From Robinson Crusoe

Chapter 44: Cart Rabbit Lemon and Crops (Available the day after tomorrow)

The rope-pulled cart had carried too much cargo, and it often rubbed against the ground when transporting goods ashore, and a layer of the bottom of the thick wooden board had been worn away.

While dragging the reward, Chen Zhou had to stop every ten meters to clear away obstacles such as stones and sticks, and check the packing boxes fixed to the wooden boards with ropes, for fear of scratching the painted patterns on them or knocking down the statues in the boxes - defective second-hand goods would depreciate severely.

Fortunately, the beach is smooth, which is very suitable for the wooden cart to move forward smoothly.

The total distance from the landing point to the camp is about four to five hundred meters. Once we cross the beach and enter the land, the speed slows down significantly.

After moving into the camp, in order to properly store the huge wooden boxes, Chen Zhou also vacated a shed to store small pieces of furniture.

It took more than three hours to finish all this, and the statue won't need to be looked after for a while.

Next, Chen Zhou had to continue packing up the furniture that had been moved out and move them back to the cave.

Most of the furniture came from rooms in the ship's tower.

There are tables and chairs, bedside tables, shelves and low cabinets. The materials used are relatively ordinary, the wood is thin and light, and except for the large size that may hurt the waist, there is no difficulty in carrying it.

Taking advantage of this opportunity to place the statue, Chen Zhou planned to move all the doors, windows and some easy-to-carry materials into the cave.

As the cave dwellings become more and more complete, the decorations inside are extremely shabby.

The simple bed, the table that serves as both a dining table and a desk, and the bedside table filled with tableware have brought inconvenience to Chen Zhou's life.

He hopes that after the stone walls are built and the doors and windows are installed, he can put food racks, sideboards and cutting tables in the kitchen.

Wooden boxes and shelves for storing supplies should be neatly arranged in the storage room so that people can find what they want at the first time.

In the bedroom, commonly used clothes, valuables, guns and weapons, as well as cats and chinchillas should have their own places and should not always be crowded together with people.

In addition, lighting facilities such as ceilings and chandeliers should also be installed as soon as possible.

After the stone walls are built, the already poor lighting in the cave will be further reduced.

As dusk approaches, it would be impossible to see clearly what is deep in the cave without a fire or a lamp. The sooner these living facilities are completed, the better.

Because we rarely worked at night, the lamp oil brought from the ship was rarely used, so there was still a lot left, and there were also quite a few candles.

Chen Zhou roughly estimated that if he used it sparingly, the lamp oil should be enough for him to consume for half a year. After that, he would have to make his own supplementary oil.

His ideal oil-producing animal would be a fish, a penguin or a seal.

Although it sounds outrageous, the original book of Robinson Crusoe mentioned that seals do appear on the island, and they appear not far from the landing place.

When the weather is clear, you can see it by looking through a telescope at the top of the mountain.

As for penguins, they are found at the other end of the island, where the beach is inhabited by a large number of seabirds.

Seals and penguins are both animals with extremely high fat content.

Especially seals. If you hunt one, it may be enough for lamp oil for two or three months, and seal oil can also be used as cooking oil for frying.

But Chen Zhou was always doing other things and it was difficult for him to get away.

If he could spare some time every day to go hunting on the beach, he might have shot two seals by now and had fried seal meat.

……

On the afternoon of January 1, Chen Zhou traveled back and forth between the camp and the cave, moving furniture.

He tied the small pieces of furniture together with ropes to increase efficiency, but because the journey was long, he spent a whole afternoon and still didn't finish moving.

The road leading up the mountain is rugged, with steep slopes and stepped obstacles, making it difficult for the cart to function.

The difficult transportation process gave Chen Zhou the idea of making a cart again.

The body structure of the cart is actually very simple, the only difficulty lies in the wheels.

Before, when he was on the ship, facing the threat of the storm, he could only think of some quick solutions.

Now that there is no time pressure, for the convenience of transportation work, we can put the cart production back on the agenda.

The technique of bending wood was mentioned in "On Encouraging Learning".

A piece of wood is straight and fits the rope, and when it is bent into a wheel, its curve fits the rule.

In class, the teacher played a slide that demonstrated the entire process - first soaking the wood, then baking it with fire to soften the wood fibers, and then twisting it around a cylindrical steel ring, kneading the wood like clay strips and shaping it into various shapes.

In the hands of a master craftsman, this process looks easier than drinking water.

However, Chen Zhou was not clear about how the actual implementation would go and what difficulties would be encountered.

What he was most worried about was making mistakes when baking with fire and not being able to control the temperature well.

If you are not careful, it's not just the beating that makes it happen, but the beating that makes it "burn".

However, as long as you know the technique of "輮", you will be far better than Robinson Crusoe.

In Chen Zhou's opinion, as long as he is willing to take the time to experiment and make improvements, he will always be able to make a practical cart.

What makes modern people ahead of Robinson Crusoe is not only knowledge, but also the way of thinking.

If we go a step further, we can even make a "goat-pulled truck", using sturdy male goats to pull the cart to save manpower.

