Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

The tractor stayed in the field for the whole afternoon, and Li Long and his colleagues took turns pressing the melon seeds.

At the beginning, I thought this was quite fun, and we took turns, with others picking the melons and putting them next to the pot or in the truck bed.

Du Chunfang sat on the ground, holding a small melon, and found a small stone to hit it hard. Li Long happened to be a bye, so he squatted over and said:
"Mom, want to try it? I'll break it open for you!"

"Okay." Du Chunfang smiled.

Li Long raised his fist and punched the melon-beater.

Du Chunfang held the stone distressedly and said:
"Use a stone to hit it, it will hurt when you use your hands!"

"It's okay." Li Long saw the melon crack with a sound. He was actually trying to hold back, otherwise the melon would have broken into pieces.

Break it open and see the yellow flesh. Li Long picked up half and gave it to his mother:

"Mom, try it!"

"Okay," Du Chunfang pointed at her other half and said:

"You eat it too. The flesh of the melon looks delicious."

Li Long took out half of the melon and started eating it.

The taste is really good. Although not as sweet as watermelon, it has a fragrance that watermelon does not have.

If you pick a few melons with thick skin and put them in a cool room, they can be kept until November or even December. Watermelons, on the other hand, are only good until the end of October. By November, they are either rotten inside or hollow inside, with the flesh becoming flocculent.

Members of the team who were passing by and working saw the Li family squeezing melon seeds in the field and some eating melons, so they would come over from time to time to say hello and try the melons.

Some people like it, some people think it doesn’t taste as good as watermelon, so they open one, take a bite and leave.

Chen Lirong didn't mind the trouble. After the people left, she went over to collect the seeds from the melon and put them into a big pot.

This thing squeezes for a while, and when you get tired, you can rotate. The truck bed is already full of melons. Look at the field. In fact, what has been taken away now and what has been squeezed out only accounts for a small part.

"What should I do if it's squeezed out? I can't pull it out." Liang Yuemei was a little worried.

"Throw it on the ground. You can't let the pigs keep eating it. They can't stand it." Li Long said, "If it rots on the ground, it can fertilize the soil."

There are thousands of melons in one acre of land, and tens of thousands of melons in ten acres of land. It is impossible for all of them to be eaten by pigs. The pigs really cannot bear it.

When the sun was about to set, Li Long and his team stopped squeezing the melon seeds. They took a bag and scooped out the melon seeds from the big pot with a colander. The remaining melon juice was poured directly onto the ground. They then held the pot upside down and placed it on the bed of the cart, with people supporting it on both sides.

This afternoon, he squeezed out two and a half bags of melon seeds. Li Long calculated that if they were dried, they would probably weigh about 20 to 30 kilograms.

This is just a small piece of land, and it’s still a long way to go before we can finish it.

When they returned to the yard, Li Juan and Li Qiang had already returned from school. Li Qiang was feeding the chickens in the yard, and Li Juan came back with a bag of pig feed and was chopping it in the yard, preparing to cook the pig feed later.

Hearing the sound of the tractor, Li Juan and Li Qiang, as well as Xue Ping and Xue Qin who were helping in the yard, all ran to the door and made way.

The four children were very excited to see the car full of melons.

Although they can eat watermelon almost every day, picking watermelon is still a rare thing for them, and they really want to try it.

After getting off the car and taking down the bags, Liang Yuemei and Chen Lirong cleaned up and prepared dinner, while Li Long, Li Jianguo and others unloaded the melons.

Li Long handed a melon to Li Juan, and handed another to Li Qiang:

"Open it. The four of you can each take half and eat it yourself. If you don't like it, come and exchange it. You can choose it yourself."

The melons were unloaded quickly, and soon a pile of melons formed in the corner of the yard. Anyway, they were just there, so we could eat whatever we wanted.

Li Long meant to put a pot at home, leave two people there, and squeeze them from time to time. Then take two pots to the field, pick one melon, squeeze them directly in the field, and pull a cart back after squeezing.

There are not enough people, so Li Long suggested to find a few young people from the team to do the work. They will pay him a few dollars a day, and I think there will be many people willing to do it now.

Several children were digging out the melon pulp and eating it happily. They were very happy to eat the pulp that Li Long thought was not tasty.

After unloading the melons, Li Long was about to tell his sisters-in-law how to suppress the seeds when he saw Lu Tietou from the opposite side walking back hurriedly from outside with his head down, not daring to look over here.

