inspire-indiana Chapter 507: Backyard Again
Chapter 507: Backyard Again
They came here secretly without telling their classmates. How could they not buy books here as it was cheaper than anywhere else? What if bargaining was no longer allowed later on? Wouldn’t they be at a loss?
The shopkeeper looked at this scene and thought of what Zhou Guo said that day. He immediately felt that the profit was worth it. The young lady's words were so effective, as if they were blessed with magic.
The Zhou family returned with two large carts loaded with stuff.
When the carriage drove into the village, the villagers greeted us warmly, "Are you back?"
"What good things did you buy? I see that you all have gained weight. It's true that the city is so good for people!"
"Finally you're back. I thought you guys would never come back. The kids have no energy to play football anymore."
Zhou Guo and his companions got off the car at the entrance of the village and chatted with people along the way.
Anyway, there was nothing to do in the fields now, and everyone was just sitting around doing nothing. When they saw the Zhou family coming back, they all went to their house with needles and threads in their hands, wanting to see what good things they had bought.
When I got home, there were already more than a dozen people following me.
There are advantages to having more people. Everyone can help out when getting off the bus, and in no time all the stuff in both buses is unloaded.
Everyone was helping and admiring at the same time, "Oh my, why did you buy so much cloth? This material is so smooth and shiny, is it silk? If I made a whole body of this and wore it, wouldn't my whole body be glowing? It's really magnificent!"
They accidentally opened the box containing the cloth, and instantly all kinds of colorful cloth appeared in front of everyone, dazzling their eyes.
A woman was about to start working on the silk when she was knocked down by someone by someone else's hand. "Your calluses are as thick as city walls. This material is so precious. How can you compensate me if you touch the silk?"
When everyone heard this, they all stopped dare to touch the fabric. They originally wanted to touch it, but in the past, they had only seen people wearing such fabrics from a distance, and they wouldn't even dare to take a look at it in the cloth shop. But now the Zhou family was actually buying it in batches.
Everyone couldn't help asking, "Ms. Li, this material is expensive, right? Haha, we didn't even dare to look at it when we went to the cloth shop before."
Li smiled and said, "It's not cheap, but we have to prepare some for the children. It's not much, one for each of the older ones."
Everyone understood what he said. It turned out to be the preparation of dowry and betrothal gifts. The family was better off now, so it seemed no big deal to prepare one or two horses. It was not like they could not afford them anyway.
Zhou Guo took out some candies and cakes that he had bought from the city, put them on a plate, and invited everyone to eat.
"Let me see what delicious food you bought. Wow, this snack is so pretty. It's even prettier than real flowers. Fucheng is different. Even the snacks are so pretty!"
Now that they had food, people were no longer in the mood to look at the cloths, plates and books that their family had bought. No matter how good they were, they would never get them. Even though they had nothing to look at, they were still itching to buy them. It would be better to eat, at least it would go into their stomachs.
Zhou Guo divided the delicious food he bought into several portions. The largest portion was given to Qian. It was really a trouble for them to have been looking after the house for so many days.
The others were sent to Wang Fugui, Zhou Cheng, Zhou Sanyuan, Chen... and other families who were close to them in the village.
Every family was very surprised. They didn't expect that they would go out and bring them gifts.
Zhou Guo moved the books he bought into the shelf in his room and placed them there. The bookshelf was made of leftover materials and was not big to begin with. There was not much space left after putting all the books there. If he bought a few more books, he would probably have to make a bookshelf.
The next day after returning, the whole family went to the fields to harvest beans. If they didn't harvest the beans now, they would fall into the fields and could not be retrieved.
Originally, ten acres were planted, four of which were turned over by Zhou Guo as green manure, leaving only six acres of beans, half soybeans and half mung beans. Although they have not been taken care of for nearly half a month, because she took care of them personally in the early stage, whether it was watering, fertilizing, or weeding, they are growing very well.
After the final harvest, we calculated that one acre of land could produce 220 kilograms of soybeans, while the yield of mung beans was lower. The total yield of three acres of land was only about 360 kilograms.
Zhou Guo was already very satisfied. After all, these beans were enough for the cattle and horses in the family. They didn't need to buy more beans. They could also make tofu, mung bean cakes, mung bean rice, and mung bean soup occasionally.
After harvesting the beans, she pulled most of the fertilizer that had been accumulated at home over the past few months into the field, spread a layer on the ground, and drove the oxen and the plow to turn the fertilizer deep into the ground. This year the land was truly idle.
Then she headed into the backyard and started working on her compost pile.
The old man took a look and shook his head. He thought that this girl had done something big and had forgotten about it. He didn't expect that she had not forgotten it at all. She started to fiddle with the manure as soon as she came back. He really couldn't understand why she complained that the manure was dirty and smelly before, but now she doesn't mind it anymore?
Li also sighed. She was a good little girl, and she was raised with great difficulty to be clean and fair. Why did she always have a problem with the manure pile? In her mind, the manure pile had always been the business of the men in the family. Although it was a good thing, it was not suitable for a little girl.
There is no girl in the village who deals with the dung pile all day long, but the girl in their family seems to be obsessed with the dung pile.
The children from the village couldn't find anyone to play football with.
The villagers were amazed to see that she had not given up.
There was an elderly person who came to see the house with a cane. After watching for a whole day, he would turn around and scold his children and grandchildren who were making jokes, "I am here to make you laugh, but you don't know what's good. Go and see what they are doing. You good-for-nothings spend your days eating, drinking and sleeping like pigs. It's no wonder that they can live such a prosperous life. If I hear you making fun of her again, I will make you hide tight!!"
The men hid and cried out, "I'm not laughing at her, it's just that Dad, think about it, she wants to turn the leaves, dead grass, mud, branches and even sewage from the mountains into fertilizer for the land, how is that possible? Even if she is locked up in the backyard for a hundred years, I'm afraid she can't do it. She's not a Bodhisattva, how can she turn stones into gold?"
We are all from the same village, and everyone knows how great it would be if this fertilizer worked. But in fact, it couldn't work. The girl from the Zhou family made herself stink all day long, even stinkier than those grown men who dealt with the fertilizer pile all day long, and she didn't look like a girl at all.
The old people sighed and came to Zhou's backyard when they had nothing to do. They would sit there all day long. It didn't matter if they didn't understand what was going on, they just loved to watch.
They have been fermenting for a lifetime, and when so many people came, Zhou Guo felt like he had found a treasure.
From time to time, they would ask me something. If I asked them about other things, they couldn't say anything, but when it came to composting, everyone had their own experience, and they didn't keep anything to themselves and told me everything they could.
It's not that precise, and she has to control the degree by herself.