An orphan girl from a farming family: Everyday farming in the mountains during natural disasters

Chapter 240 Division of Work

The dishes were all served with rice. The two men had worked for the whole morning and were already hungry, so they picked up their bowls and ate the rice and vegetables.

After eating, Xia Qingyue burped.

The next second, a burp sounded again. It was Han Zhibai who burped.

They both felt a little embarrassed at first, their ears turned red, but the moment they looked at each other, they couldn't help but laugh at the same time.

We ate too much, so we sat down to rest for a while, drank some hawthorn water to aid digestion, and then we cleaned up the dishes and went to the kitchen together.

Everything was done. Xia Qingyue said while washing her hands, "I want to refine lard in the afternoon and prepare for making soap."

He said, "Then I'll pickle the meat and make sausages."

"Okay, let's divide the work. Chop the meat for the sausages and give a small half of it to me so I can mix the other stuffings."

"it is good!"

The two of them worked separately. She cut the pork fat and refined it in the kitchen first, while he went to the main room to do some work, otherwise they would be too busy if they were crowded in the same place.

While the oil was refining in the pot, she slightly opened the small side door of the kitchen to see how the snow was falling.

The snow in the afternoon was a little heavier than in the morning. Everywhere I looked was a blanket of snow, with both snow and fog, most of the fog being in the mountains.

The once lush forests are now covered in silver. The scenery is unique when you first see it, but the sky is gray and dark due to the snow. After looking at it for a long time, you will inevitably feel that it is lifeless and dull and depressing.

According to Han Zhibai, if the snow fell any heavier and lasted longer, even the river would be frozen.

She closed the door, and was glad that they had stockpiled enough supplies for the winter before the snow began. Thinking of this, she felt safe.

The oil in the pot was almost refined, and the browned lard residue was floating on the oil.

This time more lard was refined, and the front and back stoves were working at the same time. The front stove started refining earlier, scooped out the lard residue, and poured the lard into a jar.

The second pot of lard was poured out immediately, and the empty first pot continued to be refined.

Two large pots of oil filled seven large jars, and the lard residue amounted to several large bowls.

The freshly made lard residue smelled delicious. She made a small bowl of it, sprinkled some salt and chili powder in it, mixed it, and made it crispy and fragrant.

She brought the lard to feed Han Zhibai. He had just minced the meat for sausages and his hands were greasy.

"Come, I'll feed you." She took a few pieces of lard and fed them to him.

After eating a few, he said he didn’t want to eat anymore as he was still full from lunch.

After the meat was chopped into small pieces, which were eight parts lean and two parts fat, they took the meat to the kitchen to mix the stuffing.

Han Zhibai prepared the meat to taste spicy. He put appropriate amount of salt, dried chili powder, pepper powder, and some white wine into the meat and mixed it evenly.

Xia Qingyue prepares a Cantonese-style sweet dish using salt, sugar, soy sauce and white wine.

After preparing the two kinds of fillings, he brought them to the main room and filled them.

Xia Qingyue was a little curious about how he would do it, so she stirred the lard in the pot and lowered the heat.

When I went to the main room, I just saw him stuffing sausages. The meat filling was stuffed into a bamboo tube of medium thickness. The other end of the bamboo tube was connected to the small intestine, and the tail of the small intestine was tied with a thin rope.

As the meat filling is squeezed, it is stuffed into the intestines, and its shape is adjusted as it is stuffed.

It turns out that stuffing sausages is so troublesome and requires so much meticulous work. She shook her head as she watched. If she were to do it herself, she would probably lose her patience after stuffing just a few sausages.

After watching for a while, she went back to the kitchen to refine the oil. While refining, she found the dried flowers and dried river clam shells needed for making soap.

Those shells were collected when I went to the river to fish.

Put the shells in batches onto the hot charcoal fire to burn. After burning, put them in batches into a stone mortar and crush them into powder, then sift them into fine powder.

The main component of the shell after firing is calcium oxide, also known as quicklime.

After getting quicklime, you also need to prepare wood ash.

