Chapter 787

After Zhao Hui finished checking the skins, loading them, and paying, he didn't stay for a moment and left directly with the truck.

When Zhao Hui left, he also told Li Long that he estimated he would come again in June or July, hoping that Li Long could give him a surprise then.

Li Long thought to himself that there wouldn't be any surprise. Skins were best collected and most expensive in winter. By spring and summer, animals shed their fur, skins weren't as expensive as before, and these wild animals weren't as concentrated. How could there be a surprise?

Li Long calculated the money in his hands, which he could only estimate roughly—after selling these skins, he earned a net profit of four thousand one hundred yuan.

It wasn't much.

But this was just the first time, a small trial, and the acquisition station hadn't been open continuously.

And this year was also the first time he had guided others to go north to hunt yellow sheep.

Li Long believed that by this winter, there would be a large number of people going to hunt yellow sheep and then peel their skins to sell at the acquisition station.

By then, there would be more skins.

Of course, as long as there are more skins, there will definitely be competitors. Li Long is not afraid of this point; competition is good, and monopolies don't have a good end.

The skins were moved out, leaving a large space in the side room, which just happened to make room for the acquisition station to collect and store things next.

The categories of collected items were increasing, so the place needed for storage was getting larger.

The original acquisition station had enough space, but Li Long didn't live there, so it wasn't very safe at night.

Or rather, he felt it wasn't very safe.

But if things continued like this, the large courtyard here really wouldn't be able to hold them, so he would have to store things there. At worst, he would just have to make a few more trips.

The time for the snow to melt was also fast. In less than half a month, the fields were visibly changing from being covered in white snow to revealing patches of black-brown soil, and later the ice and snow turned into small pieces, stubbornly occupying places where the sunlight couldn't fully reach.

By late March, there was basically no snow to be seen in the large fields. Only when looking south towards the mountains could one see that the high peaks on the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains were still wearing white hats.

Locals wouldn't call such mountains snow-capped mountains; only those with snow that never melts all year round are called snow-capped mountains, such as Khan Tengri Peak, Muzart, or Bogda.

After the snow melted and the sun warmed up, the ground dried quickly. Li Long stopped the acquisition station for half a day in the morning and drove the jeep to the old horse corral of the Fourth Team.

Now that the snow had melted, the people of the Fourth Team also started to get busy. Li Qing Xia started preparing to dry nets to catch fish, and the team also started gathering people to prepare for clearing canals, repairing roads, and building ridges, making preparations for sowing.

(Speaking of today, in reality today, the team notified people to clear the canals, voluntarily, two hundred sixty per person, preparing sickles and iron shovels—thinking back to when clearing canals only earned one or two work points a day, and every household had to send one laborer, it's truly a world of difference.)

Li Long walked around his own large courtyard. His older brother and sister-in-law were tidying up the vegetable garden. Seeing Li Long come over, Li Jianguo stopped the iron shovel in his hand, chatted with Li Long for a few sentences, and then asked:

"Without Xiao Long, how is the road in the mountains now? I want to go into the mountains to pull two carts of sheep manure. Is it okay now?"

"Pulling sheep manure is definitely no problem, but these two days won't work. The snow in the mountains melts slowly, and the road is still full of mud, very difficult to walk. It will take another two days." Li Long said.

"Alright, I plan to put manure on the vegetable gardens in our two courtyards so that the vegetables will grow well." Li Jianguo said.

Actually, the old horse corral also had manure, but for one thing, they had only started raising cattle and sheep on a large scale there since last year, and the manure produced hadn't been composted yet. For another, the old horse corral also had vegetable gardens, and Uncle Uncle Lao Luo and the others grew vegetables themselves, so it wasn't easy to get manure from there.

Of course, it would be better in two years. Li Long planned to get more cattle and sheep this autumn, so that the manure produced in a year would not be small.

Du Chunfang, while helping Li Qing Xia organize the nets, asked Li Long:

"Have the two children gained weight? Are they sick?"

In the simple concept of the elderly, children should be fat, and if they are fat, they are healthy.

"They gained weight, they gained weight," Li Long said with a smile, "They are very lively, not sick, and can already sunbathe outside now."

"That's good. It will be good when they can walk in another two months." Du Chunfang said with a smile, "It's just that the children are a bit naughty. Two of them, enough for you to take care of."