Unfortunately, up to now, the cart is still at the conceptual stage. Not to mention roasting the wood, he hasn't even completed the step of soaking the wood.

After finishing a day's work and sitting in a chair to eat dinner, Chen Zhou thought about the many things that needed to be solved next and couldn't help but recall the various difficulties raised by the old guys in the forum.

The most frequently appearing words are "lonely" or "bored".

Boredom also leads to the view that there is no one to talk to, lack of entertainment tools, and too much time with nothing to do.

Before starting the challenge, Chen Zhou agreed with the opinions of his fellow forum members:

10300 days is indeed a terrifying amount of time.

Such a long time, even if you just slack off all day, it would be a daunting task to force it through.

But up to now, he found that time did not feel endless at all, but rather insufficient.

There are so many things to do that it is hard to say which ones are more important and which ones are not.

Sometimes he even wanted to split himself into eight parts to complete different tasks.

At least at this stage, life is not boring, it’s just a little busy and tiring, but also very fulfilling.

It was so fulfilling that he could forget his loneliness.

……

On the morning of January 1, Chen Zhou was checking the rabbit trap as usual and was surprised to find that his trap had successfully captured a rabbit, and the rabbit had not been strangled to death.

Judging from the fresh signs of struggle around the rabbit, it had been in the trap for only a dozen minutes. If it had been an hour or two later, Chen Zhou would have only harvested a corpse.

A living rabbit is much more valuable than a dead rabbit.

Not only because live rabbits can drain blood and increase the taste of food, but also because live rabbits can be used to test wild fruits and help Chen Zhou test poison.

He has not dared to eat the fruit of the suspected wild lemon tree that he found while looking for the iron tree, because he is waiting for the rabbit to appear.

Grabbing the rabbit's ears and dodging its continuous kicks, Chen Zhou freed it from the cage. He also took the cage away and prepared to boil it in salt water for reuse. Then he found a large wooden box and locked the rabbit in it.

Having just escaped from danger, the rabbit was in a very unstable mood and curled up in the corner of the box without moving. Chen Zhou threw some grass, which was the favorite of chinchillas, to it, but it didn't eat a single bite.

Looking at the rabbit's current state, it wouldn't eat the lemon even if you gave it to it now. Chen Zhou could only close the lid of the box and go do other things.

He was moving doors and windows in the morning, and picked some fresh fruits when passing by the woods.

He continued to dig the white soil on the sunny slope in the afternoon. This time he replaced the wooden barrel with two wooden boxes. Although they were heavier to carry, the amount of soil he moved increased a lot, which improved his work efficiency.

The reason why there are so many empty wooden boxes to use is thanks to the wooden racks that were moved up the mountain yesterday.

The bread, sugar, salt, tea and flour stored in the boxes have now been moved to the shelves, freeing up the wooden boxes for other uses.

At dusk, I carried water up the mountain twice, added some salt to the goats, returned to the cave and lit the oil lamp. Another day passed.

After dinner, Chen Zhou heard the sound of gnawing and digging in the big wooden box. He opened the lid and saw that the rabbit had regained its vitality and was preparing to dig a hole to escape. However, the wooden box was made of solid materials, and the thick wood boards could not be conquered in a short time, so it was destined to be a futile effort.

Chen Zhou cut the green fruit into thin slices and threw it into the box. He watched the rabbit eat two slices and then be too afraid to eat any more because of the sourness. He became more and more certain that the tree was a wild lemon.

To be on the safe side, he cut two more fruits and threw them into the box. He stopped adding other food to the rabbit and planned to check on the rabbit's condition again tomorrow morning.

In theory, rabbits will not have serious adverse reactions after eating lemons, at most they will suffer from diarrhea.

If the rabbit is dead tomorrow morning, it means that the fruit is not a lemon, but a poisonous variety similar to lemon.

……

Early in the morning on January 1, the first thing Chen Zhou did after getting out of bed was to check the condition of the rabbit.

The results are very gratifying.

Most of the fruit slices in the box had disappeared, and only a few small black dung balls had been added.

The rabbit was safe and sound, still digging at the corner of the box, leaving the wooden board covered with claw marks.

"Great! So energetic."

Chen Zhou grinned and showed a kind smile.

Double happiness!

The first joy is the confirmation of lemon.

Although lemon is very sour when eaten directly, it is rich in vitamins, can treat scurvy, and also has certain medicinal value.

It can also be used as a seasoning to remove fishy smell, or as a coating in barbecue.

If you can find and grow sugarcane in large quantities, you can boil enough sugar to make lemon slices and pickle them into candied fruit, or squeeze out lemon juice to make a drink.

In the hot dry season, it is a good thing to have a glass of sweet and sour lemon juice to cool down!

The second good news should be attributed to this rabbit.

Its outstanding contribution made Chen Zhou in a good mood, and he immediately decided to reward it with a quick cut, and then bleed and skin it.

Save the meat for roasting in the evening, make some cuts, sprinkle some salt on it, and squeeze some lemon juice on it. It will definitely taste tender and delicious.

