Daily life of farming and supporting a family on the ancient Loess Plateau

Yang accepted the meat with a smile, carried it into the kitchen, and felt incredibly happy. Her eldest son, Ji Mancang, although he had separated from the family, always remembered the two of them and would send them food from time to time. Although it wasn't much, his thoughtfulness was truly precious.

However, what she didn't know was that Ji Mancang had even argued with his wife over this piece of meat.

Ji Mancang's wife believed that since the two elderly people and Ji Manchuan and Ji Manqing's family had not separated, the things they gave to the elderly people would ultimately benefit Ji Manchuan and Ji Manqing's children.

Ji Mancang said that he would only do his best to show filial piety and not care who the elderly would give the money to in the end. As long as he had shown his respect to the elderly, that was enough.

Grandpa Ji took out his pipe, lit it, and asked Ji Yongsong, "How are your parents doing lately? How's your schoolwork going?"

Ji Yongsong pulled over a small stool and sat down, saying, "My parents are doing well. My father said he wants you to send him a message when the wheat is ready for harvest so he can ask for leave to come back."

Grandpa Ji nodded and said, "Alright. But it's fine if your father doesn't come back. If you and your mother come back, your third and fourth uncles will be able to help."

Ji Yongsong nodded, hesitated for a moment, and said, "Yesterday, my father ran into a man named Zhang Sheng from Zhangjiapan in the county. He said that my third and fourth uncles have been going to various villages to collect medicinal herbs recently. My father asked me to ask what's going on."

Grandpa Ji took a puff of his pipe and said slowly, "Ling'er apprenticed with a master in the south and learned some skills in healing and saving lives. The county pharmacy accepted Ling'er's master's prescriptions, which is why your third and fourth uncles helped collect the herbs. They've all been collected recently."

"Oh I got it."

After washing up, Ji Manchuan and the others came over and surrounded Ji Yongsong, talking to him.

Ji Yongsong smiled and asked, "Grandpa, how much rapeseed can we harvest per mu this year?"

With a slight smile, Grandpa Ji said, "I didn't have time to dry them today. I estimate that after drying, each mu (unit of land area) should yield about 50 jin (unit of weight)."

"50 jin?" Ji Yongling, who had been listening in the courtyard, felt an overwhelming sadness. Thinking about how one mu of rapeseed in later generations could produce 4 to 500 jin, the contrast was truly stark.

The next day was another day of getting up early to continue harvesting rapeseed.

After two days of hard work, the rapeseed harvest was finally completed on several acres, but the work in the fields was still not finished. Farmers need to extract food from the loess soil, so they have to plant more crops and produce more grain.

The Ji family went to the rapeseed stubble fields to plant millet and vegetables while the soil was still moist. The family worked hard, preparing the land and fertilizing, but even though they were exhausted, they couldn't plant millet on all the rapeseed stubble fields.

Speaking of millet, Ji Yongling, a southerner, had never actually seen it before. In her mind, millet was rice, but in fact, millet in the north and rice in the south are completely different crops. So when it came to growing millet, she did whatever her family asked her to do. But growing vegetables was a different story; she had experience in that area, since Chinese people have the gene for growing vegetables ingrained in their bones.

In this day and age, people use all the land to grow crops, and only grow vegetables on some plots of land that cannot grow grain. For example, the vegetable garden of the Ji family is in the ditch a little down in front of the yard.

The main reason for clearing the rapeseed stubble to plant vegetables now is to store some winter vegetables, so they plant white radishes, Chinese cabbage, cabbage, and green onions. Taking advantage of the family's inattention, Ji Yongling secretly replaced the rapeseed with some modern vegetable seeds.

Ji Yongling recalled that when she lived in the countryside, her grandparents would plant peanuts along the rapeseed roots after harvesting the rapeseed.

So, ignoring her exhaustion, she volunteered to pull up the remaining rapeseed roots in the one acre of rapeseed field. She pulled out a rapeseed root, threw in a few peanut seeds, and then, like a thief, quickly dug the soil in with her feet to cover it up, afraid that someone would find out.

