Defeat natural disasters with farming

Old man Ye sat on the kang for a while, then straightened up and said to his sons: "The three of you come with me to the village to see if there is anything you need."

Father Ye glanced at his father's tired face, and suggested: "Why don't you stay at home and rest for a while, and the three of us can go."

"Let's go together." Old man Ye insisted. He got off the kang and waved for them to follow.

As soon as the father and son left the yard, they saw that the whole village was in a mess. There were no green leaves on the pine and cypress trees, and some locusts that hadn’t flown away landed on them. The villagers were catching them with nets. Locusts are certainly a pest. But it is also a good choice to catch it and grind it into powder to feed livestock. Anyway, stop the loss in time.

They walked to the door of a house following the sound of crying and howling. This was the house of Ye Yongsheng, the second cousin of the old man. At this time, it was full of people. After Ye's father squeezed in, he found that his second cousin was lying on the ground. There was no injury on the body with the naked eye, but it must be serious if people fainted.

"What's going on here?"

The person who answered him was Ye Chengzu, the eldest son of the second cousin, "Oh, my father accidentally fell when he was hiding from locusts."

After finishing speaking, he slapped his head angrily, "I don't know where he fell? Why did he pass out? If I had known, I wouldn't have let my father come out. It would be nice to just stay in the room."

As soon as the words came out, the surrounding villagers all looked at each other. Their family also had a bad debt, and no one said anything.

Not long after, Dr. Hao rushed over with the medicine box, and immediately said when he saw this scene: "Don't crowd together, get out of the way if you have nothing to do."

After hearing the words, the villagers moved out one after another to make a piece of land for Dr. Hao. After checking the pulse, Dr. Hao withdrew his hand and breathed a sigh of relief, "It's nothing serious, just a broken leg." He pointed to Ye Yongsheng's right hand The leg continued: "Go back and apply a layer of medicine, and then fix it with a wooden board. After about three months, it will be almost healed."

"That's good." Ye Chengzu was obviously relieved, he ordered his son to carry a plank to carry his grandfather back to the house.

In addition to the one who broke his leg, several other villagers were washed up by locusts, with cuts on their faces and arms, but fortunately, the locusts are not interested in people, otherwise they probably wouldn't be able to survive, unlike now Just take some plaster and apply it.

Old man Ye moved from the head of the village to the end of the village, and brought his three sons to help the villagers pack their things for a while before returning home.

At this time, the family was also picking up all kinds of rescued vegetables. The cabbage was pulled out by hand, and some of the leaves fell off. Mother Ye had to pick them off and throw them into the basket, and then gave them to the livestock.The same is true for radishes. I didn't pay attention when I pulled them out. Only then did I find that the surface of the radish was bumpy. I don't know if it was eaten by something or not.

Everyone was puzzled, and Mrs. Ye said distressedly: "I didn't see any bugs in the ground, why did they bite like this."

Father Ye looked at the carrot and frowned tightly, "Let's break it open and have a look."

There were also holes in the radish flesh after breaking it apart, and it was estimated that they could not be eaten. After looking at all the radishes one by one, they found that almost all the radishes had been eaten by insects. The difference was that some had more holes and some had fewer holes.

Old lady Ye was so heartbroken that she almost didn't pass.

Ye Yu thought of the vegetable field. Doesn't this mean that the vegetable field is full of pests now?It needs to be dealt with earlier. If it continues like this, there will still be pests on the vegetables when they are planted again.

"Father, let's quickly mix some plant ash and spray it on the vegetable patch."

Father Ye nodded seriously, and asked again, "What about the other vegetables?"

Other onions, garlic, and leeks have such a strong smell that no insects are willing to eat them, and the winter melon is also hanging outside, so you can look at it every day. If there are insects on it, it must have been discovered by the family. Since I have not seen it, it proves Winter melon is good.

This made Mrs. Ye a lot more relaxed. If the winter melon was also eaten by insects, she would probably die.

Father Ye and his two elder brothers turned over the vegetable field, not to mention, they found a lot of bugs, among which aphids were the most, and there were also some spider mites and cabbage caterpillars.

Seeing all kinds of bugs, Ye Yu felt a little numb.

After digging the land, they mixed the plant ash with water non-stop. After standing for a day and filtering, the plant ash water can be sprinkled on the vegetable field.Just in case, Mrs. Ye even picked mugwort from the yard, chopped it, boiled it, and poured it on the ground after cooling.

