Blending of Planes: I am leisurely farming

Thursday, February 2:

Total cost: 412G

Physical examination: 400G

Dining out: 12G

Income: 0

Assets: G

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Money is spent like water, it's time to think about making money." Sean sighed as he closed the account book.

The weather is cold now and the land is frozen as hard as salted fish, making it really difficult to cultivate.

By the way, while it is still winter, it is the best time to prune trees.

The orchard that I saw with Robin that day had branches that were intertwined and obviously had not been pruned.

It's just in time for me to go to the West Mountain tomorrow to see the orchard left by my grandfather and do some pruning.

Go further west into the mountains and forests to see what mountain products can be collected and complete the next sacrificial mission.

Thinking about his future life, Sean planned his itinerary for the next few days.

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The next day, in the warehouse.

As the day dawned, Sean got up early, packed all the tools on a cart, and pushed the cart toward the orchard on the western hillside.

On the mountain road, the cart was swaying as it moved. The inexperienced Sean held the handlebars tightly with his muscles, carefully controlling the direction of the cart to prevent it from tilting.

There was some fine soil under your feet mixed with moss from the grass roots, so you had to step carefully to avoid slipping.

The wheels would occasionally go over potholes, causing the tools on the vehicle to shake.

Every time he walked a certain distance, Sean had to stop, put back a few sacks that were about to fall off the cart, and then press them down hard with a hoe.

In this way, they climbed over a hill. With his improved physical coordination, Sean gradually mastered the trick and started to push the cart in a proper manner.

After a while, a hill with bare dark soil appeared in front of us, and we arrived at the orchard left by my grandfather.

Unlike other hillsides, where towering evergreen trees desperately grow upwards to gain the upper hand, even in winter, the trees are still lush and green, towering into the sky.

On this mountain, rows of bare fruit trees grow neatly from top to bottom, with intervals between them.

The entire orchard forms a fan shape around the sunny side of the hillside, covering an area of ​​about eight acres. The upper half is planted with peach trees and the lower half with apple trees.

After arriving at the orchard, Sean began his statistical work.

Sean walked past the rows of fruit trees on the frozen and hard soil, observing the condition of the trees.

There are 356 fruit trees in total, including 176 peach trees and 180 apple trees, which are growing well.

"Grandpa Lewis has asked someone to take good care of the orchard in the past few years. I have to go to his house in a few days to thank him properly." Sean thought.

After completing the inventory, Sean picked up his tools and prepared to start pruning.

Winter pruning mainly involves thinning and pruning the branches of fruit trees. Thinning refers to cutting off the excess branches, diseased branches, and dead branches of fruit trees, while pruning refers to cutting off a part of the overlong branches to encourage them to sprout side branches, adjust their growth, accumulate nutrients, and bear fruit.

Sean, wearing work gloves and holding pruning shears, put aside the branches blocking his sight with his left hand, aimed at the extra branches, stretched out the scissors with his right hand, applied slight force on the forked root, and a branch fell neatly to the ground.

"Crack, crack, crack" the branches fell one by one. Sean walked to the next tree with satisfaction as he stepped over seven or eight branches of varying sizes that had fallen on the ground.

This peach tree has a new branch that is too long on the top, which seriously affects the nutrient supply for the next year.

The branch was about 3 meters from the ground, and Sean, who was about meters tall, had no choice but to climb the tree.

Holding the scissors in his mouth, Sean first hugged the main trunk with his arms and lifted his feet off the ground to test the strength of the tree. He shook the tree like a drunkard, swaying from side to side but not falling over.

The intensity was no problem. Sean jumped a few times on the spot, stretching his muscles, eager to try.

Then he raised his hands high and grasped the main trunk, put his left foot against the tree, pushed the ground with his right foot, used his legs to drive his waist to exert force, took two steps at a time, and whooshed to the top of the tree.

Keeping his center of gravity fixed, Sean used his fingers to estimate the length of the branch he wanted to keep. After touching the small protrusions that sprouted one by one, he selected the right position, leaving a distance of about 0.5 cm from the nearest sprouting position, and with his other hand, he took out a pair of scissors and cut off the overlong branches at a 45-degree angle.

Watching the branch fall to the ground, Sean bent down and threw the scissors aside, then jumped lightly and landed safely, causing the peach tree behind him to sway.

The shaking of the branches has not yet subsided, but people have already picked up the scissors and started pruning the next fruit tree.

The flowering period of peach trees and apple trees is from March to April. In the next few days, we will prune the fruit trees in the orchard, reclaim the land on the farm and plant crops. Now it’s time to start pollination.

While trimming, Sean planned his schedule.

All things are difficult at the beginning, and the current busyness is for better returns. After mowing an area, Sean loosened his cloth jacket, which was a bit tight, and let the cold wind take away some of the sweat.

Looking at the bare trees standing in the winter and thinking about the branches that will be bent by the weight of fruits in the autumn, Sean worked harder and harder.