"Iron Head!" Li Long shouted.

Lu Tietou's body trembled, he stopped, and turned his head to look over here.

His expression is a little fearful, which means he is scared by being beaten by his father.

"Come here, pick up two melons and try them." Li Long pointed to the pile of melons. "The melons are ripe. They're not as sweet as watermelons, but they taste good."

Lu Tietou waved his hands hurriedly:

"No, no, no, I don't want to eat it." Then he ran to his yard as if escaping.

"Qiangqiang, take two melons to Tietou's house." Li Long said, "Put them down and come back."

Li Qiang wiped his hands on his clothes, then hugged the melon and hit it. It was too late for Li Long to remind him.

Well, at this time, don’t expect your child’s clothes to stay clean for three days.

Li Qiang hurriedly carried a melon over. Xue Ping and Xue Qin also joined in the fun, staggering over with their melons in their arms.

Lu Yingming was in the room, and was a little surprised when he saw Li Qiang coming over with the melon.

"My uncle said the melon is ripe," Li Qiang said loudly, "It's edible, but not as delicious as watermelon. The taste is different. Let you try it. Uncle Lu, we're leaving now."

After saying this, he led the two little ones away.

Lu Yingming was stunned for a moment, then looked at Tietou in the room.

Tietou shuddered, fearing that his father would remember that incident and beat him with two more belts.

"Try it. People say it's cooked." Fortunately, Lu Yingming is not the kind of person who would look for revenge later. He had already dealt with it at that time, and the Li family had forgiven him, so the matter was over.

"Remember to give the seeds to others after you finish eating them." Lu Yingming added.

The two children confirmed that Lu Yingming was not joking and immediately started playing melon-beating.

Originally, people in rural areas had no habit of eating three meals a day. They ate liquid food when they were free and solid food when they were busy. When they were working, they had porridge in the morning and noodles at noon.

Because the Li family had a child (Li Long was also considered a child at the time), they pulled a few ewes from Liangdonglou for a period of time, milked them, and boiled a pot of goat milk for the child to drink in the evening.

After Li Long was reborn, he developed the habit of eating dinner at home. Because he prepared a lot of food from the beginning, he started with fish soup at night and later had a more formal meal.

Then the Li family developed the habit of eating three meals a day.

Because he had a tractor, Li Long planned to go back to the county after dinner and come back tomorrow morning. Anyway, the tractor was fast, and it would take about half an hour to reach the destination after 10 kilometers.

The next day, after having breakfast in the compound, Li Long drove his tractor back to the team. He did not rush to his eldest brother's yard immediately, but went to Liang's house first.

Liang Laoda was picking up nets in the yard, and Liang Laoer and Liang Laosan were helping. Hearing the sound of the tractor, the three brothers turned their heads to look at the gate of the yard.

Tao Daqiang's wife is about to give birth, and he cannot be away from her for a moment. Although many villagers openly or secretly make fun of him for being henpecked, he does not care and just stays at home, even if he has to go fishing to make money.

Like the three brothers of the Liang family, they made a lot of money from fishing last year and this year, but they didn’t buy bicycles, and I didn’t see them spending money anywhere else. In short, it seems that once the money goes into their house, it can’t go out.

Li Long had a good relationship with the three Liang brothers. Since Tao Daqiang couldn't get away, he came to find them.

The three of them took the initiative to greet Li Long and gave him their own names. The eldest brother Liang simply called him Li Long, while the second and third brothers called him Brother Long.

"Are you ready to go online?" Li Long asked after responding.

"No, let's get the nets out first. We can't sell the fish we catch now at the county level, so we plan to catch more later."

"Brother Long, when will you collect fish again? We think it's most cost-effective to sell the fish to you!" Liang Laosan told the truth, and Liang Laoda glared at him.

Li Long understood that this was because he was thinking about when he could catch fish again to make money.

The Ma County market is so small, and if the village catches more fish, the price will naturally have to go down, otherwise they won’t be able to sell them.

The price has dropped too much, so it is no longer cost-effective to catch fish and sell them.

Or like his father and Tao Daqiang, catch the fish and sell them in Shicheng, where the price of fish is high.

But if you don't have a bicycle, you have to walk or take a horse carriage to Shicheng early in the morning in this hot weather. Unless you get up before dawn, you will arrive there in the middle of the morning.

It's okay once or twice occasionally, but if you do it every day, not many people can endure the hardship.

