My 1995 Small Farm.

It drizzled a little last night.

In the orchard outside the farm, fallen leaves covered the ground.

Chen Ling walked to the easternmost pear orchard, picked some pears with yellowed skin, and prepared to take them to the county town to make some rock sugar pear soup for Wang Susu and the others.

As autumn deepens, it's important to nourish your lungs.

He returned to the county town yesterday afternoon. Normally, he should have traveled overnight and his speed shouldn't have been this slow. The main reason was that he deliberately detoured to some county towns and small towns along the way to buy some roast chicken and cooked beef to bring back home, which delayed him a bit.

The roast chicken and beef in many counties and towns taste just as good as those in the city.

Some places also have unique delicacies.

For example, in Kuliu County, a small county town north of Lingyun, although there is no roast chicken or beef, every household smokes rabbit meat at the end of the year.

There are wild rabbits and also domesticated meat rabbits.

It's quite famous locally.

It's just that the location is remote and far away, so it only sells well when the end of the year is approaching.

"Mea~"

The sheep wandered around the orchard, stopping occasionally to graze on fallen leaves.

The little blue horse followed behind the flock of sheep, carrying a fallen pear in its mouth, and munching on it with a crunching sound as it shook its big head.

Seeing that the horses and sheep were outside, the three oxen couldn't stand the loneliness and started mooing incessantly in the livestock pen.

Chen Ling carried a half-basket of pears over, opened the enclosure, and let them out to roam freely.

Then he put the pears back and took out the net.

I'll wait until the sun comes out, then I'll catch some small fish and shrimp and put them in the fish tank to feed the fish and turtles.

He leaned the net against the pavilion and went up the mountain with his father-in-law to collect eggs.

Dogs were already active on the mountain early in the morning.

Five chubby puppies followed behind the big dog, darting about in the grass and bushes.

They would grab a stone or a small twig, as if they had found a treasure, scrambling and wagging their little tails, running around and dodging their companions' pursuit.

My father-in-law loves puppies; just looking at them makes him happy.

He used to work quite quickly, but ever since Chen Ling let these puppies out before he left, they've been able to run around and play everywhere, and the old man isn't even as enthusiastic about herding cattle anymore.

Now they don't lead the cattle to Laohewan every day anymore.

He would drive a stake into the ditch behind the mountain, let the cows graze by the river, and then wander around the mountain with his dogs.

He ignored Zhao Yubao and the other man when they called him to play chess.

The same thing happened when they were collecting eggs. Chen Ling had collected more than half of the eggs, but before he could collect many more, he took out a handful of peanuts from his pocket, peeled them, and started feeding them to the puppy.

Peanuts are a good thing, and most people wouldn't want to waste them like this.

In the countryside, this used to be a snack for the most favored child in the family.

They also have traditions here.

If any child is too thin, give them a handful of raw peanuts before bed. Peanuts are oily, and if they eat them for a month, they'll gain weight.

Eating a lot of oily food before bed will definitely make you fat.

This puppy too.

The elderly believe that the only way to make them grow strong and healthy is to feed them eggs or peanuts.

When someone's puppy is sick, some of them lie on the ground and refuse to eat.

Many of them were saved by raw eggs.

The father-in-law felt that his own eggs were precious and couldn't bear to feed them to the dog.

Then let's feed it peanuts.

I don't know if feeding peanuts to puppies will make them gain weight like babies do.

But there's one thing...

The puppy's stomach was healthy after eating peanuts, and it didn't get enteritis on cloudy or rainy days.

These puppies have a very varied appetite. They've been watched by people since they were puppies, and Chen Ling even fed them goat milk while holding them in his hands. They love playing with people, like to stick close to them, and are very curious. They'll eat anything you give them.

The old man peeled the peanut shells and scattered the peanut kernels far away. They looked like chubby little lions, turning around and chasing after the direction the peanuts fell. Then, like little pigs, they rooted around the ground and snatched the peanuts to eat.

They have great teeth and chew very well, making a satisfying crunching sound.

The old man watched them scramble for the peanuts with a smile, peeling them as he said, "That old boar that came down the mountain earlier was quite formidable, just like you said, it really knew how to protect its herd."

Late that night, a lone old wolf came to the village. It was probably badly injured in the mountains and came down with its wounds.

The old wolf, wounded and starving in the mountains, came down to steal a pig.

People were sleeping soundly in the middle of the night. The few dogs at the threshing ground at the west entrance of the village were no trouble and didn't bark.

The old wolf had already crept into the pigpen, and no one was paying attention; he almost let the pig be stolen.

Hey, just then, that old boar suddenly appeared out of nowhere, howling, and started fighting with the old wolf.

