Traveling through the mountains and farming

After working for a whole morning, Lin Wan finally gathered all the dining utensils, with the only thing left being the bamboo spoon she was making.

Since she only had a machete, she used stones and dry straw picked up from the roadside to sharpen it.

She was so tired after all this operation that she was sweating profusely.

The little helper Li Chongle was learning to polish another bamboo spoon nearby.

Li Ke was unable to help as he was not strong enough.

But she quickly found her logistical position, helping her sister-in-law and brother to wipe their sweat, and asking them from time to time if they needed water.

After finishing all these, Lin Wan looked at the results in front of her and missed her grandfather in modern times very much.

She learned all her skills in bamboo work from him.

The village where her grandmother lives is surrounded by mountains. Many of the daily tools used in the home are made by her grandfather using bamboo and various plants.

Lin Wan sighed, put aside her thoughts, stood up, picked up the fish basket and shrimp net, and asked, "Xiao Le, do you know which small river has more fish and shrimp? Take my sister-in-law there, and let's go fish and shrimp."

Li Chongle immediately reached out to take a fish basket and said he would take it.

When Li Ke saw the young man holding the fish basket, he immediately rushed to grab the other shrimp net and even touched it curiously.

Lin Wan saw that the two things were not heavy, so she followed them. She turned around and followed with the wooden barrel, ready to put the wild vegetables she picked on the way there.

Led by Li Chongle and his sister, they came to a small river opposite the village, near the foot of the mountain on the east side.

Lin Wan squatted down beside the haystack, holding a bamboo stick and preparing to dig, trying to see if she could dig up earthworms.

"Sister-in-law, why are you digging earthworms?" Li Ke, an experienced earthworm digger, asked in confusion. Aren't they here to catch fish and shrimp?

Lin Wan replied while digging in the soil: "We need to get some earthworms as bait, so that we can catch more fish."

Although Li Ke doesn’t know how her sister-in-law uses earthworms to catch fish, she knows how to dig earthworms!

Indeed, with her joining in, several were dug out in a short while.

Afterwards, Lin Wan half-wrapped the earthworm with leaves and left a small hole, and then threw it into the bamboo basket.

Seeing this, Li Chongle asked hurriedly, "Sister-in-law, can we catch fish just by leaving it there without scooping it up?"

The two siblings had never seen this method of catching fish before and were a little confused.

"Hmm, do you see this inverted barbel? After the fish are attracted by the bait, it is this thing that prevents them from getting out."

Lin Wan held the fish basket and pointed to the position where the fish basket was inverted to explain.

Seeing that the two siblings understood, she waded into the water with the fish basket. The water was so clear that she could see the bottom and clearly see the swimming fish and shrimps. The deepest part of the river was just above her knees.

Lin Wan placed the fish basket at the location where she had observed on the shore where there were more fish in the water.

By the way, get some water plants nearby and press them on top with stones, so that the fish basket is covered.

Then she returned to the shore and prepared to go down to the river with a shrimp net to catch shrimps.

Seeing that his sister-in-law had returned after putting away the fish basket, Li Chongle asked with a landing net in hand, "Sister-in-law, how do you catch the shrimp?"

Lin Wan took the scoop net and went back into the river.

She used the scoop net to walk a short distance along the shore weeds, then lifted the scoop net, looked inside, and said with a smile:

"Look, aren't there a lot of small shrimps?"

The two siblings on the shore stretched their heads to take a look, and sure enough, there were quite a few small shrimps in the water.

Then he laughed happily and asked to let the two of them try it.

Lin Wan felt that there was no technical requirement so she asked them to go into the water and try. When she was a child in modern times, she often went to her aunt's house to catch shrimps with her cousin. She spent every day in the small rivers and streams near her aunt's village and caught a lot of shrimps every day.

The two siblings poured the shrimps caught by Lin Wan into a wooden barrel. Then Li Ke was responsible for carrying the barrel on the shore, and Li Chongle was responsible for catching the shrimps in the river. They cooperated in this tacit understanding.

