Wild fire, in spring. The vitality of weeds is the most tenacious, and it is the warm spring season. In front of the village, behind the village, up and down the mountains, all kinds of weeds and vegetables are the most indispensable. Half-year-old children in the village can cut a basket in a short time when they go down the mountain.
The Yu family doesn't have enough hands, but there are so many idle children in the village! If the price is based on two baskets of pigweed for one penny, there should be many children who can earn money to buy snacks!
After Yu Xiaocao's analysis, the Yu family also felt that raising a hundred or so pigs didn't seem to be a big problem. The three uncles still helped to collect the piglets in the countryside. Not long after, the pig farm was built, with tall and neat courtyard walls, rows of brand new and spacious pig sheds, mountain springs brought down from the mountain with bamboo tubes, converging in a pool made of stones... everything was ready to stop.
The little pigs were put into their new homes, and five fat little pigs were placed in each pigpen, and half of the twenty pigpens were empty!
Xiaolian and her aunt and daughter withdrew from the pier. The locust plague last year had a great impact on the business of the terminal. First of all, the business of stewed vegetables can no longer continue, because the butchers can't receive live pigs after the spring, and pigs with pigs in the water can only come across once in a while.
Although her family is not short of food, but every family can't wait to break a copper coin into two halves. How can they be willing to buy a bowl of noodles and sit down to enjoy when the children and women are hungry
Originally, my aunt and cousin Liu Feiyan had already returned to Xishan Village. I heard from my man that the Yu family was going to start a pig farm and wanted her to help, so I had already been thinking about it. No, as soon as the pig farm was built, she packed her bags and brought her little girl to live in the house of the pig farm.
At present, Piggy is still young, not eating much, and the number is not too much. The aunt, mother and daughter, sister Xiaocao, and the more and more energetic old man Yu, took a sickle and carried a basket, and walked around the pig farm once or twice casually, and they were able to harvest enough pigweed every day. What's more, there are three cousins from the Liu family who come to help from time to time, and there are enough people.
In order to ensure that pigs grow fast, it is definitely not enough to feed pig grass. The Yu family had stored coarse grains for the whole winter, and they didn't move at all. With white rice and white noodles, who wants to eat whole grains! The sweet potatoes that were snapped up last year were all dried into dried sweet potatoes.
After the seeds were removed from the corn, there were still thousands of catties left, which were all ground into coarse corn balls. Some of them were kept for porridge, and the rest were used to feed pigs. If the old stubborn Shangshu of the Household Department knew that Yu Xiaocao fed corn to pigs, he would die of anger and come back to life!
There are also a lot of coarse grains such as bean flour and millet flour, which are piled up in the warehouse. Old Yu felt sorry for the food, and was afraid that the food would overgrow insects, and he sighed every day when he saw these.
Yu Xiaolian and her aunt, mother and daughter are in charge of cooking pig food. In a corner of the pig farm, five stoves and five big pots work together in a row of bamboo sheds. The three of them are all used to kitchen work. It is difficult to cook pig food for fifty or sixty piglets. they.
Yu Xiaocao came to help every day. The main task was to add Lingshi water to the pool. Pig food is boiled with extremely light spirit stone water, pigs love to eat it, and they don't get sick and grow fast!
Zhu Junyang in the middle of the capital found out about her pig farm, so he sent dozens of piglets and several carts of coarse grains such as rice bran, wheat bran, and millet flour. The number of piglets in the pig farm has increased to one hundred and twenty at this time.
Yu Xiaocao did the math, and if she sells one pig a day, the piglets caught first will be sold until the Chinese New Year, so the uncles will stop accepting piglets.
With one hundred and twenty piglets, the amount of pigweed needed every day is not a small amount. The three of Xiao Lian and the eldest aunt were too busy just to cook pig food. They were really overwhelmed, so they invited Liu Yan'er, who was already twelve, to come over to help.
The purchase of pigweed was on the agenda. Yu Xiaocao found three good sisters, Zhou Shanhu, Qian Yafang and Liu Huifang, and told them that the pig farm needs two baskets of pigweed for one penny. The three little sisters who had nothing to do at all expressed their willingness to help.
In the past, if conditions allowed, hard-working people would catch one or two piglets to raise in the spring, and they would sell or sell or kill pigs for meat during the Chinese New Year. The three little sisters have raised pigs at home before, and it is too easy for them to hunt pigweed. It is no problem to pack four baskets a day leisurely!
When I learned that the Yu family collected at least thirty baskets of pigweed every day, there might be more in the future. The three little sisters discussed for a while, and the three of them will do it first, they are too busy, don't they still have brothers and sisters at home? When the piglet grows up, the demand for pigweed will increase, so it won't be too late to find someone else.
That day, Zhou Huan and others took a bamboo basket of the same size from Yu's house, took a sickle, and mowed grass at the foot of the West Mountain. Qian Yafang brought Qian Wu, who was reluctant, and Liu Huifang brought her younger siblings. Only Zhou Coral was alone, there was no other way, her brother went to sell goods in the streets with her father, her sister got married, her mother had to serve a group of chicks, and she was the only one at home.
