Who knows! As soon as I returned to the mountains to farm, I encountered a natural disaster.

June 3034

Around the summer solstice, the weather was supposed to get gradually hotter, but now it's still below zero.

The snow on the meadow has not melted. It is noon, and the solar energy in the sky brings the slightest warmth.

With this warmth, the surface of the snow melted, but at night, the melted area formed a layer of ice on the snow due to the low temperature.

The cleared roads in the yard have also become particularly difficult to walk on due to the ice formed by melted snow water.

When Zhao Yeqing got up early and walked to the yard, his toes had to grip the ground hard.

We don’t have enough firewood at home. We have to cut down the firewood today.

In the pine forest, there were still two trees that Mu Xi had chopped down but had not been brought back, and they were now buried under the snow.

Zhao Yeqing discussed with him, "How about picking up some dead branches and bringing them back. Digging is a bit slow. After cutting, you have to pull a horse over to drag them back. There is still snow on the road and it is difficult to walk."

The family now burns firewood for heating every day, which consumes a lot of money. Mu Xi nodded, "Then we won't go so far and go directly to the forest over there to pick up some. The place where the landslide was before should be compacted by snow now."

To collect small firewood, you don’t need to pull a cart to go out. You only need to carry a firewood rack, put the picked dead branches on it and bundle it up, and then you can carry it back.

The firewood rack is like a small chair, with a flat surface that can support the place where the firewood is placed, so that it is easier to carry the firewood back.

This thing is so unpopular, I can’t find a high-resolution picture, so I’ll have to watch it

The two of them walked towards the forest where birch trees had grown before. The few surviving birch trees looked really beautiful in the snow.

The tall white trunks stand in the snow. The birch tree is a deciduous tree. Unlike evergreen trees, it has leaves all year round. All the leaves on its crown have fallen off due to the low temperature, and the branches have also been knocked off by the wind and snow. Only a bare tree trunk remained.

Zhao Yeqing picked up a lot of firewood under the tree, which was used for cooking in the kitchen.

The type and size of firewood used in the kitchen stove does not matter much, but the firewood burned in the fireplace is different.

When burning firewood in a fireplace, hardwoods from broadleaf trees produce more heat energy than softwoods from evergreen or coniferous trees.

The softwood of coniferous trees is pine, which two people have been using.

The advantage of pine firewood is that it contains oil and is very easy to burn, so the consumption is relatively large.

The oil content is one of the advantages and disadvantages. The degree of creosote accumulation can be analyzed by the length of firewood burning time. The longer the firewood burns, the less creosote will be produced.

When creosote burns, it coats the inside of your fireplace chimney and is harmful to your health over time.

The low temperature in winter lasts longer than expected, so we can’t just get by.

If possible, they still want to find better firewood to burn in the fireplace.

Today's goal is not only to collect firewood for cooking in the kitchen, but also to find suitable firewood for the fireplace.

That is hardwood.

Among the hardwoods that could be found on the mountain, apart from the birch trees in front of them, the two of them only thought of beech, cypress and poplar trees.

The sloping mountain road was not easy to walk on. The two of them held hands and walked around for a while and found nothing, so they could only cut down the few remaining birch trees in front of them.

After all, hardwood takes a long time to dry and can only be burned after drying.

Naturally seasoned hardwood takes more than a year to completely dry.

The two planned to chop it down and put it away first. They collected enough firewood for cooking today and would split the trunk another day and take it back for drying.

Zhao Yeqing felt a little distressed. After all, after the landslide, there were not many birch trees left. Although they were not protective trees, in autumn, the birch trees were still very beautiful.

She circled around the only remaining birch tree, and suddenly she caught a glimpse of a birch tree near its roots, with something like charcoal parasitic on the trunk.

Zhao Yeqing dug up the snow near the roots, and the black charcoal gradually emerged. It was as big as half a fist, and the surface was uneven and looked like small cracked pieces.

She was stunned for a moment, then poked the black charcoal with her hand, which was hard in texture.

Mu Xi stopped moving when he saw her squatting. When he came over and took a look, he was stunned before he said, "Chaga?"

Zhao Yeqing nodded, "It's unbelievable. How long has it been cold for this thing?"

Generally speaking, chaga strains need to absorb nutrients for a long time before they start to reproduce. This thing only grows in cold areas in Siberia.

It is also found in the northeastern region of their country. Even the winter in the northeastern region is considered mild for it, so its nutritional value is not high.

If there is such a thing growing in the mountains in the south, the probability is no less than that of suddenly winning a 50 million lottery ticket, and that lottery ticket was picked up.

The chaga is obviously not mature yet, but it probably won't die before it matures. After all, it won't be cold here for a long time.

It is said that if a Chaga parasitizes on a birch tree for more than ten years, it can suck out all the nutrients of a birch tree, and the tree will die.

Zhao Yeqing felt that this tree was miserable but also very lucky. It was parasitized but not completely parasitized. After all, when the weather gets hot, the chaga 'cub' would probably die young.

She decided not to cut down the tree and replaced it with one next to it.

The ax in his hand was about to be struck down when Mu Xi stopped him.

"If we can't bear to part with this tree, we won't cut it down here. There should be other hardwoods over there where we saw the plum tree before. We'll have a look at it another day."

Zhao Yeqing thought about it. Anyway, he was not in a hurry to take the tree back today, so he put down the ax and concentrated on collecting firewood on the ground.

There was only one firewood stand, and when the two of them filled it up, Mu Xi squatted down and carried it on his back.

Zhao Yeqing was still holding a small bundle in his hand, "You can't go back empty-handed. Collecting firewood is also collecting wealth."

Even if the money is not needed now, this thought is engraved in my bones.

Mu Xi smiled when he heard this, "Okay, money fan."

The firewood she collected was too much to carry in one trip. When Mu Xi went out for the second time, she didn't let Zhao Yeqing follow her. She planned to shovel the ice in the yard at home.

The ice is very thin and will fall off as soon as it is touched. I am afraid that it will be there again tomorrow morning, so I have to find a way to drain it.

There was no way to deal with the cement floor in the middle of the yard, but there was still mud on the way to the toilet and bathroom in the back.

A small ditch was opened on both sides of the muddy ground where the snow had been cleared away. I hope that when the weather gets warmer, a little bit of the melted snow will flow away along the ditch and not freeze on the road.

When I woke up this morning, the temperature was still 20 degrees below zero. Unless winter turns into summer all of a sudden, the hottest days of July, August and September this year will be spent in subzero temperatures.

Zhao Yeqing squatted on the ground and dug the soil with a small shovel, and a thought suddenly came to his mind——