From Robinson Crusoe

Chapter 29 Excavation
He hammered the crowbar into the ground, untied the rope wrapped around the toolbox and tied the goat to it.

Chen Zhou went down the slope and pulled up some grass, preparing to feed the ewes and cultivate some affection.

As for domestication, it must be done step by step.

Over time, it will naturally give up its vigilance and become close to humans.

However, Lai Fu still hadn't had enough fun and kept teasing the lamb, causing the ewe to become unable to calm down. She lowered her head from time to time, wanting to attack Chen Zhou and ignoring the food that was handed to her.

Knowing that Lai Fu has a temper that only responds to tough things and will only shine if given some sunshine, Chen Zhou could only pretend to be angry and scold it.

Lai Fu is naughty to other animals but always loyal to his owner.

Although it is not well-behaved and sensible sometimes, it knows how to read facial expressions and listen to tone. As long as it senses that its owner is angry or impatient, it will immediately change its face and never give people the chance to hit it.

Lai Fu put away his playful face, closed his mouth, twisted his butt, walked to the door and sat down obediently, as if what had just happened had never happened.

It will be dark.

Carrying the tools had basically exhausted Chen Zhou's physical strength, and there was no light source in the cave.

The remaining physical strength did not support him to continue working, and he was already very tired. Now he just wanted to have a good sleep.

Taking out the remaining piece of bread, Chen Zhou squatted beside the mother goat, chewing it bite by bite, intending to go down the mountain after replenishing his strength.

The lamb beside him was also eating. The loud sucking sound accompanied by a faint smell of sheep made him turn his head.

"A lamb can't drink so much milk, and I'm a little thirsty."

Chen Zhou thought about it and reached out to squeeze out some milk.

The milk of sheep that eat grass is extremely thick. When spread on bread, it does not even seep down. It has a slightly yellowish color and emits a faint aroma.

But goat's milk bread doesn't taste as good as it looks.

The uncooked goat milk has a strong smell and is not to Chen Zhou's taste.

However, this smell mixed with the wheat aroma and frankincense of bread is acceptable, at least better than salty cheese.

“Tomorrow we should start bringing up the firewood and the big iron kettle, and also a few containers and some sugar.

Drinking a bowl of hot goat milk with sugar every morning makes me feel comfortable just thinking about it..."

While milking the goat, Chen Zhou imagined himself as a happy rancher with a large flock of sheep in the future, without noticing that the lamb under the mother goat's belly was already dissatisfied with his behavior.

The lamb nudged Chen Zhou's hand with its little head, trying to get him to stay away from its mother, but Chen Zhou thought it was just a joke and pushed it aside, making the little lamb even angrier.

baa~
It let out an attacking cry, but its head was hit in Chen Zhou's palm and it was pinned to the ground. No matter how hard it tried, it could not escape the clutches and could only continue to protest with its cries.

"Little thing, you may not be big, but you have a big temper."

Chen Zhou smiled and flicked the lamb's head, then ate the last piece of bread.

Before leaving the cave, he pulled out a bunch of grass and threw it on the ground, fearing that this "precious egg" he had caught with great difficulty would starve. Then he took Lai Fu back to the camp.

After feeding the little gray cat and Lai Fu, I carved the date on the surface of the pineapple wood as usual.

Before going to bed, I carefully planned in my mind what supplies I would bring up the mountain tomorrow.

Because he was too tired, Chen Zhou could only temporarily put aside the work of making the foot-operated grinder, close his eyes and wait for tomorrow.

On October 10, I got up as usual, fed the cat and dog, and had breakfast.

When he went to the toilet and pulled leaves to wipe his butt, his forehead was hot from the sun. Chen Zhou realized that he should prepare for farming in advance.

According to the custom in his hometown, composting is usually carried out in autumn and winter.

The manure produced by pig pens, toilets, cow sheds and sheep pens, as well as organic waste such as rotten vegetables, are piled up in the fields and slowly fermented until they can be used when the land is plowed in the spring of the following year.

These substances rich in phosphorus and potassium fertilizers must be fermented before use. If buried directly in the ground, they will not only produce a foul odor, but will also burn the roots of plants and kill them.

In the northern countryside, the entire process of composting can take three to four months or even longer.

After all, the temperature in the north is low in winter and the fermentation process is slow.

Under normal circumstances, it only takes more than two months for organic matter to decompose. In the warm subtropical climate of the island, the decomposition rate may be faster.

November is just around the corner. If we start storing feces and dead fish and shrimps for composting from now on, they will definitely be decomposed in more than a month.

Chen Zhou calculated that if everything went well, the shelter should be completed by January.

This frees up time for cultivating the fields, applying fertilizer, and planting rice and wheat.

If there is enough fertilizer, we can cultivate more fields and transplant some wild sugarcane and wild melons from the fruit valley to enrich the diet.