The Lishan family was awakened by the noise. When they came out to see what was happening, good heavens! The old boar had ripped open the wolf's belly, leaving a huge pool of blood in the pigsty, with its intestines spilling out.

"Wow, so this old pig has done a great job. Lishan should reward him properly now."

Chen Ling laughed in surprise upon hearing this.

People in the mountains are sometimes very superstitious and pay attention to these things.

"Lishan is indeed thoughtful. No matter how clever or cunning that old pig is, he wouldn't have thought of this. He can't understand human language, and when he sees people coming out, he turns around and runs away just like before."

After Lishan realized that the pig was protecting its flock, he chased after it, shouting that it shouldn't run away and that it should come to his house to rest more often. But the more he said that, the faster the pig ran.

He hasn't shown up for the past two days.

Chen Ling laughed and said, "Being timid isn't necessarily a bad thing; it helps you live longer."

I never expected that wolves would still be coming down the mountain at this time of year. I thought there were plenty of wild animals this year, and the wolves had all gone deep into the mountains and forests.

"Sigh, the old wolf, who knows if he was kicked out, or if he was always a lone wolf who got old and had no food to eat."

Wang Cunye muttered to himself, "People get old and life gets tough, and so do wild animals; they all have their share of troubles."

The father-in-law and son-in-law chatted as they slowly finished picking up the eggs and duck eggs.

Geese lay fewer eggs than chickens and ducks.

We didn't make a special nest for them at home.

Just have the dog take you looking for it every two days.

Raising geese serves two purposes: guarding the house and protecting the property, and providing meat for the year-end harvest. The goose eggs are of little concern to me.

Geese eat grass, but their eggs are dry and tasteless.

After breakfast, Chen Ling planned to go back to the village to harvest the jujubes in the yard.

The dates weren't fully red yet, but they were already tinged with autumn colors, and they tasted crisp and sweet.

They can also be steamed or boiled, or soaked in wine; the taste is quite good.

But as soon as they arrived in the village, before they could even take out their keys to open the door, the village postman delivered several letters.

They said they were going to send it to a village outside the village, and since they happened to see him here, they just gave it to him.

Then he turned around and went to deliver a letter to Wang Laochou's house across the street from Chen Ling.

After Wang Chunyuan's parents moved back, they exchanged quite a few letters every month, leading to much speculation in the village.

Chen Ling never paid attention to these things; he just liked to gossip and chatter when he was drinking with his group.

He didn't look in that direction, took the letter, opened the door, and went inside.

After entering the house, I moved a chair to the yard and sat down, basking in the slightly glaring but not scorching autumn sunlight. I opened the envelopes and began to read them one by one.

After reading it, he rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

"what's the situation?!"

"Of the five letters, three were from people wanting to move to the village. Do you think my pen pals know each other?"

Chen Ling thought about it and realized that he had just randomly picked people from all over the country.

The magazines, newspapers, and novels he collected often contained publisher addresses, which were later passed on to pen pals—people from all walks of life. He didn't even know the identities of more than half of them.

He would become friends with whoever replied to his letter.

"Hmm...you might actually know them. Both of them said they were attracted by Uncle Zhao's articles, and the other one saw the news first and then read the article."

"If someone pays attention to articles, they might be a writer themselves."

Chen Ling secretly speculated.

Then he scratched his head and said, "If so many writers move to live in the village, will our place become a writers' village?"

"It's not that it's impossible, it just sounds better than retirement village."

Previously, Zhao Yubao and his two old friends had been gathering around, thinking that the land on the hillside behind the house was going to become a nursing home.

His three pen pals are now noticeably younger.

"Come on, come on, let's bring in some new people every now and then. It's been too quiet for a while, it's time to liven things up a bit."

These people all said they would come after the Mid-Autumn Festival, saying they wanted to catch the autumn harvest and experience the feeling of harvesting crops as described in Zhao Yubao's article.

Chen Ling found it amusing, then put the letter down and placed it under his book.

Read the remaining two letters again.

The remaining two letters were nothing special.

One letter was a reminder to finish the manuscript; the pen pal who had suggested he submit his work to the National Animal Husbandry Magazine urged him to get it done as soon as possible and not to slack off.

Another letter was from Professor Feng Yi, containing a photograph.

It's mainly the fish he keeps at home.

There were also some birds and chirping insects, and cats.

According to him, a family that keeps fish must also have turtles and cats.

Some fish eat each other, but they don't eat dead fish, or they eat them very slowly.

If there are dead fish in the tank, feed them to the turtle or the cat.

It's clean and hygienic, and it doesn't get in the way of the eyes.

Of course, if you're going to keep a turtle, it can't be too small, otherwise it won't be able to finish eating the fish, and it will smell fishy.

