Era: Started from raising livestock in the mountains

"Where?"

Lin Heng looked over curiously, but didn't see it.

"Awoo~" Xiongba obviously found it too, and it seemed that because Lin Heng didn't see it, it was anxious.

Xiu Lan whispered to him in the direction: "Look, the grass is still moving next to the mulberry tree. You can see the chicken butt in a while."

Lin Heng stared at it for a long time before he finally saw it.

It's just like looking for something. Sometimes it's right next to you but you can't find it.

"Tonight we'll have chicken."

Lin Heng said with a smile, put down his bow bag and took out his bow and arrow. The distance was more than 30 meters, but he was confident.

With a whoosh, the sharp arrow broke through the sky and shot into the grass. With a scream, all the movement disappeared.

"Awoo~"

Xiongba immediately showed a Samoyed smile and ran over to pick up the pheasant.

"Woof woof!"

But this time it didn't return immediately, but called out.

"Is there a pheasant egg? Let's go and see."

Lin Heng was puzzled, and he and Xiu Lan put down the things and walked over.

When she got closer, Xiulan was pleasantly surprised: "There are indeed pheasant eggs, but unfortunately there are only four."

"It looks like they just started laying recently, so we can take them back and eat them." Lin Heng said with a smile.

Speaking of pheasants, they weigh about three pounds, and they are already very fat at this time.

As for why pheasants are still laying eggs in July, it is not difficult to understand.

Pheasants normally start laying eggs in May, but if there are few chicks to hatch, or the eggs are stolen, they will continue to lay eggs until enough chicks are hatched.

This pheasant is probably unlucky. It is still laying eggs now. It should be that the first nest did not hatch, and now it has lost its life.

But Lin Heng can't do anything about it. This is how nature works.

"Let's go, let's go pick fairy leaves." Xiulan said softly after taking the eggs.

"Well, let's go."

Lin Heng put the blood of the pheasant into the backpack and walked up the mountain.

When they came to the top of the mountain, they found the turtledove leaves here after searching for a while. This thing smells very strange and can be smelled from a distance.

"Not bad, I can make two kilograms of tofu."

Xiu Lan nodded as she looked at the leaves of the tree. She hadn't eaten them for many days, and she wanted to eat them again recently.

Lin Heng helped pick them together, and it took about ten minutes to finish.

After picking the leaves, Lin Heng looked at Xiu Lan and asked, "Are you waiting for me here, or are you going hunting with me?"

"With you, I'll help you." Xiu Lan thought for a while and said.

"Okay, be careful of snakes."

Lin Heng said, and then he took the bow and arrow and searched around with Xiong Ba. This area was a desolate dragon beard grass slope, but there were traces of rabbits.

He didn't expect to find any big prey at the doorstep, just hunting rabbits and pheasants would be enough.

With Xiong Ba here, this thing is still easy to hunt, as long as you can find it.

However, the two men and the dog searched for a long time but found nothing. Finally, Lin Heng shook his head helplessly: "It seems that what they said before about rabbits here is probably false. Let's go to the soybean field below to have a look."

"Okay." Xiulan nodded and followed Lin Heng quietly.

The soybeans are about to be harvested, and rabbits and deer will go to steal them. Lin Heng came to the soybean field on the mountain and found that there was already someone. When he got closer, he found that it was Wang Kaidian.

"Uncle Wang, did you catch it?" Lin Heng asked with a smile.

"No, I'm going to guard it for a while." Wang Kaidian smiled.

"Then let's go somewhere else."

Lin Heng nodded and pulled Xiulan to go down. If you are not hunting in a team, try not to get too close to others to avoid conflicts.

Because both sides have lethal weapons, once a dispute occurs, it may lead to a big accident.

Wang Kaidian smiled and pointed to a place for the two of them: "You can go to the yellow willow row above. There are many bamboo partridges there, all looking for food in the forest. I shot two bamboo partridges the day before yesterday."

"Okay, let's go up and try it." Lin Heng nodded and took Xiulan to that place.

After walking a distance, Xiulan asked: "Do you think it's really there?"

Lin Heng turned around and said: "It should be. Anyway, it's not far away, so let's go and have a look. I remember that there are indeed many half-summer trees on the mountain over there, and bamboo partridges like to eat this."

After walking for more than ten minutes, the two came to the yellow willow row. The yellow willow tree is the cotinus coggygria, which is everywhere in this place.

However, the two walked for a long time and didn't find it. Instead, they saw a lot of thornberries on the side of the road. It tasted pretty good when picked and eaten.

The two were too lazy to walk, so they picked thornberries here for a while and prepared to take some back to Xiaoxia.

"Listen, this is the call of the muntjac, right?"

