From Robinson Crusoe

Chapter 30 Shelter
Digging is an instinctive behavior that is ingrained into human DNA.

The entrance to the deep cave is narrow, making it easy to defend but difficult to attack.

It can keep you warm in winter, shelter you from rain in summer, and also protect you from the cold wind and scorching sun.

Primitive people built fires in caves to survive the long and cold Ice Age.

They hunted mammoths, fought with saber-toothed tigers, giant ground sloths, face-faced bears and other wild beasts, used their fur and fat to warm themselves, and protected injured tribesmen, young children, and the elderly and women.

In that barbaric era, the continuation of mankind was once in jeopardy.

At the site of the Upper Cave Man, the burnt animal bones and broken ape-man bones were not far from each other.

In order to reproduce and survive, human ancestors repeatedly fought with ferocious cave lions and cave bears for caves.

In the end, the ancestors defeated them with fire, wisdom and unity.

In this process, the importance of caves has been passed down from generation to generation.

Until modern times, there were still cave dwellings in the Northwest and cellars in the Northeast, and shepherds on the grasslands would dig holes as temporary residences.

Not to mention the Hobbit's Bag End in film and television works, the field rest station with three dug and one filled, and the nuclear shelter drilled through the mountain in the classic survival and construction game MC.

These caves of various shapes contain both imaginative wonders and realistic designs.

Bag End was clearly the most comfortable, luxurious, beautiful, and secure-looking cave dwelling, but it was a huge undertaking.

Chen Zhou decided to design and dig his shelter based on the northwestern cave dwellings.

The interior of the shelter is three meters high, and the depth depends on when the excavation reaches an unshakable rock layer.

Rooms that require light, such as bedrooms, living rooms, and dining rooms, should be placed as close to the outside as possible. He has many wooden doors and wooden windows removed from the ship that he can use.

If conditions permit, try to make the living room larger.

The furniture moved out of the first mate's room and the captain's room were very luxurious, and there were two large mirrors with brass frames, as well as some framed paintings and carpets that could be placed in the living room to enhance the style of the entire building.

The kitchen and toilet should be built separately.

Chen Zhou plans to build the toilet on the platform, preferably more than ten meters away from the room, so that the stench will hardly drift into the house and affect his mood.

A screen wall should be built between the toilet and the main entrance of the house to block the wind blowing into the room.

Due to the shortage of bricks, the screen wall will be built with stones and clay.

A stove should be built inside the kitchen, and the fire channel of the stove leads to the earthen kang in the bedroom, which can bring warmth to the room during the rainy season.

Even though it is warm here all year round, being in the humid coastal environment for a long time will increase the probability of rheumatism and easily cause clothes and furniture to mold. It is still necessary to use a stable heat source to reduce the humidity.

All the bricks for building the stove on the ship were transported to the island, and they were more than enough to build a kang.

Chen Zhou plans to use the remaining bricks to build a small fireplace in the living room. The fireplace should be on the outside, and the pipe can directly discharge the smoke to the outside.

In addition to heating, this fireplace can also be used to bake food.

It can also be used to dry clothes during the rainy season when humidity is high.

If there are some bricks left after building the small fireplace, you can use them to build a stove, which is convenient for baking bread or pancakes, and can also be used to dry some meat.

As for the raisin drying room, it must be built in a sunny place. Here is not a suitable choice.

To prevent fire, it is better to pave the indoor floor with stones rather than wooden boards, but wood can be used for the ceiling and partition walls.

But the mountain is different from the boat after all, and there are not so many flammable materials.

Therefore, Chen Zhou has not yet made a definite decision on the material selection for wall decoration and flooring.

Stone floors are fireproof, but they are uneven and unsightly.

If the fire prevention work is done well, wooden floors are still more beautiful.

Especially the yellow pineapple tree, its fine and natural wood pattern can give people a fresh and bright feeling.

As for the load-bearing material of the interior, it would be best to use bricks, but Chen Zhou does not have that many bricks, so he can only use stone or wood.

If stone is used, yellow clay will be needed as filler, otherwise the collapse of the stone pillar may crush him to death.

Relatively speaking, wood is more convenient.

If you are willing to spend a lot of time and imitate the structure of the bag bottom cave, you can make arched wooden beams and wooden pillars to support the ceiling, which may be more stable than stone load-bearing columns.

In addition to the necessary bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms and toilets, a qualified shelter also requires a large storage space.

After all, he still had several tons of supplies at the foot of the mountain.

In the future, drying raisins, storing citrus, sugar cane, lemon and other fruits, animal fur, dried fish and meat, or the tortoise shells mentioned by the brother on the forum, all require a dry and hygienic storage room.

Chen Zhou planned to set up a separate weapons room and a tool room in the cave to store guns, cold weapons and various tools.

As for the material storage room, a separate room needs to be dug out, and the food is stored deep in the kitchen. It is best to dig down and open a basement.

