Chapter 530: Originally came to be a volunteer, who would have thought I'd even make money

The sound of the tractor in the mountains echoed in the nearby valleys, and the small animals that were originally active nearby fled one after another.

After the grass on this hillside was cut, Ha Li Mu guided Li Long to another hillside. This pasture had already been inspected by the herdsmen, and some wooden stakes had already been cleared.

"I never thought that cutting grass would become so simple." Ha Li Mu sighed again, "It feels like playing; go around the hillside pasture once, and come back."

"You guys are also working, so it takes time to remove the wooden stakes." Li Long joked.

"That's not called working? Nasen and Sasken could do it too." Ha Li Mu sighed, "If we do it like this this year, next year..."

"I'll come again next year." Li Long said as a matter of course.

Ha Li Mu looked at him and smiled.

In the afternoon, before the sun had set, Li Long drove the tractor back to Ha Li Mu's winter den.

The other young men had also returned with Yu Shanjiang.

"The pastures around this area have all been checked." Yu Shanjiang dismounted and said to Li Long and Ha Li Mu, "Tomorrow and the day after, basically we can go through everyone's pasture. Except for a few places where there are quite a few shrubs, where it's impossible to use a tractor to cut grass, other places can all be finished."

"According to Li Long's grass-cutting speed," Ha Li Mu thought for a moment and said, "five or six days? It should be finished, right?"

"About the same."

At present, everyone's pasture is actually not as much as in later generations. After all, the cattle and sheep raised are limited, and manpower is also limited.

At night, they still ate wolf meat. Li Long felt greasy, so he got some wild vegetables and blanched them in boiling water. Ha Li Mu only had salt here, no vinegar or other seasonings, so he just had to make do. He planned to bring some vinegar and such tomorrow morning, otherwise, he wouldn't be able to eat it for long if he just ate it like this.

Ha Li Mu and Yu Shanjiang went to whisper again privately. Li Long didn't care about that much; anyway, even if they were talking about him, it was basically a good thing.

People, after all, are mutual.

After eating, he drove the tractor *tut-tut-tut* back, the sun hadn't set yet, and he had to hurry back to deal with the roe deer meat.

It wouldn't do to keep soaking it in water.

Returning to the wooden house, opening the door, there was a smell. The fire in the stove had died out, Li Long first built up the fire, then set up a pot on the stove outside, and lit the fire.

When the fire was burning, he first dragged the wooden cutting board out of the small room, wiped it clean with a rag, and then dragged the roe deer meat out of the basin.

It had already been unloaded, just unloaded quite roughly, four legs, ribs, spine, etc. Now that he had to boil it in a pot and preserve the meat, he had to cut it into small pieces, and he had to trim out some meat, including the small amount of suet.

No way, there's no refrigerator in summer, so he could only do it this way.

He tossed the chopped bones into a pot to boil, scraped the water from the other pot into a thermos, and after the pot was dry, poured in some vegetable oil as a starter, then put in the suet cut into small pieces, listening to the sizzling sound; this was rendering oil.

Next was the meat that had been trimmed and cut into small pieces. The oil slowly melted, there was half a pot, and the meat in the meat was actually forced out, slowly submerging the meat.

The oil boiled, rolling, and Li Long removed the fire. After it cooled slightly, he found a large enamel basin to serve it out, the oil sealed the fried meat inside, and then it solidified, placed in a cool room, and it wouldn't go bad for a long time.

When stir-frying, scoop a scoop, there's oil and meat, and it's a good dish.

The bones here also boiled, Li Long used a spoon to skim off the blood foam on top and poured it on the grass. He had seen it when he fetched water; the parts gnawed by the wolves when he skinned the roe deer in the morning were gone.

He didn't know if they were dragged away by wolves or gnawed by foxes. There are many small carnivorous animals in the mountains, and there is no way to investigate.

After the roe deer meat was cooked, the preserved meat and oil were served in the basin, and the starry sky rose again.

Hey, a life of toil.

The meat and oil were moved to the small room, the door was locked, Li Long held a bone and gnawed while entering the large room, closed the door, ate, and slept.

The next day he didn't need to get up so early, got up to go pee, and the urine really still had a strong smell.

Came back, built the stove, boiled water, went to the next room to get a bone to heat up, and also heated up the remaining unleavened flatbread, just eating a little bit.

