Niu male

As soon as Xiao Shulin signed the contract with the village, it was May [-]st. Because most of the enterprises in the city were on holiday these days, more people came to Niuwangzhuang. Chen Jianhua, who was in charge of arranging work for them, was very busy. Turning around, the workload of the fat man's cooking also increased. Even the two old men, Bu Yigua and Martin Liang, were arrested by Chen Jianhua, who took care of the distribution of bedding and other supplies.

Some of the people who came here were assigned to work in the vegetable fields. A lot of vegetables have been recovered from the fields these days, and they can already be plowed and re-seeded.Liu Ruhua also hired a few people to make the first batch of pickled vegetables this spring.Some people came for the thorn roses on the mountain, so they were naturally arranged to go up the mountain to pick the flowers. It just so happened that the school's spring outing these days has ended, and many thorn rose buds on the mountain have already bloomed before they came to pick them in a hurry.

Some of the remaining strong men, some continued to repair the cowshed, and some were assigned by Romon to build roads in various parts of Niuwangzhuang. They built a stone road more than one meter wide along the inner circle of the wolfberry forest. Whether it is picking wolfberries or patrolling the mountains, it is more convenient.

Luo Meng and Xiao Shulin are still selling vegetables in the town, selling for a few hours every morning, and earn a lot of money, especially recently, Luo Meng has caught some young roosters, and they also get some eggs to sell in the store every day.

People in Buffalo Town are not willing to eat sweet potato vines that cost five yuan a catty, but they are willing to eat small roosters that cost 50 yuan a catty. There are very few farmers in their local area who raise chickens, especially if they are so energetic. It is even rarer, whether it is to buy one to replenish the body of the family, or to honor the elderly, or simply give it as a gift, no one cares about it.

A group of housewives were chattering around a few chicken coops at the entrance of the store, picking little cocks, and Xiao Shulin was catching chickens for them. These little cocks seemed to know that after being caught and sold, they would soon become It was a plate of chicken, and he refused to catch it easily, so catching the chicken was not an easy task. Both Luo Meng and Boss Xiao had been pecked, and Xiao Shulin had to play in the end.

"Hey! This one! This one!"

"Are you sure it's just this one?" Xiao Shulin has had a hard time these two days. Dealing with these housewives is really troublesome, so he said to buy a chicken. He will look at this one for him to catch, and then look at the other one. It seems to be more energetic, so I caught it out and compared it, but the result is still the original one.

"That's right, this one." The aunt clapped her hands, as if she had made up her mind.

"Here, go inside and weigh it." Inside, Luo Meng weighed and collected the money by himself, and he was too busy to give birth to a juggernaut.

"It's my time, it's my time! Grab that one for me, the one with two blue hairs on its tail, oh, it's really pretty, I have to put these two hairs away..."

"Old Xiao, look, I didn't buy any loquats today, please leave me a few catties tomorrow!" In the store, a middle-aged man in his 50s and [-]s asked Boss Xiao for a discussion.

"Then how can it be done? Once this matter is started, I can still be busy in the future?" Boss Xiao put a basket of cowpeas on the shelf. This old man has been helping out in the store every day recently, and he looks refreshed , There are more smiles on the face.

"Just this time, I won't tell anyone. Look, my daughter and son-in-law are leaving tomorrow. Isn't this going to bring something back to my mother-in-law?" few.

"Hey, there is no impenetrable wall in this world. Today I will stay with you, but tomorrow everyone will come to me. What will I do then? So, it is the cleanest thing to sell, you should go early tomorrow Come here." Boss Xiao was also a little embarrassed.

"I'm pretty early today too, no, you saw it too, I can't squeeze them." The middle-aged man wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"That's right, like this, come over at 06:30 tomorrow morning and wait in the store with me, and I will promise you to buy it when the time comes." Boss Xiao can also understand his feelings, isn't it all for the sake of his children? .

"Really? What should I do if I can't buy any more by then? They will leave tomorrow morning." You know, those women in the town are quite brutal when they grab things, so he hesitated a little today Then, if I didn't squeeze with them, I didn't buy loquats.

"Don't worry, if you can't buy any more, I'll let my son go up the mountain to pick them off for you." Boss Xiao guaranteed him a ticket.

