Porridge and side dishes [farming]

Chapter 8 Raising Chickens and Laying Eggs

It's raining lightly outside, and the weather is getting colder, but at least half of the people in the village don't have a stove, and it's a bit extravagant to burn a stove now.

The fire in the room is so hot that you can stay there without wearing cotton clothes.Li Ji kneaded the raised dough into long strips, then cut them into small pieces with a knife and put them on the curtain. Er Gouzi stood aside and watched carefully, tilting his head and looking at Li Ji suspiciously.

Li Ji read the doubt in his eyes, and said: "It's ready to eat after it's steamed. There are still some potatoes at home. Shengli's wife sent two spicy cabbage. Let's make spicy cabbage and stir-fry potatoes later."

Er Gouzi nodded again and again.The smile on Li Ji's face also went straight to the bottom of his heart.When living alone before, Li Ji always fooled around.Usually it’s just rice porridge and pickled vegetables. The vegetables harvested from the field are kept on the shelf, and I can’t remember to eat them for three to five days.

As soon as the two dogs came, what Li Ji thought every day was to change the hair and make delicious food. Most of what he thought in his heart was that as an elder, he should not treat his nephew harshly. In the past two days, Li Ji himself felt that his cooking was getting better and better. delicious.

The steamed buns were steamed in a large pot, and Li Ji tore off a few pieces of spicy cabbage and cut them into shreds, and chopped the remaining whole one and fried it with potato chips.

I steamed a large pot of steamed buns today, but half of them were left to cool outside, and the steamed buns were relatively small.There are also twenty in the half pot, but it is enough for two people, which is a little less than in the morning.

Li Ji said that he would slowly test Er Gouzi's appetite, and each meal should be less. Now Er Gouzi is gaining weight every day, obviously eating too much. When Er Gouzi maintains a similar figure, he will basically lose weight. Can be sure.

The two of them had just eaten halfway through their meal when they heard someone outside calling fourth uncle.Li Ji put down the half-eaten steamed bun: "Eat it first, I'll go out and have a look."

Er Gouzi watched Li Ji go out, and saw that there was still a mouthful of steamed buns in his hand. Er Gouzi, who was eating just now, couldn't even swallow it.

When he arrived at the door, he saw that it was Shengli's daughter-in-law who had just delivered spicy cabbage to his family in the morning.

"What's wrong?"

"Fourth Uncle, it's terrible. Li Gao's child is gone. Several children watched him drown and didn't call adults. Now Li Gao is arguing with the village chief to pay for his life. You are the elders of the village, especially Li's elders, the village chief. Say it can't happen without you."

Li Ji wiped the chili noodles from the corner of his mouth, nodded and said, "Wait for me, I'll follow you right away."

Turning around and entering the house, Li Ji put on a newly bought thick cotton coat: "Er Gouzi, you eat first, something happened in the village, I'll go over and have a look, don't wander around when you're at home, if anyone comes, call me Went to the village chief's house."

Li Ji went out again, and went to the village with Shengli's wife.

When I got there, I heard Li Gao and his wife crying and cursing, and there were several parents with their children in the room. The faces of the children were a little swollen, and they were crying tremblingly, obviously they had all been taught a lesson.

Li Ji didn't go inside at first, and asked someone to find out what was going on.There is a fish pond at the east end of the village, which belongs to a family named Chai. Today that family went shopping in the city, and a few naughty little ones went to steal the fish.

The water in the fish pond was so deep that Li Gao’s son, Li An, drowned with leg cramps, and the rest of the children swam ashore in fright. In the end, no one dared to call the adults for fear of being scolded, because the adults repeatedly ordered them not to let them play in the fish pond. .I dare not go down to save others, for fear of drowning.As a result, several children watched Ang Li drown.

Then the children were afraid to go home, and told their parents timidly, and Li An's body was frozen hard when they went to the fish pond.

Li Gao and his wife had been married for four years before they had such a baby. It usually hurts like an eyeball. Now that there is no one, there is no place to bear it. When the child on the shore just drowned, even if the child on the shore shouted, Li An heard it from the village. He wouldn't be drowned, just because he was afraid that he would be scolded a few times and let Li An die.

Li Gao and his wife tried their best to make those children pay for their lives. The parents of those children kept saying good things, making the children kowtow and slap their mouths sometimes. Human life is at stake. They all know that their children have killed others, but how could it be true? Life for life?

When Li Ji came over, he was just going through the motions. His seniority was not experienced enough, so he just stood there and waited for them to solve it.

The sounds of Li Gao and his wife's crusade, and the struggle of a group of people mixed together.Li Ji is only 16 years old, and he doesn't like this kind of noisy environment very much. If he hears about it from outside, he will definitely say that those children who do not want to be saved will pay for their lives. But I really watched the pleadings of those parents and the fear of those children at the scene. Trembling, I can't say anything.

For children, scolding by parents is the most terrifying thing, and slapping the buttocks is the most painful punishment.Because no one has taught them what to do when they are in danger, because when they did wrong things in the past, they only got scolded and beaten.

The fact that they killed Li An cannot be changed, even if they are children, they must bear it.What the child cannot bear, the parents must bear.