By mid-February, the rainy season begins and the crops should have grown into strong seedlings.

With rainwater irrigation, as long as he pays attention to drainage, does not let the fields become too waterlogged, removes weeds more often, and keeps an eye on birds and animals that harm the crops, he will definitely be able to harvest the first crop of grain.

In order to facilitate composting, Chen Zhou felt that he should build a toilet in advance, or simply dig a manure pit.

After leaving the ship and moving to the island, his physical needs were generally met in the woods far away from the camp, and dozens of "mines" have been buried so far.

As a modern person, Chen Zhou often feels uncomfortable with this behavior of urinating and defecating anywhere.

Lai Fu has a fixed area for defecating, but he poops all over the place, which makes him look worse than an animal.

After making up his mind, Chen Zhou decided to build a toilet at the campsite at the foot of the mountain and next to the shelter halfway up the mountain.

The slopes at the foot of the mountain are used for farming, so the manure pits can be dug larger and filled with more dead fish, shrimps, and dead branches and leaves.

The structure of the toilet does not have to be too complicated. It is okay even if it gets wet in the rain, as long as it is not so simple that you fall into the pit when going to the toilet.

As part of the living facilities, the toilet in the shelter should be built small and exquisite, not leaking, and preferably have a certain degree of sealing to avoid the foul smell that affects the mood.

Of the two toilets, the one at the foot of the mountain should be built first, and a pit can be dug on the mountain as a temporary substitute.

Of course, the excavation tools are not ready yet, so it’s useless to think more.

Chen Zhou had to go to the mountain to carve his wooden shovel and pickaxe before he could start work.

He set out, carrying an oil lamp, a large iron pot, bedding, sugar and other supplies, and preparing for a long struggle.

……

Strictly speaking, the shapes of pickaxes and wooden shovels inlaid with metal are much more complicated than mortise and tenon joints.

They are not straight up and down curves, nor are they structures that can be simply outlined with charcoal sticks.

But the iron tree's hard wood makes up for this problem.

Using tools such as chisels and axes to deal with this kind of tree is like digging a pickaxe out of a stone, which is very tiring.

The slow carving process forced the work to be done over a longer period of time, thus increasing precision.

From October 10th to November 30th, Chen Zhou had been struggling with the cut iron tree stumps.

His first two tools were not successful.

The pickaxe head and the wooden shovel head can be used after the handles are installed, but the grooves for inlaying the metal are slightly too large and shallow, resulting in the hammered angle iron being unable to be smoothly stuck on the ironwood, so it can only be used as a wooden tool.

For the second pair of finished products, Chen Zhou learned from his mistakes, improved the groove part, and successfully embedded the angle iron into it. However, there was still a small flaw - it was not ergonomic.

The handle is too long and too thick, and the surface is not anti-slip, so it is easy to slip out of your hand when you sweat too much. But objectively speaking, for someone with no woodworking skills, it is already very good to make four usable finished products in five days.

On the evening of the 4th, Chen Zhou returned to the camp and took away the grinding wheel and the half-made foot-operated grinder.

He worked all night that day and was busy until the early morning to complete the grinding machine.

During this period, there is one more thing about diet that must be mentioned.

The addition of goat milk has improved Chen Zhou's quality of life, giving him more energy to complete more work.

The mutton smell of the boiled milk was reduced, and Chen Zhou divided it into two flavors when drinking it - adding sugar or adding tea salt.

Each flavor is unique.

Sweetened goat milk has a slightly modern milk tea feel, but the milk flavor is too strong.

The milk tea made from tea leaves and added with salt has the flavor of Mongolian milk tea. It can replenish protein, water and salt, as well as physical energy. After getting used to the slight smell of sheep, it becomes a bit addictive.

In this way, I maintained a stable rhythm of life until November 11th.

In the early morning of the dry season, the weather becomes a bit hot and dry.

The temperature in the caves in the shade is slightly lower, making them a summer resort.

After getting up, Chen Zhou rinsed his mouth with a sip of rum, then cleaned his mouth with a bark toothbrush, ate some milk tea and bread, rinsed the iron kettle, then carried a pickaxe and a wooden shovel and began to select a site for the shelter.

The sun is too strong during the dry season. If crops are planted in January without any shade, the rice seedlings will wither.

Chen Zhou planned to grow seedlings in a shady place in advance, and then transplant them to the fields at the foot of the mountain when the rice seedlings, barley and wheat grew up.

Therefore, he had to choose a piece of land that was spacious and flat enough to meet the needs of growing seedlings and also leave room for building a toilet. It would be even better if there was an open space big enough to build a small courtyard.

In the original book, Robinson's cave was built in a depression behind a small hill, which led directly to the coastal lowlands, with a flat lawn and a wide space.

The hills block the morning sun, protecting the area from the sun during the dry season.

But being close to the sea is not a good thing.

