Joe's Farming

There are many hawthorns on the mountain. The fruits are small but very fragrant. Qiao Yu plans to dry half of them into dried hawthorns and make the other half into hawthorn cakes.

For this he needed to go to the town to buy some things, so he left the task of picking pepper and hawthorn completely to Wen Ge'er, and went to the town with Lin Da.

This time I also brought pear cream and soap. I left four bottles of pear cream at home, and there were 5 bottles left to sell. I made five sets of soap, 10 pieces per set, and cut 30 square pieces out of them using a food box mold. I brought the square ones this time to try them out first.

Qiao Yu first put the autumn pear paste on consignment at Yipinxuan. No matter how much they sold, he would charge 80 wen, and sold the peppercorns at the price of 10 wen per tael.

By the way, when I go to town this time, I will also find a carpenter to order square boxes, one hundred soap holders, and hawthorn cake molds. He drew a round panda head, and it will definitely look good when it is made.

After visiting the carpenter's house, I went to the blacksmith's shop and ordered a baking tray, two smaller woks, and a large iron pot, which were needed in the new house.

Finally, I went to the grocery store and bought ten kilograms of sugar, gauze and a large stone mortar. Then I put the soap on consignment at the grocery store, selling it for five cents per piece, and I gave the boss one cent for every two pieces I sold. When I was ready to buy starch, I found that the grocery store didn't have it, so I went to the vegetable market and bought ten kilograms of sweet potatoes.

Normally, Lin would come to the grocery store to pick up orders before 3 p.m., but since it was not yet noon, there were even fewer orders. Qiao Yu estimated that there would be even fewer orders today than yesterday, but he had not stopped receiving the goods from Zhu the Butcher every day, because he would set up a stall in Taoyuan Town starting tomorrow.

Qiao Yu praised the effectiveness of the soap again and then left the grocery store and went home.

Although he bought a carriage, he didn't know how to drive it, so he asked Lin Da to take him home.

After arriving home, Qiao Yu started making sweet potato starch and had no time to cook.

Gu Feng went to Aunt Shi's house to get lunch, a bowl of rice and a bowl of vegetables. Qiao Yu picked out some dried radish for everyone to eat. This was his first time eating a big pot of rice at home, and he thought it tasted pretty good.

Gu Feng was happy to see that her husband was enjoying his meal, but she felt sorry for him because he was so busy.

After dinner, the three children rushed to do the dishes.

Gu Feng helped his husband with work during his lunch break. Qiao Yu had already peeled the sweet potatoes for this time, and now all that was left was to pound them into a paste using a stone mortar. He cut the sweet potatoes into small pieces, poured them into the clean stone mortar, and asked Gu Feng to pound them into a fine paste.

Then he went to find several basins and poured all the food into the gauze after Gu Feng finished pounding it.

The most important step came at this time. Qiao Yu asked Gu Feng to pour water to wash the sweet potato puree by himself. The amount of water should not be too large, but he could not stop. Qiao Yu did not stop until he washed out 4 basins of water and the sweet potato puree was dry.

The next step was to wait for the starch to settle. Qiao Yu was tired and went to take a nap in the house. Gu Feng hugged his husband for a while and then went back to work at the construction site.

Qiao Yu slept for a full hour. When he woke up, the children had already gone out to the village to play with Grandpa Wang.

Qiao Yu poured out the top layer of water in each basin, added clean water to the rest and mixed them into one basin. At this time, the powder was still relatively turbid and needed to continue to settle.

After the sedimentation is complete, you need to pour out the water on the top, then add clean water, stir and sediment again. Repeat this several times until the water is still clean and free of impurities after adding clean water.

Each sedimentation takes at least an hour, so Qiao Yu only pours out the last precipitated water before going to bed, leaving half a basin of thick wet starch.

Qiao Yu had finished washing up and was ready to lie down on the bed. He poured wet starch into the gauze as quickly as possible and spread it out flat, waiting to dry it tomorrow.

-

When Qiao Yu returned to the bed, Gu Feng was already lying down. Qiao Yu skillfully stepped over him and got into the quilt.

Gu Feng stretched out his hand and pulled him into his arms.

"What are you busy with today?" Gu Feng kept stroking Qiao Yu's back.

Qiao Yu's eyes lit up: "That's called starch, it's very useful."

"Like soap?"

"No, starch is mainly used for food. It can make meat very tender and can also be used to make cakes. This time I mainly use it to make hawthorn cake. Have you ever eaten hawthorn cake?"

Gu Feng looked into Qiao Yu's eyes steadily: "No, is it delicious?"

Qiao Yu nodded vigorously: "It's delicious, sour and sweet. Both the elderly and children love it. If you don't have an appetite, eat some hawthorn cakes to improve your appetite."

Gu Feng lowered his eyelashes and whispered, "Qiao'er is really amazing, what else can he do?"

"Haha, I didn't expect that I could really make it. I only read about how to make it in books before. With sweet potato starch, I can make sweet potato noodles and hot and sour noodles. There are also various rice noodles, and the methods are probably similar. It's just too time-consuming." Qiao Yu said this and kissed Gu Feng: "Fortunately, my husband is here. You work much harder than me."

Gu Feng's eyes flashed with a hint of doubt, but when he saw his husband's bright eyes, his passion quickly returned to normal. This was his husband, no matter how unreasonable it was, he was his, his.

One second ago, Qiao Yu was still thinking that her husband was so nice and so awesome, and the next second, she was kissed by her awesome husband and was speechless.

……

Qiao Yu once again became the last person to get up in the family. Fortunately, Wen Ge'er was reliable and came here early in the morning on Lin Da's ox cart. He also cut all the stewed vegetables and handed them to him. Then he took his aunt and younger sister to the mountain to pick hawthorns. It was estimated that one more time would be enough for today.

So when Qiao Yu got up, he was the only one left at home again. The three children had recently become familiar with the children in the village and would pester their grandfather every morning to go to the village to teach them how to read. Now, not only the children in the village were learning to read under the big tree at the entrance of the village, but even some older children would follow suit to learn.

At first, the old man was embarrassed to talk about this. He basically did not do any work at home, just took care of the children, and basically ate and drank for free. Now he goes to the village every day, teaches in the morning, and chats with other elderly people in the afternoon and watches the children play.

Qiao Yu disagreed with his point of view and told him that taking care of children is actually a very energy-consuming thing. Since he came, there is someone to take care of the three children, and the relationship between his family and the village is much better than before. Now when he passes by the village, someone will greet him. This is all thanks to him, so now the old man will take the children to the village in the morning.

Qiao Yu saw that the sweet potato starch had been taken out and dried in the yard. The weather was good today and it should dry quickly.

Qiao Yu went to see the potato seedlings again. The color of the potato seedlings gradually changed from the original pink green to full green, and new shoots began to grow.

Finally, I went to see Lightning again. Lightning was kept outside the house during the day, and now he was leisurely eating grass in front of the house.

Qiao Yu ate the breakfast that Gu Feng had left for him, and then went back to the bedroom to count the money. He had been spending money all this time, but he didn't really count it. He didn't know until he counted it that apart from the 200 taels, he only had less than 5 taels of liquid funds left.

The stall in Taoyuan Town must be set up.