From Robinson Crusoe

Chapter 74 New Shelter
Chen Zhou went to bed in the early morning of March 3 and stayed up too late, so he was unable to get up on time.

When he first arrived on the island, he would not dare to be so lazy even if he had only slept for four hours.

It was precisely because the cement load-bearing columns in the cave had been built and the wooden load-bearing beams had been installed that he felt more relaxed and did not feel as urgent as he did some time ago, so he was able to sleep soundly until noon.

He originally wanted to stay in bed for a while, but Lai Fu, who hadn't had breakfast, refused to let him go.

It put its mouth on the edge of the bed, looked at Chen Zhou's face pitifully, and whined for food;
Sometimes he scratched the wooden box under the bed with his claws, making a crackling sound;

After a while, she lay on the edge of the bed, sticking out her big wet tongue to wash Chen Zhou's face and hair, which annoyed him so much that he couldn't lie down any longer. He could only put on his clothes and climb out of bed reluctantly.

After putting on his shoes and rubbing Lai Fu's dog head vigorously, Chen Zhou did not go directly to the kitchen, but walked around the bedroom first.

He was checking to see if Grapes had brought any small animals home.

A few days ago, there was always a foul smell coming from the house. He always thought that the dried seal meat had rotted, but he couldn't find the source after many checks.

Later, when he was dismantling the floor to make load-bearing beams, he found a small snake in the gap between two wooden boards. It was so rotten that he could not tell the head and tail.

Only then did he realize that it was the prey that Ti Zi had brought back for Xiao Huihui that had fallen here, causing the stench that had tormented him for so long.

From then on, every few days, Chen Zhou would check the corners of the room to see if there were any strange animal remains.

After a round of inspection, nothing suspicious was found.

Go to the kitchen, make a fire and cook.

After eating the lean meat porridge and feeding Lai Fu, Chen Zhou looked at the slightly gloomy sky outside the cave, picked up the long-handled axe and walked towards the woods at the bottom of the farmland slope.

……

The construction of the outer wall of the cave house has to wait until the dry season. Now that the things inside the cave have basically come to an end, he should build an outdoor shelter to avoid earthquakes.

Chen Zhou hopes to find a location at the edge of the woods with flat terrain and far away from the stone cliff on the top of the mountain.

Trees at the edge of the woodland were less affected by the earthquake.

While cutting wood in the forest, he once saw with his own eyes a dead tree as thick as a bucket suddenly fall down, crushing several smaller trees that were not as thick.

There are countless trees in the subtropical forests, and plants are born and die every minute. This happens more frequently during earthquakes. In order to avoid this danger, it is a good choice to stay away from the center of the forest.

As for the flat terrain, it is for the convenience of construction.

If you are far away from the cliff on the top of the mountain, you have to be careful of falling rocks and landslides, which are unexpected situations that can endanger your life.

He wandered back and forth along the edge of the woods, killing Lai Fu's energy while checking the nearby rabbit traps for any harvests, while selecting sturdy trees suitable for building shelters.

Before he knew it, Chen Zhou had left the field and arrived at a meadow in the forest to the south.

Between the embrace of several sturdy trees, an oval-shaped open space covered with green grass suddenly appeared.

The total area of the open space is about 500 square meters. It is higher in the west and lower in the east. Rainwater accumulates in the depression in the east, and there is some sand around the puddle.

The sand separates the grass from the puddle. When you get closer, you can see some tadpoles and small fish on the edge of the puddle.

Fortunately, there are fewer frogs here and you can hardly hear their noisy calls, otherwise Lai Fu would definitely make trouble again.

The weeds on the lawn here are about as tall as a person's thigh and are extremely dense. Standing outside the open space, you can't see what's inside the grass at all.

Having seen giant pythons and other snakes and insects on the island, Chen Zhou did not dare to go forward rashly. He only walked around the grass a few times to avoid being bitten by poisonous snakes.

Walking around the grass to the other end of the clearing, he saw two large trees standing close together in the distance.

They are stuck together, with no space in the middle due to the squeeze of the tree trunks, and the branches at the top stretch outwards, forming an excellent natural support.

Six meters away from the two big trees, there is another tree with a "Y"-shaped trunk, which is opposite to them and can be used as the other end of the beam.

Moreover, these three trees are all close to open space. Although they are not at the edge of the woods, they meet the conditions of having open space around them and no dead trees.

At the same time, this place is very far away from the rock wall. Even if an earthquake causes the entire mountain to collapse, the rubble will not splash here.

Looking around the place, Chen Zhou became more and more satisfied. He wanted to return to the cave immediately, take out an iron knife to clear the weeds here, and then cut down trees to build a framework.

He walked around the three trees again and could not find any fault with the natural support formed by the trees.