Li Ji found a corner to sit for an afternoon, only to hear that they had a solution. Usually, things in the village would not alarm the government. Whether Li An was in danger by himself, or whether his friends were desperate to save him, all depends. How can the village head report to the higher authorities?

According to the law, the whole family would be degraded if they refused to be rescued. This is something that no one except the parents of the deceased would want to see.

The solution is to give Li Gao and his wife two taels of silver from each family. In fact, no one has the two taels of silver, so they owe it first, and they must pay it off within three years.

It is not difficult to spend two taels of silver in three years. If the village cannot earn enough to go out to work as a long-term worker, they can still get two taels of silver a month.It's just that no one has any surplus food, and all the three years' income has been repaid. These families will have to live in poverty for at least a few years.

But no matter what, things have settled down like this, and all the families have a total of more than ten taels of silver, and the child is still alive, and even five slaves can't sell it for this price.

Human life is worthless, the one who is valuable is a villager, who is also the lifeblood of Li Gao and his wife.

After the matter was settled, Li Ji's body was stiff. After working alone for a day, the village head's house was cold, and he didn't even drink hot water.

When Li Ji arrived home, he found that Er Gouzi was still sitting on the kang, and the steamed buns and vegetables on the dining table hadn't been touched, but the leftover half of the steamed buns he had eaten before were gone.

"Why didn't you eat?" Li Ji was quite surprised.

"Wait for you." Er Gouzi smiled, grabbed a steamed bun and took a bite.

Li Ji stretched out his hands to touch the steamed buns, and they were completely cold: "Don't eat them, cold steamed buns are not good, let's heat them up first. You said you are honest, didn't you tell you to eat first? It's already afternoon, for a while It's dinner, you really don't feel hungry with such a big appetite."

"You didn't eat either." Er Gouzi said stubbornly.

"I was forced to be helpless. You are looking at the steamed buns poor and hungry." Li Ji knocked Er Gouzi on the head, picked up the food and warmed it up, and the two continued to eat.

After eating, the two of them saved dinner and cleaned the dishes. Li Ji not only lamented that Er Gouzi learned things too quickly. It only took a few days, and Er Gouzi was already very comfortable with chopsticks. I will also use the stove to light a fire and add charcoal.

Such a good brain is like a seedling for studying, but it is a pity that he grew up in the mountains, and now he is 18 years old, and he is too late to learn to read, let alone take the exam.

Li Ji wanted to study when he was a child, but his family was too poor. Every time he heard that he wanted to study, his father would wipe his tears.

Take Er Gouzi to fill up the water tank at the door. When it is full, at least a few hundred catties, seeing the slightly muddy water inside, Li Ji knocks on the side of the tank contentedly, and goes to the neighbor's house to see how the chicken frame is built. how's it going.

Li Ji raised chickens when he was a child, and he volunteered to feed them every day, which was actually quite easy to serve.It's just that later the waiters and waiters developed feelings. In the end, those chickens were killed and sold. When Li Ji was a child, Li Jixin cried for several days. Later, he never raised chickens at home until his father died.

Now that Li Ji thinks about it, his intestines are regretful, eggs, chicken, because of his head convulsions when he was a child, he has not eaten chicken for so many years.

A clip has just been punched out of the chicken rack, and the rest will be covered with barbed wire.The barbed wire is bought from the city, and the price is quite expensive, but it is convenient. In summer, the chickens are not hot, and in winter, they are covered with unnecessary torn quilts, so that they can not freeze at all if they are exposed to air.

Li Ji chatted with the neighbor for a long time, but the neighbor shared some experience of raising chickens with him.

"Actually, the chicken is only willing to eat when it sees the light, and it can only place an order if it eats a lot, but it can't do it when it's cold. So you say that the chicken lays eggs with a quilt to keep warm. Let me say that if you have spare money to build a chicken house , and then light a candle or an oil lamp at a higher place, so as not to let the chickens have a chance to spoil, but they can see the light, so that some people are happy to eat during the day and night, and they must lay more eggs."

Li Ji's eyes lit up: "Then if this is the case, let's stop being a chicken, and you can go directly to my house and help me build a small house. Half a person's height should be enough. You also know that I don't understand these things."

Looking at the half-finished chicken rack, the neighbor felt that he had dug a big hole for himself.

Li Ji went home and made a calculation. Is it the lamp oil that is worth more or the eggs? It is obviously the latter. Even if you light candles all day long, you can still make money if you have five or six eggs a day. It doesn’t hurt to keep more oil lamps. .

Changing chicken racks into chicken houses, Li Ji thought very far. He couldn't rely entirely on Er Gouzi to make money from hunting. Not to mention the danger, after Er Gouzi integrated into the village and got married and started a business, he would move out. The dog eats.

Therefore, while conditions permit, we must pave the smoothest road for the future.

Li Jixian likes to teach Er Gouzi how to speak when he has nothing to do. It is true that Er Gouzi can speak, but he lacks vocabulary and is not good at expressing. This is not a big problem, just talk more.

Er Gouzi looks good, he is strong, and has strength in his arms. Although he eats a lot, he can definitely earn more than he eats.As long as there is only the point of being unreasonable in speaking now, it is not a big problem.