Defeat natural disasters with farming

Ye Yu has been wandering around the village since the separation of the family, planning to find a suitable place to build a house. He and Chu Xufeng traveled all over the village, and finally picked a brighter place.

After deciding on a place, you can start building a house. This time, Ye Yu made up his mind to build a house that can last a lifetime, so he and Chu Xufeng got together to draw a structural drawing of the house.

"I remember reading that as long as a fire path is laid under the floor, the heat from burning charcoal outside the house will be conducted to the room through the fire path when the weather is cold, and the green bricks will gradually heat up. You can feel the warmth, and the kang is only hot where the bed is, and as long as the fire is not turned on, the bed will not be hot." Ye Yu sat in Chu Xufeng's study and explained to him while drawing pictures .

Chu Xufeng obviously understood, he thought for a while and asked sharply: "Where do you burn the charcoal?"

Ye Yu said: "Just dig a hole more than one meter deep outside the house as the stove opening, and cover it with wooden boards when it is not in use."

This is actually a very worthwhile thing to try, and the success rate is also very high.

So Chu Xufeng nodded and said, "You can try."

After they got Ye's father's consent, they invited the young and middle-aged men in the village to help build the house. The first thing they had to do was to copy the leveling line, which was to make sure that the ground was level and on the same level.

Immediately afterwards, the foundation began to be laid. At this time, Ye Boss and Ye Lao Er came to help. Ye Yu wanted to lay a solid masonry foundation. Masonry is mainly made of bricks, so it took them a long time.

Ye Yu glanced at the structure diagram and then at the foundation, and then commanded: "Dig two more potholes on the side." These two potholes will be the furnace cavity and the smoke outlet in the future.

Ye Zhong responded readily, "Right away."

After digging for a while, he asked, "Is that so?"

Ye Yu took a closer look, then waved his right hand, "A little deeper."

After they asked and answered, two deep pits gradually took shape.

It was already time for lunch, Mother Ye had already prepared the meal, and she quickly asked the people who came to help to stay for dinner.

Before they could refuse, Mother Ye brought over a pot of miscellaneous stew, which is to stew the leftover vegetables and meat in a pot. You can fill your stomach.

After dinner, Ye Yu wanted them to go home and sleep for a while, and come back in the afternoon, but Ye Zhong and the others said that they were not in the habit of sleeping at noon, and they must continue to work.

In the end, Mother Ye gave them a glare, "It's too hot today, working under such a big sun, even if you are not afraid of heatstroke, I am afraid of Ayu's heatstroke, so go back and rest for a while."

Ever since Ye Yu grew up, his parents hardly called him by his nickname outside.

Ye Zhong and the others obeyed Mother Ye's words, and soon went home in twos and threes, shoulder to shoulder and carrying tools.

Ye Yu took advantage of this time to go back to Ye's house and cook a pot of mung bean soup. After cooking, he poured it into a bamboo tube and put it in the well water. When he started work in the afternoon, he just brought it over, and got the mung bean soup to quench his thirst. Ye Zhong and the others unanimously praised it.

After drinking the mung bean soup, they began to dig the fire path. First, they dug out a main flue, and then the vertical flue with a smaller width was the branch flue. ".

Ye Zhong sighed while working: "It's really troublesome."

"It's a bit troublesome, but it will be worth it after it's done." Ye Yu said while wearing a straw hat.

"Then I'll just have to wait and see how it works out," he said.

The cover plate of the main flue is masonry, the cover plate of the branch flue is buckled tiles, and there are floor tiles laid on stilts on top of the two cover plates. It is a troublesome thing to say, but once you understand it, it is very simple. Understand.

After that, no one spoke, and they all focused on following Ye Yu's instructions.

Ye Yu's voice became a little hoarse when he was directing. He covered his mouth and coughed twice, and then took a sip of mung bean soup to moisten his throat. Seeing this, Chu Xufeng immediately took the blueprint in his hand and started to direct for him.

"Go and rest under the shade for a while, and I'll do the rest."

Ye Yu didn't try to be brave, he walked towards the shade of the tree with the bamboo tube in his arms, drank the mung bean soup in one gulp, then took a breath and relaxed, leaning his back against the tree trunk.

The wind sent Chu Xufeng's voice intermittently.

