Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

The day before the Mid-Autumn Festival, Tao Daqiang, Xie Yundong, Jia Weidong, Liang Dacheng and others came to Li's house carrying things.

Li Long was already there before they came. Not only Li Long was there, but Gu Xiaoxia and her two children were there too. Today was Sunday, and Gu Xiaoxia had a day off. According to the local custom, on August 15th, the children had to go to their grandparents' house to spend the day together, so Li Long brought his wife and children to his eldest brother's place a day in advance.

Although I eat with Gu Boyuan every day, it’s a holiday and we have to eat together.

Dad Li Qingxia hasn’t come back yet, but mom and elder brother are here, so that’s enough.

Du Chunfang rarely saw her two little grandchildren, and she was very happy. The two children were still young at that time, so she laid a reed mat under the grape trellis, and then put a mattress on it, and let the two children lie on it and play.

Li Juan and Li Qiang were also very fond of the two little brothers. One was responsible for tying the dog, and the other was responsible for chasing the chickens. They would occasionally ask Gu Xiaoxia if the two children could have something to eat. It depended on the situation. As long as Gu Xiaoxia nodded, as long as there was something in the yard, they would immediately go and get it.

Liang Yuemei was also here to take care of them. The two children were three months old and had already started to eat some complementary food. She was telling Gu Xiaoxia about her own experience in raising children.

Although Gu Xiaoxia is a state cadre, many women in the team are a little respectful when talking to her, but Liang Yuemei is not like that. She is Gu Xiaoxia's elder, a role between "mother" and "aunt", and she still needs to teach her some common sense of life.

At first, Li Long and Li Jianguo were chatting at the door. Li Long planned to go to the small lake to catch some fish. It was not easy to prepare a few dishes in the countryside at the moment. Chicken and fish were enough. Chicken was slaughtered on the spot, but fish needed to be caught with a net.

Li Qingxia was not around, so Tao Jianshe would go fishing only when he remembered to do so. Moreover, the fish had to be fresh, so Li Long thought that it would be enough to just take the casting net and cast a few times.

While they were chatting, Tao Daqiang and others came over one after another carrying things.

In rural areas, when visiting relatives or giving gifts during festivals, the things are quite simple. In Team 4, the most common things are two bottles of wine, two canned foods, and two bags of sugar cubes. If they are a little richer, they will also add a bag of cakes or something.

Usually when visiting relatives one has to give gifts in return. Some people give extra gifts in return, while others keep half of what they brought and give back the other half.

Tao Daqiang, Jia Weidong, and Liang Dacheng brought wine, canned food, and sugar cubes. Xie Yundong took a different approach and brought a leg of lamb and two bottles of wine. They all came on bicycles, and Li Long thought they had made an appointment.

The yard suddenly became lively. Several adults looked at Mingming and Haohao and praised them, while Liang Dacheng took out a handful of candy and gave it to Juanjuan and Qiangqiang.

Everyone had a pretty good harvest from the melons this time, and each family became the envy of the rest of the team. The reason was all because of the Li brothers, so these people came here with things mainly to express their gratitude.

As they chatted, Li Long mentioned that the price of melon seeds would definitely drop next year.

"I told every household about this when they came to buy seeds," Li Jianguo said, "but they probably didn't listen. They all just wanted to buy more."

"It's the same here." Tao Daqiang nodded immediately and said, "I told them not to plant too many. You need to choose sandy soil to grow melons. The yield from planting on ordinary soil is not high, but they didn't listen."

"Don't worry about it." Li Long said, "These people only care about making money. At this time, let alone planting less, choosing the land or not, they may not even know how to plant. If something goes wrong during planting next year, they will remember to come and ask about it."

The others were silent. They knew that if people from other villages came to ask, they would not say anything. But if people from their own team came to ask, they had to tell them.

"I won't plant next year." Li Jianguo shook his head. "At this rate, I won't plant thousands of acres next year. By then, those people won't even be able to find a place to sell their crops."

Although the market is now active, to be honest, the market for roasted nuts is really limited, and ordinary people are more accustomed to cracking sunflower seeds, which they have been doing for many years. After all, only a few people are used to cracking melon seeds.

Right now, when a few people touched the data, it came out that the more than 10,000 kilograms of melon seeds produced by these families were almost all bought by rural people, which means thousands of acres of land.

