Returning to hometown to farm: The apocalypse system arrived ten years earlier?

Chapter 51 Drying persimmons, good persimmons happen, and your wishes come true

On an early winter morning, the lawn in the backyard was covered with white frost and the sky was just getting light.

Li Xiang got up early in the morning, washed up, and then released the chickens and ducks that had been waiting impatiently. After throwing a few handfuls of grain, he picked up a pickaxe and started turning the soil in the backyard.

Two big yellow dogs were running around following their owner.

The big rooster with a red crown and colorful feathers starts crowing at around 5:30 in the morning every day these days. "Cock-a-doodle-doo~" Its sound is as loud as a bell, so Li Xiang basically doesn't need an alarm clock. As soon as the rooster crows, he knows it is around 5:30 and he can get up.

Very accurate every day.

What surprised Li Xiang was that the rooster had crowed at around four in the morning a few days ago, and those days, the dawn happened to be earlier.

It's not that chickens become sleepy when winter comes, or that chickens have winter time and summer time. It's that roosters are more sensitive to light, and they have a biological clock in their bodies that can adjust the time by themselves.

Studies have shown that roosters have a pineal gland in their brains that secretes melatonin. When the day breaks, the melatonin level drops and they crow.

As for some chickens crowing at midnight, it is Zhou Paopi pretending to be him. If not, it is likely that the rooster's hormones are disordered.

According to Feng Shui, raising chickens can protect the house from evil spirits, and poisonous insects like centipedes dare not approach. In ancient times, the crowing of a rooster in the middle of the night indicated that there were bad things around, which would be resolved by the crowing of the rooster. However, there is also a saying that the rooster is possessed by bad things, so if you find a rooster crowing at night, you need to chop off the rooster's head immediately and sprinkle chicken blood around the house to resolve it.

Li Xiang used breathing techniques and physical skills to turn the soil with a pickaxe. He wanted to turn over all the unused land in the backyard before the heavy snow came.

When heavy snow comes, the turned soil will be frozen loose and the insect eggs inside will be frozen to death. Then it will be easy to plant crops when spring comes and flowers bloom.

It's not entirely work, it's mainly a way to practice breathing techniques and physical skills.

The inheritance he received was that the best effect of cultivation is achieved while working. For him, who returned to his hometown to farm, it is killing two birds with one stone, so why not do it?

In the eyes of the villagers, Li Xiang is very hardworking. Even though he went to college and worked in a big city, he still has the skills to do farm work, and is much better than ordinary farmers.

Li Xiang worked until about eight o'clock, then went to make breakfast for himself and his grandmother. After breakfast, he called his grandmother to pick persimmons together.

As for the unturned land, leave it for tomorrow morning. Do "morning exercise" every day, integrate breathing techniques and physical skills into farm work, and persevere.

As we all know, morning jogging is not allowed in rural areas. Working early in the morning like Li Xiang is the correct way to exercise the body.

At this time of year, the leaves of the persimmon tree have almost all fallen off, leaving only the bright red fruits all over the tree, which is a delight to look at.

But picking persimmons requires special tools, because his persimmon tree is too tall and big, and the far branches where the persimmons hang are often thinner.

But rural people have their own means.

Li Xiang took out the magical tool for picking persimmons that was passed down from his family. It was a long bamboo pole with a thin iron hook on the top. Usually one person would hook it, grab the fruit stem and twist it gently, and the persimmon would fall down. Then there would be someone waiting below, looking up at the trajectory of the falling persimmons and catching them in a cloth bag.

There are also more "advanced" fruit picking tools on the Internet, but I didn't buy them.

After hooking a few, Li Xiang stopped because his grandmother was quite old and it was difficult to connect them, so he "upgraded" this ancestral artifact.

He removed the iron hook and replaced it with a small sickle, tied the sickle handle to the bamboo pole tightly, and then added a large cloth bag underneath. The bag opening was supported and fixed in a triangle with the main trunk using two bamboos about 20 to 30 centimeters long.

Then Li Xiang started to try it, and sure enough, it was much more convenient. After the persimmon pedicle was cut off, the persimmons fell directly into the cloth bag.

After he has seven or eight persimmons in the cloth bag, he stops, slowly retracts it, and takes out the persimmons.

But grandma still had to help because the persimmon tree was too tall and the bamboo pole was not long enough.

Li Xiang could reach the things below by himself on the ground, but for those above, he had to climb up the trees.

Although the distant branches of the persimmon tree are very thin and cannot support people, the main trunk below is still very thick, especially the large fork at a height of more than two meters.

