Spring scenery in the fields

Chapter 170: Planting Vegetables and Herding Geese

The two men came to the vegetable field and saw Wang Erfeng coming out of the field, carrying a basket and walking towards them.

“You’re planting vegetables so soon.”

Ji Wenhe lowered the brim of his hat to block out the sunlight: "Yes, Aunt Wang, your family has finished planting the rice seedlings."

"It's done. I'm also going to turn the soil and plant vegetables."

She carried the basket and put it on the edge of the field.

"I'll send some food to your house, and you can take it back later. I won't send it there."

"Aunt Wang, we have some at home, you can take it back."

"What you have is yours. I have a lot of vegetables in my garden, and we can't eat them all, so I picked some for you."

Ji Wenhe smiled and shook his head: "It's really not necessary, Aunt Wang, you can take it back."

Wang Erfeng looked at her pretending to be unhappy: "Why, you still dislike your aunt's things?"

"Aunt Wang, I'm not disgusted, it's my family, you can keep it for your family."

"You and Rongshan have worked hard to help my family. I can't let you help for nothing. My aunt's house doesn't have anything valuable. These are just some dishes. Please don't despise them."

After saying that, he picked up the basket on the ground.

"I'd better send it to your house, otherwise you will definitely not accept it."

"Hey, Aunt Wang." Ji Wenhe didn't call her and walked away quickly, as if he was afraid that she would come forward and grab him.

"Brother Shen, why don't you return it to their family later."

"Take it." Shen Rongshan dug a hole, "If you send it, she will send it back."

"If we keep sending gifts to each other, it will make people unhappy and they will think we despise them."

"That's fine. It just so happens that the vegetables we grow at home are not enough to eat. This saves us from going to town to buy them."

Ji Wenhe put down the seeds and glanced at the long beans.

"The soil here is really bad. The crops we plant grow small and slow."

It is too lacking in nutrition, unless more manure and water are used to irrigate the land.

"The land here is really not good. It's not as good as the land in the plains. Everything grows well there."

Shen Rongshan had seen this and even thought about taking his family to live in the plains if he could no longer stay in Shenjia Village.

At this time, Wang Erfeng came over from the west and said with a smile: "The vegetables are in your kitchen. When you are done eating, go to my vegetable garden and pick some."

"Your family doesn't grow enough vegetables, so don't be polite to your aunt."

"Aunt Wang, your family grows a lot of vegetables, why don't you go to town to sell them?" Ji Wenhe asked.

"Yes, it's not easy to go to town. In previous years, your uncle would go to town to sell it."

"We'll see this year. If we can't finish the food at home, we have to sell it in town. We have to feed our family first."

"Aunt Wang is right."

She sighed and said, "But it's not easy to sell in town because there are so many people selling it, so the price will naturally go down."

"Of course, people who buy vegetables will go to whichever store offers the cheapest prices."

“Sometimes when I go to town, I can’t sell a single vegetable and have to carry it back.”

Ji Wenhe nodded in understanding. He worked so hard to grow the land, but to sell it at such a low price would be unfair to himself who took good care of it every day.

"Aunt Wang, I noticed that your family has planted a lot of long beans."

"Yes, long beans can produce a lot of them. We farmers grow the most long beans."

"But I've been tired of eating this stuff since I was a kid, but I have to plant it, it will bear fruit."

Wang Erfeng was really fed up with eating long beans, but she had to grow them at home every year.

If I can’t sell it, I’ll just eat it myself.

"Okay, you guys are busy, I'm going home to get busy too."

"Hey, Aunt Wang, take care."

Ji Wenhe looked at the long beans in his own field and said, "Brother Shen, don't they pickle the beans?"

"Salt is expensive, and if you don't pickle it properly it will go bad. Most farmers don't pickle vegetables, they only pickle some dried radishes to eat in the winter."

"That's it."

Sour beans are her favorite.

"Brother Shen, go to town and buy some clay pots at the end of the month. I want to pickle the beans."

She had pickled a bottle before and it tasted pretty good.

"Okay." Shen Rongshan looked up at her, "You don't really like pickled food. Whenever we fry the pickled meat at home, you never pick up your chopsticks."

Ji Wenhe nodded, then shook his head: "I don't eat much pickled meat, but I like pickled radish, pickled beans, and hot and sour cucumbers."

In fact, a big part of the reason is that eating too much pickled food is bad for your health.

But here, if we don’t pickle the vegetables, we will have nothing to eat in the winter.

"Buy a few more pottery jars. Pickle more if you like. Yuanshan and his friends also like it."

Shen Rongshan thought about it and said again.

"Wait until the end of the month to buy fine salt. Fine salt is better than coarse salt."

She always says that coarse salt tastes strange and affects the taste of the dishes.

Ji Wenhe thought of the price of fine salt and felt a little reluctant.

But she always felt that things pickled with coarse salt tasted weird and were not as good as those pickled with fine salt.

"Let's wait until the end of the month. We've bought a lot of things, so it's going to cost a lot of money all at once."

I also have to buy a piece of land, which will cost me a lot of money from my savings, and it hurts.

It's easy to spend money, but hard to make money!

After the vegetables were planted, Shen Rongshan went to the river to fetch water.

Ji Wenhe took out scraps of cloth and tied different colors together.

Find a long branch and tie some scraps of fabric to one end.

Seeing him coming back with a bucket, he said, "Brother Shen, you stay home and sleep. I'll go and herd the geese."

Shen Rongshan was worried: "I'll go with you."

"No, we agreed that you should rest at home today."

Ji Wenhe waved the long stick in his hand.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine. Just take a good rest at home. Otherwise, if the head of the village sees you, he'll ask you to help again."

She waved her hand with her back to him, and went down the mountain carrying the stick: "I'm leaving now, you should have a good rest at home."

It was her first time to release geese. She had only seen them on the roadside before and didn’t know if they would listen to her.

When they arrived at the edge of the wasteland, they opened the door, drove the geese and ducks out, and then closed the door again.

I drove them back and forth towards the village entrance. I felt a little uneasy at first, but gradually I found the feeling.

Don't go too fast or follow too closely, or they will be scared and run away.

"Oh, are we going to be exiled from the village?" Lan Qiuhua asked.

"Yes, Aunt Lan, let's go to the creek we went to last time. There are a lot of aquatic plants there, and we don't drink water from it."

"Where's Rongshan?"

"I told him to sleep at home. It's not far anyway, I can go there by myself. Aunt Lan, I'm leaving now."

Lan Qiuhua smiled and warned: "Hey, slow down, don't be anxious, don't scare them."

"okay, I get it."

Herding the geese was not as difficult as she had imagined, but!

It took some effort to drive them ashore from the river.

There were two times when I went down to chase them away and almost slipped into the water.

When I entered the village, I saw Miao Zhaodi washing the mud off her trouser legs in the river.

"Aunt Miao, your seedlings have been planted."

She turned her head: "Yeah."

Her husband's legs are paralyzed, so she and her son are the only ones there.

Shen Liang was a strong-willed man and he did not ask Shen Rongshan to help their family.

He didn't say anything, and she didn't want Shen Rongshan to go. He had already helped two families and was very tired.