"It doesn't matter if there's a courtyard, just let them run in the courtyard." Li Long thought to himself that compared to later generations, it was already very good now. At least there weren't so many cars, and even if he took the children to run on the main road, he basically wouldn't worry about any major danger.

Li Long returned to the team just to see the situation of the team. It was time for spring sowing, and he wanted to see the cleanup situation at the old horse corral. After all, Professor Luo would be bringing people over soon. If it wasn't cleaned up, it would be troublesome.

"Without Xiao Long, your brother found a dairy goat for you from the Xinhu Farm the day before yesterday, with two lambs. You can just take it back today, and then boil goat milk for Mingming and Haohao to drink." Liang Yuemei said in the vegetable garden, "You have sugar residue there, right? If you have sugar residue, just take a bundle of grass back."

"Dairy goat?" Li Long was a bit puzzled.

"Yes, dairy goat." Li Jianguo said with a smile, "It produces a lot of milk, more than a kilogram a day. I remember you said Mingming and Haohao love to drink milk, and this goat milk is better than cow milk."

Mingming and Haohao indeed liked to drink milk, but it was not easy to buy milk in the county at present, and it was intermittent, so most of the time they were fed powdered milk.

Li Long actually thought about raising a cow, but it was not convenient to do that in the courtyard, as there was no cow corral. In his previous life, someone in the team had raised dairy goats. This thing had a large milk production, and it also produced many lambs, at least two per litter, or even three, and two litters a year, so it could quickly develop into a group.

"You have to take the lambs when feeding, otherwise the milk will return, and you have to wait until autumn to have lambs again before there is milk." Li Jianguo reminded.

"Good, good, good." Li Long said with a smile, "That's fine, I'll take this goat now."

Locals call goats 'juli'. Juli meat is only delicious in September, and when this thing is small, it is simply a perfect pet. The poop is egg-shaped, easy to clean; naughty and playful, will gently butt people, the call is very cute, and it is very clingy, will actively play with people—most importantly, unlike cats and dogs, it does not have sharp teeth and claws.

Of course, it's not fun when it grows up, it has great strength, is combative, doesn't stop for a moment, climbs up and down, and likes to taste every plant.

So Li Long felt that with these two juli babies in early spring, plus the two little red deer, and Xiao Hei, Mingming and Haohao wouldn't have to worry about not having playmates.

Li Jianguo and Li Long went to the corral together to catch the dairy goat, tied its hooves and put it into the car. The two juli babies followed along, bleating "baa baa" obediently, which allowed Li Long to easily catch them and put them into the car.

"The two juli babies don't know how to eat grass yet, it will take half a month. Don't squeeze too much milk during this time, it will be fine when they can eat grass later." Li Jianguo exhorted.

"Good, good, good." Li Long smiled.

Li Jianguo's family also raised the injured yellow sheep brought back from the north. This yellow sheep had now recovered its health, and it seemed to have shed its wildness, eating grass very docilely.

Li Long said goodbye to his family and drove the jeep to the old horse corral.

In the new horse corral, Uncle Uncle Lao Luo and others were moving manure out of the corral. Although the cattle and sheep fed in the new horse corral last year were for a short time, they had accumulated quite a lot of manure. In early spring, the manure had to be moved out and cleaned up so that feeding cattle and sheep this year could be fresh. This is also a necessary work for farmers every year.

The radio was placed on the wall of the horse corral, playing songs, and he didn't know which station it was.

When Li Long's jeep drove over, Uncle Uncle Lao Luo and others heard the sound and gathered at the door to look out.

"Yo, Without Xiao Long is here." Uncle Uncle Lao Luo came out of the sheep corral, followed by Yang Laoliu.

"Hmm, Uncle Uncle Lao Luo, Old Yang, are you moving manure? Take it easy, don't rush."

"Don't rush, don't rush. This corral won't be used for a while. Those ewes have lambs, they are in the corral over there." Uncle Uncle Lao Luo said with a smile, "Do you want to see?"

"Go, let's go see." Li Long was actually also paying attention to those ewes that had lambs, not knowing the lambing situation.

