Chapter 52 Big Gourd
On the third day of November, the clouds were heavy and there was heavy snowfall early in the morning.
Snowflakes fell from the sky in large numbers, soon covering the earth with a layer of crystal white.
Jiang Sanlang, his two brothers, his father Jiang Laohan and his two nephews lit a fire in the new tile-roofed house, sat around in a circle and talked by the fire.
"Yesterday, the village chief informed the villagers that the court was going to levy grain. The supplementary levy was two liters per mu for the upper-class fields and one liter for the lower-class fields. Fortunately, our family's grain was not sold, otherwise... ugh. This time, no money was required. Food, it looks like the price of food is really going to rise this winter.”
Old Man Jiang sighed: "With all this tossing and going, I don't know how many people will freeze to death and starve to death."
Jiang Sanlang nodded, thinking that if his daughter hadn't found the golden ear and asked him to plant it, the Jiang family would probably not have an easy life. They might not necessarily starve to death, but they would definitely not have enough to eat.
Now let’s look at our brothers. Not only did they build large tile-roofed houses at the same time, but everyone in the family also wore thick cotton-padded clothes and thick-soled cotton shoes.
There are hundreds of kilograms of wheat and hundreds of kilograms of rice piled in the warehouse, and there are plenty of soybeans, red beans and other miscellaneous grains, not to mention there is still a lot of money left in hand.
In all his years of living, Jiang Sanlang has never been as relaxed and comfortable as this winter.
"After the food conscription, there may be another conscription." Old Man Jiang glanced at his three sons, "Once the conscription is over, one member of our family will definitely be conscripted."
"It's okay. We have money in our hands. The worst we can do is spend money to buy more soldiers." Jiang Sanlang didn't care.
Jiang Dalang and Jiang Erlang also nodded, "Don't worry about this."
From the last batch of golden ears, Jiang Dalang and Jiang Erlang each earned twenty taels of silver. After excluding the cost of building a house, they still had one or two taels left on hand.
It's a pity that golden ears don't grow in winter, otherwise they could fill the newly built bamboo shed with mulberry trees.
However, winter also has its advantages. At least they are free and can take a good rest and relax.
After a busy year, I always have to take a breather to do something I enjoy, such as going hunting.
I am not going to go fishing because Saburo said that I can’t catch fish without bait.
But the three brothers can go to the snow to hunt rabbits, pheasants, and maybe even roe deer and wild boars.
"When the snow stops, we brothers will go hunting pheasants and rabbits."
Jiang Sanlang stirred the fire to make it burn brighter, "Bring some wheat and small yellow rice, and catch a few cuckoo birds." That thing is very fragrant.
Jiang Dalang laughed when he heard this: "Yes, we can catch cuckoo birds at our door, sprinkle some yellow rice on them, and cover them with a basket."
The three of them are currently the only ones building houses on Nanshan Mountain, and they have bought the lower-grade fields around them, so it is very open. As long as you scatter rice outside the compound, you won't have to worry about catching birds.
"Okay, okay." When Jiang Cheng and Jiang Quan heard about catching birds, they raised their hands in approval.
They were arranged by their elders to live in a new tile-roofed house and look after the house. They were lonely and bored every day.
It makes me happy to hear that I can catch birds outside.
Hehe, you can roast the captured birds and eat them directly. If you add some mountain honey, the taste will be amazing.
The Jiang family's old house in Dongchen Village.
Nowadays, only a few women and children live in the old house. Mrs. Jiang Liu, her eldest daughter-in-law, and their two granddaughters are sitting on the warm kang, sewing cloth.
The Chinese New Year is coming soon, and I have to make a new cotton coat for my family so that I can go out and visit relatives and friends.
"Matchmaker Yang from Xicun told me today that her niece is twenty years old this year and wants to be our Erlang's stepmother."
Mrs. Jiang Liu twirled the needle and thread in her hand and muttered: "But Erlang is unwilling to do so. Alas, that damn boy makes me so angry."