He planned to come back in the afternoon to steam buns; just eating unleavened flatbread was uncomfortable.

After eating, he cleaned up here, added oil and water to the tractor, and prepared to set off.

When he came, he brought two oil drums, looking at the current situation, it probably wouldn't be enough.

He had to go down the mountain tomorrow or the day after to bring back more diesel.

When driving the tractor *tut-tut-tut* to Ha Li Mu's winter den, Yu Shanjiang and the others had already arrived.

They were also eating when Li Long was eating. Because they had to work together, they simply got up early and came to Ha Li Mu's place to eat together.

There was still wolf meat left, so no one wanted to gnaw on dry naan alone.

After Yu Shanjiang and Ha Li Mu discussed it, they expressed their meaning to these herdsmen brothers.

"There will be idle times when cutting grass these two days. When idle, let's go hunting and pick up stones. Li Long came, cut grass for us for free, we can't just accept it for nothing.

Whether it's hunting for skins or picking up jade or other things, bringing them over to give to him is also our heart.

We didn't bring anything when we came on this trip, otherwise, giving him a few sheep would be fine, but now we can only hunt or pick up stones. These things are of little use to us, Li Long can take them to exchange for money to do other things, even if it's to exchange for oil, we can't let our friend work for nothing."

The young men and men all agreed loudly.

Kazakhs are most sincere to friends; if others give one, they will give five to ten.

When Li Long's tractor drove over *tut-tut-tut*, everyone joked as usual, and then some followed Li to cut grass, and some went to other hillsides.

They ate together at noon, and Li Long returned directly to the wooden house after finishing in the afternoon.

He had to ferment dough to steam buns, so he had to go back early. Anyway, he cut the grass on four hillsides today, exceeding the task.

The herdsmen who hurriedly finished dinner at Ha Li Mu's place rode their horses back to their winter dens one after another.

Their winter dens were far apart, and three or four mountain gullies were considered close.

Herdsmen actually know quite clearly what is near each winter den. Usually, hunting is just to prevent animals like wolves from harassing the flock, but now, it has a new meaning.

Li Long returned to the wooden house, parked the tractor, opened the door and saw the fire in the stove hadn't died out, so he poked it a few times, added coal, and started mixing the dough.

The old dough starter was completely dry, needed to be soaked in water, used as a fermentation starter, and then mixed with dough.

During the process of dough fermentation, Li Long went nearby to get some wild mushrooms; now the grass in the mountains was slowly starting to turn yellow, and wild vegetables were no longer easy to get.

According to last year's practice, he should have gone into the mountains a month ago to get black tiger palm mushrooms; this thing is large and grows a lot, and if he got more, he could sell it for some money.

But because he had to harvest wheat, he didn't have time to come, and Li Long could see that many black tiger palm mushrooms had dried and rotted, dust to dust, earth to earth.

There were still some straw mushrooms, although because the grass grew up, there were not many mushrooms, but he could find some.

No need to eat meat anymore. He planned to stir-fry some wild mushrooms when steaming buns later, and make a cold salad tomorrow morning, which should be quite refreshing.

The dough was fermented, and kneading buns was Li Long's specialty.

After kneading, let it wake up on the cutting board, the water in the pot boiled, brush a layer of cooked oil on the steamer, and then put the buns in.

If it were in the village, when steaming buns, a layer of reed leaves would be spread on the steamer, and the steamed buns would carry the fragrance of reed leaves, with a hint of zongzi flavor.

Steaming buns, before stir-frying, Li Long took the blocking net placed in the corner and walked out with big strides.

The stream in the valley, five or seven hundred meters away, was not as big as before, but the places with drops were still good places to set the net.

Stuck the net under the falling water, pressed it with stones, and Li Long went back.

Come earlier tomorrow, there will definitely be fish in this net.

Since he entered the mountains, and it wasn't for one day, if he wanted to eat better, he had to find a way himself.

Returning to the wooden house, the sun had just set, Li Long broke the washed straw mushrooms into small pieces, shook off the water, set up a pot on the stove outside, scooped a spoonful of preserved oil, which contained ten or so pieces of meat, melted it in the pot, and then started stir-frying.

Some people find it annoying, so I won't say much, the buns came out of the steamer, the dishes came out of the pot, and with some porridge, it was a good meal.