"A number of brick buttresses are erected on the rammed earth layer between the flues... green bricks are placed on it, and the gaps are tightly plastered with mortar..." The mortar is a mixture of quicklime and cooked glutinous rice ground into a slurry.

Leaning on the tree trunk, Ye Yu thought of the advantages of doing this. First, the heat can circulate between the flues, so that the floor tiles are heated evenly. Second, the soot in the flue will not float into the house, but will be discharged from the smoke outlet.

Thinking about it, he covered his mouth and yawned, feeling a little sleepy.

When Ye Mu saw it, she said to him: "Go home and sleep, I and Brother Xu will watch over here."

"Okay." Ye Yu replied.

After a good night's sleep, his energy returned a lot, and he continued to supervise the work at the new house the next day, but this time he was not the only one who supervised the work, but took turns with his parents and Chu Xufeng.

And because the structural drawing of the new house was well done, the flue was laid after five days. The thing to do at this time was to wait for the flue to cool down and then conduct a charcoal burning experiment.

It was a sunny day during the experiment. Ye Yu went down into the furnace cavity and ignited the charcoal nervously. He didn't know whether this kind of floor heating similar to the Forbidden City in the Qing Dynasty would be successful. In fact, he was [-]% sure in his heart. But I am afraid that I will meet the remaining two points.

Fortunately, not long after, smoke came out of the smoke outlet on the other side. Seeing this, Ye Yu couldn't help showing a smile, and it was a success.

He crawled out of the furnace cavity and said happily: "Kung fu pays off."

Chu Xufeng joked: "I have a share of the credit for this. When the house is built later, remember to leave me a room."

Ye Yu smiled and replied, "Of course I have your house. No matter what time it is, I have a place for you in my house."

After confirming that the blue bricks are very strong, they can start to build the walls, and put mortar in the gaps. As the bricks are fixed in place, the initial structure of the house will gradually take shape.

The beams of the house are made of round, straight and smooth beams, which Father Ye entrusted someone to cut from the mountain. With the beams, the roof was quickly completed. The brown and black tiles are high in the middle and low on both sides. Rain and snow will slide off the shingles, so don't bother getting up to shovel snow.

In the picture drawn by Ye Yu, their new home faces south from the north, with a main room for guests in the middle, and two living rooms on the east and west sides. The area is twice the size of the front yard, and a vegetable field has been built, with vines climbing on the fence surrounding the vegetable field, and there are also mud houses for livestock, and a large cellar has been dug underground.

Just after the house was built, they transplanted a persimmon tree and a jujube tree to the front yard, and two apricot trees to the back yard. When these trees start to bear fruit, the scenery in the yard should be beautiful.

The new house needed to be ventilated, so when Ye Yu's family could finally move, it was already early August, and there were only a dozen days left before the Mid-Autumn Festival. Go into the mountains to hunt to make a living.

It hasn't rained on their side for eight months, and the Liuhe River is drying up at a speed visible to the naked eye. They save water because they don't know when the first rain will fall.

Under the scorching sun, the crops in the fields were bent over by the sun, and even the soil was cracked. The village veterans often went to the fields to squeeze a handful of soil, then sighed deeply, and murmured, "God is not a man."

The inexhaustible hoarded food in the past few years has saved lives. Every family has some surplus food in their hands. If you save some food, at least you won’t starve to death.

Therefore, when Ye Yu's family moved, they didn't hold a banquet. Instead, other families in the village united to give some needles, thread and brains. Ye Yu thought that the Mid-Autumn Festival would be in a few days, and he would make some mooncakes as a gift.

As soon as he moved into his new home, Ye Yu led Chu Xufeng to visit his house, saying that it was one room that was actually separated by a wall, which was equivalent to two rooms, the larger one was the bedroom for sleeping, and the smaller one had bookshelves And the desk, there are pens, ink, paper and inkstone on the desk, which is the study room.

Ye Yu lives in the first room on the east side of the main room. Next to him is the room reserved for Chu Xufeng. The two rooms are basically the same in structure, the only difference is the decoration.

As for his parents, they live in the room on the west side of the main room, and the remaining room on the west side is used for entertaining guests.

The floor of every resident's house is covered with blue bricks, which makes it convenient to clean up. You only need to use a broom to sweep it.

A few fruit trees in the yard have just been transplanted. Although they take good care of them, they are still sick because of the unacceptable water and soil. Moreover, there are no fruits on the branches, only yellowing branches and leaves, which fall to the ground from time to time. I don’t know if they can be raised. have to live.

