amaotonovel Chapter 119 Preparing for Winter (3)
Chapter 119 Preparing for Winter (3)
It took a day and a half to make the thatch. After it was done, they were spread out one by one on the bamboo frame on the top of the poultry house. There were three layers in total, which were very thick.
Xia Qingyue stood in front of the poultry house, looking at the new house in front of her, suddenly feeling that it was not real.
It is not large in area, the workmanship is not sophisticated, and there are some minor flaws, but it took me more than a month to build it, and it was the first time I made it entirely by myself.
I was so happy that I couldn't describe my feelings. I felt a sense of pride and accomplishment. I didn't know I was so capable that I built a house.
"That's great, Heihei, I have built our little home better and better, and it will be even better in the future!" She squatted down, hugged Heihei's head, and cried with joy.
The interior of the poultry house is empty and needs to be built. She raises three kinds of poultry: chickens, ducks and rabbits, and she plans to build several walls to separate them.
There is still some adobe clay, and she wants to finish the poultry house completely by the end of the month.
Considering that rabbits breed quickly and in large numbers, she used charcoal to plan the size and shape of the compartments inside the poultry room in the shape of a triangle.
The rabbit room is at the top, and the chicken and duck room is a little lower, on the left and right sides, with an aisle left in the middle.
After finishing the drawing, she built partition walls according to the shapes drawn with charcoal, just like building the exterior walls of a house, using clay bricks, building them up layer by layer.
During the construction process, she took into account the low temperatures in winter and how to burn charcoal to keep the poultry warm.
After much thought, she decided to build a space for storing charcoal fire with clay bricks in the corner of each compartment, a bit like an earthen stove, for fear that the poultry would be too cold and get scalded to death if they came close. She also built a thick wall outside to separate the compartments, and later on, she could wrap the outer wall with dry straw or something.
A door that can be opened and closed should be left above the "earthen stove" for burning charcoal to facilitate adding charcoal. The door should be made of earthen bricks and clay, and should be thicker.
The problem of charcoal heating was solved, and she started the work according to the planned plan.
After working hard, we finally built the partition and the "earthen stove" with charcoal for heating by the end of the month.
Considering safety, she specially burned charcoal and put it into the "earth stove" to sense the temperature. After a long time, the separated outer wall began to heat up. After about half an hour, it was so hot that it was unbearable to touch with hands.
She used dry straw to wrap the outer walls and the openable door of the "earth stove". She came back to check more than an hour later and felt that they were warm and there was no discomfort.
“Wuhu, it’s done!”
She had originally thought of leaving a crack at the bottom of one wall of the poultry house and digging a pit outside, just like raising pigs in the countryside in her previous life. When cleaning the poultry manure, it would fall directly through the crack into the pit.
However, making three compartments means digging three pits. After careful consideration, we gave up this idea. So many pits are full of feces, which not only has a bad smell, but also seriously affects the visual experience.
The poultry house was completely repaired. She first caught the rabbits and put them into backpacks, carrying them in several batches to their room, and then the chickens and ducks.
She didn't have the confidence to drive the poultry to the poultry house, for fear that they would run around in the tiankeng once they were free, especially the ducks. If they flew up, it would be unimaginable.
After the poultry were settled, Xia Qingyue was exhausted. She stood in the aisle and looked around the house.
When you come in from the door, you see an open space about one meter wide and several meters long. Turn left and walk a few steps, and you will find yourself in the aisle in the middle of the house. On both sides are the chicken and duck houses, and straight ahead is the rabbit house.
The empty space behind the door can be used to store miscellaneous items. The extra space should not be wasted.
That day, she killed two chickens to celebrate.
As usual, I boiled one for Heihei to eat.
She stewed half of the dish with dried bamboo fungus and shiitake mushrooms, and fried the other half with kimchi.
After dinner, she took a bath and went to bed early, taking out the cotton quilt that she had cut and sewn a few days ago.
She sewed together two sets of covers, one set was about 1.6 meters long, and the other was slightly larger. They were handmade, so one could only roughly estimate the size. Each set had a gap on one side left open.
She stuffed the duck down into the 1.6-meter-wide quilt, which weighed about four kilograms. After stuffing it in, she sewed up the loose edge. This was still not very convenient, unlike in her previous life where there were zippers or buttons.
Due to limited conditions, I can only sew it once, take it apart, and then find ways to improve it later.
The down quilt was sewn and put into another slightly larger quilt cover, which fit perfectly. The quilt was folded and put into the big bamboo cabinet. At present, her bed was covered with a reed quilt with fur in the middle, covered with a cotton sheet, and covered with two reed down quilts, one thin and one thick.
This is just the right amount of sleep for me. If the temperature drops to a few degrees or it snows, I definitely won’t be able to withstand it.
It took three candles to finish making her down quilt, and she will make the duck down clothes and black little nest tomorrow during the day.
As the weather got colder, Xia Qingyue went to bed earlier at night and got up later in the morning. Before, she was building a poultry house, so she would get up as soon as her biological clock woke up, regardless of whether it was day or not.
Now that she had almost finished what she needed to do, there was no need to rush. In the morning, her biological clock woke her up, and she turned over in the quilt and continued to sleep.
I slept until dawn, it was already at least eight o'clock.
She sat up from the warm bed, and was shivering with cold as the chill hit her. She decided that a short pain was better than a long one, so she gritted her teeth, threw off the quilt, got out of bed, and put on her clothes as quickly as possible.
As she breathed, white air floated out of her mouth and nose. She saw it and was stunned. "The temperature has dropped again. No wonder it's so cold today!"
Heihei woke up, but lay lazily in his nest with his eyelids drooping.
Xia Qingyue squatted down and opened the old reed fleece clothes covering Heihei's body. Fortunately, the fur felt warm to the touch.
It would be troublesome if I caught a cold in this kind of weather.
She opened the door of the room, and suddenly, gusts of cold wind blew in, making the exposed skin feel cold.
Grabbing the collar and pulling it up, she went to the kitchen to light a fire and cook breakfast. Her hands touched the water several times, and her fingertips turned red. She sat in front of the stove and warmed herself by the fire to feel less cold.
She looked towards the mouth of the tiankeng. The sky was overcast, grey and gloomy, giving people a depressing and dull feeling.
It doesn't look good.
"I have to go out and get some more firewood today. It might rain or snow!"
She had a feeling it was going to snow soon.
As usual, I went to take a look at the vegetable garden.
When I was almost at the pond, I glanced at the weeds around the camellia tree. The surface of the green plants was covered with a layer of white stuff, which looked like snow at first glance.
She walked closer and touched the weeds with her hands. They were as cold as ice. "There are whiteheads!"
There was also frost on the crops in the vegetable garden. It is said that vegetables that have been frosted taste better, so just in case, for fear that a sudden heavy snow would freeze the vegetables, she dug a few baskets of cabbage and radishes and carried them back to the cellar, and picked a few handfuls of pea tips.
For breakfast, they cooked porridge and fried two dishes. After eating hurriedly, the man and the dog went out to look for firewood.
At the end of the year, winter is coming, and people in the mountains are busy looking for food for the winter and dry firewood for heating.
She hadn't met many people around the lower reaches of the Tiankeng stream, but when she went to dig clay in the middle reaches of the stream, she went upstream and saw some people stationed by the stream.