She akimbo angrily and said, "I don't believe there are bugs here."

After such actions, almost no insects were seen in the vegetable field at the end, and the Ye family replanted the seeds at this time, but because it is already October, they thought that even if it was hot outside, it would be winter sooner or later So I didn't grow any that were not cold-resistant, and only planted two kinds, one is cabbage and the other is spinach.

Just as they were replanting, another wave of locusts flew over, but they were much smaller in number and size than before. The villagers caught a lot of them, and their family was no exception.

Ye He was sitting under the awning set up in the yard, grinding the locusts he caught into powder, while Ye Yu was sitting on the other side, arranging slices of dried sweet potatoes on the straw. The dried sweet potatoes were very chewy , when eaten, it is sweet and sweet, whether it is eaten dry or cooked in porridge, it is very popular with family members.

The two chatted while working, and finished the work in a short time. Suddenly someone knocked on the door, and Ye He clapped his hands and ran to open the door. Ye Cheng was outside the door.

He quickly explained the reason for his visit, "The pigs raised in the village are no longer fat because of the hot weather, and they are unhappy every day. My grandmother wanted to kill the pigs as soon as possible. She asked our brothers to come and tell the villagers."

This year it was the turn of Ye En's family to raise pigs, and they raised two in total. When they first started raising pigs, they thought that the grain harvest would be good, and the pigs would be able to eat good food. They should be well-fed and fattened, and they would share more pork during the Chinese New Year, but who would have thought that the environment would suddenly change As it is now, the two pigs not only did not grow fat, but also began to lose fat. In addition, they were frightened by locusts, and they began to lose weight at a speed visible to the naked eye in the past two days. It is really not easy to continue to raise .

This was a perfectly normal thing, so no one in the village objected, and someone went to help Ye En's family butcher pigs early the next morning.

The two pigs together only weighed more than 300 catties, and they were easy to kill. The village did not hire a pig butcher, so they slaughtered them themselves. Each household only had about three catties, which is really not much. Last year, each household had more than six catties.

But according to the current situation, it is good to eat something, and no one dislikes it. Besides, it is so hot, too much pork is not easy to preserve, and sooner or later it will spoil if you can't finish it. From this point of view, three catties is just enough. good.

After returning with the pork and finishing a meal of stewed noodles with pork and sauerkraut, Mrs. Ye looked at the sheep in her backyard and asked, "Should we kill a few of our sheep too? Recently, the ewes are producing milk because of the hot weather." If you get less, it will be enough for the whole family to drink."

Over the past few years, the number of sheep in their family has increased to six, of which three are male and three are female, and the distribution is very even.

"The ewes have to be kept for milking, but two rams can be killed, and only one will be left to breed with your uncle." Old man Ye said to Father Ye with his head down, taking a puff of pipe tobacco.

But Father Ye shook his head, "I can't kill it, let's talk about it when it gets colder, otherwise it's not easy to preserve the meat that can't be eaten."

That's true, the old couple temporarily took a break from killing the sheep, thinking about waiting for the weather to cool down before killing them.

However, this wait lasts for two months. According to Ye Yu's physical experience, the temperature has been hovering between [-] degrees and [-] degrees. It is naturally much lower than the hottest time, but now it is almost the New Year's Eve Yes.

Ye Yu wondered if it would always be like this in the future, with the four seasons upside down and chaotic.

But these days are not without any good news. The biggest good news is that there was a heavy rain. The water level of the Liu River rose a little because of this rain, which also made the villagers in the nearby villages heave a sigh of relief. They have been worrying about what to do if the Liu River dries up one day if it does not rain.

In addition, the epidemic has also been effectively controlled. The doctor of Huichuntang developed a pill, which can reduce the probability of getting sick as long as it is ignited at home. An incineration platform, he also announced to the entire Donghai County through the mouths of many doctors that the source of the disease was the corpses that died of the disease, so these corpses had to be burned before they could be buried in the soil.

People today believe in peace in the soil, and many people resisted the words as soon as they came out. However, such resistance seemed very weak in the face of the epidemic. The number of patients increased day by day, so they finally let go. Fortunately, the effect was very obvious. In just one month, the situation in Donghai County improved a lot.

The Ye family soon got the news, and Ye's father said with emotion: "The sheriff of Donghai County is really a good official who is dedicated to his duties."

