Prosperity through farming

Chapter 2

Meat is very rare. Every year, only during festivals, such as the Spring Festival, Autumn Hunting Festival, and New Year’s Day, the village will distribute meat to add some meat flavor.

Sannier felt strange about eating, not because she could only eat meat three times a year, it seemed to her that it was normal for meat to be scarce, but those rice and vegetables!

Rice grains are always tough and smooth when bitten in the mouth. After eating the rice, there will be a fragrance from the mouth to the stomach. When chewing, one grain is one grain, and the elasticity is very good.

Sannier felt that this rice should be very precious, because of this strange feeling, she never stopped putting every grain of rice into her mouth with a spoon.

When she first ate, her hands were not strong enough, and the spoon could not be used well. She once dropped a few grains of rice on the ground, which made her feel distressed to death.

Until the dining table was all taken away, she still looked at the few rice grains unwillingly. There was no way, her father hugged her with a wry smile and persuaded her for a long time, finally, until her father found a special small bamboo tube, put the rice grains in it and kept it for sure. Tomorrow, these rice grains must be thrown into the river to feed the fish, and there will be no waste, so she is willing to obediently and let her mother take a bath for her, and be carried to bed for her.

There are also vegetables and fruits, 360 days a year, several different vegetarian dishes are served on the table every day, and fruits are eaten every afternoon, which is strange enough, and the taste of these vegetables and fruits is amazing.

Basically, Sannier’s cooking doesn’t use much oil, and the vegetarian dishes boiled in plain water with a little salt are so delicious, chewing in the mouth makes people reluctant to swallow them. I feel that these vegetables and fruits are very precious Things that ordinary people can't eat.

The problem is that the Zhang family is obviously the most common farming family in Xiaotian Village.

Although there are indeed some things that make Sannier feel strange in daily life, this kind of unreasonable feeling is really weird.But everyone in Xiaotian Village is like this, Sannier can't think of a reason, so she doesn't think it's strange.

A little older, Sannier is four years old, no longer obsessed with those strange feelings, and puts more attention on observing daily life.

His father, Zhang Hoe, has a very rustic name and plain appearance, but he is very airy, or "temperament", his eyes are shining and energetic, and he doesn't look like a farmer at all.

My mother, Zhong Lanyu, is very pretty and romantic, with phoenix eyes, bright and bright, and the good looks of the two brothers are passed down from their mother.

The eldest brother Zhang Hanlu, whose birthday is September [-]th, is five years older than Sannier. His eyebrows and eyes look like a mother's, and his face, nose and mouth resemble his father's.

The second brother Zhang Jingzhe, born on February [-]th, is three years older than Sannier, and his facial features are similar to his mother's, but his face is more like that of his uncle's family. He has a tiger head and a tiger brain. He is much better than the elder brother. He has just entered school for half a year, and the elder brother has learned a set of boxing for two years. He has completely learned it, and he has started to learn the second set of boxing taught in the private school. The progress is exactly the same as the elder brother. , and even have a tendency to overtake.

The eldest uncle and second uncle who came to deliver meat during the autumn hunting festival kept boasting that he was more like Zhong's family.

And Sannier's name is Zhang Xiaohan, and her birthday is the second day of December. She looks better than her two elder brothers. It can be said that she perfectly combines the advantages of both parents, plus some baby fat and snow white. The whole skin looks like a pile of snow.

Saying that she is four years old now, she was only born for three years and two months. There is no way, her birthday is too good, and the new year will be celebrated in the full moon, so it must be counted as one year old. Although I always feel that there is something buried in my heart I still can't dig it out—her inexplicable feelings are connected with those things—but Sannier has learned not to force, just write down this sum, and she can always find it out if she has a chance. More time, She began to carefully explore the surrounding environment, concerned about how to live well.

After she stopped being in a daze every day, Sannier began to pester her father to take her out to play, and listened to her father's teaching her that this field is planted with purple corn, that field is planted with rouge drunk, and there is Huang Meng Jade, the outermost one is Yumingxiang...

Dad told her that the residents near Zhangjiazhuang all grow food and vegetables. Vegetables are more troublesome to grow, but the amount they grow is not as much as food. the difference.

Zhang Hoe pointed at the small buds that had just emerged, and touched out a whole plant to let her know what it would look like in the end.

Seeing Ziyansu, the word that popped up in Zhang Xiaohan's mind was "sorghum". Looking carefully, there were five ears growing on one stalk, and each ear branch had five grain seeds. The whole ear of Ziyansu There are only 25 grains on the ground, each of which is the size of a soybean, the color is bright purple, and the texture is like a purple emerald carved from strands.