Unless it's winter, the fish will be frozen no matter what, so it doesn't matter if it's early or late, it's fine.

But Li Long couldn't understand it. With the money the three Liang brothers earned in the past two years, it was more than enough to buy two bicycles. Why didn't they buy them?

He didn't ask more about this, but instead proposed another suggestion:
"The melons at my house are ripe, and I'm in need of people to press the seeds. I wanted to ask if you would like to go? Ten yuan a day per person. But it's quite tiring work." "How do we press the seeds?" asked Boss Liang.

Li Long explained the principle of using a large pot plate to crush melon seeds, and Boss Liang nodded and said:
"Sure, I'll go. My second son can do that, too. The third son..."

"I can go too!" Liang Laosan nodded vigorously, "I can go!"

"Forget about it." Boss Liang waved his hand. "You are not old enough, and you don't have enough strength. You won't be able to work hard if you go there. No way."

Liang Laosan was dejected.

"Old Third, if you have nothing to do, follow our car to pick up and pack the melons. Five dollars a day. How about that?"

Li Long thought that since he had already called the eldest and second eldest, it would not be good if one of them was missing.

Why not just call the third brother along as well? It’s only five dollars, we don’t need that much.

If you can really harvest 180 to 200 kilograms of melon seeds from one acre of melons, then paying 20 to 30 yuan for labor costs is nothing.

After all, a kilogram of melon seeds costs at least one or two yuan. When I asked the roasted nuts factory, they said they would charge two and a half or three yuan.

After making the agreement with the Liang family, Li Long drove the tractor and took the three brothers to the yard of his eldest brother's house.

The Li family was a little surprised to see Li Long bringing the three brothers over, so Li Long told them that he had hired them to suppress the melons.

The Li family was obviously a little surprised. Li Long explained:

"Since our melons are ripe, we have to harvest them as soon as possible. If the melons are left there, you might take a few today and he might take a few tomorrow. If we delay, the loss will be considerable."

Since Li Long has already called people here, the Li family can do nothing even if they don't understand. Now that there are people, the next step is to make adjustments.

Li Qingxia, Du Chunfang, Liang Yuemei and Chen Lirong stayed at home and could crush the melons and the seeds.

Li Long, Li Jianguo and the three Liang brothers took two pots to the field, pressing the melons while picking them up and pulling them back.

By working on both sides together, the work can be done quickly and the melon seeds can be produced as soon as possible.

There were chickens in Li Jianguo's yard, so the melon seeds were put in Li Long's yard to dry. The yard there happened to be flat, so after sweeping it out, he spread some plastic paper and put the flattened melon seeds on it. They dried quickly under the sun.

Li Long and his men drove a tractor loaded with large pots and boards and headed towards the melon field.

When they arrived, some people were already eating melons in the field.

Seeing Li Long and his friends arrive, the visitor was not alarmed. He said he had been here yesterday. He stood up and greeted them with a smile.

Li Long and the others didn't say anything. They moved the big pot down and started crushing the melon seeds.

Liang Lao Da and Li Jianguo were in one group, Li Long and Liang Lao Er were in another group, and Liang Lao San picked melons and put them into the truck bed.

"Can you guys eat this melon freely?" Liang Laosan asked occasionally.

"Eat whatever you want, just leave the seeds. You can take a few back to eat when you go back, and just bring the seeds here tomorrow." Li Long said.

When Liang Lao San wanted to open a melon to taste it, Liang Lao Da scolded him:
"Work first! You got paid!"

At this time, most people still have a strong sense of contract. If you take someone's money, you have to work hard. Besides, if you cheat in front of the owner, does that mean you don't want to do it?

Liang Laosan hurriedly ran to the cart with the melons in his arms. Li Long smiled but did not try to persuade him.

It is just as Boss Liang said, since you have been paid, you have to work like a real worker.

It is indeed very simple to crush pumpkin seeds, but it becomes a strenuous job once you know the trick.

At first, Li Long was a little worried that if he offered them ten yuan, they might not be willing to do it, but if he offered more, it would be a bit uneconomical.

In fact, ten yuan a day is already a very high price. It's just that because Li Long gave several big jobs to the fourth team, everyone earned more every day, so ten yuan is not so conspicuous.

In fact, if this price were offered to other teams, many people would be eager to do it.

The four men worked very quickly. Yesterday they were just playing around with the seeds in the field, but today they were working seriously. By mid-morning, the big pot was already full of melon seeds. Li Long felt that the melons from the half-acre field from yesterday had already been harvested.

