The happy little days of the Ye family

Early the next morning, except Ye's father and Ye Donglin, who went to set up a stall on the pier, the remaining five members of the Ye family went to Zhulin Mountain to collect mountain products.

Old Mrs. Ye and Mother Ye had no intention of going, and wanted to stay at home and wait for news from Matchmaker Wang.

But the Wang family is in the outskirts of the county, so it will take at least several hours for Matchmaker Wang to come back and forth, and she will probably have to leave food at noon, so it will be at least the afternoon before she comes back.

Rather than waiting restlessly at home, it would be better to go to the mountains to pick up some bulk goods to divert attention, so the whole family went out to pick up mountain goods.

On the way, we met many villagers who were going to the mountains to collect mountain products. There are many mountains around Taohua Village, with various wild fruits and many chestnut trees on the mountains.

In addition, there are many wild sweet potatoes on the mountain, which are planted by villagers at will.

The weather has been good in recent years, but there was a drought here more than [-] years ago, and some people starved to death at that time.

After the disaster, the village chief specially organized the villagers to plant many sweet potatoes and chestnut trees in the surrounding mountains.

The village chief is very far-sighted and thinks that if there is another natural or man-made disaster in the future, relying on the output of the mountain can also leave a way out for the village.

There are several poor families in the village who usually rely on chestnuts and sweet potatoes from the mountains for a living.

Sweet potatoes can be cut. Every spring, people in the village will consciously plant some more sweet potatoes. If they have extra pumpkin seedlings and potato seedlings at home, they will also plant them on the mountains.

Zhulin Mountain is behind Xiaohou Mountain. There is a small road at the foot of Xiaohou Mountain. The two mountains are not far apart. It takes a quarter of an hour to walk from Xiaohou Mountain to Zhulin Mountain.

However, it took about half an hour to walk from home to Zhulin Mountain. When they arrived at the foot of Zhulin Mountain, they were all out of breath from exhaustion.

The small pond at the foot of the mountain was originally only a few cents in size. After expansion, it is now the size of an acre of land.

Standing on the edge of the pond, you can still see half-sized fish floating on the water, leisurely eating pigweed in the water.

Mr. Ye will come over and feed the fish every one or two days. He feeds these small fish until they are round and look very pleasing to the eye.

There were many willow trees on the edge of the original small pond. After the expansion, these willow trees were cut down.

Mrs. Ye saw that there was a waste of land beside the pond, so she asked Mr. Ye to plant a circle of honeysuckle on the edge of the pond.

The honeysuckle on the edge of the pond is now half a man tall, growing lush and green, swaying in the breeze.

A few people were sitting in the shade of a big tree beside the pond and resting.

The sun shines sparklingly on the water, and occasionally you can see small carp jumping out of the water. Greedy fish compete with each other for food in the water. The honeysuckle on the edge of the pond is green and fresh.

Mr. Ye likes this pond very much, "The scenery here is good, and it is also good to come here to fish in your spare time."

Later, when all the wild products on the mountain are sold, I will invite the village chief and a few old guys to come here to fish and drink some wine. It feels good to think about it.

After resting enough, Mr. Ye led a few people up the mountain. There was a small chestnut forest near the mountainside.

It is said to be a chestnut forest, but in fact there are only about a dozen chestnut trees. Only eight of them are relatively large chestnut trees, and the remaining four are half-sized small trees. They can barely be considered a chestnut forest.

Ye Xilin likes to eat chestnuts the most. Seeing the dozens of chestnut trees covered with chestnuts, he jumped up and down with joy.

This place is very close to the bamboo forest. Mr. Ye and Mrs. Ye went to the bamboo forest to cut some slender bamboo poles and came back.

Several people took long bamboo poles and began to beat the chestnuts on the tree, while Ye Qingqing and Ye Mu wore gloves to work.

Mother Ye knew that Ye Qingqing had been out in the mountains for a whole day without wearing gloves yesterday, so she caught her and gave her a good beating. Today Ye Qingqing put on her gloves and went out.

Old Mrs. Ye: "The chestnuts on this tree are all ripe. Let's knock down all these chestnuts today."

Although the mountain has been purchased, there is no guarantee that no one will come up to the mountain to steal the chestnuts. It would be better to move the chestnuts home early.

Mother Ye told the two little ones: "Qingqing, Xilin, you two should go farther away. Don't stand under the chestnut tree. If you get hit, you will grow a big bump."

Ye Qingqing was afraid of pain and didn't want to be hit by the chestnuts, so he stood far away and raised the long bamboo pole in his hand to start slapping the chestnuts on the tree.

There is strength in numbers. Five people worked for more than an hour and knocked down all the chestnuts in this small piece. The chestnuts with burrs were all over the floor.

Mrs. Ye reminded: "Don't peel off the burrs on the surface of these chestnuts. Just pick the chestnuts together."

Chestnuts with burrs can be stored longer. This year's harvest is not good, and next year's harvest is unknown. These chestnuts can be used as food.

Chestnuts are not worth much, so they might as well not sell this year’s chestnuts. Mrs. Ye plans to keep all the chestnuts.

Chestnuts can be used as both staple food and snacks. Several greedy cats at home like to eat them, so it’s good to keep them and eat them slowly.

Several people picked up the chestnuts on the ground and piled them into three chestnut hills. The chestnuts looked like a lot, but after peeling off the burrs on the surface, there were only about seven or eight hundred kilograms of chestnuts.

Mr. Ye: "There is a small patch of wild sunflowers on the mountain. I was so busy with the autumn harvest some time ago that I forgot to collect the sunflower seeds."

"In the summer, Fengsheng put two beehives in the sunflower field. During this time, I was busy harvesting, and I forgot to harvest the honey. I will harvest the honey later."

This small patch of sunflowers is halfway up the mountain and a little further up, near the top of the mountain.

Mrs. Ye urged those who were still resting to go up and collect sunflower seeds.

Old Mrs. Ye likes to eat melon seeds and has been staring at this field of sunflowers for a long time. She is also too busy with the autumn harvest during this period and did not think of coming to collect sunflower seeds.

Mr. Ye: "Xilin, bring a bucket to hold the honey later."

Originally, Ye Qingqing and Ye Xilin planned to catch some small fish in the pond and raise them in the puddle in the small back mountain, so they brought two buckets here, which were just used to hold honey.

On the way to the sunflower field, sharp-eyed Ye Xilin discovered a persimmon tree. This persimmon tree was not big, and the persimmons on it were sparse.

Ye Xilin asked Mr. Ye to get a backpack, climbed up the persimmon tree and started picking persimmons.

Ye Mu stayed to wait for Ye Xilin, while the remaining three went to collect sunflower seeds.

This sunflower field is not big. Mrs. Ye estimates that it is about four or five times the size of a field.

These sunflowers are wild. The family's fertilizer is used to care for the paddy fields at home, and there is no extra fertilizer to fertilize them. The sunflowers grow a little short, and the sunflower seeds are not very full.

But these are all wild, and the old lady has no other requirements for the sunflower seeds and leaves she got for free, as long as they can be eaten.

Old Mrs. Ye left a few plants with relatively full seeds as seeds, and all the rest were chopped down. In less than an hour, several people harvested a huge sunflower hill.

Old Mrs. Ye was very happy, "How can I get one hundred and eighty kilograms of sunflower seeds from this pile of sunflower seeds, which is enough to last a year."