Chapter 656: The '50s Motherhood System (13)

"Sister Yangyang, I'm back!"

Liuqiang carried a bundle of firewood on his back and excitedly delivered it to the woodshed at her house, wiped the fine sweat from the tip of his nose, and said:

"While it hasn't snowed yet, I'll go gather another bundle."

Xie Yang hurriedly called out to stop him: "You're already sweating, don't go."

She called Liuqiang into the house, poured him a cup of warm boiled water, and told him to drink some water and rest, and to go home once his sweat had dried to avoid catching a cold.

"Sister Yangyang, my constitution is just fine." Liuqiang looked at the sky, feeling a bit anxious, "While it hasn't snowed yet, let me go gather another bundle."

"If you want to listen to me, then don't go."

As Xie Yang said this, she went into the inner room, took out a piece of clean oil paper, wrapped up a portion of roasted wheat flour mixed with a little brown sugar and sesame seeds, and stuffed it into Liuqiang's arms:

"Take these to eat first. As for the firewood, help me gather more when the year has turned and it's warmer and you have time. There's enough for now; if you don't believe me, go look in the backyard. I've stacked nearly half a wall's worth, enough to last me until the start of the new year."

Liuqiang actually went to the backyard to take a look and discovered that there really was a large stack of thick wood piled up against the wall, which would last a long time once split. The pile in the front woodshed was likely just for kindling.

Only then did he feel at ease.

"Alright then, if you run short on firewood, come find me. I'll go help you gather some; I'll be home for the whole winter break."

Since there was no need to run to the mountain to gather firewood anymore, Liuqiang hopped and skipped all the way home, clutching the small package of brown sugar and sesame roasted wheat flour.

Watching his cheerful back, Xie Yang stroked her chin and pondered: This kid really didn't seem to notice the three extra fruit tree saplings in her yard. When he went to the backyard to look at the firewood, he didn't show any surprise at the lush vegetable patch either.

Is this the so-called "semi-concealment" effect? It really works!

Now Xie Yang was completely at ease, sitting and waiting for half a month to eat super fresh apples, peaches, pears, and sweet fruit nectar.

The beehive that came with the Orchard was placed by her at the base of the backyard wall. Currently, the fruit trees had just been planted, and the bees were still in a dormant state. Once the fruit trees bloomed, the bees would automatically come out to collect nectar. Once the honey jar was full, Xie Yang could perform "one-click honey collection."

"Is this bee a real bee?" Xie Yang asked with some curiosity, "Will it fly to other places to collect nectar in the spring?"

Ace: 【The Host can consider it an electronic bee. If you need it to collect nectar outside the Orchard, you can set it in the backend. If you don't set it, it will default to only collecting nectar in the Orchard.】

Xie Yang was delighted: "In that case, when the rapeseed flowers bloom next spring, I can let it out to collect rapeseed honey."

After the new year, she would have her own fields.

According to the land distribution rules of Shili Village, anyone with household registration in the village could be allocated half a mu of Paddy Field and one and a half mu of Dry Land per person.

She planned to split the half mu of Paddy Field in two: three-fifths for rice and two-fifths for rapeseed. For the one and a half mu of Dry Land, she would follow the crowd and plant some Wheat, Corn, and red sorghum.

The rapeseed would be used to press oil; the rice and Wheat would serve as staples; the Corn was usually ground into cornmeal and mixed with White Flour to make two-grain steamed buns and noodles; families raising pigs also relied on corn cobs to feed the pigs.

The sorghum was generally sold to the distillery in town.

However, if a family had many mouths to feed and not enough fine grain for every meal, they would also keep some sorghum to grind into flour for making steamed buns and corn cakes. If that still wasn't enough, they would mix in some wild vegetables.

Xie Yang would definitely have enough to eat, and if she didn't, she still had her stockpiles. But she still planted some sorghum; it would be nice to use for brewing wine later.

Having planned out the spring farming, Xie Yang turned her gaze back to the vegetable garden.

The Orchard opened because the vegetable garden reached level 20. The seeds unlocked when the vegetable garden reached level 20 included eggplants and peas, which she liked to eat, as well as the cash crop, sunflowers.