Among them, several groups of people came to taste the melons. Some were just passing by, while some were obviously here on purpose - these people's homes and fields were not nearby, so it was unlikely that they were just passing by.

When there are people in the field, they eat the melons and leave the seeds. Li Long guessed that if there were no one in the field, they would probably take two back home after eating to bring back for their family to try.

I used a colander to scoop out the melon seeds from the big pot and poured out the melon juice. There were two and a half bags of melon seeds in total, nearly two hundred kilograms of them wet, and about one hundred kilograms if dried, right?

The truck bed was already full of melons. Liang Lao Da and Lao Er helped Li Long load the melon seeds onto the truck. Li Long said to them:
"You guys take a break first and try some melon. I'll take it back."

The tractor rumbled away, and Boss Liang looked at Li Jianguo.

"Why are you looking at me? Eat the best melon. Let's take a rest until the tractor comes. I'm really tired and thirsty." Li Jianguo picked up a melon, smashed it open and started eating.

The three brothers of the Liang family immediately followed suit, found the melons they liked and started beating them.

Liang Laosan cheered. What he cracked open was a melon with yellow flesh. It looked very beautiful. He looked up to see how Li Jianguo ate it. He had to learn how to eat it.

Li Jianguo didn't care about much at this time. He just reached out and took out a large piece of melon pulp, put it to his mouth and started to chew it. Liang Laosan immediately followed suit and felt that the taste was very good.

Li Long drove the tractor to his eldest brother's yard. After stopping, he took down the bag of melon seeds first.

"Hey, you young people work really fast!" Li Qingxia laughed, "There's a cartload of melons here that haven't been pressed out yet."

"How can they be the same?" Li Long said with a smile, "There's no rush here. Once we finish the work in the fields, we can slowly work on the work at home."

There were a lot of melon seeds, so Liang Yuemei and Chen Lirong had some work to do, and Du Chunfang also joined in. They couldn't do the heavy work, but it was no problem to just squint and pick out the seeds that were sticking up inside.

By noon, two more bags of melon seeds were produced, and a large area of ​​the field was cleared.

Lunch was eaten in the fields. Li Long took the melons and melon seeds home, and then brought food from home to the fields. Big white steamed buns and two stir-fried vegetables, both with meat, not minced meat, but chunks of meat.

The three Liang brothers could never get to eat such dishes on normal days. They ate them in two large enamel basins. Li Long and Li Jianguo ate a normal amount, and the other portions were finished by the three brothers.

Li Long did not treat the three Liang brothers badly in terms of food. They worked very hard and did not take a rest after lunch. They continued to work right after eating. However, Li Long forced them to take a half-hour rest to avoid stomachaches if they had to work right after eating.

As a result, I worked more in the afternoon than in the morning and produced six bags of melon seeds.

Li Long finished clearing nearly two acres of land today.

All the melons will be harvested in six days at most.

Before leaving, Li Long paid the three brothers. This job was paid on a daily basis, and Li Long had no habit of delaying other people's wages.

On the last trip, he drove his tractor into the village and sent the three Liang brothers home first.

Originally, Li Long wanted to take him directly to Li's house and have dinner before going back, but Boss Liang refused.

Let's send it back first, and ask them to unload a few melons for our family to taste.

After the three Liang brothers got off the car, the eldest brother Liang said to Li Long:

"Li Long, you don't need to come and pull us tomorrow. We will go to the melon field by ourselves."

"Okay." Li Long responded and drove the tractor back.

The three Liang brothers came into the house carrying melons. They didn't have the habit of eating dinner at home. At most they would have some sweet soup as a midnight snack.

"Brother, here's the money." said the second brother.

"I'll give you some money too." The third brother also handed over the money.

Boss Liang was very pleased.

He took the twenty-five dollars together, thought about it, took out ten of them, put the remaining fifteen on his body, and then took the ten dollars into the house and handed them to his father:

"Dad, this is the money we earned from working. I saved the rest."

"Okay." Old man Liang took the money, looked at it, and put it in his pocket.

Someone outside shouted:

"Is Dacheng here?" The eldest brother of Liang is called Dacheng, the second brother is called Shuangcheng, and the third brother is called Quncheng.

Not many people are called by their full names, because their families have always called them by the eldest, second, or third oldest, and others follow suit.

The person outside is Xu Jianjun.

Boss Liang was a little unhappy. (End of this chapter)