On the third day of November, the sky was overcast and heavy snow began to fall early in the morning.
Snowflakes fluttered down from the sky, soon covering the ground with a layer of white.
Jiang Sanlang, his two brothers, his father Jiang Laohan, and his two nephews built a fire in the new tile-roofed house and sat around it, warming themselves and talking.
"Yesterday, the village was notified that the imperial court was going to collect grain. For every acre of high-quality land, two liters were collected, and for every acre of low-quality land, one liter was collected. Fortunately, we didn't sell our grain, otherwise...sigh. This time, they didn't want money but only grain. It looks like the price of grain is really going to go up this winter."
Old man Jiang sighed, "With all this going on, I don't know how many people will freeze to death or starve to death."
Jiang Sanlang nodded, thinking that if his daughter hadn't found the golden ears and asked the family to grow them, the Jiang family would probably not have had an easy time. They might not starve to death, but they would definitely not have enough to eat.
Now looking at my brothers, not only have they built a big tiled house at the same time, but everyone in the family is wearing thick cotton-padded clothes and thick-soled cotton shoes.
The warehouse was filled with hundreds of kilograms of wheat and rice, and there was also plenty of miscellaneous grains such as soybeans and red beans, not to mention that there was still a lot of spare money in hand.
In all his years, Jiang Sanlang had never felt as relaxed and comfortable as he did this winter.
"After the grain collection, there might be another conscription." Old Man Jiang glanced at his three sons, "If there is a conscription, one person from our family will definitely be conscripted."
"It's okay. We have money. At worst we can just use it to hire a night watchman." 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 another twenty taels of silver. After deducting the expenses for building the house, they still had one or two taels left.
It’s a pity that golden ears don’t grow in winter, otherwise they could have filled the newly built bamboo shed with mulberry wood.
However, winter also has its advantages. At least they have some free time and can take a good rest and relax.
After a busy year, you always need to take a break and do something you like, such as going hunting.
We are not going to go fishing because Sanlang said we can't catch any fish without bait.
But the three brothers can go hunting rabbits and pheasants in the snow, and maybe even roe deer and wild boars.
"When the snow stops, we will go hunting pheasants and rabbits."
Jiang Sanlang fanned the fire to make it burn more vigorously, "Bring some wheat grains and glutinous rice, and catch a few cuckoo birds." That stuff smells so good.
Jiang Dalang laughed when he heard this: "Yes, we can catch the cuckoo bird at our door. Just sprinkle some yellow rice on it and cover it with a basket."
Currently, there are only three families building houses on Nanshan Mountain, and they have bought the surrounding low-quality farmland, so the area is very empty. As long as they scatter rice and grains outside the courtyard, they will never have to worry about not catching birds.
"Okay, okay." When Jiang Cheng and Jiang Quan heard about catching birds, they raised their hands in agreement.
They were arranged by their elders to live in a new tile-roofed house to look after the house, and they felt lonely and bored every day.
When I heard that I could catch birds outside, I was extremely happy.
Hehe, you can roast the bird you catch and eat it directly. If you spread some mountain honey on it, the taste will be amazing.
The old house of the Jiang family in Dongchen Village.
Now only a few women and children live in the old house. Jiang Liushi, her eldest daughter-in-law and her two granddaughters are sitting on the warm kang, cutting cloth and sewing clothes.
The New Year is coming soon, and I have to make a new cotton-padded jacket for my family so that they can go out to visit relatives and friends.
"Matchmaker Yang from Xicun told me today that her niece from her mother's family is twenty years old this year and wants to be our Erlang's second wife."
Jiang Liu twisted the needle and thread in her hand and muttered, "But Erlang refused to do it. Alas, that damn boy really pissed me off."
Zhou: "I guess my second uncle is afraid that getting married too early will be bad for the two children, so he doesn't want to."
"We are here to watch, what's wrong with that?"
Jiang Liu sighed, "I feel uncomfortable seeing him coming and going alone every day, with no one to take care of him."
Other families practice monogamy and share the hardships, but her second son is different. He is a grown man and has to take care of two children. He runs around everywhere and even has to wash his own clothes when he comes home.
Zhou was her sister-in-law after all, so she couldn't say much. She could only comfort her mother-in-law, "Don't worry, maybe Second Uncle hasn't found someone he likes."
Jiang Liu thought about it and smiled, "That's true. Erlang has built a tiled house now and has plenty of money. It would be good to look at a few more houses."
This time, she would definitely be very careful and would never find someone like Leng for Erlang.
At Jiang San's house, Yuanbao Huzi took Xiaojie and Dawu to run around and play in the house.
He ran from the east room to the west room, and from the west room to the east room, chattering and laughing, never having a moment's rest.
Yingbao sat on the kang and wrote, glancing at the naughty ghosts from time to time and shaking her head helplessly.
As expected, boys are all naughty and mischievous. If I don’t find a strict teacher to teach them all the time, my plan to train a child prodigy will probably fail.
Two days later, the snow stopped and the sky became clear and blue.
Early in the morning, Yingbao picked up seventeen eggs from the chicken coop, six of which had double yolks.
Place the eggs in the basket and cover it with the lid.
These days, the new hens started laying eggs one after another, and until this morning, I picked up seventeen eggs at one time.
This really made me overjoyed, and it was worth all the hard work of feeding him for half a year.
These eggs are actually copper coins, which can not only be exchanged for salt or other things, but also used as money.
A while ago, a peddler came to the village, and she exchanged eggs for a toothbrush, tooth powder, two bags of salt and a large can of fermented beans.
The fermented soybeans are delicious and are mixed with small slices of kohlrabi, which makes them fragrant and crispy. They are a must-have pickle for farmers in winter.
It’s a pity that my mother doesn’t know how to cook, and my grandmother’s isn’t as delicious as the one sold by the peddler.
After picking up the eggs and feeding the chickens, and filling Yoyo's feeding trough with grass and water, Yingbao quickly ran back to the house.
It's too cold outside, not suitable for walking the deer, so I'd better just stay in bed.
It just so happened that my two younger brothers were also being held back by my mother and not allowed to get off the kang, so I could just lie down for a while longer.
She was busy in the cave for most of the night last night, picking thirty mutant golden ears and drying them in bamboo plaques in the cave, filling up two large plaques.
The remaining roots are left to continue growing.
The Tremella had been watered several times with pond water mixed with Wudingzhi before, and now it was harvested and hung to dry on another bamboo plate.
In addition, the gourds that were planted before have blossomed and borne fruit, with dozens of gourds of various sizes, the largest of which is taller than her.
Such a giant gourd would make people drop their jaws when they see it.
So she never planted gourds again, and dared not take the big gourds outside.
I really thought I was planting those cute and exquisite little gourds, but unexpectedly, the small gourds turned into giants and were no longer cute.
Yingbao counted them and found that there were about ten of the largest gourds, which were five feet tall.
The smaller ones are as tall as her, and there are more than ten of them.
Some are as big as a ladle at home.
The smallest gourd is as big as my dad’s palm, and there are only four or five of them.
However, although those big gourds seem useless, they are actually very valuable. In her previous life, she had seen one in a wine shop. It was not even as big as her gourd. It was hung in the wine shop as a signboard, and there was a big word "wine" on it.
I heard from the wine shop owner that his big gourd was worth twenty taels of silver, but I don't know if it's true or not.
This gourd of mine is much bigger than the one in the wine shop, so it should be worth twenty taels.
It would be great if she could go to the county town someday. Then she could sell all these unfortunate things and surely get a lot of money.