Upon seeing Feng Yi's letter, Chen Ling also felt a strong urge to get his hands on it. He tucked the letter into the book and got up to grab a bamboo pole: "Hurry up and knock down some dates. We'll go back to the manor to feed the fish and turtles later."

He picked up a bamboo pole, walked up to the jujube tree, and started banging on it.

Red dates, some half-red, suddenly fell like rain, scattering all over the ground.

Some branches and leaves were broken off by Chen Ling and fell down.

He didn't care whether the tree was damaged or not.

You have to pound on jujube trees all the time so they can bear lots of jujubes year after year.

Besides, his family has good water quality and fertile soil, so they are not afraid of this at all.

After the first crop finishes, there will be a second crop.

After picking the dates, Chen Ling tidied up the bags, which were mostly filled with urea.

After tidying up the house quickly, I took my bags and went back to the farm.

I'm thinking to myself that once I've had my fill of green dates, I'll dry them and make some date cakes with red dates this year.

Rui Rui and Zhen Zhen can also use it as a snack.

This is much better than the mooncakes and sweet cakes that every household has.

……

The sun is rising higher.

Under a clear blue sky, the autumn sun casts dappled shadows through the forest, where insects chirp and birds sing, and fish and shrimp frolic in the clear stream.

Chen Ling took the net, quietly approached the ditch, and scooped it up against the current.

With a splash, it was scooped out of the water, and a bunch of small fish and shrimp were jumping around at the bottom of the net.

He slammed the water into the bucket.

The fish and shrimp all fell into the bucket with a splash.

Seeing that the net had yielded a good harvest, Chen Ling squatted down contentedly, reached into the bucket, and picked out some of the better-colored fish: "Hey, these peach blossom fish have such beautiful colors... Maybe I should put a few in the tank."

After summer, the peach blossom fish in the wild show less coloration.

But near the farm, the water is good and the nutrients are plentiful, so many people have particularly beautiful hair colors.

Chen Ling couldn't resist bringing it home.

Although the fish was quite ferocious, Chen Ling came to terms with it after receiving Feng Yi's letter.

There's no such thing as raising fish without losses.

Besides, he lives by the mountains and water; if the fish in the tank get eaten too few times, he can just catch more.

So they kept the two pink and light purple peach blossom fish.

"Huh, what kind of fish is this? Oh my god, it's a yellow catfish, such a tiny little fry."

Chen Ling scooped up two strange little fish and took a look. They were black and yellow, and he almost didn't recognize them.

Because the large yellow catfish is like a catfish, with a flat body that lies close to the ground, a very large mouth, and whiskers like a catfish.

It's relatively easy to recognize.

Moreover, the big fish not only makes a croaking sound, but also has barbs on its body that are very prickly.

In comparison, the fry are much harder to identify.

"I didn't expect that the yellow catfish seedlings were quite pretty."

Chen Ling had never caught such small fish before. It wasn't that he had never caught them before, but he had never seen them so small.

It's way too small.

It may be small, but its color is not like most small fish fry, which are grassy gray or grassy green.

It has black and yellow fur, a small mustache, and blue eyes.

The little thing is really cute.

"Hmm, but they're too small, will they get eaten if we put them in the tank? Oh well, let me see if there are any more. If there are, I'll scoop up a few more and put them in the tank, that way more will survive."

He actually knew that the yellow catfish would burrow into the cracks in the rocks.

With so many rocks in his aquarium, even if some are eaten, a number will surely survive.

Then they cast the net to retrieve it.

Sure enough, there were still many small yellow catfish hiding at the bottom of the water under the aquatic plants.

During the day, this thing hides well and doesn't like to come out much.

"Hey, this is a spiny loach, haha, this can go in the tank too."

The spiny loach crawls all over the water, curling up and wrapping around the rocks and weeds on the riverbed like a snake, and has a spiky back.

It's quite cool to see it moving around in the aquarium.

"One small yellow eel... I won't put the yellow eel in anymore. I'll put two red eels in next time. It's too messy in the tank."

"Crayfish, even these few crayfish look quite nice. We can put a few in."

"Little pouty lips, forget about this thing."

"Let's forget about this little snakehead. It's good for making pickled fish when it grows up, but I really don't like its python-like pattern. Let's see how it is when we encounter other snakehead species."

Chen Ling happily made her selections.

He had done a lot of research on the lynx and knew that there were quite a few beautiful fish in the snakehead family.

Seeing that the bucket was filled with more and more small fish and shrimp, almost half full, he prepared to go back and feed them.

Just then, he caught fish in a small stream behind the mountain. As soon as he stood up, he froze again: "What a huge crab!"