I farmed in ancient times

The grapes on the shelf had been drying for about ten days. Cassia climbed up the wooden ladder to collect a bunch and squeezed them with his hands.

Most of the water in the original plump grapes evaporates, leaving a lot of water in the grapes.

Cassia twisted it with his thumb and forefinger, and the grape juice leaked out, and the taste changed a bit.

——Is the temperature not enough?

Cassia took down a few more bunches to check. Some of the grapes were damaged during drying, while others were in good condition.

Putting the sun-dried grapes aside, Cassia compared them. The skins of the grapes that can be sun-dried are relatively thin, while some grapes have thick skins, which is not conducive to water evaporation, or it may be damaged by accidental contact before hanging on the shelf. The grapes are thus contaminated.

This time only one-fifth of the grapes were intact. Jue Ming wrote down the precautions for drying raisins in a small notebook, carefully put away the sun-dried grapes, put them on a bamboo plaque, and put them in the west wing indoors, open windows and doors, and dry slowly in the shade.

In this way, a small pot of raisins took a full month from planting to harvesting, and it still depends on God to reward the raisins for eating, and it hasn’t rained for a month.

Because the quantity was small, Caesar only let Uncle Shi taste it, and gave some to Lizheng and Master Hua.

Raisins are not subject to transportation restrictions. If they can be produced in large quantities, the common people can eat them in winter. Caesar thought for a while, but he didn’t seem to see raisins when he went out. Raisins circulate only in flourishing places.

As soon as May was over, the weather was getting hotter and hotter, and the normal peach trees were bearing fruit. Inside the small closed gate in the backyard of Jueming's house, there were many fruits, and the branches were full of fruits.

Of course, in the eyes of Cassia, it is full of fruits. Sometimes the pollination cannot take care of the whole tree, and it is really impossible to take care of the flowers. Cassia simply pulls them off to save trouble.

Anyway, he planted it for his own food, and didn't plan to sell it outside.

Among the peach saplings bought from Lao Zhangtou, one is a yellow peach tree.

Yellow peaches taste hard and sour, so many people don't like them. At this time, there is no canned food, so I don't know that canned yellow peaches are good for preservation and delicious.

Caesar rubbed his little hands, waited for the peaches to ripen, and sent them to Father Cen along with the raisins.

This month, I made another batch of raisins. Cassia specially selected grapes with thin skins. The dried raisins tasted good, and the grapes were less spoiled than before.

In order to wait for the yellow peaches to ripen, Jue Ming went to Zhangjiadu to find the old Zhangtou and asked when the yellow peaches were ripe. The old Zhangtou knew that he had accidentally mixed a yellow peach sapling with the peach saplings for sale, and wanted to exchange the saplings for Cassia Ming. Ming declined, saying that he just wanted yellow peaches.

Old Zhangtou told Caesar that yellow peaches usually ripen in July and August, and ordinary peaches can be eaten in mid-June.

It is only mature in July and August, and I don't know when I will leave Damo Township.

Cassia went home and looked at the peach tree, and couldn't help but take out the blue bead.

After a while, Jueming went to East Kitchen with a large basket of yellow peaches.

Caesar first went out to buy some small pottery jars, and after returning home, he washed them and exposed them to the sun for three days.

Then, while the yellow peaches were not paying attention, they peeled all of them, cut a circle along the yellow peaches with a knife, and broke them into two halves.

The two halves of Cassia Ming's ideal are complete and beautiful halves. In fact, the yellow peach is very hard, and the edges are broken when opened.

After more than a dozen breaks in a row, Jue Ming gradually became proficient.

Break the yellow peaches in half, remove the core, wash them in well water, soak them in salt water, and wait until they have soaked enough for a cup of tea, then pick them up, and cook them slowly in a casserole with rock sugar.

While stewing the yellow peaches, he set up two iron pots and boiled two pots of boiling water. After washing the pottery jar, he scalded it with boiling water several times, put the scalded gauze on it and put it aside for later use.

When the yellow peaches were stewed thoroughly and the rock sugar melted, Caesar took out one with a spoon and tasted it. The sugar was a bit small, and the soup of the yellow peaches was still sour.

Adding sugar and stewing again, the taste is similar this time. Cassia picked up the casserole and placed it next to the pottery jar, quickly scooped it into the jar with a spoon, covered it, wrapped it with oil paper, tied it tightly with a rope, and finally spread it around the pottery jar. Put a layer of mud on it.

This jar is used to test how long the yellow peaches can be preserved. Cassia has made it several times, using different methods to try not to bring the bacteria in the air into the jar. The raisins are drying together.

Jueming scooped up another jar of the best yellow peaches, took them to Uncle Shi's house, and asked them to help taste the taste, saying that it was a new product that Shiwen Grain Shop would sell in the future.

After a quarter of an hour of slow stewing, the sourness and hardness of the yellow peaches were dissolved by water and rock sugar, and it tasted soft, sweet and refreshing. The soup of boiled yellow peaches was bright yellow. Uncle Shi ate a big bowl. He suggested that Cassia should chill the yellow peach soup before selling it. It tastes better this way.

The canned yellow peaches in the west compartment had been stored for more than half a month. When Cassia Ming opened it again, three jars were broken.

Under such crude conditions, it is very good that it can be preserved for such a long time. Now that the water and land transportation are well developed, it will not take too long to transport it to Bianjing.

Cassia packed a pack of raisins, sealed a few altars of freshly made yellow peaches, called a carriage, and drove them all to Yang County, where they were sent to Cen Daonian in Bianjing.

In the raisins, Cassia also wrapped a letter, explaining that if the yellow peach tastes wrong, don't eat it, it may be spoiled, and you should eat the yellow peach as soon as you receive it, otherwise it will spoil too.