As for how to grow melons, I believe that those who buy the seeds have basically no idea, as the trouble is yet to come.

"I finally found a good seed that can make money, but now it's all ruined." Xie Yundong sighed, "Nowadays, growing crops doesn't make money, and I don't know what to plant next year."

When he said this, he was looking at Li Jianguo, Li Long and others, and it was obvious that he wanted to seek their guidance.

"It's not easy to find." Li Long also shook his head. "My elder brother and I have been thinking about this, but to be honest, it's not easy to find something valuable and good right now."

Everyone actually has their own ideas and channels. It’s just that after Li Jianguo and Li Long planted melons, they were proven to be profitable and not very troublesome, so everyone followed suit.

I didn't expect that it would stop working after just one year.

Li Long actually already had some ideas in his mind, but he didn't plan to say them out loud at the moment. He had to research them carefully before doing so.

One bad thing about cash crops is that you have to find a market for them yourself, unlike grain which you can just send to the grain bureau.

The uncertainty in this makes many people hesitate and dare not try it easily. After all, not everyone is like Li Jianguo's family, who has money to back them up. Even if the planting fails, at least it will not have a big impact on the family's life.

"Come on, Daqiang, let's go to the small lake and cast some nets to catch some fish to make fish soup for lunch."

"Okay." Tao Daqiang responded with a smile, "It's been a while since I went fishing with Brother Long."

Li Jianguo and Xie Yundong did not go. Jia Weidong had something to do at home and left first. Liang Dacheng followed Li Long and the others to Xiaohaizi with their things.

Li Long hasn't been here for a long time. To be exact, he seems to have hardly been here this year.

The reeds in the small lake are more lush, and the reed berries have begun to turn yellow. Some water birds are circling above the small lake, suddenly diving into the water from time to time, and then flying up with a small fish in their mouths.

There was no one by the water at this time. Occasionally, you could see a water rat leaving a trail of water and entering the water, then disappearing.

"It seems that there are more water rats." Li Long said with a smile, "No one in the team has dealt with this yet."

"It's possible to find it," Liang Dacheng said nearby, "but the holes dug by the water rats are all in the water plants, so they're hard to find. This small lake is also quite deep, like the one just now, so we can only watch.

My brother saw a water rat in the Kaichun Reed Ditch, so we went over and surrounded it. There was water in there, not even waist-deep, so we blocked the way from several directions, and each of us took a shovel and hit the thing as soon as it showed its head, and finally we knocked it to death. "

"Have the leathers been sold?" Tao Daqiang asked.

"I sold it. I took it to the purchasing station and sold it for twenty-one dollars."

Tao Daqiang smiled, looked at Li Long and said nothing.

They originally caught water rats by digging them out in nests.

It seemed that the people in the team who later tried this had never dug it before. They just caught it when they saw it.

Although Tao Daqiang doesn't want to go through so much trouble now, it seems that only he and Li Long have mastered this "technology", and he feels a little bit of superiority in his heart.

"Let's cast the net here." Li Long pointed to a wide expanse of water and said, "The water is deep here, so there should be some fish hiding there."

As he said this, he took out a casting net from the urea bag, adjusted the net, aimed at the water surface, turned around, twisted his waist, and coordinated his hands to cast the net out.

"brush!"

The net was cast into the water and slowly sank.

Although I haven't cast a net for a while, as soon as I got this net, the familiar feeling came back.

Li Long could feel the net in his hand shaking slightly and knew there was a fish below.

He didn't plan to catch any big fish, just crucian carp. If he caught one weighing three to five kilograms, he could make a big pot of it, which would surely be delicious.

The net was slowly pulled up and the shaking became more and more intense. When Li Long finally pulled the net up, he could see that there were many large and small crucian carps restrained by lead pads at the bottom of the net.

"It's quite a lot, at least two or three kilograms." Tao Daqiang said with a smile.

"Don't take the small ones." Li Long squatted down and picked up the smaller crucian carps and threw them into the water. While he was surrounding a small pit with mud on the shore to put the fish in, he said to Tao Daqiang, "You come and cast a net."

Tao Daqiang took the casting net and started to organize it with a smile.

Li Long surrounded the puddle and put the lively fish into it, watching them splash in the water and swim happily.