Nowadays, peanuts are called groundnuts, and they are only available in pharmacies and clinics, where they are sold as traditional Chinese medicine. Of course, wealthy families also buy them as snacks on a regular basis, while some poor families buy a few during the Lunar New Year for good luck.

Seeing that Ji Yongling had finished planting the grains and vegetables and then diligently went to pull up the rapeseed roots, Yang was moved and said to her family, "Ling'er is such a diligent child. I can't bear to let this girl marry into another family. Whoever marries our Ling'er will truly have accumulated eight lifetimes of good karma."

By the time Ji Yongling finally finished secretly planting the peanuts, she was so exhausted she could barely stand up straight. She rubbed her back, straightened up, and looked back at the fruits of her labor, a sense of satisfaction welling up within her.

But why are there two heads shaking at the other end of the field? What are they doing?

Ji Yongling looked closely and realized something was wrong, so he shouted, "What are you doing!"

Ji Yongning and Ji Yongzhou, who were digging furrows and making holes in the ground, stood up and excitedly shouted to Ji Yongling, "Sister, there's treasure in this field!"

Ji Yongling suddenly felt an angina attack coming on. She clutched her chest as the Ji Yongzhou brothers ran toward her with smiles on their faces.

Ji Yongzhou ran up to her, cupped her clothes, and said proudly, "Sister, there are peanuts in this field! Look, we dug up a whole handful! They're delicious, have a taste."

Ji Yongning ran over excitedly and said, "Sister, didn't you see them when you were pulling up the rapeseed roots? There are peanuts in every little hole in this row of fields. So these things are wild!"

"Ahhh, my peanut seeds!" Ji Yongling clutched his chest, inwardly screaming like a groundhog.

Because she planted them secretly, fearing that the villagers might accidentally dig them up and eat them, she didn't treat them with pesticides or soak them in water. But despite all her calculations, she never expected that her two cousins ​​would dig them up and steal them.

As Ji Yongling watched the two little ones happily brush the yellow dirt off the peanuts, peel off the outermost red peanut skins, and joyfully hand her the peanut kernels, she felt a chest pain and couldn't speak.

At this moment, she could understand why Hu Xirong liked to whip the two boys in front of her with a broom, because she wanted to do the same thing.

Ji Yongzhou said innocently, "Sister Ling'er, aren't you going to eat some? It's really delicious. It's oily and fragrant when you chew it. It's much better than the peanuts that Grandma weighed out during the New Year. Grandma only weighed out a pound of peanuts during the New Year. Those peanuts were not much bigger than soybeans. She didn't even get to taste them before she finished them."

"Look at this peanut, how big it is! It smells so good, hehe." She said, chewing on a peanut like a little squirrel, her eyes wide with laughter.

Ji Yongling felt that her angina was about to develop into a myocardial infarction, so she should try to save herself as soon as possible.

She took a few deep breaths, smoothed her chest, and calmed herself down before saying, "These are seeds I finally managed to get. You dug them up as soon as I planted them. Couldn't you have waited for them to grow and produce more peanuts?"

"Really? Will it bear fruit?" Ji Yongzhou asked excitedly.

Ji Yongning stamped his foot and hurriedly said, "Oh dear, why didn't you say so sooner, sister! Quick, quick, Yongzhou, let's bury the rest back quickly."

"Uh-huh!"

The two brothers bent over and went to bury peanuts again.

Ji Yongling found it amusing for a moment, but said helplessly, "Peanut seeds are very expensive. Don't tell anyone that I planted peanuts here, and don't tell our grandparents either. I'll give the family a surprise later."

Ji Yongning and Ji Yongzhou exchanged a glance and happily replied, "We know, we'll have peanuts to eat during the New Year!"

"Remember to come and chase the birds away when you have time, so they don't eat the seeds!"