Sunflowers are great! Not only can you roast the Kuihua seeds to eat, but if you have enough, you can also press them for oil.

Thus, once the lettuce, Chili, celery, and the rotated Wheat in the fields matured, she planted one plot of eggplants, one plot of peas, and used the remaining seven plots for sunflowers.

Speaking of melon seeds, she actually had some in her stockpiles.

In the previous plane, Song Yanqing's annual salary and the rewards the Emperor gave him from time to time were all taken by her to buy mountain farms.

Firstly, the operation of the farms required a large amount of labor, making it convenient to settle disaster victims when disasters occurred; secondly, she hired people to purchase strange and exotic seeds from the market long-term, and then cultivated and planted them in various farms according to the climate differences between the north and south.

Sunflowers can be grown in both the north and south, but in terms of quality, the ones grown on the northern grasslands are the best. Perhaps due to the high latitude and large temperature difference, the growth cycle of the sunflowers is longer, and the seeds produced are large and plump, with very few empty shells.

And those that could be kept by Xie Yang as stockpiles were definitely the best of the best, the premium goods she couldn't bear to offer as tribute.

At the time, she had stockpiled a batch of raw sunflower seeds that could be used as seeds, and also stockpiled dozens of catties of roasted melon seeds, including five-spice flavor, creamy flavor, salt and pepper flavor, green tea flavor, and walnut flavor.

Mentioning melon seeds really made her crave them a bit.

Xie Yang grabbed a handful of each flavor, stuffed them into the pockets of her cotton-padded jacket, and while strolling around her yard, she cracked the melon seeds with a crunch.

However, she hadn't strolled for long before it started to snow.

At first, she stood under the eaves with great interest, watching the large snowflakes falling like the heavens were dumping cotton batting, scattering and fluttering into the human world, quickly dyeing the yard and the top of the walls white.

But after watching for a long time, visual fatigue was inevitable.

Anyway, since everyone was hiding indoors because of the snow, and she would have to worry about getting wet and having no clothes to change into if she went out, Xie Yang simply closed the yard gate and the main door and bolted them.

Then she went to the kitchen, took out a small red clay stove, and after lighting the fire, first boiled a pot of milk tea. Then she placed a wire rack on the stove, took out some grassland lamb meat she had stockpiled from the Qing Dynasty Travel Plane, cut it into small pieces, threaded them onto skewers, sprinkled them with cumin, Chili powder, and other seasonings, and ate while grilling.

The fragrant charcoal-grilled lamb skewers combined with freshly boiled milk tea made her squint her eyes in satisfaction.

Eating only lamb skewers was bound to be greasy, so she simply took out one portion of each vegetable she had harvested recently that was suitable for grilling.

Corn, Potato, green peppers, chives, eggplants, onions...

Soon, the small and cozy room was filled with the aroma of barbecue.

While grilling, she also dug out a player she had stockpiled from the Melon-eating Plane, which had many popular variety shows and TV dramas from that time downloaded on it. She plugged in a solar power bank and happily ate barbecue while binge-watching shows.

There is happiness in liveliness, and there is joy in solitude; the two actually do not conflict.

In the previous few planes, the identity she inhabited either had a family or relatives, and even if there were opportunities for solitude, they were very short-lived, unlike this moment, where she was the only one in the large yard.

She could eat barbecue if she wanted to eat barbecue, and drink milk tea if she wanted to drink milk tea.

If she craved wine, she would pick a jar of fruit wine brewed at her own farm from the previous plane, and if she got drunk, she would just lie on the bed and sleep until the next afternoon without anyone bothering her.

"Sister Yangyang!"

"Sister Yangyang, are you home?"

Xie Yang was woken up by Liuqiang's calling at the door.

She glanced out the window at the snow-covered scene; Liuqiang wouldn't be bringing her more firewood, would he?

"Liuqiang, I'm home, is something the matter?"

Xie Yang asked loudly through the window.

Liuqiang jumped up and down on the other side of the yard wall: "Sister Yangyang, my family is slaughtering the New Year pig today, and my mom told me to call you over to eat the pork feast."

"Are you slaughtering a pig at your place today? That's great! I'll tidy up and come over; it's cold out, you go back first!"

"Then you must come!"

"Alright, alright."