As for the drunken rouge, two words popped up in Zhang Xiaohan's mind, "long bar bean" and "crystal". It has long stems, and the scarlet skin is very hard. After peeling off, there are small diamond-shaped red crystals inside, which are exquisite and translucent, reflecting a beautiful red color in the sun.The inside of the opened stem skin is white, with a faint smell of wine, no wonder it is called rouge drunk.

As for Huang Mengyu, it didn't make Zhang Xiaohan think of any words, it was a whole cluster of golden hair-thin stems clustered together, but holding the whole bunch of stems, shaking them upside down , you can see the "olive"-shaped grains the size of red beans buried in the hair, yellow and clear, and the texture is like jade.

"Yeah!" Zhang Xiaohan stuck out his tongue, like a big lice buried in the pile of hair, this image is a bit embarrassing.

In the end, it was the jade tea fragrance that made Zhang Xiaohan think of the word "corn". Little "hive"!
Along the way, the father and daughter recognized all the food.

Also tell who these four kinds of food are for, like their family, brothers and her eat jade tea, and father and mother eat Huangmengyu. Although they are two different kinds of food, they are boiled Looks pretty much the same after a meal.

Rouge is drunk, it is the third mother, the second uncle and the others eat.

As for Ziyan millet, which is a top-notch food that is difficult to grow and has a low yield, only the respected ancestors in the village are eligible to eat it.

Every year, except for what the ancestors ate, the rest of the surplus Ziyan millet is basically either sold or brewed into wine. When worshiping the ancestors, each person can get a small cup.

He smiled and teased her again, "Do you still remember that time last year when you slept for three days?"

Xiaohan remembered, it was during the Spring Festival last year, mother hugged her, father hugged the second brother, and the elder brother was with dad, they were frozen outside for a long time, even though they were wrapped in big clothes, Xiaohan was still terribly cold.

After returning, the eldest brother fed her some purple thick syrup with the tip of his chopsticks. It was so sweet and delicious, and then she fell asleep. When she woke up, she realized that she had slept for three days.

It turned out that it was the Ziyan millet wine that was distributed to each family after offering sacrifices to the ancestors?

Speaking of ancestor worship, Sannier was in a trance for a while, and blurted out, "Besides ancestor worship, there should be people who go to the grave, right? Why have I never seen the grave? Where is the ancestral grave of our Zhang family?" ? Our family never goes to the grave?"

Zhang Hoe was stunned, and smiled, "Sannier is so smart, the ancestral graves are all in the valley."

Zhang Xiaohan thought for a while, "Is it the mountain behind Gejiazhuang?" This is what the elder brother said when he nagged her.

Zhang Hoe smiled again, "Yes, the foot of the mountain behind Gejiazhuang is actually not far from Zhongjiazhuang. When you grow up, you can run farther and you will be able to see it."

"Coax me again," Zhang Xiaohan pouted, "When you can run far, you have to go to a private school. The eldest brother and the second brother are like this. How can they run to the foot of the mountain to play?"

"It's not far away." Zhang Hoe didn't admit that he was coaxing his daughter, "Didn't your elder brother and second brother go home to eat fruit every day, and then run to the river to play together? The location of the ancestral grave is not far from the river."

Zhang Xiaohan was really confused, "Not far away? But it looks..." It looks very far away, otherwise how could it look like it was covered by layers of mist? "Also, isn't Zhongjiazhuang the closest to the river? The elder brother and the second elder brother go to grandpa, uncle, and second uncle's house to play every day?"

"When you grow up, you'll know if you run around." Zhang Hoe's eyes flashed, and the worried look appeared between his brows again, and then disappeared, "But children are not allowed to go to the grave, for fear of collision, the first two Doesn’t every year put you and your second brother at Uncle Tieli’s house, that’s the day we take your elder brother to the grave. If we go again this year, we’ll take your second brother with you. You’re still young. It's a girl again, when you enter the confinement and study for the last year, you can go to the grave with us." Zhang Hoe looked at the sky, "It's time for lunch, let's go home."

On the way home, Zhang Xiaohan stared at the direction of the distant mountains for a long time, until he got home, and then suddenly asked, "Aren't there any chickens, ducks and livestock in the village?"

Zhong Lanyu was startled, and glanced at her husband, her face also seemed worried and puzzled, "That's about the Hujiazhuang. There is a place on the other side of the mountain. They raise a lot of people. We can't raise them in our village. The food in the field will be lost." Spoiled."

Zhang Xiaohan was still stuck in that dream-like state, and said in a trance, "I remember that big animals such as cows, horses, donkeys and mules are used for farming, right?"

Zhong Lanyu took her daughter into her arms, and half worriedly wiped her face with a cold towel, "How did you know this?"

(End of this chapter)