The persimmon trees are not planted very high. Two of them are planted on a small piece of extra soil slope. They don't look very big, so they must have not been planted for very long.
But there are quite a lot of persimmons growing on it, all as big as fists, hanging on the branches. Some of them are already slightly red. It seems that a lot of fertilizer has been applied and the management is very good.
Ye Yaodong tilted his head and looked, "There are so many, this small sack is not big enough to hold them all!"
"That's enough. These can still hang on the tree for a few more days. If you pick too many at once, they will all be overripe and go bad if you can't finish them. These fruits are not valuable here, and ripe persimmons are easy to be crushed and rotten, so they are difficult to sell."
"In previous years, we picked most of them and dried them to make persimmon cakes, which we can sell for some money, or pickled them to make crispy persimmons. Both adults and children in my family like to eat pickled persimmons."
"A lot of them were destroyed by the typhoon two days ago, or else there would be more. I'll pick some today and pickle them. When you leave the day after tomorrow, I'll let you take them back. Then I'll get up early and pick some raw ones for you to take back, whether they're soft or dried."
My father-in-law is so thoughtful!
Persimmon cakes are good and can be eaten as snacks when going out to sea. Ye Yaodong also likes pickled persimmons. No one in his village knows how to make them, so they are just picked and left to ripen until they are soft. Only his father-in-law’s family pickles them, and they often send them to them in previous years.
"We don't need too much, just a few pounds will do."
"It's okay to pick more. Our own products don't cost money. We can't eat them all. Even if we give them to you, few people will want them. The whole village is growing them."
"Haha, pick them first, those brats can't wait to jump up and down to climb the tree." Ye Yaodong hurried over and picked up his eldest son who was climbing the tree. "You will fall. Just wait under the tree. I will throw them down for you to pick up."
As he spoke, he climbed up the tree nimbly. Although he hadn't climbed a tree for decades, his skills were still not rusty.
He stood firmly on the tree trunk, broke off a branch, picked the persimmons, and threw them carefully at his son's feet.
"Ah? Dad, it broke!"
"Cracked?"
He was very careful, but it still cracked.
"Then I'll lower it a little and throw it into the bushes later."
He picked three more at once and put them in the palm of his hand, then squatted down to lower his center of gravity and gently threw them into the grass.
“Now it’s not broken!”
"Well."
Father Lin stood under the tree picking the fruits and then handed them to the children, asking them to put them in sacks, while his two older brothers-in-law ran to another tree to pick the fruits.
The three little kids were like industrious little bees, running around acting as porters and having a lot of fun, with their faces red from running.
But at some point, the ground was full of persimmons and no one was picking them up, so the ones picked by Lin's father were temporarily thrown on the ground.
Ye Yaodong stood on the tree and looked around, only to find that Ye Chenghu had run to the pomelo tree next to him and was swinging a branch with pomelo fruits on it.
This bastard!
"Ye Chenghu, come back to work, why are you running there?"
“Oh, here it comes.”
He came over happily, but accidentally slipped on the slope and fell face down on it, with a mouthful of dirt in his mouth.
"Pfft..."
"Hahaha~ My cousin is an idiot~"
"You guys are the idiots, I was just careless, bah~"
"You are an idiot!"
The three children were quarreling childishly, but Ye Yaodong was too lazy to care about them and just kept them from running around.
He bent down the branches and picked all the fruits he could reach. For the others that were out of reach, he could only rely on his brother-in-law's long hook.
He jumped down and picked up the persimmons on the ground into the sack. After he was done, the sack was half full.
"How much have you picked? There's already half a bag here. Don't pick too much and it won't fit in the bag."
The two brothers-in-law also stopped when they heard this. After they put in all the persimmons they had picked, the basket was about 70% full, so they stopped immediately.
Otherwise you will pick too many and it will be difficult to tie the rope.
Several children felt that they had not yet finished their studies. Seeing that they were about to leave, Ye Chenghu reluctantly said, "We have only been out for a while and we have to go back? Can't we play for a while longer? When can we come back to pick fruits? Can we pick the grapefruits over there? I want to eat grapefruits!"
"As long as you can get up the day after tomorrow morning, I'll bring you here to pick them. The grapefruits are not ripe yet. We'll have to wait until next month."
"Oh yeah yeah ~ I can definitely get up! Then we'll come back the day after tomorrow."
Ye Chenghu happily jumped directly from the slope without being afraid of falling!
The other two guys followed suit and jumped down one after another, and it was too late to stop them.
"Grandpa, Dad, we'll come over to pick them the day after tomorrow."
"Let's talk about it when you can get up."
Father Lin tied up the sack with a rope and was about to carry it himself, but was stopped by Ye Yaodong. He lifted the sack, tested the weight, and originally wanted to help carry it.
As a result, my eldest brother-in-law snatched it away and put it on his shoulder without saying anything. "This is a bit heavy. Let me do it."
Ye Yaodong had no choice but to follow behind and keep an eye on Ye Chenghu to prevent him from disappearing while walking.
But when no one was watching, he ran to a vegetable field at the foot of the mountain where there were several rows of ear beans and picked a handful of ear beans.
Children just have naughty hands!
