poured in some white wine, covered it and allowed it to ferment.

The kimchi made in this way can be eaten after a few days. It is sour and crispy, and is great whether it is eaten with porridge or rice or stir-fried dishes.

Most of the ginger was planted, but there was not much left after eating and using it. Half of the garlic was used for cooking and making sauce. She decided to save the remaining half and plant it all by the end of the year.

She wanted to eat cold noodles in the evening, and there was also a dish she had been thinking about for a long time, pounded eggplant with peppers.

Add water and a little salt to the flour, set it aside to rise. The charcoal in the stove is still hot and fiery red.

She took out some with the tongs and roasted the green peppers on them. She also roasted the slender eggplants on the charcoal fire in the stove, specifically picking the tender ones because otherwise they would not be easy to roast.

She likes to eat the pounded peppers and eggplants that are roasted. She always feels that the taste is not as good if they are boiled or steamed.

In her previous life, she loved to eat this dish. She would add preserved eggs or roasted tomatoes to it. It tasted very fragrant. She could eat two bowls of rice just with this dish.

It would be nice if there were preserved eggs, and if she had the ingredients, she would make it, but she lacks lime and rice bran.

Alas, what a pity.

When roasting green peppers and eggplants, turn them over frequently, otherwise they will get burnt if you are not careful.

After roasting for about ten minutes, the green pepper was cooked first. The surface was black and wrinkled, and was stained with gray wood ash. I patted the ash off, tore off the black part, and tore it into strips by hand for later use.

The eggplants needed to be roasted for a while longer, so she sat in front of the stove and turned them over and over.

After baking for more than twenty minutes, the eggplants are cooked. While they are still hot, shake off the ash and tear off the burnt black skin.

When the dough has risen, knead it into a round shape, flatten it with your palm, and roll it with a clean wooden stick.

It takes a lot of effort to roll the dough with a stick rather than a rolling pin, but she was patient and slowly rolled the dough bigger and evenly until it became a piece of dough of suitable thickness.

The dough is cut into pieces as thick as chopsticks. She likes to eat wide noodles.

Place the cut noodles on the chopping board, boil the water in the pot, put the noodles in and cook until they float up. When they are cooked, take them out and put them in two large bowls with boiled water to rinse them with cold water.

Cut the cucumber into shreds and add it to the noodles. Add an appropriate amount of soy sauce and a spoonful and a half of mountain pepper sauce. Mix well and a refreshing and delicious cold noodle is ready.

Adding some coriander to the cold noodles would make it more soulful, but unfortunately there is none.

She doesn't like raw onions and can only accept them after they are fried. She doesn't have so many concerns about coriander.

Put a garlic in a clean stone mortar and mash it into pieces. Then put in the roasted eggplant and pepper. Add appropriate amount of seasoning and mash well.

After finishing dinner, it was not yet dark. The golden light of the setting sun covered the tiankeng, and the light and shadows were sparkling. The grass, crops in the vegetable fields, rice in the paddy fields, and blooming camellia were all dyed with a layer of golden light, like a magnificent painting.

Xia Qingyue sat at the dining table, facing the sky above the tiankeng. She enjoyed the food while appreciating the beautiful scenery.

Heihei was eating his unseasoned noodles and boiled eggs in big mouthfuls.

The years are quiet.

It is summer now and it gets dark late, around seven o'clock.

After dinner, it was still early, so Xia Qingyue took a walk in the tiankeng to help digest the food, fanning herself with a palm-leaf fan as she walked.

Hot hot hot.

The sweat kept pouring down.

The daily temperature should remain around 37 degrees in the near future.

She wanted to make a few vests and shorts with linen to wear at night. She had to work under the sun during the day and didn't dare expose her skin for fear of sunburn and tanning.

In ancient times, people wore long sleeves and long pants all year round. In spring, autumn and winter, it didn't have much of an impact, but in summer, it was a real pain.

"I'm the only one living here, so I can do whatever makes me comfortable. If it gets any hotter, I'll get a heat stroke!"

She did it right away. She went to find some linen, used a rope as a ruler to measure her own size, then used charcoal to draw a rough shape on the linen, and then cut it with scissors.

I cut two sets of vests and shorts, and then threaded the needle and sewed them. This job cannot be rushed, and slow work produces fine results.

The vest is easy to make, but the shorts require a little more work. For fear of not being able to control the size well, she sewed an extra layer of belt at the waistband position into which a rope can be tucked for tightening.

She sewed facing the candle, and had to look up, blink and twist her neck every once in a while, but the candle was still not as bright as the electric light.

Working in front of the candles for a long time is very tiring for the eyes. I finished sewing a vest after sewing for almost two hours, but there was still half of the work left on the shorts.

Her eyes were sore, so she rubbed them and put these things back on the bedside table in the room. She was tired and decided to do it tomorrow night.

She will start digging a pond tomorrow, so go to bed early tonight.

Early in the morning, Xia Qingyue looked after the baby rabbits, made a nutritious meal for the mother rabbit, fed the chickens, ducks and rabbits, cooked millet porridge for herself, fried some scallion egg pancakes, and quickly ate.

As usual, I wandered over to the waterhole to check the water level.

Oops, it moved down another thirty centimeters.

The water in the paddy field ditches has dried up. After a few more days of drying in the sun, the soil will also have to dry out.

She will check the situation in the next two days to see if it will rain. If not, she will have to carry water and pour it into the fields. If the fields remain dry for too long, it will be detrimental to the growth of rice.

The water level in the pond has moved down, so it is impossible to use a bamboo pipe to divert water down, otherwise it would be much more convenient and save trouble.

The slightly rippled water surface reflected Xia Qingyue's slightly frowned face, anxious and worried.

"Let it rain soon, let it rain soon!"

Before the sun rose, she picked up a hoe and went to dig a pond.

As the sun got bigger, she put on a straw hat and continued digging, taking a break from digging, and she dug for the entire morning.