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

I coaxed it back by trimming its hooves, but now that it is no longer needed, I have not paid attention to it for a long time, and its hair has not been trimmed for a while.

Zhao Yeqing felt like a scumbag who deceived a young girl.

He touched Xiaohong's head and promised: "Tomorrow, when the sun comes out, I will give you a bath, trim your hair and trim your hooves. I will make sure you are well groomed."

Now that electricity is available, trimming horse hair has become easier. You can adjust the length at will and shave it all off with an electric clipper.

Some of the clothes and bags I bought before were also decorated with horse hair on the outside. Zhao Yeqing had always wanted to try it, but he had no experience and didn't know if the horse hair used in clothing needed special treatment.

But judging from the horse hair she shaved off, it is already very smooth without any treatment. If you don't consider whether it is durable or not, there should be no need for further treatment.

I chose to bathe Xiaohong at noon when the sun was the warmest. After bathing and drying, I started shaving, and finally trimmed the horse's hooves.

The hair shaved off this time was long enough. Zhao Yeqing collected the horse hair carefully, thinking that after the cloth was woven, he could match it and make clothes.

What I collected this time can be used to make a small bag first. I have a lot of animal skins at home. In addition to the skins left after killing cattle and sheep, there are also bear skins and several wolf skins from before, and there are even more rabbit skins. .

To make clothes, we have to wait until the cotton is sown and harvested next spring before we can spin and weave cloth. It is still early, and it will be too late to collect horse hair to make clothes by then.

Making a bag for the first time, after Zhao Yeqing drew the drawings, she took out a piece of sheepskin that was the most stocked at home and was relatively soft. When she came back from the village this time, she found a lot of thick thread for shoe soles among the needlework she found. Just use this thread to sew the bag.

The sewing machine hasn't been brought back yet, so the first bag must have been sewn by hand. She planned to use topstitching to sew such a thick thread by hand. It wouldn't look ugly, but it would have to be sewn neatly.

The self-tanned sheepskin is not as soft as the treated one, but as Mu Xi's skills have improved, it is passable, but there is no way to dye it, and the inside is prone to smell.

Zhao Yeqing sewed a layer of coarse cloth on the inside of the bag. The color on the outside was not good and uneven, and then he covered it with horse hair.

The horse hair is fine and soft, and it feels super smooth when laid flat on it. It is also very shiny. After it is evenly covered, you can no longer see the mottled colors of the leather inside. The reddish-brown horse hair looks a bit high-end.

(Pictures here)

I found a partial picture of a horse hair bag, just take a look at it

When it comes to backpacking in the mountains, practicality is definitely the first priority. The most convenient ones are cross-body and shoulder bags. Waist bags and chest bags are also available, but the shape of the bag is more complicated. It was the first time Zhao Yeqing made one, so he chose the cross-body first.

Carrying it cross-body will not block the position of the backpack, and it is easy to cut the leather. After sewing two pieces of crescent-shaped leather of the same size, just add a cross-body shoulder strap.

In order to hold more things at the bottom, Zhao Yeqing added a piece of slightly harder wild boar skin to the bottom for splicing. Horse hair is not needed at the bottom, and the bottom of the bag is not too invisible. The most important thing is that wild boar skin is inherently durable and does not need to be added. Horse hair makes it easier to get into the mountains.

If you want to put the bag down in the mountains, you can just throw it anywhere without worrying about the horsehair surface being peeled off.

Her skills were limited, and the horse hair was stuck on with glue, so she didn't know whether it would stand up to use.

Handicraft work is the most time-consuming. It takes three days to make a bag. Of course, the three days are not all about making bags. You also have to weed and remove insects in the vegetable fields. The weather is hot in summer, and in the evening when the sun is not hot, you still have to do it. Water the vegetable patch.

Millet peppers grow the fastest and have already begun to bear fruit. The next best growing plant is the banana tree. A long string of bananas has already produced fruit. Each fruit has grown to the length of a hand and has not yet swelled.

Zhao Yeqing remembered that bananas can be picked when they are green, and they can be eaten after they are picked and left to turn yellow for a while. She has never eaten naturally ripened bananas, and there are more wild bananas here in her hometown.

There is a big difference in taste between plantains and bananas, but if she had to choose, she would prefer plantains. Although the fruit is a bit sour in the middle, it is fragrant and has a refreshing aroma that bananas do not have. Of course, bananas are also fragrant, but the aroma is sweeter. Not that refreshing.

The new banana saplings growing from the root system of the banana tree are already half as tall as the adult banana trees. Once the fruits are harvested, the old trees will be cut down so that they can grow faster due to the supply of nutrients.

Zhao Yeqing walked a few steps to the side and looked at the citrus tree next door.

This time last year, there were a lot of bugs growing on the citrus trees, most of which were snails. They were densely packed on the trunk near the roots. But as long as the ducks were released, these snails turned into excellent protein.

Just after spring this year, some snails crawled on them, and the ducks ate them cleanly. The quality of the duck eggs they laid improved.

The snail itself is nutritious, and the snail shell can also supplement calcium for ducks. The shells of the duck eggs they lay are harder.

When Zhao Yeqing was bored, she would go to the vegetable field to look for bugs. If she didn't like bugs that were not disgusting, such as aphids, she would use tweezers to pick up a few and put them in a small box.

Then I went to the pond to catch a few small fry and put them in a transparent container. I threw small aphids into the water and it was quite interesting to watch the small fry fighting for food.

After not having much contact with electronic products, when I started to play these fun things I found for myself, I felt less empty than before, and even my eyesight seemed to have gotten better.

Her eyesight is pretty good. After living in the mountains for so many years, it used to be slightly blurry, but now it has become very clear. She can also see insects the size of sesame seeds clearly from a distance.

Zhao Yeqing threw the big bugs to the hens and washed away the small ones with water. He planned to spray some bug-repelling medicine tomorrow morning.

She thought that growing garlic could repel insects, so wouldn’t garlic water also be able to repel insects?

I'll try it tomorrow. The aphids on the fruits and vegetables have gone and come again. I wonder if garlic water can be better than tobacco water.

The effect of interplanting garlic is very obvious for pepper tomatoes and the like that are relatively short, but taller climbing plants such as cucumbers are not so good and require manual intervention.

In the evening, Zhao Yeqing counted the time and found that Mu Xi had been in the village for five days. He estimated that he would be back in the next two days. When he came back, he would kill the sheep and cows first.

It seems that it is time to harvest the grass again, and the silage cellar is still quite full. It has been filled once in spring. The crop that has grown now does not need to be cut and put into the cellar. It can be dried and put into the hay house.

Zhao Yeqing muttered that he would go to the edge of the cliff tomorrow and use the intercom to ask when Mu Xi would be back. If he had finished the loom and brought it back, he would have to go and meet him.

Before he could wake up from his sleep, Mu Xi had already opened the door and entered the house.