"Hey! That's what you said!"

"That's what I said!"

"Then I'm really relieved!"

"Don't worry a hundred times!"

"Oh, thank you in advance, Old Xiao."

"Why are you two being polite?"

"You come to my house tonight, we brothers have a good drink."

"No, I just finished eating a pair of pigeons, and I overdid it. I got angry for the past two days, and I even had a nosebleed yesterday."

"What kind of pigeon is so good?"

"Hey, that's naturally a good pigeon."

"Where did you buy it, tell me."

"I didn't buy it. My son gave it to me. The pigeon was raised as a carrier pigeon. It ate the best food and drank the cleanest spring water on the mountain. You have to prepare well water for it every morning. Take a shower, then shake your wings and go out. You don’t return to the nest until the sun goes down at night. It’s not the same as those meat pigeons that are fed. It’s still a pigeon? It’s a chicken. It’s worse than our little rooster. ..."

Boss Xiao talked eloquently, and the eyes of a few men beside him shone brightly. When a person reaches middle age, he needs to make up for it. A pigeon that can make up the old man's nosebleeds must be so good!

Romon, who was collecting money at the side, couldn't help but twitched the corners of his mouth when he heard their conversation. It's true that the pigeons are good, but it's a bit exaggerated if they get nosebleeds or something?

The shop was still closed at ten o'clock, and before lunch, Luo Meng and Xiao Shulin went to the reservoir to do some work together.

The final contract price for the reservoir was 2 yuan per year. Xiao Shulin spent more than 43 yuan to build the reservoir. In the end, he paid almost 1 yuan to the village and signed a 22-year contract.

Because the dam is built relatively high, after the water is fully stored, the entire water surface is not small. However, they are in a mountainous area. If it is not in a dry year, a large amount of rainwater will flow into this valley during the flood season every year. Not good, the fish and shrimp raised in the reservoir will be washed away, so the risk is relatively high.The final price of 2 yuan per year is generally considered appropriate and acceptable to both parties.

The contract stipulates that in the section of water from below Niuwangzhuang to the embankment, Xiao Shulin likes to raise whatever he likes, but it cannot bring inconvenience to the life of the villagers. Irrigate the ground or something.

Two days ago, Xiao Shulin had already bought a batch of small river prawns and a batch of snails from the county seat, and put them down. Small river prawns grow fast, and if all goes well, they can start harvesting in a month or two.

What Luo Meng and Xiao Shulin have to do now is to fill in some soil on both sides of the valley before the water level continues to rise. When the water level rises, they can plant aquatic plants in these places. Besides, they are like small river shrimp and clams. These things are used to drilling the soil at the bottom of the water, and the valley is too clean now.

"What kind of aquatic plants are you going to plant?" Romon spoke to Xiao Shulin while raking the soil with a hoe.

"How about planting some water chestnuts?" Xiao Shulin asked.

"It's good, but you can't grow that thing continuously, or it will affect the harvest." Water chestnuts were planted by the old man Luo Meng when he was a child, so he knew a little bit about them.

"I just plant something casually, and I don't want to make money from it." If you really want to plant on a large scale, you have to go to the paddy field. After all, there is limited space near his reservoir.

"That's fine, just plant some water chestnuts at that time." Romon said.

"Hey, what kind of fish do you see?" Xiao Shulin pointed at the grass by the water to Luo Meng.

"Grouper, haven't you seen it? It's scientific name is light-lipped fish, and it's common in mountain streams." Luo Meng put down the hoe in his hand, moved to the edge of the water, and wanted to catch it with his hands, but the little fish was very nimble. , with a slight swing in the water, he hid away.

"This thing can't eat shrimp, right?" Xiao Shulin was a little worried.

"Probably not. This kind of fish is very small. It's not bad if one can grow to one or two weights. If you don't worry about it, you can set aside a special place to raise shrimp seedlings in the future. When they are bigger, they will be fine." Luo Meng felt that this small fish was not a big threat to the small river shrimp.

"Is this kind of fish edible?" Xiao Shulin had heard of grouper in the sea, and never knew that there could be grouper in the creek, but this grouper is definitely different from that grouper, see These small fish in the reservoir are only as big as a finger.

