Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Li Jianguo was sorting sunflower seeds in the yard. He planted these sunflowers at the north end of the melon field. He brought them back and knocked them out in plates in his yard, then blew away the remaining flowers and shriveled seeds. He put the rest in a bag, planning to pick some out and fry them in winter for everyone to eat.

Li Long's previous words made him feel that growing sunflowers was actually quite good.

It has been three years since the household contract responsibility system was implemented and the land was distributed to each family. Now and then, people would come on bicycles or in horse-drawn carriages to collect the miscellaneous agricultural products.

Half a month ago, someone came to collect sunflowers, and the purchase price was 90 cents, more than twice the price of oil sunflowers.

Li Jianguo did not sell them, thinking that his family did not need them. After all, fried sunflowers do not make your mouth dirty, and fried oil sunflowers are delicious, but they leave a black mouth after you crack them, which is not good looking.

Now think about it, if we plant sunflowers on a large scale, it would still be feasible.

The fried sunflower seeds in the store are not sold by kilogram, but in small paper cups or enamel pots.

A small paper cup - actually it is a triangle folded from newspaper, which can be opened to hold melon seeds. That small paper cup weighs less than 50 grams. It started out at 5 cents, and now the price has risen to 10 cents.

The enamel jar can hold a lot and is expensive, only two or three cents.

In fact, the price of fried sunflower is by kilogram, which is two or three yuan per kilogram.

So if we calculate based on the raw sunflowers, we can harvest more than 100 kilograms from this acre of land. If we sell it, the price may go up a bit next year. Even if we calculate it at one yuan, it is still better than growing wheat.

The main reason is that the market for sunflower seeds is much larger than that for melon seeds. Everyone generally eats this. When the county cultural center shows movies or videos, basically all the young people who go in will buy some.

Now that farming is off-season, the idle people in the team's sales department will buy some when they are drinking and chatting. Ordinary people will also buy some during the New Year if they don't grow crops at home.

Liang Yuemei was picking the last of the chili peppers in the vegetable garden. If there is no frost, the chili peppers will usually continue to grow, and the peppers will usually continue to bear fruit until they are completely red.

Mrs. Lu from the opposite door hurried into the yard and said to Li Jianguo:
"Juan's father, why didn't you go to the old horse farm? Xiaolong was working there, pushing dirt and pulling sand and gravel. Many people went there."

Li Jianguo stood up and asked:

"Has it already started? I'm still waiting for him to come over and say, hey, this little dragon... I'll go now."

"Then I'll go over too." Liang Yuemei, who was still holding chili peppers in the vegetable garden, hurried out, "I'll go see if we need to cook."

"Go to the front yard and tell me. I'll start the tractor."

When Li Jianguo and Liang Yuemei arrived at Laomahao together, the other tractors had already left to transport sand and gravel.

Wang Caimi was no longer standing at the door giving orders calmly. He ran over to drive Wang Dagui off the tractor and operated it himself to avoid wasting too much fuel.

When Li Jianguo and Liang Yuemei entered the Lao Mahao, they saw Li Long skinning a wild boar. Li Long saw his elder brother and his wife coming over, and without waiting for them to ask, he said:
"Sister-in-law, have you pickled the sauerkraut at home?"

"Pickled, what?" Liang Yuemei asked.

"Catch some here, and soak the vermicelli. We'll have pickled cabbage, vermicelli and meat for lunch today, and then steam a big pot of steamed buns..."

As Li Long spoke, he felt his mouth watering.

This dish is usually only eaten in winter when the annual pig is slaughtered. It is hard to eat at other times, and the taste is not good when you can eat it.

"Okay." Liang Yuemei responded, turned around and walked out.

Just now she saw the piles of sand and gravel and knew that many people had come.

Later, Lu Yingming and his wife came to help. Liang Yuemei pulled Lu's wife away. Lu Yingming parked the bicycle in the yard, and then drove the tractor with Li Jianguo to pull sand and gravel.

Wang Caimi felt sad at this time. He had lost money on this trip. The soil under the saline-alkali land was very hard, and it was very difficult to push. He could push it out if he really wanted to, but the fuel cost would be very high.

But there was no other way, he could only push it off. Although he was a little obsessed with money, he had to do it since he had promised to do something for others.

Wang Dagui ran to the yard to watch Li Long peeling the pig skin and complained about it.

"Why don't you plow first and then push after you're done? Wouldn't that be much easier? Plowing is always less laborious than pushing, right?"

"Hey, that's true!" Wang Dagui slapped his thigh, turned around and ran to tell his brother.