Li Xiang climbed up the tree nimbly, more nimble than a monkey. After he collected seven or eight persimmons, he lowered the bamboo pole and slowly placed it on the ground. His grandmother then took the persimmons from the cloth bag, and Li Xiang continued after she finished.

This persimmon tree is full of fruits. There are so many fruits that it takes some time to pick them all. Li Xiang and his grandmother don't feel tired at all. Instead, they are very happy. This is the joy of a good harvest. As the saying goes, "Jujubes and persimmons are half a year's food, so there is no need to worry about famine." The yield of persimmons is very large, and they have a strong ability to adapt to the environment. Basically, if you have a persimmon tree at home, you can take it out to save the famine in bad years.

Persimmon is also called "Lingshuang Hou", which was conferred by Zhu Yuanzhang!
It is said that Zhu Yuanzhang once went to Fuping County, Shaanxi Province to beg for food. It was persimmons that saved him when he was hungry and cold. Later, when Zhu ascended the throne, he wrote a letter to confer the title of "Lingshuang Hou" on Persimmons of Fuping.

I have to say that the name given by Old Zhu is quite good. It not only praises the persimmon for its saving contribution, but also praises the persimmon's ability to stand tall against the frost and snow when all other things are withering.

Li Xiang did not pick all the persimmons. According to the customary practice, he had to leave some behind, which is called "leaving persimmons."

It’s not because the flowers cannot be picked. Even if they can’t be reached, they can be hooked down with tools. Is it because they look better when left on the tree?

It is indeed beautiful, but more importantly, it is food for the birds.

There is a poem to prove it: "The black tiles of the farmer's house are covered with severe frost, and three red persimmon branches hang over the wall; perhaps the owner didn't mean to pick them, and left them for the birds as winter food."

The winter is very cold, and there are no grains or insects on the ground. Many birds will not survive until spring because they have nowhere to find food. Some persimmons are left on the trees, and passing birds can eat them to survive, and help farmers catch pests the next year.

This is an idea of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, and also the romance of the ancients.

Chinese people's romance is actually everywhere and is integrated into their daily lives. It is not the Western kind of romance that involves sending roses and having candlelight dinners.

This winter, there will be extremely heavy snow, which will make it even harder for the birds, so Li Xiang left more, about thirty or forty in high places.

When the winter comes, it is a beautiful sight when birds come to eat.

The persimmons we picked filled five baskets. When we weighed them, we found that they weighed 283 kilograms! It was a high yield!
Generally, a small or medium-sized persimmon tree can produce 40 to 120 kilograms, which is considered high-yielding. The tree in Li Xiang's home is a lush big tree, and it is the only one here. There are no tall vegetation around it to snatch sunlight and nutrients, so a full 283 kilograms was harvested.

In previous years, grandma didn't have the ability to pick them, but this year, after Li Xiang picked them, he planned to make all of them into persimmon cakes, eat some of them himself, give some to relatives, and use some as small gifts to give to fans when they buy high-value delicacies.

How can the family eat all these dried persimmons? Especially, eating too many persimmons is not good for the body.

However, persimmon cake is really a delicious thing, and Li Xiang has been fascinated by it since he was a child.

Li Xiang and his grandmother worked together to wash the persimmons with mountain spring water, remove the sepals, leaving the roots, and then peel them.

Because the persimmon skin is relatively hard and very unpalatable, and if the skin is not peeled it is not conducive to the evaporation of moisture, the drying effect will be very poor and the icing cannot be formed.

The sugar frost on the surface of persimmon cake is precipitated from the glucose, fructose and other sugars inside the fruit, and its sweetness is definitely not as good as sucrose.

After peeling, blanch them in boiling water to prevent mold, and then dry them together with the peel.

After drying for a few days, the persimmon stems are tied with ropes and hung up to continue drying. Usually, several persimmons can be "strung" on a rope and hung on trees or corridors, like a curtain made of persimmons.

Although no icing is released after drying, it can still be eaten directly. It is soft, sticky, sweet, and the flesh is golden, crystal clear, and fragrant.

The dried persimmon cakes and persimmon peels can be placed in a breathable, clean flour bag, covered with a plastic bag or cardboard box, and placed in a ventilated and cool place to protect against frost.

If you want more frost and faster frost production, it is best not to dry it too much.

Li Xiang was making persimmon cakes with his grandmother when He Zhixiang drove over to visit them again.

He took out more than a dozen bags of coffee beans and a brand new coffee machine from the trunk to give to Li Xiang.

"Brother He, aren't you too polite?" Li Xiang said.

He Zhixiang said with a smile: "You're welcome, you're welcome. This is for you to try. If you think it's good and approve of the coffee beans produced by my farm, we can cooperate to sell coffee live, how about it?"

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(End of this chapter)