"There are fifty-two ewes with lambs in our corral," Uncle Uncle Lao Luo said while walking towards the corral, "Seventeen twins, when lambing, a few died, and some didn't survive, now there are fifty-eight lambs in total. A few ewes don't have enough milk, so let other ewes feed them."

It is common for ewes not to have enough milk. At this time, farmers usually take the lambs that have no milk to other ewes with sufficient milk, which is called 'sticking milk'.

Other ewes are mostly unwilling, so they can only force the sheep to be pressed down. Except for being a bit slow to eat milk in the first two days, the lambs know how to find it themselves when they are slightly larger.

The best nutrition is the first milk the lamb drinks after being born, called 'jiao milk', which later generations gave an official name called colostrum. The nutrition is very rich, and the squeezed jiao milk is yellow, with a layer of oil.

The common saying is that if a lamb doesn't drink jiao milk, it will be weak and prone to illness.

When Li Long walked to the corral, he heard the sound of lambs bleating one after another, and occasionally there would be responses from big sheep.

He was tall, so he directly poked his head over the wall to look inside. Most of the ewes in the corral were eating grass and feed.

"Yesterday, Master Song brought another truck of sugar residue, we dried some, and fed some ready-made to the sheep." Uncle Uncle Lao Luo said with a smile, "These lambs also learned to eat at the beginning, and they grow very fast."

The corral is very large, half open and half warm. With the current outdoor temperature, the cotton curtain on the warm corral doesn't need to be put down at night. Li Long looked at those lambs, although they were a bit lively, they were obviously not as naughty as goat lambs, and they looked very cute.

He thought of promising to give Hongqin a lamb, thinking that when Master Song comes over next time, or when he has time, he will take one and send it over—he has to wait until the lamb can eat grass.

"These lambs look quite good." Li Long scanned them, looked at these lambs, basically none of them had diarrhea, and nodded in admiration.

His knowledge of raising sheep only knows that as long as the lamb doesn't have diarrhea and can eat milk, it is healthy.

"It's alright, we old men had a hard time those few days, many sheep lambed at night, and some were frozen, some had diarrhea, so we fed medicine and stuck milk. Now it's much better, these lambs can eat milk by themselves, so it's much easier." Uncle Uncle Lao Luo said, "In a few days, these sheep can be taken out to graze."

Uncle Uncle Lao Luo's habit of raising is that it is better to graze when there is grass outside, saving grass and allowing sheep to walk more.

Always being in the corral is not only difficult to clean, but also easy to get sick.

"Yes, yes, yes, when the grass grows, it's time to graze." Li Long remembered the brucellosis that is most prone to occur in sheep raised in corrals in later generations, and hurriedly said, "Is there anyone to graze?"

"How can there be no one?" Uncle Uncle Lao Luo smiled, "Isn't it just grazing sheep? We can't do other things, but this thing is easy, we are better than that Ma Jinbao!"

"That's it!" Yang Laoliu also said with a firm face.

"In a few days, the professors from the Agricultural College may come over, I'll come to see the place where they live."

"It's already cleaned up." Yang Laoliu behind said with a smile, "Two rooms, the beds, bedding, stoves, etc. inside are all complete. If they come, it's fine if they want to eat with us, and it's fine if they want to cook by themselves."

"Go, let's go see." Uncle Uncle Lao Luo said with a smile, "It's all cleaned up."

The row of brick houses originally used as offices in the old horse corral currently has one room piled with dried sugar residue. One room is where Uncle Uncle Lao Luo and others live, one room is the kitchen, and two rooms are cleaned up, with wooden boards placed on bricks to make a large bed.

Li Long often runs into the mountains, so it is easy to get these wooden boards. When Li Anguo, Chen Xingbang and others lived here before, they laid the bed like this. Each room has a bed, a table, and a stove.

In the courtyard of the old horse corral, a large pool is built with bricks, covered with plastic cloth. Li Long smelled the smell, it should be full of sugar residue. The open space against the wall is also drying sugar residue, and a sweet smell floats in the air, which is quite good.

Uncle Uncle Lao Luo and Yang Laoliu opened the doors of the two adjacent rooms. Inside, it was indeed cleaned up cleanly. The stove has a pot on the stove. Uncle Uncle Lao Luo explained:

"This stove can also be set up in early spring. When it gets warmer in a while, if they don't like it, we will just build an earthen stove for them. That thing is simple, and it can be done in a morning."