There were big crucian carps weighing more than two kilograms, two immature black carps, and two relatively large pike.

The little fish was so slippery that it slipped out of the net, but the bigger ones couldn't get out and were caught in the net - this was also a pleasant surprise.

Then Li Long saw a lot of sunflower seed shells in the mud by the water.

He guessed that it was the people who were fishing early in the morning who bumped into it when they were casting or pulling up the nets.

Looking at the melon seed shells, Li Long's heart moved, it seems that his should be good. Even the people in the team are cracking melon seeds, which shows that this thing is really popular.

Think about the people in the team before the Chinese New Year. Those who had some money would buy some white melon seeds or flower melon seeds and boil or fry them. Those who didn't have much money would fry the sunflower seeds from their own homes.

Some people don’t need to buy them. They just plant a few sunflowers in their own fields, harvest them in the fall, and stir-fry them in the winter.

This is indeed good.

And, of course, peanuts.

Students in the 1980s should all have this memory: on New Year's Day or during the June 1st class party, no matter what else was on the table, melon seeds, peanuts, and fruit candies were basically a must.

You must use a lot of class funds to buy these things.

Sometimes there are also sand dates - the local sand dates are not good, the ones sold in stores are bigger. As for red dates, at that time, the red dates in southern Xinjiang were not yet produced on a large scale, so they were consumed locally or shipped out.

As for raisins, they are considered a relatively high-end snack at this time and are not usually seen in such occasions.

That’s right. In fact, it’s not only about what you can grow or what’s valuable, but also about what the market needs.

Li Long felt as if he was suddenly enlightened.

"Hey, my net is good. This five-stripe black fish is quite big!" Although Tao Daqiang cast his net in a semicircle, he caught a five-stripe black fish weighing more than one kilogram on the net. He was very happy.

The five black stripes are quite pretty. This fish is not small. When Li Long took the fish down and put it in the fish pit, he said:
"Take this fish back and stew it for your family."

Tao Daqiang didn't object either. After all, he could cast a wider net and it didn't depend on this one.

Liang Dacheng also cast a net. His net casting technique was better than Tao Daqiang's. He caught a silver carp weighing more than two kilograms. Then they changed places.

They returned in less than an hour, bringing back five or six kilograms of crucian carp, two big fish with five black stripes, a red carp, a grass carp and a silver carp, all weighing more than one kilogram.

Here, Xie Yundong helped Li Jianguo to slaughter the chicken, pluck the feathers, chop it up and stew it.

There are two stoves, and rice is already steaming in one of them.

"Just waiting for your fish." Liang Yuemei said with a smile.

The main dishes for lunch were chicken and fish. Liang Yuemei also prepared two cold dishes. Li Jianguo took out two bottles of wine and wanted to drink some.

Although the sunflowers and corn have not yet been harvested, this fruitful autumn is a foregone conclusion.

Since we haven’t decided what to plant next year, let’s celebrate this year’s harvest first.

No one drank much. Li Long only drank two glasses. After all, he had to drive back and there were children, so safety was important. Others had no objection to this. They toasted each other, but no one drank too much.

After Xie Yundong and the others left, while Liang Yuemei and Gu Xiaoxia were cleaning up the mess, Li Long said to Li Jianguo:
"Brother, let's plant sunflowers or peanuts next year."

"Why did you think of planting this?" Li Jianguo was puzzled. "I've never planted peanuts before."

"It's just like planting melons. It's sandy land, so you can grow crops there." Li Long said, "Brother, you should know how to grow them, right?"

"I know how to grow it." Li Jianguo thought for a moment and said, "I've grown it before in my hometown, so it's not that difficult. But this... is it easy to sell?"

"Brother, think about the stores in our team, the brigade, the township, and even the county. Do they all have sunflower seeds and fried peanuts?"

"That... is true." Li Jianguo said.

"That's right." Li Long said, "What does this mean? It means that many people buy this to eat. If we grow it, we can sell it to roasted nuts factories or private melon seed sellers. Now oil sunflowers are only a few cents per kilogram, and I think flower sunflowers can be sold for one or two yuan."

"But the yield of flower sunflower is less than that of oil sunflower," Li Jianguo shook his head. "Even if it's two yuan per kilogram, it can't catch up with the harvest of melon seeds..."