If this were his own village, Ye Yaodong might be able to cover for his son, but this is his father-in-law's house, and it would be embarrassing to bring him here.
He hurriedly stopped her with a headache, "Don't touch other people's beans, or you will be caught and beaten!"
"Isn't it grandpa's?"
"They are planted by grandpa. You can pick them as much as you want. You can cook taro rice in the evening. I have some taro planted at the back door of our house. You can hoe them when you go back." Father Lin said with a smile. It was rare for the son-in-law to come to the house, so he must treat him well.
"Ahhh~ I want to eat taro rice. I like taro rice the most."
Taro rice is also called salty rice locally!
On the Double Ninth Festival on September 9th, the custom here is to climb high places to have a picnic and cook taro rice. It’s not far away now, so I can go back and cut some pork belly to cook taro rice.
In the past, we had shredded sweet potato porridge every day, and we could only eat it once on the Double Ninth Festival on September 9th. Now we can eat it in advance.
When the other two children heard that they could pick the taro to cook taro rice, they rushed over hurriedly, fearing that they would be left behind.
"It's mine, you pick less, I want to pick more."
"My grandpa planted them, not you. There are so many, you pick yours and I pick mine..."
"That's ours, too!"
"It belongs to my grandfather!"
"You are not from our family..."
"Yes... You can only pick a little bit. The beans were planted by my grandfather, my father, and my second uncle. It has nothing to do with you..."
The three boys had an uneven division of labor in picking beans and started quarreling. Although they were young, they were all organized.
Ye Chenghu was so angry after being bullied by his two cousins that he stopped picking the cabbages. Looking at the cabbages planted in the vegetable patch next to him, he simply put the ear beans on the ground and ran to pick the cabbages.
But cabbage is not so easy to pull out. People usually use a knife to chop the roots. He was so small and was holding a cabbage, pulling it with all his strength. It looked a bit funny, as it was not like pulling a radish.
The other two boys saw this and followed suit, and as a result, all three of them used too much force and fell to the ground.
Several adults hurriedly came forward to pick them up, patted the dirt off their bodies, and saw that they had not played enough and wanted to pull them out, so they quickly stopped them. It's okay to play, but you can't waste it. These are enough to eat for two days, and you can't have cabbage for every meal.
Only then did they pout and look back every few steps while holding the cabbages.
"Grandpa, what else did you grow at home? Do you want to pick any?" Without waiting for Lin's father to reply, he said, "Dad, Grandpa's fruit mountain is so fun. Can we pick some tomorrow?"
Ye Yaodong patted the back of his head and took the cabbage from his hand. "There's nothing left for you to pick. I'll pick some persimmons the day after tomorrow and then go back."
Father Lin smiled so hard that the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes narrowed into a line. "Haven't you picked enough? Why don't you stay here for a few months? I'll take you up the mountain every day. If you want to pick some tomorrow, I'll take you to pick pumpkins and wormwood. We can also pick some sweet potato leaves to feed the pigs."
"Okay, okay~ Yeah yeah yeah~ There will be fun again tomorrow~" Ye Chenghu jumped three feet high with excitement.
"Go back. You're covered in dirt. Your mother will scold you when you get home."
"I can say that my father took me to play! Just let my mother scold you. What do I, a child, know?"
The father-in-law and his brothers-in-law all laughed, "That's pretty clever."
Ye Yaodong rolled his eyes. He didn't know that his eldest son seemed to be quite smart. He even let him take the blame and spoke in a roundabout way.
"Believe it or not, your mother didn't beat you, but I beat you first? Go home and behave yourself. If you mess around with other girls again, I'll take off your pants and beat you up when I get home."
"A little bit~"
Ye Chenghu was not afraid at all, he made a face and ran forward.
Father Lin quickly chased after him, fearing that the child would run and fall. Elderly people are more affectionate to their grandparents.
There is strength in numbers, so it didn't take them long to climb the mountain. However, it was already quite late when they went there, and by the time they returned to Lin's father's house, it was already past four o'clock, and Lin's mother had already started preparing dinner.
With more guests at home, we must make good preparations. For this purpose, Lin's mother even killed a chicken.
When they came back, she was plucking the feathers of a chicken, and Lin Xiuqing and her two sisters-in-law were helping to pick vegetables and wash taro.
Originally, she planned to cook the taro directly, peel it and eat it with fish sauce when it was cooked. However, when she saw them coming back with ear beans, Lin's mother immediately changed her mind. It happened that she had just bought a piece of leftover pork belly from the village butcher Bin.
Taro rice is also their local specialty. Cut the pork belly into small thin strips, add some minced ginger and stir-fry in the pan to produce oil, then pour in the chopped taro and ear beans and stir-fry, then add some shrimps, add seasoning, add washed rice, stir-fry, add water to cover the ingredients, and then wait for it to be cooked.
Super fragrant!
You can also add some scallops, oysters, etc. as appropriate.
When Ye Yaodong had nothing to do, he would sit at the door and chat with his neighbors and his father-in-law's family, asking about the autumn harvest a while ago and how many fruit trees he had planted this year...
As I was talking, I smelled the aroma of taro rice in the house...