Cen Daonian was very pleased to receive the special product sent by his elder son. He held the pottery jar and ate half of it in one go. Thinking of Caesar Ming's saying that yellow peaches are perishable, he reluctantly gave it to a few friends and Shen Yan who was in Beijing. , Li Xiurong also sent an altar.

When Li Xiurong got the yellow peach altar, when he heard that it was sent by Cassia Ming, he held it in his arms like a baby, and let Weng Weng taste a bowl, even his father didn't let him taste it.

The Yellow Peach Altar is well received in Bianjing petty bourgeoisie circles. Some bold people even approached Cen Daonian, wanting to buy some food. Cen Daonian didn't have a Yellow Peach Altar, so what would he sell them?A group of people could only wait helplessly for Cen Daonian to write a letter calling for his eldest son to return to Beijing.

Thinking that the original house was about to be taken back, Cen Daonian rubbed the ink, held his sleeves, held the pen by his wrist, and wrote a reply on the paper with the warm yellow light from the oil lamp.

Letters came and went, June was almost over, and as time went by, the temperature gradually climbed.

Cassia found that it seemed that there had been no rain for several months this year.

It was early summer, the heat was overwhelming, the drought continued for days, the streams were broken and the rivers dried up. The whole village seemed anxious and didn't know what to do.

As the water level dropped again and again, the small boats could pass the river before, but now they could see all kinds of fish and shrimps at the bottom of the river.

With so little water, catching fish is a breeze.The villagers who used to rely on the river were happy for a while, and then they found that the river water on which the village depended for survival was slowly decreasing.

Damo Township also panicked for a while, but fortunately, no matter how little water there was in the river, the well water in the village did not fall at all.

In such a sweltering weather, a gray shadow flashed across the path in the forest. A man was walking through the woods with a wooden bow on his back. Suddenly, the man stood on the spot and stretched out his right hand to pinch out a wooden arrow. , Twisted the bowstring, the bowstring was like a full moon, the boy let go, with a "whoosh", in the blink of an eye, the sharpened wooden sword pierced into the belly of the gray rabbit ten steps away.

With joy on his face, Caesar quickly put away the wooden bow, stepped forward to pick up the dying gray rabbit on the ground, pulled out the wooden arrow and stuffed it into the quiver behind him, and strode towards the depths of the forest.

Days of drought have caused the farmers in Damo Township to live on the sky to complain, and the water level of the river is declining day by day. I am afraid that the villagers will not be able to carry water to irrigate the fields for a few days.

Seeing that the small pool next to the mountain temple can still flow from the [-]-meter-high mountain in such a hot and dry weather, he suspected that there was still spring water in the spring in the mountain, so he went hunting on the mountain to investigate.

Xia Chan was noisy, her hoarse cry was deafening, Caesar wiped off her sweat, and walked up the mountain along the stone road.

Stepping into the dense forest, one can clearly feel that the temperature of the whole body has dropped a bit. Even at noon, it is much cooler than that at the foot of the mountain.

Although the small pool is small, there is a big lake on it. No matter what, the water is diverted to the farmland in Damo Township, which is enough for the villagers to water for several days.

As long as this half month is over, the grain in the field can be harvested. This year, everyone will continue the tradition of previous years, and continue to plant rice. Unexpectedly, there is a severe drought. Many paddy fields are seriously short of water. Now is the critical period for rice filling. , if there is insufficient water, the rice yield will decrease.

Jueming didn't dare to think whether this was only the case in Yang County, or the whole Bizhou.I dare not even think about whether there will be another natural disaster this time.

There is no adult at home, he dare not toss himself to catch a cold like before, what should Chaoan do if no one takes care of him?What if it really hangs up this time?

Caesar suppressed the thought of making himself sick, and then walked up the mountain.

The closer you get to the mountain temple, the louder the sound of the running water. The small pool is formed by the waterfall that slipped over from the lake. During such a dry time, the water volume has not decreased. Even Cassia began to doubt whether the pool was blessed by the mountain god.

Walking around the pool, looking around, no one came, Jue Ming quickly took out the blue beads, sucked up the water in the small pool, and exposed the bottom of the pool.

Strange to say, there wasn't even a single fish in this pool, so Caesar stepped on the sand and rocks at the bottom of the pool with his trousers in his arms, and walked around in his slippers. At the bottom of the pool, he saw a black hole swirling with water.

Most of the water flowing down from the small waterfall went into the black hole, and Caesar clenched his fists to stop his thoughts of going to the black hole to check.

Under the black hole, there should be a dark river, which has diverted most of the water, so although the small pool is continuously filled with water by the waterfall, it will not overflow the water.

Seeing that the water in the pool was slowly rising up, Jue Ming sat by the pool, washed his feet with the water, put on his shoes, turned over the steep slope behind the mountain temple, and looked at the lake.

There are nine springs at the bottom of the entire Great Lake, from which water flows out continuously.

There was still a round hole at the bottom of the lake that was smashed by tracing the source. Jue Ming took a look, turned around and turned down the steep slope, and went down the mountain to find Li Zheng.

After returning home, I hurriedly grabbed a bite of lunch, and heard that my brother was going to find Li Zheng, and Chao An said solemnly that he would go too.

When Jueming took Chao'an, Lizheng was not there. The head of the household and the elders were sitting inside the door, shaking cattail fans and talking about whether the imperial court would reduce taxes after the severe drought this year.

Seeing one big and one small walking in at the door, the head of the household casually said, "Why are the children of Cen's family here at this hour?"

The cattail fan in the elder's hand stopped, Jue Ming pulled Cen Chao'an across the threshold, and greeted the two of them, the elder elder waved his fan again, "What are you doing here?"