The skins were hung around the perimeter of fields to frighten the same kind.

Leftover bones can be crushed and put into compost, or given to Lai Fu to make toys.

From birth to death, the rabbit played every role it could and made many contributions to Chen Zhou's life.

In Chen Zhou's mind, it is the best prey!
Grab the bunny by its ears and lift it out of the crate.

Not long after, Chen Zhou walked out of the cave carrying a bloody rabbit skin, tied it to a wooden stick and stuck it next to the scarecrow.

When the wind blew, the rabbit skin swayed slightly, and it matched the hideous-looking scarecrow beside it quite well.

After tasting the sweetness, Chen Zhou didn't even have time to eat breakfast. He directly set up an iron kettle to boil salt water and boil ropes, and set a dozen traps at the edge of the woods.

The trap set on the afternoon of the 11th has only harvested one rabbit so far, but there are still many wild fruits that need to be tested.

In order to enrich his recipes, Chen Zhou could only increase the number of "recruitment letters" and "hire" some poison testers.

After returning to the cave and having dinner, Chen Zhou walked around the fields as usual to scare away the birds hovering around, and then continued to carry soil.

……

Time flies and comes to June 1th.

During this week, Chen Zhou caught three more rabbits.

Unfortunately, the rabbits were trapped in the middle of the night.

Due to their desperate struggles, Chen Zhou lost the opportunity to end their lives with his own hands. He could only dismember them, cook them, eat part of them himself, and feed the rest to the cats and dogs.

At the same time, there are three more "rabbit skin flags" at the head of the field. The rabbit skins are brown, yellow and gray, which can be regarded as a unique landscape.

The road to hunting the three-petaled beak is long and arduous.

There are countless wild rabbits in the woods, and Chen Zhou's current hunting efforts cannot pose a threat to the entire rabbit population. He can only try his best to protect his crops from being harmed.

On January 1, he saw a few green spots on the rice ridges.

Subsequent observation confirmed that it was not weeds but rice seedlings, which excited him for the whole day.

I carefully counted the germination rate of the seeds.

Perhaps because of careful selection, Chen Zhou found that the germination rate of the seeds he sowed reached about 35%.

If there are slower growing seeds in the soil, the germination rate may be higher.

The conditions on board were extremely bad, wet and dirty.

The rice varieties of the 17th century were not as carefully selected and bred as modern seeds, and were not sterilized and treated for disease resistance. The fact that they had such a high germination rate was beyond Chen Zhou's expectations.

More than 128 rice seeds were sown, and rice seedlings have grown so far.

If everything goes well, in three months at least and five months at most, they will grow into a rice field, providing fuller, healthier and higher quality seeds for the next season's food.

In addition to rice, barley and wheat also gradually emerged from the soil.

They grew much slower than rice and did not emerge until January 1.

The germination rates of the two wheats were slightly higher than that of rice, with barley reaching about 41% and wheat at about 39%.

However, because the number of wheat seeds is far lower than that of rice, although the germination rate of wheat and barley is higher than that of rice, the total number of plants is far less than that of rice, with only more than 80 plants.

When selecting wheat seeds, Chen Zhou deliberately planted the two types of wheat on different ridges.

After germination, his attitude towards the two kinds of wheat also deviated.

Wheat was particularly valued because it could be ground into flour.

When Chen Zhou slept, he wished he could dig out his eyes and hang them over the wheat field, watching for any animals that might harm his beloved babies.

Da Mai became the child who lacked love.

The reason lies with Chen Zhou's mother.

Since entering middle age, Chen Zhou's mother often watched health-related TV programs or watched health-related short videos. She heard that barley is rich in vitamins and can lower blood sugar and lose weight, so she went to the supermarket to buy barley grains and mixed them with rice.

Chen Zhou really didn't like the rough taste of barley grains, but he couldn't refuse his mother's kindness at home.

I was forced to eat barley rice countless times, so I developed a prejudice against barley.

In order to change his mother's point of view, Chen Zhou also specifically looked up the uses of barley.

It became even harder for him to swallow after he discovered that this disgusting stuff, apart from being used to make wine and a few other foods, was mainly used as animal feed.

But it didn't have much effect on my mother's scientific education.

The enthusiasm of middle-aged people for health preservation is unshakable, especially this kind of natural food that is said to have no side effects.

Now that we are on an isolated island, we have no conditions for brewing wine, and our sheep are free-range, so we don’t need barley as feed.

He also didn't seem to take Barley that seriously.

However, barley is planted next to wheat, so it is everywhere. Even if Chen Zhou does not pay much attention to it, he still needs to weed and water it.

When you really calculate it, the actual treatment of the two kinds of wheat is actually pretty much the same.

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　　Thanks to: Don't Want to Escape Again, D-Tune Bad, Changgong Shi, Wanjie Youxing, Book Friend with Last Number 8595, Summer in Mumin Valley, Book Friend with Last Number 5501, Lao Mei Cooking Wine, Mu Ni, The First True Disciple of Hunyuan Xingyi Tai Chi, and The Mysterious Slacker for their monthly tickets. Thank you all for your support!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)