Return to 1983: Starting from hunting in the mountains

Chapter 189 Six Fox Cubs
"Take good care of them. My chickens are still over there by the pond! Don't let other wild animals steal them again!"

Lu Jiansheng looked at the people watching the fun and suddenly slapped his forehead, remembering that he hadn't cooked his beggar's chicken yet.

After giving instructions, he quickly ran to the pond.

It sounds like a long time, but in fact it was less than half an hour.

When we arrived at the pond, fortunately, nothing unexpected happened this time.

Lu Jiansheng washed his hands in the pond, then rubbed salt inside the pheasant's stomach, and then took out some prepared ingredients and stuffed them into the pheasant's stomach.

At last.

Lu Jiansheng wrapped the pheasant with the mud he had prepared earlier.

A pheasant was stolen by a fox, and there were two left, which was enough for several people to use as a meal. In a short while, the pheasants turned into two lumps of mud.

In later generations, there were many ways to cook Beggar's Chicken. All of them involved plucking the feathers, wrapping the chicken in lotus leaves, and then covering it with mud.

In fact, Lu Jiansheng’s method is the most original way to cook beggar’s chicken.

Of course, the original recipe for beggar's chicken definitely didn't include so many ingredients, just a little salt at most.

Carry the two lumps of mud under the old pine tree.

Lu Jiansheng saw that Lu Erniu had already set up the clay pot and picked up some firewood.

Then Lu Jiansheng lit a bonfire.

At this time, the six fox cubs under the tree saw someone coming and immediately shivered and shrank into their den.

Everyone else was there, busy picking pine cones.

Lu Jiansheng used a knife to dig a large shallow pit in the ground.

Put the mud ball in, then cover it with some dirt and move the campfire over the shallow pit.

Then I went back, washed my hands, and chopped the sand chicken into small pieces.

A knife is omnipotent in the hands of a hunter. It can be used for self-defense, to kill prey, to chop firewood, and as a kitchen knife.

Put pheasant oil and sand chicken oil into a clay pot and refine the oil.

Then put the half chicken in the sand into the clay pot and stir-fry.

There is nothing special about it now. After stir-frying for a while, just add water, cover the pot and wait.

"Brother Lu, are you going to keep these foxes? The fur color of these fox cubs is pretty good, but they smell a bit strong."

Li Dazhu started chatting with Lu Jiansheng only after he saw that he had finished his work.

"It's okay. My new house is almost finished. I'll keep them in the backyard. Their smell won't affect anything."

Lu Jiansheng smiled.

Six fox cubs, when raised up, will become six red fox skins. When they grow up, I estimate that a pure red fox skin can be sold for several thousand, right?
Lu Jiansheng raised these six fox cubs in order to skin them and sell them for money when they grew up.

As for breeding, that's just kidding.

How do foxes from the same litter reproduce?

In fox breeding, inbreeding is an absolute taboo.

Unless Lu Jiansheng goes and brings back another litter of red foxes with pure fur.

Otherwise, there is no way to reproduce.

Then Lu Jiansheng went to help pick pine cones.

There are indeed a lot of pine cones here. Lu Jiansheng saw that the ground was densely packed with pine cones, forming a thick layer.

No one has been to this place for many years. Even if hunters come here, they will not think of picking pine cones.

A lot of pine cones fall every year, and as they accumulate year after year, they become what they are now.

The pine nuts in the pine cones are the seeds of the pine tree. After the pine cones fall to the ground, it is not possible for a small pine tree to grow quickly. This requires a lot of opportunities. First, the pine cones need to rot, the pine nuts inside fall out, and the pine nuts combine with the soil. Then, with the right water, sunlight and other conditions, a small pine seedling can grow.

If the conditions are not right, the pine nuts will not germinate, but will slowly rot like the pine cones, eventually turning into humus and becoming nutrients for the trees.

It is obvious that the conditions for pine nuts to germinate are not met under this old pine tree.

Therefore, there are no sprouting pine seedlings around, only pine cones, thick pine needles, and pine cones that are about to rot.

You don't need to pick up the pine cones on the bottom layer, just pick up the top layer. Even so, there are still quite a few pine cones.

Lu Jiansheng took a dozen pine cones and threw them into the fire, and they would be ready to eat roasted pine nuts after a while.

The main reason is that there are too many pine cones on the ground. Everyone just needs to bend down to pick them up, and in a short while, they can pick up a pile.

By the time Lu Jiansheng had finished cooking, everyone had already picked up three or four piles of pine cones.
Each pile of pine cones can fill more than two sacks.

Move the fire away, pick out the pine cones from it, throw the pine cones that have been roasted by the fire on the ground, and the pine nuts inside will fall all over the ground.

Most of the pine nuts inside had a hole exploded in them.

Then, Lu Jiansheng dug out the mud ball buried in the ground and put it aside.

When the lid of the pot was opened, a fragrance spread out under the old pine tree.

Lu Jiansheng took a look and found that the sand half chicken inside had been stewed and the meat of the sand half chicken had been removed from the bones. He just added a little salt and stirred it.

"Okay everyone, it's time to eat!"

"Finally I can eat. I'm almost starving!"

"smell good!"

As they talked, several people took out an aluminum lunch box and lined up to get the chicken soup.

Such aluminum lunch boxes are rare in rural areas.

This is what Lu Jiansheng bought when he went to the city last time. He wanted to carry dry food for hunting.

Therefore, he bought some more, and the aluminum lunch boxes for Li Dazhui and others were all obtained by Lu Jiansheng.

Lu Jiansheng began to distribute chicken soup to everyone, one spoonful of chicken meat and one spoonful of chicken soup to each person.

We bring our own dry food, and steamed buns or corn cakes soaked in chicken soup are both delicious.

Of course, steamed buns are also delicious.

If you don’t want to soak it, you can also roast it.

After distributing the chicken soup to everyone, the temperature of the mud ball over there had almost dropped. Lu Jiansheng went over and knocked open the mud ball, revealing the steaming beggar's chicken inside.

"Everyone is eating, don't be polite," Lu Jiansheng took the lead and tore a handful of chicken.

Although the ingredients are insufficient and the beggar's chicken is rather rough, the advantage is that the ingredients are good enough and the chicken is full of fragrance.

Lu Jiansheng did not eat chicken legs or chicken wings. He mainly wanted to enjoy the fresh, original flavor of chicken.

The meat on the chicken belly is really delicious.

There is the aroma of the ingredients absorbed, as well as salt and medicinal wine.

The meat from this part is more flavorful and nutritious. Several people were happily eating a simple and hearty lunch.
After lunch, everyone started packing sacks and put the pine cones they had picked up earlier into the sacks.

After loading the car with sacks, everyone continued to build pine cones. There were still many pine cones under the old pine tree.

This does not include the pine cones that are ripe and have not yet fallen from the trees.

Everyone didn't have time to pick up the things on the trees, and there were enough for them to pick up just the things on the ground.

This is just under an old pine tree. There are countless pine trees nearby over the past decades or even hundreds of years. They are probably all descendants of this old pine tree.

(End of this chapter)