Li Long could hear that this meant that when the stove was not needed, building a stove would be fast and wouldn't delay cooking time.

At the moment, there was still some dampness in the room. Li Long thought and said:

"Uncle Uncle Lao Luo, let's set up the stove in these two rooms in the past two days, to bake the dampness, maybe people will come in a few days."

"Alright, we will set up the stove after moving the manure today. Isn't that fast? It will be done in a little while." Uncle Uncle Lao Luo said with a smile, "Fish for lunch today, do you want to eat here?"

"No." Li Long pointed to the car and said, "My brother got a dairy goat for Mingming and Haohao at home, I have to take it back and fix it, and build a shed."

"Dairy juli?" Yang Laoliu was a bit curious and walked to the jeep to see. Through the car window, he saw the tied dairy juli and clicked his tongue in wonder: "Hey, it's really big!"

"How old are you, no proper shape!" Uncle Uncle Lao Luo said to him, and Yang Laoliu just laughed.

Li Long drove the jeep back to the county.

Returning to the county courtyard, Sister Yang was playing with Mingming and Haohao by the bed-cart outside. After hearing the movement, she went to open the door for the jeep, came back, pushed the bed-cart to the side, and said to Mingming and Haohao:

"Look, your dad is back, welcome, welcome!"

Li Long got out of the car, took the dairy goat down, untied the rope on its hooves, and led it to the back.

After the two juli babies jumped out of the car, they were still a bit afraid. The two little red deer came over, and Xiao Hei also came over. The two juli babies were scared and jumped to chase their mother. Li Long tied the dairy goat to the tractor and brought some sugar residue to feed it.

"Is this a juli?" Sister Yang looked curiously, "What are you doing bringing this back?"

"Squeeze milk for Mingming and Haohao to drink." Li Long said, "Dairy goat, high milk production, the two children drinking goat milk is better than cow milk."

Sister Yang was also quite happy and said with a smile: "Then Mingming and Haohao will grow stronger and sturdier later."

She had been taking care of the two children since they were born, and she had feelings for them. She also hoped that the children could be safe and sound.

At this moment, the two little juli babies were no longer afraid. Xiao Hei didn't pounce on them, and although the two little red deer were bigger than them, they were not as flexible as them. They seemed to have felt that the two children were the center of this courtyard, and jumped to the bed-cart to play with Mingming and Haohao.

Mingming and Haohao were also very happy to see new playmates, babbling and reaching out from the railing to try to reach the lambs. The lambs really weren't afraid, and butted their heads over.

Well, quite fun.

Li Long saw that there was still time, so he went to the back to tidy up the greenhouse. The two little red deer lived in the ice and snow, so they basically didn't need a place to live in the courtyard, and they had sugar residue and grass to eat.

But the dairy goat was different. Li Long planned to make a place in the greenhouse for the dairy goat to live, and take time to build a shed by the greenhouse.

Anyway, he didn't raise many, just this one was enough, at most with two lambs. After the little goat grows up, either slaughter it, or just take it to the horse corral or his brother's side.

This thing can't be put in the courtyard after it grows up, otherwise the courtyard will suffer. If it is released, it can dismantle the house more than a husky.

In the afternoon, Li Long went to the acquisition station again. What made him a bit puzzled was that there were fewer people in the afternoon—compared to the more than ten people who came to sell things every half day, only seven or eight people came today.

"Boss, don't you know?" Li Long chatted with the person selling fritillaria about this matter, and that person said with a smile, "Someone in the market also opened an acquisition station, the same as yours, buying everything, with high and low prices. This fritillaria is a bit lower than yours, the prices of those skins are about the same, there are many people there, so some people sold them there."

Hey, it's really capable, to be able to think of opening an acquisition station in the market!

Li Long thought at the first time that it should be the two young men who did it.

The advantage of his place is the original site of the acquisition station, and many people in the countryside recognize this place.

The advantage of that side is the large flow of people. Opening an acquisition station doesn't need advertising. As long as you shout a few times when there are many people, someone will know what the situation is.

Li Long thought to himself that he had to take time to see this competitor and see if the other party had competitiveness.

Anyway, it's making money on the same track. Knowing yourself and knowing the enemy can win a hundred battles! (End of chapter)