In fact, they should have thought of this first, but the team rarely used bulldozers, and the combination of plowing and pushing was even less common, so they didn't think of it.

This is what they mean when they say those in power are often the most confused.

Tao Daqiang helped Li Long slaughter the pig. While Li Long was skinning the pig, he was helping Uncle Luo set up the stove. When Li Long was gutting the pig, he was cleaning the internal organs. The two of them worked very well together.

It's been a while since we've done this together, and we both have a tacit understanding.

Uncle Luo took the time to make the noodles. There were many people outside, so he made a big bowl of noodles. There would be a lot of people eating steamed buns later. The young man at that time had a big appetite, and he didn't know if the three-layer steamed buns would be enough.

While Tao Daqiang was washing the intestines, Li Long cut off the meat at the trough and changed the knife to cut it into slices.

In later times, people were in a hurry and cut the meat into large chunks, which would require cooking for a long time. He cut the meat into smaller slices so that it would be easier to eat.

The wild boar was not big, and the meat in the trough weighed only three or four kilograms, which was obviously not enough.

So Li Long cut another piece of pork belly and cut it in together.

There was a stove outside and another inside, and there was no time to prepare two dishes, so Li Long planned to make only one dish, stewed meat with sauerkraut and vermicelli, which was enough.

Soon, Liang Yuemei came over on a bicycle with Lu Dasao. Lu Dasao sat diagonally on the back seat, holding a basin with sour cabbage and vermicelli in her hands.

After the two women came over, the task of preparing the stir-fried sauerkraut with meat was handed over to them. Li Long went over to help Tao Daqiang turn the intestines.

After the intestines were turned over, the next tractor had already driven over, and the sand and gravel were unloaded one after another on the edge of the pit pushed by the Wang brothers. They were just waiting to lay the foundation after the foundation was pushed.

Li Long heard the sound of the tractor, rushed out and saw Xie Yundong and the others were about to drive the tractor away, and shouted:

"Pull it again, pull it again to eat. Plenty of steamed buns, sauerkraut, vermicelli and meat!"

"Great!" the man on the tractor shouted, and then drove away.

Very energetic.

It was almost three o'clock when we had dinner.

The table was not that big, so everyone was given an enamel basin. The steamed buns were in the pot, hot. The big pot was filled with sour cabbage and vermicelli stewed with meat, and there was more meat than cabbage. Uncle Luo brought the buns, Liang Yuemei served the dishes, and everyone had to use their own chopsticks. If they didn't have enough, they could just break off two tree sticks.

Wang Caimi no longer complained about the waste of fuel when bulldozing. He was the one who ate the most among all the people. When serving the dishes, he asked Liang Yuemei to add more fat. The big slices of fat were stewed very soft. He just scooped them into his mouth like eating tender tofu and swallowed them without much chewing.

On the contrary, I kept the sour cabbage until the end, and only ate a bite when I felt sick of it. This dish was very oily, so I didn’t waste the remaining soup. I soaked the steamed buns in it and mixed them before eating. I didn’t even need to wash the enamel basin after eating, but wiped it clean with the steamed buns.

"Take a half-hour break and then we'll continue working. We'll have to work for two more days, and we can't be short of sand and gravel." Xie Yundong spoke before he finished eating. He originally came here to help voluntarily. Li Long provided such good logistics support, and if he didn't work hard, he would be sorry for the meat.

Wang Caimi watched the small four-wheel tractor carrying sand and gravel rumble away. He did not move, but handed the enamel basin to his younger brother Wang Dagui and asked him to help wash it.

After washing, Wang Dagui put the enamel basin back on the table in the yard, clapped his hands, walked up to Wang Caimi, and said:
"Brother, let's go, we have to work too."

"Why are you in such a hurry? Take your time." Wang Caimi waved his hand, "Take a break."

Wang Dagui was somewhat puzzled and asked:

"Shouldn't we finish the work early?"

"What do you know?" Wang Caimi looked around and said in a low voice:

"If you work here for a day, you can eat fatty slices of meat for a day. Do you think the meat tastes bad?"

"How can it be bad? It's very delicious. The meat cooked in a big pot is so fragrant!" Wang Dagui said hurriedly.

"That's right, isn't it? If you rush to finish the work, will they cook meat for you? Will you be able to eat it? Let's do it slowly. There's no rush."

Wang Dagui's eyes changed when he looked at his elder brother. No wonder he could become his elder brother, he was so thoughtful.

They were the last to leave the yard. Even Liang Yuemei and Lu Dasao, who were cooking in the yard, had gone back. Uncle Luo couldn't stand it and urged them twice before forcing them to drive the tractor and continue bulldozing.