When his life becomes more stable, he can try making wine, fermenting soybean paste, pickling pickles or making cheese in the basement.

The platform outside the inner room must be filled with the excavated sand and soil. If there is not enough sand and soil, soil must be taken from other places.

After all the trees outside the platform have been cut down, it is best to dig a few trenches on the slope, which will more effectively reduce the attacker's running speed.

A low wall should be built around the edge of the platform to resist the bows and arrows of the natives and the lead bullets of the matchlock guns...

There are simply too many rooms and facilities that need to be built.

If possible, Chen Zhou also wants to dig out a second floor on top of the first floor room.

If he could successfully make bricks, he would also expand the outer edge of the cave and build a corridor to shelter from the wind and rain.

Imagination is always easy.

When it comes to real implementation, where it becomes digging with a pickaxe and shoveling with a shovel, the goal seems so far away.

On November 11, the digging project officially began.

After entering the dry season, the weather on the island is no longer as unpredictable as before.

The scorching sun hung for the entire day. The grass on the sunny slopes wilted visibly, and even the trees in the forest looked less vigorous.

Fortunately, the shelter is located in a shady place, so working here doesn't require so much suffering.

In order to facilitate his work, Chen Zhou moved completely into the cave.

To this end, he took the time to bring his bed, bedside table, some gunpowder lead bullets, crossbows, rapiers and other weapons and daily necessities to the cave.

The excavation process was generally smooth.

The iron-inlaid pickaxe and wooden shovel were much more durable than he had imagined. Together with the crowbar for loosening stubborn rocks and the wooden barrel for moving sand and soil, Chen Zhou could dig out more than two cubic meters of soil every day.

However, things are unpredictable. When he is unlucky, he may dig up huge rocks, which are very difficult to move and pry, and often take two or three hours.

In order to facilitate the construction of load-bearing columns, the outermost sandstone Chenzhou was not retained, but directly dug out and recessed inwards, so that stone walls, doors and windows could be built later. From November 11 to November 5, all the medium-sized flat stones excavated were selected and placed in a separate pile to be used for wall construction.

On November 11, after finishing a morning's work, Chen Zhou packed up his tools and returned to the cave covered in dust to drink water. He also went to see the mother and baby goats tied to the grass on the hillside.

After nearly two weeks, the mother and child wild goats were no longer as wary of it as they were when they were first captured.

The female goat adapted to his milking technique and learned to accept caressing comfortably. Sometimes she would act like a dog, licking Chen Zhou's hand and rubbing her neck against his thigh to signal him to scratch her.

The lamb no longer protested against milking. It was not as close to people as the ewe, but it would not deliberately avoid the hands that grabbed it.

This may be because Chen Zhou drinks goat's milk every day and already has the smell of a ewe.

Since the ewes were tied to the hillside and could not come down the mountain to drink water on their own, Chen Zhou had to carry two buckets of water up the mountain every two days, one bucket for himself and one bucket for the sheep.

The shoulder pole used for carrying water was made by Chen Zhou himself. Although it is not as labor-saving as a bamboo shoulder pole, it makes carrying water up the mountain much easier after getting used to it.

In addition to water, Chen Zhou also feeds the goats some salt every once in a while.

In his hometown, sheep farmers usually buy a kind of round millstone-like salt stone for the sheep to lick and absorb salt. He didn't have salt stone, so he could only use table salt instead.

A large amount of edible salt was brought down from the ship, enough to last for a year or two.

But in times of peace, Chen Zhou also considered the issue of salt production.

Being next to the sea, there is no way that we are short of salt.

He knew two simple and primitive methods of making salt.

One method is to directly scoop up sea water and boil it. The crystals left after the water is boiled dry are salt.

This method has low yield, consumes a lot of firewood, and has poor quality, so it is only suitable for use when salt is urgently needed.

Another method is the drying method.

Dig trenches on the beach and introduce seawater to evaporate it first. When it evaporates to a certain extent, scoop out the remaining seawater and pour it into a crystallization pool. Continue to dry it in the sun and the saturated salt solution will eventually precipitate into coarse salt.

This method has high output and good quality, but it is time-consuming and requires a lot of preliminary work.

Chen Zhou now has a huge backlog of work.

These included building shelters, digging toilets and composting, cultivating fields, catching billy goats, constructing sunrooms and raisin drying rooms, and carrying supplies from the camp up the mountain.

He wished he could break himself into ten parts. Even if he knew how to make salt, he didn't have the time to do it. He could only silently write it down in his schedule and complete it one by one.

Speaking of the schedule, there is one more thing worth mentioning.

After discovering the pineapple tree, Chen Zhou had always wanted to use the purple-red liquid secreted by the tree as ink, but he was worried that the liquid was poisonous and long-term contact would cause discomfort.

Two days ago, when he went to fetch water from the river, he caught some fish and frogs and used them to test the poison.