On the first day, Zhou Shanhu earned three Wen, Qian Yafang earned five Wen, and Liu Huifang and her brother made nine Wen. When buying pigweed, settle the account on the spot, if it is less than a penny, it will be settled with the next day.
After a month, Liu Huifang and her brother didn't expect that they could earn more than 300 coins. Now, in order to earn some money to make ends meet, I don’t know how many people are staring at the position of a part-time job. When I meet an unscrupulous employer, I can’t earn ten cents a day.
Therefore, when Liu Huifang handed over the money she had held for a month to her mother, Shuanzhu's wife asked in surprise, "Huifang, how did you get so much money?"
In the past, more than three hundred texts were not too many. When the tide is low, dig sea intestines for a day, and if you are lucky, you can earn almost this amount. But in the disaster year last year, the coast near Dongshan Village was crowded with people every day, the tidal flats were almost turned upside down, and the sea intestines were almost dug up to extinction.
The daughter helped with the housework every day, and took her younger siblings out to play. Every time she asked her, she said that she went to play with her good sister Yu Xiaocao, but Shuanzhu's wife didn't take it to heart. Unexpectedly, the daughter earned back more than three hundred Wen in silence.
Liu Huifang told about how she helped Yu's pig farm to harvest pigweed. Shuanzhu's daughter-in-law gave her a reproachful look, and said, "Let's not talk about your relationship with Xiaocao, just because of your father's relationship with your Uncle Yu, we can't take money for a little help! Let's go, Mother will take you to return the money to Xiaocao!"
Liu Huifang didn't feel sorry for the money, she said patiently: "Mother, you also know how Uncle Yu and Xiaocao are. If we don't charge money, they will definitely not let us help. Instead of asking others, we should Stuff more pigweed in each basket, and stuff the baskets tightly, lest Xiaocao pay the money, but the amount of pigweed received is not much."
Liu Shuanzhu, who was drying fishing nets in the courtyard, agreed with his daughter's words: "Mother, Huifang is right. You also know that Brother Dahai doesn't like to take advantage of others, and he doesn't take money from him. Maybe we will be compensated more in the future!"
Shuan Zhu's daughter-in-law hesitated for a moment when she heard the words, and then said: "Since the head of the family also said so, let's take the money?"
Like Yu Hai, Liu Shuanzhu loves his children: "Our Huifang, Xiaoying, and Tie Dan'er are all capable, and each of them will reward them with ten coins as pocket money! Buy a few catties of white flour, and go to Brother Dahai's house to cut two Catty leeks, let’s eat vegetable boxes tonight!!”
When the three little ones heard it, they immediately jumped up and cheered. Shuan Zhu's wife smiled and glared at the man: "You, is there anyone who spoils children like you? It's fine to make a vegetable box, but what pocket money do you give me! A child's hand is loose, and he will be defeated in a blink of an eye!!"
Liu Huifang put ten copper coins into the purse she embroidered, and she was a little unconvinced when she heard the words: "Mother, I don't agree with what you said!! Sister Xiaocao is younger than me! Her family's money is all She is palming, and I haven't heard that she spends a dime indiscriminately. There are also Xiao Sha (Yu Hang's nickname) and Xiao Lian. .Which one of them wasted money?"
Yingzi also nodded and echoed: "Yes, yes! Xiaocao is amazing!! She said: money is earned, not saved. Only money can be spent to make money!! You see, Xiaocao's family spends money, Never soft-hearted, whoever eats white rice and white noodles in a calamity year, there will be meat in every meal... "
The daughter-in-law of Shuanzhu pinched her daughter's face, and said: "Who can compare with that girl Xiaocao? That girl has a golden head, and she can come up with a way to make money by turning around casually. Yingzi, if you can If it is half as good as hers, our family will let you hold the money!"
Yingzi thought for a while, and said a little discouraged: "My brain is not as good as Xiaocao, and I can't think of a way to make money..."
Liu Huifang hesitated for a moment, and said what she had been pondering for a long time, and let the grown-ups applaud: "Father, mother! I want to catch some chicks and bring them back to raise! I heard from Xiaocao that they raise pigs." It is to open a stewed vegetable shop in Fucheng. I was thinking, the stewed vegetable shop can’t just buy stewed pork, stewed chicken and stewed duck, etc., they should also sell some with it? There are not many chickens in our village. If you keep it up, you don't have to worry about selling it..."
Liu Shuanzhu stopped what he was doing, thought carefully, nodded slowly and said: "My daughter is right!!"
"What makes sense? The child is whimsical, and you, a father, also follow along! Raising chickens, who doesn't want to raise them? Even if you don't sell them, you can lay eggs to make money. But the key is, who has surplus food to raise them?" Open that mouth!!" Wife Shuan Zhu felt that both men and daughters were unreliable.
Liu Shuanzhu thought for a while, and said: "If it doesn't work, I'll borrow Brother Da Da's carriage, and go to a farther place to buy wheat bran and come back. With wild vegetables and so on, we can raise a hundred or eighty chickens on the condition of our family , it should still be possible.”
Liu Shuanzhu, who hunted sharks with Yu Hai several times last year, rebuilt his house and built a big yard when he got money. Now vegetables are planted on one side of the yard, a low wall is built with stones on the other side, and a few grass sheds are built, which is a big chicken coop.