A good lunch will motivate people to work in the afternoon. Truckloads of gravel and sand were brought in, and Li Long did not stay at the Lao Ma Hao in the afternoon. He went to the brickyard to see that bricks were still relatively cheap, so Li Long ordered 50,000 bricks directly, intending to use them to build a fence.

As for the livestock shed, the pattern of house mud is still used on it. Wood and reed stalks are easy to make and do not need to be too complicated.

Of course, the simplest one is the simple mobile cabins of later generations, but they are not available now.

The bricks have been ordered and will be moved when there is space. The most important thing right now is to lay the foundation.

When Liang Yuemei and Lu Dasao returned, they brought back two bowls of food, including steamed buns and vegetables, for the elderly and children - they didn't have time to cook at home, and they couldn't let the elderly and children go hungry.

Liang Yuemei knew that she would be busy in the next few days, so she told her mother-in-law Du Chunfang early on that she would just take care of the house from now on, and the family would eat together in the morning, and she would bring the food back at noon.

Du Chunfang asked her to just cook the meal over there, as she could handle it herself at home.

This job was for her youngest son, so she naturally gave her full support.

The tractor plowed first and then pushed the ground, and the foundation was leveled quickly. The five-acre pit parallel to the Lao Mahao was pushed out in more than three days, and there was already a lot of sand and gravel piled on the side.

This time, Wang Caimi took the initiative to use a bulldozer to push the sand and gravel into the foundation pit, thus filling the foundation.

Without a road roller, we can only use a tractor to pull the threshing roller over and over again to flatten the foundation.

Next, it’s time to build the brick wall.

Before building a brick wall, you need to clear the soil around it, dig out the groove for the brick wall, and then move the bricks.

The tractors that originally pulled sand and gravel started pulling bricks again. More people came to work in the team. Some moved bricks, some mixed cement and sand, some plastered the walls, and some made temporary reed bundles.

Uncle Luo looked at the scene and said with a sigh:

"It's been a while since our team has seen such a big scene!"

When we first built the house for Li Long, there weren't so many people.

"Our team members are very enthusiastic about their work." Team leader Xu Chengjun said loudly.

"Tsk!" Tao Dayong, who was working with him, retorted in a low voice, "You just fancy the fat meat of Li Longzai's wild boar meat!"

To build this big circle, Li Long slaughtered two pigs and had plenty of fat slices, boiled bones, and meat soup noodles every day.

With food like this, who wouldn’t want to come and help?
Li Long didn't care. Since they came to help with the work, should they not be allowed to eat well?
I make a lot of money, so I don't care about these two pigs.

But some farmers in the team have average or even poor family conditions. If they want to eat big slices of fat meat or this kind of sour cabbage and vermicelli meat all year round, they can only wait until the Chinese New Year.

So when Li Long did this, many people were willing to come and do it even though they felt that the job might be a little tiring.

The food is so delicious!

Some of the older members of the team can remember this work and meals for a week straight for more than ten years.

Many years later, when the old men in the team gathered in the store to eat barbecue and play cards and reminisce about the past, they would also talk about when they built the new Mahao next to the old Mahao. Those fatty meat slices were so delicious.

At this time, people no longer like to eat fatty meat. If they want to eat meat, they may not raise pigs at home, but they can go to the market and buy half a pig and eat it however they want.

But I have never felt the same delicious taste in my mouth again.

Young people would say that it was the pure grains that the pigs used to feed tasted good. But the old people would say that it was because life is better now and it was rare to eat meat back then, so they have such feelings.

In short, during this week, many people in the team ate the Li family’s big pot of meat dishes, and many people also participated in the construction of the Xinmahao.

The speed and quality of the construction of the Xinmahao train exceeded Li Long's expectations.

He himself did not expect that because there were so many people involved, everyone almost tried their best and used all their skills to avoid being discovered by experts.

Everyone is very motivated to work. Otherwise, if they don't do their job well with so many people watching, others will laugh at them while they are eating meat.

This kind of scene would have been impossible even during the era of the big pot.

The new livestock pen has two warm pens and two open pens. The warm pens can easily hold three to four hundred sheep and forty to fifty cows in winter.

The open pen is larger, mainly for the convenience of cattle and sheep activities. There are also troughs and water troughs built on the side of the open pen for feeding.

The wall of the new courtyard is two meters and five meters high. The newly opened door next to the main gate of the Lao Ma Hao shares the west wall with the Lao Ma Hao, making it a complete building.

In short, Li Long was very satisfied.

These two pigs were worth the money and really worth it. (End of this chapter)