The others nodded in agreement. The prosperity of Donghai County in the past was inseparable from the governance of the county guard.

Mother Ye washed the clothes in her hands, sighed and said: "The imperial court has never sent anyone to relieve the disaster. It is estimated that many people died in Donghai County alone, let alone other places with severe drought."

Henan County is probably not an exaggeration to say that there are ten rooms and nine empty spaces. Even in their village, there is an elderly man who couldn't bear the hot weather. He disappeared half a month ago.

Ye Yu knew from the letter from Chu Xufeng that the capital's seizure of the throne is now at the most critical time, and that King Duan is older and more likely to be in power. He thought, he will always pay attention when the new emperor ascends the throne. As far as the private situation is concerned, not to mention disaster relief, tax exemption for a few years is also good.

At this time, Mrs. Ye straightened up and beat her waist with her hands, "Okay, don't think about it so much, as long as the family is together, life can always go on."

Seeing this, Father Ye immediately asked worriedly: "Is the ointment given by Doctor Hao not working?"

It may be because of being too tired recently. Mrs. Ye has suffered from a back disease. It has been hurting since the heavy rain. They invited Dr. Hao to see it, but the disease is incurable. Dr. Hao only gave one A jar of black ointment, said to be applied on the waist in the morning and evening, can relieve pain.

"It works. It's much better now, but it's just a little sore occasionally." Mrs. Ye is used to the pain. The pain comes and goes, just bear it.

"Let's go to Huichun Hall later and ask a doctor who is good at acupuncture to give you an injection. Maybe you will feel better."

Mrs. Ye waved her hand when she heard the words, "Why bother, let's stay in the village honestly."

"Sooner or later, we have to go to the county seat to see Xiaobei and our shop. I don't know if something happened after it hasn't been opened for so long."

The more Ye father talked, the more he felt that there were a lot of things to do. Although he entrusted the shop to the Chen family to take care of it, they were not the owner of the shop. In such a chaotic situation a while ago, they were grateful for being able to distract and pay attention. that's it.

After hearing this passage, Mrs. Ye no longer refused, it was a tacit consent. She was really worried about her daughter's family and wanted to see them with her own eyes, especially her granddaughter. It's a pity that she went through such an ordeal not long after she was born.

They want to return home, but they still can't go to the county seat recently. At least they have to wait until the outside is more stable, and then it will be safer to go with the villagers. Who knows if those victims will become refugees, or even bandits.

In the villages near Yejia Village, there was more than one case of being robbed and killed. There was a lot of panic everywhere. No one dared to go out alone, and most of them followed Yejia Village and built walls, but because there were not enough stones, most of them were soil. The wall, which made the villagers of Yejia Village rejoice. Fortunately, they built the wall earlier and used stones, which are stronger.

While they were chatting, they continued to work on their hands. They were all scattered tasks, which were not tiring, but troublesome, such as twisting hemp rope and knitting wool. These tasks could last a whole day!

Only when the fire clouds were hanging from the sky, Taohua came out and called them into the house to eat. Now that they don’t have to do heavy work, their family only eats two meals, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. If you eat it, you can eat some dried sweet potatoes to cushion your stomach.

Ye He stretched his head to look at the table, feeling a little disappointed.

Today's staple food is still steamed corn bread with big ballast porridge. The two dishes are scrambled eggs with winter melon and pickles. As the weather became hotter, the ones that could not survive had to be slaughtered, and now there are only five or six remaining.

Originally, Ye Laoer was going to go hunting in the mountains, but was stopped by the old couple. There was no particular reason, but he was afraid that there would be too many changes in the mountains and something would happen when he went in, so it's better to wait and see.

"Let's eat a little today, and I will cook Laba porridge for you in a few days for the Laba Festival." Mrs. Ye sandwiched an egg for each of the children.

She thought for a while, and added: "Kill another chicken and eat it."

Before Ye He could speak, Mrs. Ye retorted distressedly: "Don't kill it, our family is still waiting for the hen to lay eggs!"

"It's okay, besides Dahong, we don't have a rooster. I think it is not as capable as Dahong, so I might as well kill it and eat the meat."

Mrs. Ye thought that the two roosters at home were indeed as her mother-in-law said, so she didn't object any more. She also wanted to give the child something good to eat, but isn't this condition limited?Thinking of this, she sighed, that's all, it's just a rooster, the worst thing is to let the hen cuddle and hatch a few more chicks.