Mrs. Zhou: "I guess my second uncle is afraid that getting married early will be bad for our two children, so he doesn't want to."
"We're watching from the sidelines, what's wrong with that?"
Mrs. Jiang Liu sighed: "I see him coming and going alone day by day, with no one around to take care of him, and I feel unhappy."
Other families are monogamous, and they have to bear both the cold and the heat, but her second son is so good. An old man with two children is so busy here and there that he even has to wash his own clothes when he comes back.
After all, Mrs. Zhou was the sister-in-law, so she couldn't say much, so she could only comfort her mother-in-law, "Don't worry, maybe it's my second uncle who hasn't met anyone he likes."
Mrs. Jiang Liu thought for a while, then smiled and said: "That's true. Erlang has built a tiled house now, and he is not short of money. It would be good to look at several houses."
This time, she must be careful and never find someone like Leng for Erlang.
In the Jiang San family, Yuanbao Huzi and Xiaojie Dawu were running around and playing in the house.
He ran from the east room to the west room, and from the west room to the east room again, chirping and laughing, never having a moment to rest.
Ying Bao sat on the kang and wrote, occasionally glancing at a few poltergeists and shaking her head helplessly.
Sure enough, boys are all naughty and mischievous. If they don't find a strict teacher to teach them all the time, my plan to cultivate child prodigies will probably fail.
Two days later, the snow cleared and the sky became clear and blue.
Early in the morning, Yingbao picked up seventeen eggs from the chicken shed, including six with double yolks.
Put the eggs into the straw basket and close the lid.
These days, the new hens started laying eggs one after another. Until this morning, I actually picked up seventeen eggs at once.
This is really surprising, and the hard work of feeding him for more than half a year is not in vain.
These eggs are actually copper coins, which can not only be exchanged for salt and goods, but also used as money.
A while ago, a salesman came to the village, so she exchanged eggs for toothbrushes and tooth powder, as well as two packets of salt and a large can of soy beans.
The soy beans are delicious and mixed with small slices of kohlrabi. They are fragrant and crispy and are a must-have pickle for farmers in winter.
It's a pity that grandma doesn't know how to cook it, and grandma's cooking is not as delicious as what the salesman sells.
After picking up the eggs, feeding the chickens, and filling Youyou's trough with grass and water, Yingbao hurried back to the house.
It's too cold outside for a walk, so I'd better just stay in bed.
It happened that my two younger brothers were also being restrained by their mother and were not allowed to get off the kang, so I could lie down for a while longer.
She was busy in the cave for most of the night last night, cutting off thirty mutated golden ears and drying them in the bamboo plaque in the cave, which was full of two large bamboo plaques.
Leave the rest of the roots to grow.
She had watered the white fungus several times before with water from the Wuding Zhi Mixing Pond, and now it was cut and dried on another bamboo plaque.
In addition, the gourds planted earlier have blossomed and matured, producing dozens of large and small gourds. The largest one is taller than others on the ground.
Such a giant gourd will shock people's jaws when taken out.
So she never planted gourds again, nor did she dare to take the big gourds outside.
I thought I was growing cute little gourds, but unexpectedly, the little gourds turned into giants and were no longer cute.
Ying Bao counted the gourds and found that among the gourds, the largest ones were about ten, five feet tall.
There are more than ten of them who are as tall as her.
There is also the size of a water scoop at home.
The smallest gourd is about the size of my father's hand, only four or five.
However, those big gourds seemed useless, but in fact they were valuable. In her previous life, she had seen one in a wine shop. It was not as big as her gourd. It was hung in the wine shop as a sign, and there was a big sign on it. The word wine.
I heard that the wine shop owner said that his big gourd was worth twenty taels of silver, but I don't know whether it was true or not.
The gourd I have is bigger than the one in the wine shop, and it should be worth twenty taels.
It would be great if she could go to the county town sometime. Then she would sell all these unfortunate things and she would surely get a lot of money.