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

While the duck meat was stewing, Heihei was already eating the boiled duck meat and boiled duck eggs happily.

Xia Qingyue took out two gourds and two handfuls of green peppers from the basket under the counter. They were picked from the vegetable garden this morning.

The gourds and green peppers have wrinkled skin and are much smaller than similar vegetables harvested previously.

For Xia Qingyue, the fact that they were not completely dried out was already a surprise to her.

Peel and slice the gourd, and flatten the green pepper with a knife.

During this break, she went to the pen to clean up the feces.

This work has to be done every day, otherwise the chickens and ducks will run around and make the place dirty.

There are now dozens of chickens and ducks in the pen. There are more chickens, forty-three in total, and more than twenty ducks.

There are more than twenty rabbits.

As the number of poultry increases, the space for them to be kept becomes more and more cramped.

She used a broom to sweep the feces into a pile, thinking that she had to quickly build a cave and burn bricks to build a nest.

It is already mid-July, and it will take some time before we can harvest peanuts and millet. It is a job that cannot be underestimated and will take at least half a month to complete.

“Hopefully we’ll have a good harvest this year!”

After taking care of the poultry pen, she went back and sat behind the dining table, chopping bamboo with a machete in the shady open space.

I'll make two more big bamboo racks when I have some free time recently.

After stewing for more than half an hour, she poured the sour cowpea and eggplant into the pot, turned it over, and continued stewing.

When the soup is almost dry, remove from the heat and pour into a large bowl.

Put a knife in the hot pan and chop the green pepper, press it with a spatula, and fry it into a tiger skin shape. The spicy aroma of the green pepper will spread.

Heihei, who was lying down with his big belly exposed after dinner, choked and started sneezing.

After frying for a few minutes, the peppers will be crispy on both sides. Add a little lard, then add seasonings and stir-fry.

The delicious tiger skin green peppers that go well with rice are ready.

Finally, I made a dish of stir-fried gourd.

She was so busy recently that she didn't eat well and lost several pounds.

All three dishes were her favorites, but the fried duck was the best. The duck meat, konjac and tofu absorbed the unique sour and spicy taste of kimchi, which was especially appetizing. The duck skin looked fat, but tasted soft and glutinous, not greasy at all.

After a hearty meal, she had a good sleep.

In the early morning, when it was just light, Xia Qingyue carried water to irrigate the crops, running back and forth many times.

After watering, she began to turn the soil, burying some dry manure, and after a while planted some mustard greens, Chinese cabbage, wild onions and other vegetables.

There are basically no wild vegetables outside, so we can’t just live off the land.

In the following time, Xia Qingyue fetched water to irrigate the crops every morning. Except for the time for eating and resting, most of the time was spent making bamboo racks, and occasionally going out to cut bamboo.

After watering for seven or eight days in a row, the crops showed obvious changes. The leaves that had turned mostly yellow regained their green color and exuded vitality.

The rice in the fields turned green again, and began to grow ears and produce seeds.

A small number of peanuts in the field had dried up and died. She was afraid that it would be bad if they were left in the field, so she dug them out. Unexpectedly, peanuts had already grown.

Break one open and you'll see fresh peanuts inside, some big, some small, and some with empty shells.

She dug up all the peanuts whose branches and leaves had dried up and dried them out to dry.

After being sun-dried for a few days, the peanuts are peeled. Each peanut is covered with a yellow-brown coat. After drying, they shrink and some are only the size of mung beans. The small ones like these are picked out to feed chickens and ducks, and the large ones are kept separately for oil extraction in the future.

After peeling them all, there were about 40 pounds of large peanuts and more than 10 pounds of small ones.

A few days later, the mustard cabbages planted in the vegetable garden sprouted, and the wild onions were brought back from outside, but there were only twelve of them.

Crops such as loofah, pumpkin and cucumber are beginning to age, and the vines and branches are becoming increasingly shriveled.

Dozens of pepper trees are hung with peppers, some are red, and some are red with green.

She picked peppers for a few days and had a good harvest. She dried more than 20 kilograms of peppers, but did not pick those for seeds.

In the blink of an eye, it was August.

That day, Xia Qingyue took more than ten kilograms of konjac and potatoes and went to the cave where the Li family lived.

I haven't visited Chen Yuzhen for more than half a month, and I don't know how they are doing.

When we arrived at the entrance of the cave, everything was the same as before.

She knocked on the cave door.

After a while, Chen Yuzhen opened the door and said excitedly, "Qingyue, come in!"

Enter the cave and close the door.

The two of them sat down on the stools next to the dining table outside the cave.

After not seeing each other for a while, Xia Qingyue found that Chen Yuzhen had become thinner and haggard.

"Auntie, how are you doing lately?"

Chen Yuzhen smiled as usual and said, "I'm fine. How about you?"

"I'm fine too." She looked around the cave and didn't see Li Benfu.

"Guan Jianshan's group is preparing to attack Tianlang Village in the next few days. It will be very chaotic outside. You must not run around."

There was a bright light shining in Chen Yuzhen's eyes, which made her look radiant.

"A few days ago, Brother Benfu sneaked back and told me that Guan Jianshan now has 120 to 130 people under his command, most of whom are young and strong, and there are people who train them in martial arts every day."

Xia Qingyue was a little surprised. It seemed that Guan Jianshan and the others wanted to fight to the death and were determined to take down Tianlang Village.

"After the battle started, I hid outside the village to meet them."

Perhaps recalling the scene of her reunion with her family, Chen Yuzhen smiled happily with tears in her eyes.

"When the war starts, the situation will be chaotic. You must be careful."

She couldn't help with anything else, so she could only say this.

She handed the food she brought to Chen Yuzhen. The backpack was filled with yams and two pieces of konjac tofu that had just been made in the morning.

Chen Yuzhen was amazed when she saw konjac tofu for the first time.

Xia Qingyue told Chen Yuzhen the method of making konjac tofu and the taboos involved.

"Come, Qingyue." Chen Yuzhen took Xia Qingyue's hand and went to the open-air cave.

The inside has changed a lot. The original hole has been widened four or five times, which is more than enough to be divided into three rooms.

The pumpkin vines crawling in the ground are bearing slightly yellow pumpkins and some other vegetables.

A small area was fenced off in a corner, surrounded by a bamboo fence, and a few pheasants and rabbits were raised there.

A vibrant pastoral scene.

"I go to the river to fetch water late at night every day. Now the water is getting less and less, making it harder to fight. However, because of the war, the patrol officers have relaxed their control over the river."

Chen Yuzhen shared her life experiences during this period.

Xia Qingyue answered a few words from time to time.

After staying for about an hour, Xia Qingyue asked to leave.

Thinking that there would soon be chaos outside, Chen Yuzhen did not invite her to dinner. Instead, she found a dozen dried fish and three eggs and stuffed them into Xia Qingyue's backpack.

While walking on the mountain road, Xia Qingyue thought about one thing. If Guan Jianshan and his gang fought with the people from Tianlang Village, would the forest be a little more peaceful?

Whatever the situation, she will act accordingly.

Since she was already out and it was still early, she turned and went downstream to pick more peppercorns.

I just don’t know if the pepper trees are still there.