The happy little days of the Ye family

Ye Qingqing has been sewing leather clothes recently. After she has made leather clothes from the tanned leather, all the long-term workers in the family have come back to work.

The bean dregs at home were only enough to feed the pigs at home for a few days. As soon as the long-term workers came back, Tang Xiaojing took them in an ox cart to buy bean dregs from Baijia Oil Mill.

The Tang family's ox cart was not enough, so Tang Xiaojing specially borrowed a donkey cart from the Ye family and Grandma Ye.

Together with the Tang family's three ox carts, a group of people set off to the Bai family oil mill.

Half of the pigs in the pigsty were slaughtered a year ago, and now all that is left in the pigsty are piglets and half-grown pigs.

Although there are fewer pigs, these piglets are also very eatable and consume a lot of bean dregs every day.

Thinking that spring plowing was coming soon, the Tang family's father and son took their family's long-term workers and made several trips to stock up on bean dregs for their piggy for two months.

The road to Xiaohe Town was really too far. I walked back and forth several times and the cattle at home were tired and thin.

Seeing the listless big scalper at home made Tangshan feel very sad.

After stocking up on bean dregs, the Tang family has to prepare for spring plowing.

Including the 10 acres of paddy fields that Ye Qingqing received as a dowry, the Tang family now has 60 acres of paddy fields. These lands are now the most valuable thing in the Tang family.

Tang Xiaojing asked his family's long-term workers to first divert water from the river into the paddy fields and soak the paddy fields. After a few days, they would start plowing after the land was soaked until soft.

The paddy fields that have been abandoned for more than two months have collapsed in some places. In some places, holes have been made by rats or other small animals, and water has been leaking.

For several days, the family's long-term workers were busy repairing the fields and clearing the irrigation canals.

In addition to paddy fields, the Tang family also has about 15 acres of slope land at the foot of two hills.

Tang Xiaojing plans to plant sweet potatoes and corn on these slopes, as well as some peanuts.

Tang Xiaojing planted the 45 kilograms of peanuts he bought in Xiaohe Town on two acres of land.

These peanuts are a fresh crop. Tang Xiaojing doesn't know how to take care of them. Although the peanuts are planted, the harvest is very poor.

The germination rate of peanuts is not high. After germination, some of the small seedlings die. By the time they can bear peanuts, only half of these peanut seedlings are left.

Peanuts are not only difficult to grow, but also attract rats.

When it was time to get peanuts, Tang Xiaojing found some peanut shells on the ground. After digging them open, he found that a lot of the peanuts inside had been eaten.

At first Tang Xiaojing didn't know what had eaten him, but then he thought that rats often ate sweet potatoes in the fields. After searching the ground, he found some rat droppings in the ground.

Those mice don't come out during the day and often come out at night to steal peanuts.

Tangshan took Dahuang and Xiaohuang to the peanut field and caught mice for several days before saving the remaining peanuts.

Peanuts did not grow well to begin with, and some were later eaten by mice. Only 2 kilograms of shelled peanuts were harvested from 210 acres of land.

In Baijia Youfang, peanuts cost 8 cents per catty, and peanuts from these two acres of land cost 1 tael, 680 cents.

But before, I bought 730 Wen for peanut seeds alone. After deducting the money for buying seeds, I only made 950 Wen from the peanuts on these two acres of land.

Tang Xiaojing felt that his work was in vain.

Although the Tang family's peanut harvest is not good, the Ye family's harvest is good.

Ye Xilin also bought peanut seeds from two acres of land. Mr. Ye is a veteran in farming. Under his careful care, the peanut germination rate is good and the peanut seedlings grow well.

Moreover, Mr. Ye was the first to discover that peanuts were eaten by rats.

There were dogs on the mountain of the Ye family, so Mr. Ye drove the family dog ​​to the peanut field to guard it day and night.

On the first night, the dogs at home caught five fat rats, and they caught more rats one after another.

The Ye family's two acres of peanut land yielded a total of 340 kilograms of peanuts.

After deducting the money spent on buying peanut seeds, you can probably earn two taels of silver.

Although he doesn't make much money, this is his first time trying to grow peanuts, and Mr. Ye is quite satisfied with the results.

Mr. Ye is full of confidence and feels that there will definitely be a bumper harvest of peanuts this year.

Mr. Ye plans to use all the 340 kilograms of peanuts to make seeds in spring.

Tang Xiaojing originally planned not to plant peanuts. Seeing that Mr. Ye was good at planting peanuts, he felt more confident and planned to plant some more to try.

There was a lot of work in the spring, so Tang Xiaojing invited six more part-time workers to come back to help.

Except for the long-term workers who regularly took care of the rabbit shed and pig pen, the remaining people Tang Xiaojing divided them into two groups.

A group of people responsible for taking care of the family's 60 acres of paddy fields must seize the time to repair the field ridges and dredge the canals, and then plow the fields and raise seedlings.

Even though there are plowing oxen, plowing the fields is still hard work, and the paddy fields need to be plowed at least three or four times before planting rice.

Plowing the ground to loosen the soil and turn the grass roots into the ground to make fertilizer is a very skilled job.

Tang Xiaojing estimates that it will take about half a month to plow all 60 acres of land.

Another group of people are responsible for plowing the land. Dry land is relatively hard, so oxen cannot be used to plow the land. They can only plow the land with hoe after hoe.

Tang Xiaojing had already discussed with Tangshan about crops in dry land.

The family raises pigs and consumes a lot of sweet potatoes every day, so sweet potatoes must be planted.

There is also corn, and occasionally corn pancakes are made at home, which is indispensable.

However, there are few people in the family and they cannot eat too much, and the Tang family prefers to eat rice, so Tang Xiaojing plans to grow less corn.

Next came peanuts. Although last year's peanut harvest was not good, Tang Xiaojing thought that it was his first time to grow peanuts. With experience, this year's harvest would definitely be better.

On the 15 acres of sloping land at home, the father and son plan to plant 5 acres of sweet potatoes, 8 acres of peanuts and 2 acres of corn.

After making arrangements for spring plowing, Tang Xiaojing planned to take his five wild geese with him to Xiaohe Town.

When he was buying bean dregs at Baijia Oil Shop a few days ago, he found that many merchants had gone to the oil shop to purchase goods and do business.

He also inquired with the guys at Baijia Oil Shop. After the Lantern Festival, most of the merchants had returned to the town to do business.

However, merchants from the north have a long way to go, and it is probably still snowing heavily now, so they will come later every year to do business.

There are several good days in spring that are suitable for hiring and getting married. Tang Xiaojing feels that there must be many people hiring during this period, and now is a good time to sell wild geese.