Suddenly, Xiulan stopped and pointed up and said.

"It's the muntjac that's calling, but I don't think there's any hope. The muntjacs in this place are very cautious."

Although Lin Heng said this, he still started to walk up, and Xiulan followed far behind.

After climbing the mountain for 20 minutes, they finally got closer, but the muntjac stopped calling. After stopping and waiting for a while, they found that the call had reached the ravine farther away.

"It's really hopeless. I made you run for nothing." Xiulan climbed up and blinked and smiled.

"Then let's take a look at the scenery. Let's go down and see if we can catch bamboo partridges or something. It's easier to catch them at dusk."

Lin Heng pointed to the seat next to him and signaled her to sit over.

Xiu Lan smiled and sat down, fanning herself with her hands. She only panted slightly after climbing so high, but her head was sweating from the heat.

This place is not the top of the mountain yet, the wind is blocked by trees, but you can already see the mountains and valleys in the distance.

The setting sun is at the end of these undulating mountains, and the sky above is gradually turning red. The mountains and forests are quiet, and occasionally two birds can be seen flying into the sky.

The two watched quietly for a while. Xiong Ba first had fun nearby, and when he was tired, he came back and rested at Lin Heng's feet.

After resting for ten minutes, Lin Heng stood up and stretched out his hand and said, "Let's go, wife, let's go home."

"Let's go home!"

Xiu Lan took his hand and stood up. The two walked back one after the other. Lin Heng searched again in the yellow willow tree row, but there was still no trace of prey.

Mainly because the leaves have fallen now, it is more difficult to find, and Xiong Ba is powerless.

On the way back, they met two turtledoves, but they rested too high and could not be hit at all.

Lin Heng is used to this situation. He spent ten days in the mountains and nine days in vain. He was lucky to get a pheasant today.

As he was going down the mountain, Lin Heng asked, "By the way, wife, do you want to go back to your parents' home this year?"

"Forget it. My parents came to see us last year. Let's wait until our son is older." Xiulan thought for a while and said.

Lin Heng smiled and said, "If you want to go, we can find a time to go back."

Xiulan shook her head, "I don't have this plan for the time being. It's not convenient to go out with such a young child."

As they talked, the two returned home quickly. Xiulan fed the child and washed the leaves of the fairy tree with Caiyun.

Lin Heng blanched the pheasant and cleaned it. He put the whole chicken and eggs into a casserole and stewed them. He added matsutake and morels, as well as chestnuts, lotus seeds and red dates.

Stew for two hours, just right for dinner when it gets dark.

Xiulan made the fairy tofu and put it aside to prepare dinner.

She wanted to eat spicy hot pot today, so she prepared many vegetables, pumpkin tips, purslane and other strange wild vegetables, and a piece of herring, and cooked them all with hot pot base.

For dinner, she had a spicy hot pot, a cold tofu, and a pheasant stewed with matsutake and morel.

After it was done, she called her parents to eat together.

While eating, Lin Heng smiled and said, "Everything in this spicy hot pot is good, but it's missing a beef meatball."

"I think you've become picky, pork and fish are not enough." Lin's mother rolled her eyes.

Xiaoxia, who was eating pheasant eggs in Lin's mother's arms, raised her head and said crisply, "Grandma, I want to eat beef balls too."

Facing Xiaoxia, Lin's mother immediately put on a smiling face: "Then wait a few days, grandma will go to the town to see if there are any for sale. If there are, I'll buy them back for you to eat."

Lin Heng: "..."

"Mom, let's kill a sheep and barbecue it in a few days." Lin Heng looked at his mother and smiled again.

"Eat if you want to. It's hard to raise too many lambs." When it comes to mutton, Lin's mother agreed.

This is because the original ewe gave birth to two lambs this year, plus the two that grew up last year, there are five lambs, so it's not easy to raise so many lambs outside.

"Okay, let's find a time to kill them and eat meat, and then make a barbecue." Lin Heng said with a smile.

"Then second brother, you must kill them before I go to school. I also want to eat roasted lamb." Caiyun joked.

"Xiaoxia also likes roasted lamb." Xiaoxia raised her little hand and said.

Lin Heng nodded and said, "No problem, I'll kill it in a few days."

While eating and chatting, they soon finished the spicy hot pot, and then divided the stewed pheasant.

The chicken soup stewed with mushrooms is very fragrant. Everyone finished the soup as soon as it was served on the table.

Now they shared the pheasant and only had a little fairy tofu left.

The next morning, Lin Heng woke up and heard the sound of rain outside. He opened the window and saw that it was raining heavily.

"I wanted to go hunting today, but it seems hopeless." Lin Heng shook his head helplessly.

