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

"This hairy thing looks weird. When you peel off the skin, you can smell its fragrance. We saw birds pecking at it, so we picked some from the tree and tasted it. It tasted sweet and sour and was very thirst-quenching.

Sister Qingyue, please try some, we have brought back half a basket, and there are still many left."

Li Weisheng was talking about the bowl full of wild kiwi fruit.

After he gave the wild fruits to Xia Qingyue, he went out to work.

Li Benfu and his wife went out to see how Li Weikang was doing. Only Xia Qingyue and Heihei were in the open-air cave.

She took two bowls of wild fruits and sat on a low stool in the shade. She put the bowls on a nearby small round table and peeled a kiwi fruit. As soon as she peeled it, the juice flowed down her hand and the yellow flesh was juicy.

The appearance looks very good.

She swallowed greedily, peeled half of the skin, and couldn't help but take a bite of the flesh. It was juicy, sour and sweet, and it really quenched her thirst.

After finishing one, her appetite was instantly whetted. She ate three more and saw Heihei standing by and staring at her while she ate.

"You want to eat it too, can dogs eat kiwis?"

She expressed her doubts, but took one from her hand and threw it to it.

Heihei ate it whole. She felt that she couldn't even taste anything, just like Zhu Bajie eating the ginseng fruit in Journey to the West.

After eating the kiwi, she went on to eat another bowl of wild fruits, which included black poppy, purple wild grape, red snakeberry, and yellow sea buckthorn.

Bright colors make you hungry just by looking at them.

She tasted them one by one and they all tasted good.

She ate a little bit anyway, and then stopped. No matter how delicious the food was, she still had to be polite when being a guest at someone else's house.

"There are many wild fruits and vegetables in that forest. After a while, I'm afraid there will be a lot of mushrooms, too. That's great."

"Qingyue, what did you say?" Chen Yuzhen came over from the corner.

Xia Qingyue stood up. She thought there was nothing to hide. She said:

"Aunt, I was talking about the forest where Brother Weikang and his friends went today. There are a lot of wild vegetables and fruits. According to what Brother Weisheng just said, I seem to have been there before. It's the place where I told you last time to go to the dense forest river to fetch water."

"Ah? It's actually there!" Chen Yuzhen still remembered the time when Xia Qingyue and Heihei were injured. She was horrified. "It's so dangerous there. Did you and Heihei go there again later?"

"Nothing."

Hearing this, Chen Yuzhen felt relieved. "If you want to go there in the future, come and call us. We can go together. It's safer with more people. Don't go alone anymore. It's too dangerous."

Xia Qingyue nodded, picked up the wild fruit and handed it out, "Auntie, eat the wild fruit."

The two sat inside, eating wild fruits and chatting, talking about how to prepare to collect supplies for the winter.

After noon, lunch was ready.

Two large bowls of wolf meat stewed with Zanthoxylum bungeanum, Betel nut and Rhus chinensis had a unique aroma and the meat was stewed until it was soft.

A bowl of scrambled eggs with wild onions, a bowl of steamed dried fish, and a bowl of wild vegetable soup.

The staple food is steamed potatoes.

The table was packed so full that there was barely enough room for the dishes and chopsticks.

"Qingyue, come and eat." Li Benfu entertained warmly.

Chen Yuzhen smiled and said, "Eat it while it's hot. Weisheng is cooking honey eggs for Kang'er. Let's eat first."

Li Weikan was still asleep. The good signs were that the bleeding from his wound had stopped and he did not have a fever.

Several people were eating in the open-air cave. After a while, Li Weisheng walked in with a smile, "Brother went back to sleep after eating. He looks much better."

The Li family and Xia Qingyue felt relieved.

After lunch, she stayed at Li's house for more than two hours, observing Li Weikan's condition. Seeing that his complexion was gradually getting better and he was no longer having a fever, she said goodbye.

Chen Yuzhen and the others took out the things they had packed in advance and stuffed them into Xia Qingyue's backpack.

Xia Qingyue took a look and saw a basket full of heavy things, including wild fruits and vegetables, wolf meat, dried fish and dried chicken.

Every time she came, they packed a lot of things for her to take back.

"Uncle, aunt, you gave me too much. I'll just take a little bit."

She took out the dried fish and dried chicken and put them on the table.

Seeing that they wanted to talk, she spoke first: "I don't bring anything every time I come here, and when I leave, you always give me all kinds of good things. If this continues, I will be embarrassed to come again."

"Oh, good boy, you can't do that. You're welcome here anytime." Chen Yuzhen waved her hands anxiously.

In the end, the Li family still agreed to her decision.

Li Weisheng volunteered to escort Xia Qingyue part of the way, and she readily agreed.

On the way, Li Weisheng once again solemnly thanked Xia Qingyue.

The two walked to the place where they had agreed to deliver water and then parted ways.

Xia Qingyue changed her route and went to the woods in the middle of the stream to look for clay. The original owner had been here once before with Zhu Erniang. Following her memory, she spent half an hour to find the clay.

Clay is a sticky soil with little sand content, which is generally formed by the weathering of silicate minerals.

When she arrived at her destination, she saw a large area of ​​this kind of soil. She picked up a hoe and started digging, pouring the dug soil into a wooden bucket.

She got four buckets in total, stacking two buckets in the backpack and carrying two buckets in her hands.

Soil is relatively heavy, and the four buckets together weigh about 150 pounds, which is within her tolerance.

She usually does a lot of work and exercises regularly, so she has more physical strength than girls of the same age.

After carrying the clay back, she mixed it with a little water and made sure it had the right viscosity before going out to carry the clay.

All the clay brought back was poured onto an open space not far from the cave.

She carried it five times in the afternoon, which was her limit.

In addition to clay, making earthen bricks also requires some long-lasting, dry firewood. She decided to spend the day tomorrow bringing these things back.

In the evening, she fried a dish of shepherd's purse, mixed it with black fungus, chopped up a dried rabbit that the Li family had given her some time ago, sprinkled some salt and chili powder on it, and steamed it in a pot.

Heihei eats boiled wolf meat.

The newly grown shepherd’s purse was fresh and tender. She took two bites and felt that it tasted better than the cabbage she grew herself.

After dinner, she took a shower and went to bed early.

-

Early in the morning, Xia Qingyue went out to carry clay in the morning and looked for firewood in the afternoon. Originally, the firewood she looked for was relatively small and suitable for cooking and burning.

It took her two days to prepare the clay and firewood, which was longer than she expected.

After all the materials are prepared, it's time to start firing earthen bricks. First, add water to the clay and stir it with a thick wooden stick. Apply a layer of wood ash on several sides of the inside of the mold to prevent sticking. It's a bit like kneading dough. Put the soil ball into the mold, press it into shape, and then remove it from the mold and place it on an open space to air dry.

She worked slowly, from day to night, and earned only 100 yuan.

She was busy until after eight o'clock, then she fried a bowl of vermicelli and fed the noisy chickens, ducks and rabbits after eating.

The mud bricks should be turned over frequently so that they can dry faster.

The earthen bricks that had been dried overnight were not fully dehydrated. During the day when there was sunshine, they were piled up in a backpack and carried under the sun to dry. If there was moisture, they would easily crack during the firing process.

While the first batch of mud bricks were drying in the sun, she hurriedly used molds to make the second batch.

After a day, the first batch of mud bricks were almost dry, so she put them in a basket and carried them into the cave.