"Brother, let's not think about the situation of beating the melons for the time being." Li Long shook his head and said, "We have tasted the sweetness, and it is difficult to have such a situation again in the future.

Think about how much money you can earn from planting one acre of wheat? The situation of melon seeds is a bit too abnormal. Next year, one kilogram of melon seeds may only be sold for a few cents or even nothing.

Fortunately, even if it’s only a few cents, it’s better than wheat…”

The current price of wheat is less than 20 cents, which is really not high.

If you plant sunflowers, even if you can harvest 150 kilograms from an acre of land and get a price of one yuan per kilogram, it would be worth it.

He vaguely remembered that a few years later, the price of sunflower and white sunflower reached ten yuan, while the price of oil sunflower was less than two yuan.

The reason I know this is because after I had my own family and started farming, I began to learn from my older brother and planted a little bit of everything. In the spare room of my family, I have sunflowers and white sunflowers - not pumpkin seeds, which are a little bigger than those.

Li Jianguo listened to Li Long's words and stopped talking.

Although he was still a little unwilling, he knew that Li Long was telling the truth.

The profit from picking melon seeds is really too high. One acre of land is equivalent to seven or eight acres of grain. If this really continues for a long time, who would still grow grain?
In the afternoon, when Li Long drove Gu Xiaoxia back to the courtyard, Gu Xiaoxia looked at the two children from behind and asked Li Long:
"What were you and big brother talking about? I saw that big brother was still thinking about something when he left."

"Tell me what to plant next year." Li Long did not lower the car window. He had been drinking and was worried that he would get drunk after being blown by the wind. "This year's melons are okay, but next year's will definitely not be okay."

"Why?" Gu Xiaoxia also heard Liang Yuemei say that her income from picking melons this year was nearly 10,000 yuan. It was so high that it was equivalent to her salary for many years.

I’m not envious, but I think this is pretty good.

"Just think about it. All the melon seeds grown by my eldest brother's family have been bought by other farmers. Next year, the area planted will definitely increase significantly. By then, the price will be less than one-third or one-fourth of what it is now."

"What can we grow?" Gu Xiaoxia was also a little confused. She was from the countryside, so she knew that she couldn't get rich just by growing food in the fourth team.

"I am now considering whether to grow sunflowers or peanuts. I also think cotton is a good option. Sunflowers and peanuts are grown because many people eat them and the market is large. Cotton is grown by the Corps and it is easy to gain experience."

"It's true. A colleague in our office likes to crack melon seeds. She doesn't buy a lot every day, just a paper cup. She says that if she cracks too much, she gets irritated, but if she doesn't crack too much, she gets anxious. There are always melon seed shells on the floor of her office, but luckily she knows how to sweep it up."

"So this sunflower is definitely popular. The key is to find a buyer." Li Long said, "There is still time, so I will slowly think about it."

It’s hard to say whether this matter is urgent or not, but if you say it’s not urgent, winter will come in two months, and it may be too late to prepare in winter.

So you still have to prepare in advance.

When they returned to the courtyard, Sister Yang and Han Fang were already waiting at the gate. When they heard the sound of the jeep, they immediately came over to open the door. After the jeep stopped, Sister Yang helped Gu Xiaoxia take the child and kissed him tenderly.

Obviously, it brought out the emotions.

"Sister Yang, did my dad come over at noon?" Gu Xiaoxia asked while holding the child.

"No. I asked Xiaofang to go and call him, but her grandfather Gu was not in the store and the door was locked. People next door said that her grandfather Gu had gone out."

Gu Xiaoxia didn't care about it. Anyway, Gu Boyuan would come over for dinner tomorrow, so she could just mention it and ask about it then.

As an adult, you must have your own freedom.

The next day was Mid-Autumn Festival, and Li Long and his friends, including Sister Yang, prepared a good meal in the yard.

Originally, Gu Boyuan meant to go to his small courtyard according to custom, but they didn't cook there much and there were few things in the kitchen, so he just stayed in the big courtyard.

On Li Jianguo's side, because Du Chunfang was there, she refused to go to Liang's house. So Li Jianguo drove a tractor to send Li Juan and Li Qiang there, and then came back home to cook.

Anyway, the Mid-Autumn Festival was so fragmented that Li Jianguo was speechless.

Fortunately, no matter what, the holiday life is getting better and better, which is a good thing. (End of this chapter)