"Take a rest and get up." Xiulan looked at him and said.

Lin Heng nodded and lay on the bed for a while, but he couldn't fall asleep. As long as he went to bed early at night, he couldn't fall asleep in the morning.

He took a book and read it for a while, then got up to exercise. There was nothing to do during the day, so he read to his wife and daughter in the house and played puzzle games with Xiaoxia.

Xiulan took out the sewing machine to do needlework, and Caiyun helped and learned by the side. In the cognition of women in this era, cooking and needlework are two skills that must be learned.

It rained for three days. During these two days, they went to pick some tender corn to cook corn porridge, and used the crushed tender corn to ferment and sour it to make steamed buns.

The day when the rain stopped was already the 19th. Lin Heng was at home to look after the children, and Xiulan, Caiyun and Lin's mother went to pick mushrooms together.

The two children in the crib are now very good at crawling. Sometimes they will crawl together and fight, and then cry loudly waiting for Lin Heng to come and hug them.

I don’t know whether it is because the general resistance of babies in this era is strong, or the two have good physiques. They have had three minor illnesses in just six months after birth, but they are usually healthy.

Lin Heng was bored at home and played with his two sons, letting them crawl around in the crib like playing with cats. It was fun and beneficial to their growth.

Xiulan and her friends came back at noon, but they didn’t get much. They picked up two or three pounds of chanterelles, more than ten pounds of broom mushrooms, and more than twenty pounds of tea tree mushrooms.

"There are not as many mushrooms as before these two days." Xiulan shook her head.

Caiyun said: "I guess the good fungi have finished growing in June, and now the forest is full of unfamiliar fungi."

"I'll try again in the afternoon. If it doesn't work, I won't reduce it." Mother Lin was a little unwilling.

Lin Heng smiled and said: "It's not bad. Anyway, I picked up enough mushrooms this year to last until the New Year."

Collecting mushrooms has now become about experiencing the joy of harvest, and no one is obsessed with selling for money.

"Wait until September, there will be matsutake and pine fungus." Xiulan said with a smile.

At noon they fried chanterelles and stir-fried some dried tea tree mushrooms, which are very fragrant when stir-fried.

After dinner, Lin Heng went to Hongfeng Mountain to check the fish and shrimp situation. It would be better to come and take a look.

When he came over, Father Lin was feeding grass carp with grass, and he heard the sound of thumping in the pond.

"The cattle and sheep with so much pasture now can't eat it all. If there were no other ponds, I would like to raise some more grass carp."

Father Lin said while looking at the grass carps fighting for food.

"It will be better when the black goats start giving birth to babies in September or October. If you can't use them all for now, just give them away." Lin Heng thought for a while and said.

These grass carp have grown very fast this summer and now weigh three to four kilograms. If they are fed every day, they will weigh six or seven kilograms in winter.

"It's not a lot more. Except for your third father and other important relatives, I didn't bother to give it away. I dried it and kept it. When the cattle and sheep can't finish it, it will be used as firewood." Father Lin said with a smile.

While his father was feeding grass carp, Lin Heng looked from pond to pond to check the situation of the shrimp ponds.

When he was sure there was nothing wrong, he took his father to the mountains to harvest the two barrels of honey that had not been harvested in the spring.

With the growth of the rose wall and the addition of several dogs, Hongfeng Mountain is now safer, and it is more difficult for ordinary people to come in.

When there is money in the back, he will surround it with barbed wire, so that the security level will be raised to a higher level.

The plum blossom fry on the mountain have grown a lot recently, and they can grow to one or two weights. Feeding them with feed is much faster than natural growth.

The number of ginseng seedlings in the ginseng garden has decreased by more than half compared to last year. Some of the missing ginseng seedlings are dead, while others are dormant and may grow back next year.

The ginseng plants have grown taller, but they have only been planted for two years and will have to wait until next year to bloom and bear fruit.

Once the seeds are harvested, we can work with the village party secretary to set up a cooperative, and he will produce ginseng seeds for free.

After watching the ginseng, Lin Heng put on a bee-proof hat and cut the honey. Unfortunately, he was stung twice on his hand this time.

"Is everything okay, son?" Father Lin asked.

"It's okay. There are three or four kilograms of honey after this harvest. Take it back and eat it with my mother. We still have a dozen kilograms in the house."

Lin Heng waved his hand, looked at his father and said. The two boxes of bees did not produce much honey, which may have been caused by Hu Feng's persecution.

"Then give it to your mother. I won't eat it. It's too sweet." Father Lin waved his hand.

The two of them slowly walked down the mountain with their things, and were discussing when to kill the sheep, when they saw their third father, Lin Xutao, running over in a hurry, as if something big had happened.