"Yes, the taste is not bad. I haven't seen this fish for many years. A few years ago, the nearby paddy fields used pesticides, which killed all the fish in the creek." Use it, pesticides are basically no longer used, and it is not surprising that the fish in the valley swim to the reservoir along the stream.

"How to catch it?" Xiao Shulin was a kid who grew up in the county town and had no experience in this matter.

"I'll go up and get two baskets." As Romon said, he climbed up from the path next to him, took two empty baskets from the back of the car, rolled up his trouser legs, and picked them up with the baskets on the shoal by the water. Get up, first put the basket on the bottom of the water, then approach those small fish in the water silently...

...and once again let a small fish escape, Romon straightened up a little discouraged: "I haven't caught it for many years, and my skills are rusty."

"The basket is not easy to use." Xiao Shulin's side was not going well.

"Yes, it's best to use a dustpan." Romon nodded, the basket is too high, and these small fish like to move around in the shallows, so it's really troublesome to catch them.

"I'll go to Li Hailiang's house to borrow two." Li Hailiang and his wife raise pigeons. Those corn and peanuts are often dried in the sun, and their house has a lot of dustpans.

At noon that day, Luo Meng and Xiao Shulin caught fish so much that they didn't even go back to eat. After borrowing two dustpans from Li Hailiang and the others, they fished them near the reservoir. Baskets, half-soaked in the water, with the mouth of the basket exposed above the water, are perfect for holding fish.

"How many do you have?" Romon dragged the dustpan basket and walked towards the little tree.

"There are more than 20 of them." Xiao Shulin straightened his waist and poured a small fish he had just picked up into the basket.

"I also have a dozen here, enough for a plate." Romon was hungry.

"Then go back." Xiao Shulin was also hungry.

When they returned to the courtyard, the fat man Hou Jun was overjoyed when he saw that they had brought back dozens of brook groupers, Le Diandian gave them a little treat.

Hou Jun also saw this kind of small fish in the old restaurant of the Chen family before. His master Chen Fuhan was the best, but because the growth conditions of this kind of fish are very harsh, they have to be in the streams with springs flowing through them. It is difficult to achieve artificial breeding. Basically, it is caught wild. In recent years, it has been caught in many places and is almost extinct. It is rare.

These small fish were cleaned up by Hou Jun, and then fried until they were browned, and then cooked in a large plate with the old pickled vegetables from Niuwangzhuang.Although the fat man had already had lunch, he still added a bowl of white rice to himself, sat with Romon and the others, and planned to have another meal.

"How is it?" Seeing that Xiao Shulin had picked up a small fish to eat, Luo Meng eagerly waited for his comment.

"Delicious." Xiao Shulin nodded in praise.

"Then eat more." With a spoon in his left hand and chopsticks in his right, Luo Meng filled Xiao Shulin's big bowl with half a plate of boiled pickles with small fish. Seeing this, the fat man at the side waved his chopsticks even more vigorously.

"What the hell is this?" At this time, the dog father and their boss also entered the cafeteria.

"It's noon, what are you two doing if you don't take a nap?" Romon asked them.

"I can't sleep, what is this? It smells weird." Qi Siyue took two pairs of chopsticks for herself and Yang Dalong from the cupboard next to her, and sat down at the dining table.

"Xiaoxi grouper, how is it? Is it delicious?" The fat man has a sense of collective honor, and he is very proud of the good things in Niuwangzhuang.

"It's delicious. I heard that it's very expensive." Yang Dalong said with a fish in his mouth.

"It may not be sold yet." Qi Siyue added.

"That's right, my master tried his best to buy it only a few times." The fat man said.

"Let's raise some more fish in the future." Xiao Shulin was eating the fish, and his mind was drifting away. There was a shoal just upstream of the reservoir, which was suitable for raising this fish. Time can also be developed and utilized.

"I heard that you have built a reservoir?" Qi Siyue asked.

"Well, it's the one near our village. Didn't you see it when you drove here?" Luo Meng picked two more fish and put them into Xiao Shulin's bowl. After a while, there might only be pickles left on the plate.

"I see, it's not that big." Yang Dalong asked, "What do you two plan to raise in it?"