The buns were spread on the cutting board to cool, then put in the bread basin and covered with a steamer cloth; he hadn't eaten vegetables properly for two days, so the plate of mushroom meat was not left over.

Cleaned up the aftermath, Li Long extinguished the fire outside, carried the rocker back to the room, and rested.

At night, gunshots would occasionally ring out in the mountains, but because the mountains were high and the forests dense, they wouldn't travel very far.

Thinking about things in his heart, he got up a bit early.

Still went to the back to solve life's major events, and then built the stove and boiled water.

Didn't do anything else, walked out quickly, came to the place where the net was set, saw fish flapping at the bottom of the net, and Li Long smiled.

Breakfast can have an extra dish.

Removed the stones pressing the net, lifted the net and shook it, three or four small fish leaked out of the net eyes and fell into the stream, swimming away quickly. The remaining slightly larger dogfish and white strips were about a kilogram.

Stir-frying a plate and also being able to make a soup, not bad.

Li Long carried the fish back, arrived at the spring in front of the wooden house, squatted down and worked.

The fish were not big, actually, he didn't need tools to skin them; a little force with his fingernails could cut open the fish belly, take out the internal organs, gouge out the gills, wash them and put them aside.

Small dogfish are scaleless, the scales of white strips can almost be ignored, divide these fish into two portions, one to stew later, one to make soup.

Eating stewed fish early in the morning is also quite rare.

But it doesn't matter. Li Long had been harvesting wheat for the previous month, and nearly half the time he ate lunch with the landlord at the field head, running back and forth for breakfast and dinner, and didn't eat well.

Because of the busy farming season, Li Qing Xia didn't have time to catch fish, let alone him, almost no one in the whole village went to catch fish.

So he didn't eat fish, and Li Long still missed it quite a bit.

That's why he had the move of setting the net last night.

Stewed the fish, cut the buns into slices and roasted them on the stove lid, served a bowl of fish soup and set the table, all done.

!.

After eating, Li Long felt a burst of satisfaction.

Cleaned up here, saw the sun reveal half a face, Li Long took out the rocker, started the tractor, and drove *tut-tut-tut* to Ha Li Mu's winter den.

There were few people at the winter den today, currently only Ha Li Mu and Yu Shanjiang, and two young men.

Others hadn't arrived.

Li Long was also somewhat surprised, but he didn't think much about it, parked the tractor in place, unloaded the car bucket, and then went to clean up the grass residue on the harvester.

He was busy working all day yesterday, and the harvester hadn't been cleaned much.

It didn't need oiling yet, but when the diesel wasn't enough, when he went down the mountain to add diesel, he had to clean it up well and apply some grease.

People who do farm machinery these days have to understand this. There is a grease gun, which is a bit similar to the glass glue gun of later generations, cylindrical, add a nozzle, press the back, and the grease comes out of the front nozzle.

This grease is just for lubrication; mechanical things, if you don't apply this, it's easy to rust, and the friction is not good.

Yu Shanjiang was skinning a roe deer, which was hunted this morning.

Li Long went over to look, the bullet hole was at the neck, and the whole skin didn't suffer any loss.

Male roe deer, with horns on its head, not long, should be the velvet that had turned hard.

"Li Long, the skin is yours." Yu Shanjiang said, "Rub it with salt later and hang it up, take it back tonight."

"Good." Li Long didn't be formal either.

Ha Li Mu carried two stones out of the house and put them into Li Long's car bucket.

Well, two pieces of jasper—one is of high quality, no hemp spots, one has green-black skin, has hemp spots, but the jade quality also looks good.

Li Long was happy, these people were silent, this was collecting wealth for him.

In a while, young men and men came over one after another, some had gains, some were embarrassed not to have gotten anything.

Actually, this is also normal, only three people really hunted something, two roe deer, one wild goat.

And one person picked up a piece of jade, quite large, the jade material was average, but it was a seed material, the kind of ten-odd kilograms, also put on the car.

Two people were left here to clean up the meat, some were boiled, some were air-dried.

The rest went to work.

Li Long drove the tractor up the mountain and started cutting grass.

This side of the hillside was a bit high, considered the steepest of all the hillsides added together before.