Lin Wan on the shore was waiting for the two siblings while looking around for edible wild vegetables. Suddenly, she found that the vines at the foot of the mountain not far away looked like Kudzu vines.

When she got closer and took a closer look, she found that the leaves were trident-shaped, confirming that it was kudzu. Her mind was now full of the high starch content of kudzu, and it could be eaten raw, cooked, cooked into porridge, or made into kudzu powder...

However, now is the season when Pueraria root grows rapidly, and the Pueraria root below is still relatively small. The best harvesting season will be after the beginning of winter.

No matter what, the family was almost out of food and couldn’t wait for the kudzu roots to grow up. Lin Wan decided to dig some first for emergency use and wait until they were mature before digging the rest.

Lin Wan picked up the bamboo strips beside her and began to clean the kudzu vines on it, lowering her head and working hard.

After a while, she suddenly heard Li Chongle asking, "Sister-in-law, why are you cutting the pig grass?"

It turned out that the two siblings didn't see their eldest sister-in-law, so they went ashore to look for her, but they saw Lin Wan pulling weeds here.

"Dig the fruit underneath and we'll eat it for lunch today." Lin Wan replied without even raising her head, her hands still pulling the kudzu vines.

"This can't be eaten. The rhizome underneath is too hard to chew," said Li Chongle.

"Look carefully at this leaf. Is it the same as the one you saw before? This leaf is trident-shaped. I guess the leaf you saw before was round." Lin Wan stood up and handed over the vine she had just pulled.

Li Chongle pulled the leaves over and looked at them, wondering, "It seems a little different. I often saw it on the roadside before. Adults always said that it would compete with crops for fertilizer and should be removed. I dug it up and the roots underneath were hard and woody and could not be eaten."

"That should be the pigweed you mentioned. It's Pueraria lobata. Its rhizomes are edible, but they don't taste good and are generally used as medicine." Lin Wan answered.

Firewood can be seen everywhere on the ridges of fields, roadsides and hillsides in the countryside here. Villagers usually cut the tender vines and leaves to feed pigs.

Hearing that their eldest sister-in-law was sure it was edible, the two siblings felt that the shrimps they had caught were enough for lunch, so they decided not to catch shrimps for the time being and to help dig new food.

Since there were no suitable tools, the three of them cooperated with each other to carry out the operation.

Lin Wan first used a bamboo stick to dig out the kudzu root until its head was exposed, and Li Chongle used a pointed stick he had picked up from the roadside and his bare hands to ensure that the kudzu root was dug out completely.

Li Ke was responsible for cleaning the dirt off the dug kudzu roots and then putting them into the wooden barrel he brought.

The shrimps in the wooden barrel had been poured by Li Ke into the shrimp scoop net.

When they had almost filled a bucket, Lin Wan stopped them.

"Sister-in-law, there are still many?" Li Chongle looked confused.

Almost all the edible wild vegetables near the village had been picked, and now that he had finally found new food, Li Chongle wanted to take it all home.

This way they won't have to worry about going hungry for a long time.

"You see, what we dug out today are all relatively small. That's because it's not the season for Pueraria lobata to mature yet. What we're digging out now are young Pueraria lobata roots. After the beginning of winter, these tiny Pueraria lobata roots can grow to as much as ten or twenty kilograms. We're in urgent need of food now, so we have no choice but to dig some in advance. Later, we can cover this place up, fill it back with soil, and use the Pueraria lobata here as our food reserve." Lin Wan explained patiently.

Li Chongle smiled and nodded, "I understand, sister-in-law, let's act quickly while there is no one here."

The two of them cooperated very well in their division of labor. The younger sister was responsible for keeping watch and checking if there were any villagers coming, while the older brother quickly tidied up and created the scene for pulling pig grass.

Lin Wan felt both distressed and amused when she saw how eagerly the little ones were protecting their food.

It was done quickly, and the three of them carried the bucket of yam and the small net bag of shrimps home. On the way, they picked a few handfuls of wild vegetables to cover them. However, it was a hot noon and they didn't meet anyone on the road.