When Robinson later discovered the man-eating natives, he was almost frightened and destroyed his shelter that led directly to the seashore. He hid deep in the island until his wooden railing wall grew into trees, covering the entrance, and he felt safe enough.

After reading the original work carefully, Chen Zhou would definitely not make the same choice as Robinson.

Walking westward along the mountainside, he hoped to find a piece of land worth developing in the shade of the mountain.

This island is not as small as the islands in the Far Cry movies.

Looking down at the land from halfway up the mountain, one can clearly see that starting from this peak, there is a whole range of undulating mountains that lead straight into the depths of the island.

The dense primeval forest fills the earth with varying shades of green. Occasionally, some rivers and lawns can be seen in the forest, like the veins and skin of the mountains.

Adjacent to this mountain, the next peak is covered with a layer of black and white rocks at the top, and the top of the mountain is flat, like a volcano.

Observing the terrain, Chen Zhou almost walked to the south of the mountain.

Heading west, the slope from the mountainside to the foot of the mountain gradually slows down, while the curve from the top of the mountain to the mountainside remains steep.

The wind here is relatively weak, soil loss is not serious, and the soil is quite thick.

Chen Zhou tried digging, but after digging about thirty or forty centimeters he still did not touch the rocks, which was enough for growing crops.

Going further, under a steep rock wall, he finally saw his ideal terrain - a platform under the cliff.

Although it is called a platform, it actually still has a downward angle, but the curve is gentle. After being leveled, it can roughly create an area of 300 to 400 square meters of usable space.

Next to the mountain, there is a six or seven meter high layer of sand and gravel at the bottom of the rock wall, which is suitable for excavation.

The towering rock walls increase the risk of enemy attacks from the mountain, while blocking most of the sunlight and strong sea breezes, and also providing some cover for the smoke rising from the shelter.

The gentle hillside is covered with shade-loving weeds and low trees.

At a rotten tree root, Chen Zhou also saw dried wood ear and several mushrooms.

If you want to build fortifications like Robinson Crusoe, you only need to cut down the trees and raise the hillside to create a two or three meter high drop, making it difficult for the enemy to climb up from the bottom.

Moreover, the height difference will facilitate drainage. As long as a downward sloping channel is dug, the rainwater accumulated in the yard will flow down the mountain.

The only drawback may be digging the well.

The difficulty of digging a well near the river bank is completely different from that of digging a well halfway up the mountain. Chen Zhou suspected that he would encounter solid rock formations before digging two meters down.

Even if there was no rock layer, he would have to dig fifty or sixty meters to dig out groundwater. With only his two pickaxes and wooden shovel, the chances of accomplishing this task were slim.

Unless the mysterious reward gives him a drilling machine.

"It would be nice if there was a spring."

Chen Zhou thought.

"With a spring, this place would be perfect."

But there is nothing perfect in the world after all. The conditions of this platform under the cliff have exceeded Chen Zhou's psychological expectations, and it will be difficult for him to find a more suitable construction site than here.

saliva!
Chen Zhou was full of energy when he thought about the construction of a solid, safe and warm permanent shelter that was about to begin.

He spat into his palms to moisten the calluses, then swung the pickaxe and solemnly took the first swing.

The gravel layer mixed with soil was much stronger than expected, and only a small piece fell off after being hit by the pickaxe.

But there will be a second hit, and a third hit soon...

There was no rush to plan the entrance to the cave. Chen Zhou just tried his best to widen the gap in the sand and gravel. When the fallen gravel and soil became a problem, he shoveled them aside and leveled the ground.

After the experience of carrying boxes up the mountain, he didn't feel any difficulty at all for this kind of work which required almost no movement.

Sand and gravel rolled down and dust flew.

The sound of the metal edge of the pickaxe hitting the stone was crisp and powerful.

As he swung the pickaxe again and again, Chen Zhou remembered the words his father often said.

"When I was seventeen or eighteen years old, I followed your grandfather to drive a cart to the grassland to buy leftover sheep. It was a journey of one or two hundred miles. It was so cold in winter back then..."

"When I was your age, I would have already gone out to work and supported myself."

"Your generation of kids have never experienced any hardship. Look at your dad. He's over 50 years old, but his physique is so bad!"

He had heard his father's nagging countless times and was already tired of it.

He always finds reasons to refute.

"Nowadays, society needs brains. Hard work doesn't make money. According to what you said back then, you need to speculate."

"The food you ate back then didn't have any fertilizers, so you laid a good foundation when you were young..."

When you are quibbling, everything has a reason and a reasonable explanation.

Only now did Chen Zhou understand that he had just not reached that level yet. It turned out that he could do it too.

　Thanks to: Book friends 20220330224247547, The Broken Voice in the Dream, Pengpeng’s Dad, Who am I with Day by Day, Better Xixi, and Yu Xin’ai for their monthly tickets, thank you all!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)