Li Long tried it, felt the tractor could go up, so he stepped on the accelerator and *tut-tut-tut* started cutting.

Not bad, although it was a bit fuel-consuming, it could really cut. Anyway, oil was cheap now, compared to the hardship of cutting grass, this bit of oil really didn't count for anything.

*Tut-tut-tut* going up wasn't easy, but coming down was much easier. Li Long still had to hang in first gear, otherwise, it would run fast, to avoid sliding down and not being able to brake, flipping the car.

Just cutting grass, suddenly a pheasant lunged out from the harvester, but both wings were cut off by half, and when it lunged out, its body was already covered in blood, flapping twice and falling to the ground, Li Long hurriedly braked, jumped down and pressed the pheasant.

It was quite large, a male, the wing feathers were gone, the tail feathers were still there, quite beautiful.

And it was quite fierce, when Li Long pressed it, this pheasant even turned its head to peck Li Long.

Its neck was twisted by Li Long, carried onto the tractor, and placed on the tool box next to it.

Can have an extra dish at noon.

Li Long continued to drive down, in a while two more pheasants lunged out from the grass, these two were female pheasants, lunged out and flew toward the forest next to them.

Although they couldn't fly high, they weren't something a person could catch, Li Long could only watch them disappear into the forest.

Fine, let them run if they run.

Anyway, he had already caught one, not enough for everyone to eat, but it was enough for a treat.

After all, raking grass and hitting rabbits, this thing itself was extra.

*Tut-tut-tut* drove to the bottom of the slope, Li Long threw the pheasant to Ha Li Mu.

Ha Li Mu mainly followed to see if there was anything to help.

Now he was quite happy, took the pheasant and started plucking feathers.

Li Long *tut-tut-tut* drove up again, originally thinking about whether he could get another one out, unfortunately, no more pheasants were fooled.

That male pheasant should have been a stupid one.

One side of the slope finished, changed to another place, this place was quite good, not even considered a slope, it was directly flat grass skin.

Although there were some ups and downs, compared to the hillside, it was much easier to cut.

Li Long finished cutting this patch and returned to the winter den with Ha Li Mu. Ha Li Mu had already cleaned the internal organs of this pheasant, just waiting to go back and chop it up and stir-fry it directly.

The meat in the large pot had already been boiled. Because there was a lot of wild game, this time there was a lot boiled in the pot, and more were made into air-dried meat, rubbed with salt, and now hanging on the wood next to the winter den.

There were wasps surrounding it, but they didn't dare to come forward. The effect of that salt was quite large.

The young men rode horses back one after another, they went to the pasture in patches this time, two or three people were responsible for one piece, and one group of people cleared two or three pastures in one morning.

Cutting grass all year round, most of them actually knew where the wooden stakes were in their own pastures, so this work was easy, and they were laughing and talking when they came back.

Looking at Li Long, there was enthusiasm, gratitude, and happiness in their eyes. With such a Dorsen, this year's grass-cutting season is really too easy.

Easier than herding sheep.

Must look for it carefully when going back at night, can't let this Dorsen drive the tractor here to cut grass for nothing.

Li Long parked the tractor, added water to the water tank, and went to look at the roe deer meat in the pot.

Several young men gathered in front of the tractor pointing and gesturing, some scrambled to sit on it, turning the steering wheel to simulate driving the tractor, and then were scolded twice by Ha Li Mu and got down.

Clearly, the tractor with the harvester was a big treasure for them now, and Ha Li Mu didn't want the young men to break it.

The young men didn't mind, laughing and getting down, and then continued to watch.

Whether it was a tractor or a harvester, they were fresh things to them, and it was impossible not to be tempted.

After all, they have to cut grass every year, if they have such a thing, how convenient it would be to cut grass.

Of course, now they are just thinking about it. That tractor is not cheap just thinking about it, so the young men are just thinking.

Middle-aged people like Ha Li Mu and Yu Shanjiang didn't have that idea. Honestly herd sheep and cattle, and talk about other things later.

After all, life is getting better and better now, much better than before.

Unrealistic ideas, they will have, but will not show them.

Ha Li Mu took a chopstick and poked the meat, and after seeing it was cooked, poured salt into the pot with a salt bag, then stirred it with a spoon, and announced that the meat was ready.

Take it and eat it yourself! (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 531 =====