On the contrary, the mountain grapes entwined on the fence are growing vigorously, and have already produced dense green fruits, each of which is only as big as Ye Yu's little finger, and there is still a period of time before it is truly ripe.

More than half of the vegetables planted in the vegetable field in the past few months have grown. Among them, common vegetables such as cabbage, winter melon, and cucumber are naturally indispensable. Now the peppers and tomatoes are growing gratifyingly, and the gourd seedlings share the fence with the grapes, and green and tender gourds have grown. At this time, they are picked and fried with eggs, which is very delicious. Ye Yu can eat a bowl of rice with this dish.

There are still a few cold melons hidden in the leaves at the corners. Ye Yu has to look at them every day, thinking that they will grow soon, and today is no exception. He led Chu Xufeng to visit the house once, and then ran to the vegetable field in the backyard , Regardless of the image, squatting down to pat the cold melon.

Hearing the sound of slapping, he said with some regret: "This year's growth is not very good, it should not be very sweet."

Chu Xufeng asked suspiciously: "You can know how it grows just by taking a pat?"

Ye Yu taught him enthusiastically, "Finally, there is something you don't know, let me teach you, you first pat the cold melon."

Chu Xufeng did as he said.

Ye Yu asked: "Did you hear the crisp sound of "Dangdang"? "

When Chu Xufeng nodded, he continued: "If you hear a dull "popping" sound, it means that the cold melon is ripe and can be picked and eaten, while the slapping sound of an overripe cold melon will become "" "Puff" sound. "

"These cold melons have been planted like this for several months. The leaves are all wilted. I'm afraid it's hard to ripen."

He couldn't hold back after speaking, and cut off the connected stem with scissors, and took out a cold melon.

"Come on, let's have a taste."

Chu Xufeng laughed and teased him: "I think you want to eat it."

Ye Yu wasn't shy at all, and said cheerfully, "Of course."

The cold melons they grow have light green skins mixed with yellow-green markings, and the flesh is very watery red when cut with a knife. If I have to say a disadvantage, it is that there are more seeds, which makes it a bit troublesome to eat.

Ye Yu cut the cold melon in half, gave half to his grandma later, cut the other half, he and Chu Xufeng ate a quarter of it, and kept the remaining quarter covered for Father Ye Ye mother.

The flesh of the unripe melon was whitish, the flesh of the red heart was very small, and it was not sweet enough to eat, but it was very moist and had a rusty taste, so the two of them quickly ate a quarter of the melon.

After eating, while it was still early, Ye Yu went to Ye's house with half a melon in his arms.

As soon as Mrs. Ye saw him, she was so happy that she couldn't see her eyes. She hugged him and screamed for a while. Although Old Man Ye didn't show anything special, he never took his eyes off Ye Yu.

"Is the cold melon you planted ripe?"

Ye Yu nodded, and put down the melon in his hand, "You can cut it and taste it, if you can't finish eating it for a while, you can put it in the well, and it will be cool when you bring it up again, it's delicious."

"Okay, I'll cut a piece and try it." Mrs. Ye asked Mr. Ye to bring a knife.

Ye Yu waited for them to take a bite before asking expectantly, "Is it delicious?"

Old man Ye spit the seeds into the spittoon, "It's delicious."

"I still have a few melons at home, I'll send them later." Ye Yu said.

Old Man Ye shook his head, "You can keep the ones you grow for yourself. There are melon fields in the village. If we want to eat, we can exchange points for it."

There is a large field in the village where cold melons are planted. There are quite a few of them, and it is now ripe.

This is because some people choose to grow seeds by themselves, and some people feel that they can't grow them, and they are afraid of wasting points, so they simply wait until the village has finished planting cold melons and exchange them for cold melons. Ye Yu is the one who exchanged seeds.

He stayed with his grandma for a while, and when he left, he still had a basket of buns in his hand, which were stuffed with tofu and eggs, which he loved to eat.

And the old couple put the unfinished cold melon into the well, not going to share it out. This is the filial piety given to them by the third family. If other people want to eat, they can exchange it with points.

Ye Yu changed a melon from the village out of curiosity. After eating it, he found that it was not as delicious as the one he planted. The villagers have finished changing, and there is not one left.