At noon, in the wooden house, Sean, who had been busy all morning and had pruned almost one-sixth of the fruit trees, returned home and started preparing lunch.

Beat two eggs and fry them until fragrant, take out the overnight rice from the refrigerator and stir-fry it, sprinkle a spoonful of salt, then add two chopped sausages purchased last time and some green onions to enhance the flavor, and serve.

Today's lunch is egg fried rice.

After getting a glass of water and eating fried rice, Sean planned his afternoon work schedule.

During the past two days, Sean walked on the dirt road and occasionally used his land exploration ability to see if there were any extra harvests in the ground. However, in late winter, everything was withered and he could only dig up some scattered dry roots and tubers, which did not meet the requirements for sacrifice.

After much thought, I realized that at this time of the year, only winter bamboo shoots and wild mushrooms growing on rotten wood in the humid forest can meet the requirements for sacrifice.

As I recall, there was a large bamboo forest on the back of the hillside southwest of the orchard. When Sean was a child, his grandfather would often dig bamboo shoots from there. One reason was to prevent the bamboo forest from expanding and encroaching on the living space of other species, and the other was that these bamboos could be sold at a price to supplement the family income.

In his spare time after busy farm work, Sean's grandfather would cut down a few thick bamboos and bring them back to weave some baskets.

"I'll go there in the afternoon to cut some bamboo to make seedling boxes. The most important thing is the winter bamboo shoots hidden under the soil waiting for me to dig. Whether I dig them up for sacrifice or for a stir-fried shredded pork, it will be a delicacy." Sean couldn't stop drooling at the thought of the delicious winter bamboo shoots.

In the afternoon, the winter sunshine dispelled the cold. Over the hillside of the orchard, a green sea of ​​bamboo covered the entire hillside under the pure blue sky.

Sean parked the cart by the roadside. There were some thin bamboos on the edge of the bamboo forest. To cut down the bamboos with a diameter of 20 to 30 centimeters, he had to go deep into the forest.

"Shashasha~" Sean stepped on the thick layer of withered bamboo leaves, and the bamboo leaves bent along the edge of his shoes showed shallow traces of his progress.

Once you enter the bamboo forest, you will be isolated from the world. The external disturbances will become quiet, leaving only the crisp sound of bamboo leaves.

Looking up, the thick and tall bamboos blocked out the sun. The sunlight could not penetrate through the top of the dense bamboo layer, and the entire view became much dimmer.

He tightened the hoe wrapped in a sack on his shoulder, and with the machete in his right hand, he chopped down the bamboo that was blocking his way.

Sean patiently cleared the way, using his land exploration skills to carefully explore the surroundings, so as not to disturb the poisonous snakes and strange insects hibernating in unknown places under the thick bamboo leaves.

Dodging the tangled bamboo whips, we walked slowly for dozens of meters, and the bamboo began to grow thicker.

In order to prevent the bamboo from falling down and getting tangled with the surrounding bamboos and being unable to be dragged, Sean, who was using his ability, selected a bamboo that was far away from the surrounding bamboos for felling.

Putting the hoe and sack aside, Sean chose the direction to fall. He arched his back, took a horse stance, picked up the machete with both hands, marked a position at the bamboo root, pulled his shoulders and hips back, and then the machete flashed, and he chopped from the upper side with a cold light.

A crisp "dong" sound echoed in the bamboo forest, and the machete had already penetrated half of the bamboo joint.

Without caring about the bamboo leaves falling on his body, Sean gathered his strength to pull out the machete stuck in the bamboo joint, and then slashed it again with great swiftness.

This time he chopped in from the bottom, and with two strokes he made a gap that went halfway into the bamboo. Looking into the distance along the gap, he could see where the bamboo had fallen.

Come to the back of the gap and cut through it slightly above it with a high-arc cut.

"Crack~" is the sound of the bamboo breaking.

"Shasha~" is the sound made by the surrounding bamboo leaves reluctant to see their companions leave.

As the bamboo leaves fell first, the entire bamboo body looked like a wanderer who was about to board a train and say goodbye to his relatives. He boarded the train reluctantly until the figures of his relatives disappeared from his sight, then he withdrew his waving hand in a daze and collapsed with a loud bang.

Using a machete, first cut off the thin branches against the growth direction, and then cut out one-meter-long bamboo sections along the bamboo joints.

After cutting off the slightly thinner bamboo tips, the entire bamboo body was cut into more than a dozen pieces and neatly stacked together. Then, they were tied into two bundles using the hemp rope from the sack.

After doing all this, Sean started a new round of bamboo-turning exercise.

Feeling the endless heat flowing to his limbs, he took a deep breath, tensed his muscles and exerted force rapidly.

This was the first time since the sacrifice that Sean had used his strength without reservation. A bamboo that an ordinary person would need more than ten cuts to cut down could now be done by Sean with only three cuts.

Exhaling slowly, he looked at the five or six bamboos with a diameter of 20 centimeters lying around him, and withdrew his work with a sense of reluctance.