Put wood ash into hot water, stir it thoroughly, and sift it with gauze. The impurities will be filtered on the gauze, and the bottom is wood ash water, commonly known as alkaline water.

Pour the shell powder into the alkaline water and stir well, filter again, and set aside to settle.

The refined lard was poured out and set aside. The soap could not be made yet. She had to wait until the water settled. She estimated that she would have to wait until the evening.

Next she pounded the dried flowers into a fine powder for later use.

After doing all this, the kitchen was a mess. She cleaned it up and went to see Han Zhibai stuffing sausages.

Use a needle to poke some small holes on the stuffed sausages to drain the air, then pat them gently with your hands to make them look better. Finally, tie them with thin ropes at regular intervals to form sections.

The whole process is completed by Han Zhibai alone. The finished sausages are hung on a wooden rack and then hooked onto a large wooden rack above the stove. The hot steam from cooking can be smoked up.

When he had finished hanging up the sausages, Xia Qingyue had finished collecting all the leftovers in the main room.

After finishing the work, it was 16:00 and the sky outside was getting dark. It started to snow lightly, so they took the shovels and went out to shovel the snow. If they didn't shovel, the snow would have piled up as high as their knees during a day and a whole night.

After shoveling, Xia Qingyue sat by the stove, warmed herself by the fire and took a break.

Han Zhibai drank a few sips of water, went to the poultry room to chop pumpkin, got some dried sweet potato vines, mixed them with some rice bran and sorghum flour, poured them all into a large iron pot, added water and boiled.

I have to cook twice a day, two pots each time. This is because I killed a lot of chickens, ducks and rabbits some time ago, so I cook less. If there were more poultry, I would have to cook more.

I slaughtered a pig today, so I can cook less.

There is a stove at the door of the poultry room, which is usually covered by debris and is only cleared out and used in winter. When it is cold, the poultry cannot stand eating cold food and they like to eat hot food.

In the winter, it gets dark quickly and is cold, so they like to eat early and go to bed after eating. While he cooks poultry, she prepares dinner in the kitchen.

There were some leftovers from lunch, so she chopped a few pork ribs and stewed them to use as the soup base. In the evening, she used a double-flavored pot to blanch the vegetables. It was simple and convenient.

I divided the cooked ribs into four pieces and gave them to the two little ones to eat. They also had some vegetables, a combination of meat and vegetables, making their diet balanced.

After Heihei and Xiaobai finished eating, they lazily lay back on the bed and dozed off drowsily.

At the hour of You, they finished their dinner. They were happy that all the leftovers were eaten up so they could cook new dishes tomorrow.

The alkaline water, which had been settling for several hours, had settled, and the black impurities had fallen to the bottom of the bowl. The water was a little turbid, so she poured out the water, discarding the impurities.

Han Zhibai was sitting in front of the stove, lighting a fire. Two pots were boiling hot water for washing. He saw Xia Qingyue making soap and walked over to watch out of curiosity.

"Are you wondering how greasy lard can be made into something that can be used to wash hands and clothes?" She said with a smile, pouring the filtered water into the melted and cooled lard, adding a little salt, and stirring it in one direction with a pair of long chopsticks.

He nodded, but since she said that, it must be true.

Adding salt speeds up the saponification reaction. After stirring for a while, the oil gradually turns into a sticky paste, and the more it is stirred, the whiter the color becomes.

Han Zhibai's eyes widened as he watched this change.

When she was almost done stirring, she stopped and waved her sore hands, "We'll make one portion each of original flavor and camellia and magnolia flavor. Pour the original flavor directly into the bamboo tube, and it can be removed from the mold after seven days of setting and used."

He understood immediately, "I'll pour it."

Pour the white paste into an upright bamboo tube.

She was making soap with pollen next to her, using the same method: pour lye water into a large bowl of lard, add salt and pollen, and stir.

The mixed paste is a beautiful cherry blossom pink.

Her eyes were wide open, bright and energetic. "Wow, it's so beautiful, and it smells like camellia!"