It turned out that the liquid from the pineapple tree did not seem to be toxic, or was only very weakly toxic, and even fish and frogs could not be harmed by it, which made me feel relieved.

However, fish, amphibians and mammals are different after all. The fact that they do not die from eating the poison does not mean that they are not harmful to humans.

To be on the safe side, Chen Zhou tried his best not to come into direct contact with the purple sap, and at the same time tried his best to ensure that there were no wounds on his hands when writing.

The hazards of penetrating into the skin and directly integrating into the blood are completely different, so he didn't dare to take the risk.

After experiments with the toxicity of purple sap, the ink problem was temporarily solved.

It’s just that purple handwriting always looks inexplicably sexy. If he could choose, Chen Zhou still prefers black.

After making sure that the mother goat and her baby were not short of water, Chen Zhou went straight back to the cave.

A few days ago, he felt it was too troublesome to go down the mountain to feed the cat, so he brought the little gray cat up the mountain with him.

When I walked to the entrance of the cave, I saw the little gray cat squinting its eyes and rolling lazily on the ground at the entrance.

Using the "stone-killing-bird" fishing method, Chen Zhou caught half a bucket of small fish. After gutting them, he strung them together with a rope and hung them next to the cave to dry. He would feed a few of them to the little gray cat every day.

Thanks to the abundant meat, the little guy's lack of nutrition during the growth process was quickly replenished. He grew faster and faster like a balloon, and his appetite became bigger and bigger.

Take someone with short hands and eat someone with a soft mouth.

The little gray cat becomes increasingly close to and attached to the "hairless big cat" that goes out hunting every day to feed itself.

It can't sleep without being next to Chen Zhou every night. Even if it doesn't get into the quilt, it has to lean on the pillow and be surrounded by the air exhaled by Chen Zhou, as if only in this way can it get enough sense of security.

This kind of schedule is obviously inconsistent with that of cats that hide during the day and come out at night. Chen Zhou feels that he has already raised the little gray cat into a pet.

As the little gray cat grew bigger, its fur became bright and shiny, its face became rounder, and its appearance became more and more lovable.

Somehow, recently, it has secretly developed a good relationship with Lai Fu. Sometimes when Chen Zhou comes home late from work, he will even see Lai Fu hugging the little gray cat and sleeping. The scene is extremely warm.

Every official family member needs a name.

Feeling that the little gray cat had already occupied a place in this small family and not wanting to call it "little gray cat" all day long, Chen Zhou named this chubby and lively little thing - Xiao Huihui.

"When it grows up, I will remove the nickname and change its name to Huihui," he thought.

It took the kitten several days to get used to the name, but now Chen Zhou still doesn't respond when he calls it.

"Itchy again?"

Squatting beside Xiao Huihui, Chen Zhou pinched the back of its neck and lifted it up, looking at its golden eyes and smiled.

Meow~
The little guy was not afraid at all. He cried out, twisted his body to break free from Chen Zhou's hand, jumped onto his knees, and lay down directly, making a snoring sound.

Chen Zhou felt helpless about this overly intimate behavior. He could only straighten his back to make more space on his knees, and then looked at Xiao Huihui's ears and eyelids.

If you often play in the grass, you are likely to be bitten by ticks.

This nasty parasite has a small head and a fat belly. When it encounters a warm mammal, it will bury its head into the animal's fur and suck blood. After it is full, it will fall to the ground and lay eggs to reproduce.

Ticks can transmit viruses and bacteria, and can also cause congestion and edema at the bitten site, and even infection, which is very harmful to livestock and humans.

Lai Fu is tall and runs fast, so it is difficult for ticks to attach to him.

Xiao Huihui's age and size are just the right target for ticks. Two days ago, Chen Zhou found two small ticks on the inside of its ear.

Having some experience in raising cats in the countryside, he did not pull out the tick violently to prevent the tick's head from remaining in the skin and flesh and causing infection. Instead, he chose to burn the tick's butt with a red-hot twig.

When this guy feels pain, he will naturally pull out his head and leave his fur, and then you can completely destroy it.

After a careful check, no new "vampire" was found. Chen Zhou put down Xiao Huihui, who he had not enjoyed enough, and returned to the cave.

Living in an unhygienic environment always has disadvantages.

Just when he was digging, he suddenly came up with an idea for disinfection. In addition to drinking water, he returned to the cave to verify the feasibility of this idea.

　Thanks to my dad for the reward, it’s worth the money!

　　Thanks to Lanting Zuimengyinliushang, The Broken Voice in Dreams, Version Coming, The Roaring Wind 1994, Follow the Wind Wo Xiaoyao, Book Friend 160609182958595, Xiaojie Wuji, The Monk Who Rings the Bell, Yue Ming Tianxi, Yueran Electronics, Hate Things, leves, and C Hamster Ball for their monthly tickets. Thank you all!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)