"Snails, small river prawns, river clams, and some small fish like this." Luo Meng was talking to them, and Xiao Shulin only had to eat at the moment.

"Why do you specialize in raising small fish and shrimps? You have so many birds here, so you're not afraid of being eaten by them?" Yang Dalong felt that this was unreliable when he heard it. Someone in his hometown had suffered from this before.

"That's right." The chopsticks in Luo Meng's hand paused, and then he quickly came up with a solution: "Don't be afraid, when the time comes, send two dogs to guard it, that is, during the day, and the birds will rest at night." .”

"Pai..." When he heard that he was going to send a dog over there, the dog father immediately fell silent.

"How about sending Yaya over there?" Romon wanted to send Yaya a job for a long time.

"Don't you want to guard the cowshed?" Father Gou weakly protested.

"That's the night. At night, I plan to separate the two from the chicken coop and sleep in the cowshed. Yaya and his son are still sleeping there. Now there are more cows on the mountain, and there are cows and calves at the same time. Yes, put two more dogs for insurance." Since someone wanted to go up the mountain to steal cattle last year, Romon has not let down his vigilance much, even if he occasionally sees strange faces coming to work on the mountain, he will secretly observe it.

"There is no one living there, and the road above is full of traffic, what if you run into a bad person?" The dog father is still not at ease.

"Don't worry, everyone with long eyes nearby knows that Yaya belongs to me. Otherwise, let the southeast and northwest go there together, and have a companion for safety." Anyway, Niuwangzhuang has nothing to do with them during the day, these big dogs and puppies It's all about running wild, or giving them some work.

Seeing that the dog's father was still a little unwilling, Luo Meng said to him again: "Have you seen the hammer of Namao's family? Look at that dog, how confident and calm it is. Compared with others, your yaya is so Isn’t it a little bit worse? Do you know where it is? No job! It can’t find a sense of accomplishment, can’t reflect its own value, so can it still be confident and steady?”

"Then Yaya is so old, can she still learn it?" Father Dog felt that what Luo Meng said made sense, but working dogs and pet dogs were different after all.

"Don't worry, your family is smart." Luo Meng poured him a bowl of soup.

"That's true." The dog dad loves to hear this.

"Yaya! North, south, east, and west!" Romon raised his voice and shouted.

"Wow woof!" Soon, these big dogs and puppies rushed into the yard, and the chubby big treasure followed behind them like a tail. "Here, eat a small fish first." Picking, there were five small fish left at the end, he picked them out, and fed one to each of the southeast, northwest, and Yaya. Dabao was still young, so he didn't dare to feed him fish with thorns, so he fed him a mouthful of pickles. .

"Woo!" The dogs happily wagged their tails at Romon after eating the delicious fish.

"How is it? Is the fish delicious?" Romon asked it.

"Ahhhhhhhh!!!" Yaya called out first.

"Do you still want to eat in the future?"

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh then)" Anyway, the meal was almost done, so Luo Meng simply put down his chopsticks and led them to the reservoir. Dongnanxixi and Yaya Dabao happily followed behind him, thinking that if they followed, they would have fish to eat.

When they got to the reservoir, these big dogs and puppies were a little dumbfounded. There is water here, so where can there be fish to eat?

"Woof!" The boss walked back and forth on the dam a few times, and then barked at Romon in confusion.

"Fish grow in the water." Luo Meng explained to the bumpkins.

"Woooo..." The big and small dogs all ran to the edge of the water to see what happened, and then the chubby white puppy accidentally rolled into the water, and Romon was about to go there to fish for it. I popped my head in the water, got down again after a while, and then got up again...

"Do you think it's eating something?" Qi Siyue who followed behind said to Yang Dalong.

"What's in your reservoir now?" Yang Dalong asked Xiao Shulin.

"This little bastard is eating shrimp!" Luo Meng said angrily, "Dabao, you brat! Why don't you come back to me!"

"Woo..." The round white ball floated contentedly on the water, lowering its head from time to time to find some sweet snacks for itself, apparently not intending to come back.

"Yaya, hurry up and bring your son back." Romon patted Yaya's dog's head.

"Ahhhhh..." Yaya shrank her neck, she had never learned to swim.