But there is one thing - the distance between the three trees is too far. Taking into account the length between the branches, the wooden beam must be at least seven meters long.

Of course, there are seven-meter-long trees everywhere in the forest, but he doesn't have plastic sheets that are more than six meters long and seven or eight meters wide. When the frame is set up, waterproofing is still a problem.

After much hesitation, Chen Zhou still couldn't give up in the face of such a good terrain given by God.

He decided to cut up a few empty cement bags at home, glue them together with the spliced waterproof cloth, and use them to cover half of the roof. As for the remaining half of the roof, he could only use thick canvas.

In addition to the waterproof cloth draped over the frame, he also plans to paint the beams to increase their resistance to moisture and insect damage.

If he wasn't worried about not having enough paint left at home, Chen Zhou would even want to pour some sea water on the three big trees to kill them, and then peel off the bark to paint them.

Trees that are too tall are prone to attracting lightning, posing a great fire hazard. In addition, there are too many birds living on them, which cause bird droppings to fall down and dirty the roof, which is also a problem that cannot be ignored.

"I wish you could give me a few dozen buckets of paint as a reward, or even a lacquer tree seedling, so I can learn to make paint myself..."

While daydreaming, Chen Zhou led Lai Fu back to the cave, took out the iron knife and rope ruler, rushed to the open space, and began to build a new shelter.

……

His ideal shelter would resemble a Viking hut.

The beams are erected between the branches of trees, with long wooden sticks placed on both ends of the beams, and moss covered with soil stuffed into the gaps between the sticks to keep out heat and prevent rain.

Lay the tarpaulin and thick canvas on top of the moss, and place a row of thin branches on top of the thick canvas. Insert the bottom of the thin branches into the soil and fix the top to the beams to press the canvas, tarpaulin and moss tightly.

The thin branches should be covered with a layer of broad leaves and tree branches, and the spaces between the branches should be filled with some moss and compacted weed stems and leaves.

With multiple layers of protection, the shelter will not have problems with rain leakage or wind leakage in a short period of time.

As for the interior of the shelter, learning from the lessons of the camp at the foot of the mountain, Chen Zhou decided to put in more effort and drive wooden stakes into the bottom and lay wooden boards to make it a suspended structure to avoid the rain and streams that are everywhere in the forest during the rainy season.

There just happened to be a batch of new wooden boards on the beach, which after a little processing could be used as the floor of the new shelter.

In order to make the new shelter more practical, he also wanted to use the newly cut bricks to build a fireplace in the shelter. The chimney of the fireplace could just extend from the roof, which would make cooking in the house convenient and provide a heat source for the house.

In addition to these designs based on Viking huts, Chen Zhou also has some new ideas of his own.

Since the waterproof cloth was not big enough, he simply did not lay wooden boards on both sides of the entire beam. He only planned to make about two-thirds of the frame. The remaining one-third of the roof would be nailed together with half a wooden board and half a wooden window - there were many wooden windows brought down from the ship, but only two had been used so far.

There will be gaps in the other room assembled with wooden windows, which will definitely leak when it rains and is not suitable for living, but it has good lighting.

Chen Zhou wanted to build two rows of flower beds with stone bricks on the floor of the sun room, and then plant some herbs or crop seedlings in them. He saw in Robinson Crusoe that there were many edible crops growing on the grassland near the fruit tree valley.

Among them, the species that can be confirmed include sugarcane, tobacco, giant aloe, melon, grapes, and according to the description in the book, there may also be cassava, which is the staple food of the Indians, but Robinson Crusoe failed to find it. It is thought that it should be available on the island.

When the dry season comes, Chen Zhou plans to go on a long trip and transplant some sugarcane, aloe vera, melons and grapes into this sunroom, and look for some cassava at the same time.

Rice and wheat are staple foods, and they taste great, which also fits his eating habits.

However, these two crops are too difficult to process, and due to their limited varieties, their yields are not high, and their cost-effectiveness is not as good as cassava, a high-yield crop that can be eaten directly.

Sugar cane and aloe vera are also important.

Among the seasonings needed for cooking, salt is the least likely to be missing. Being close to the sea, making salt is a very simple matter. At most, the quality is poor and it tastes bitter, but it is still edible.

Sugar depends on sugarcane.

Sugarcane is one of the raw materials for white sugar.

In the 17th century, Europe had begun to mass-produce beautiful, low-impurity white sugar through more advanced technology.

Through developed long-distance communications, they colonized various parts of the world, established plantations, and grew large quantities of sugarcane. They then purchased slaves or hired workers to harvest the ripe sugarcane, cut it into small pieces, and squeeze out the sugarcane juice.

After multiple stages of evaporation, clarification, crystallization and other processes, sugarcane is made into clean and pure white sugar, which is sold for huge profits.

In the folk, people simply filter the sugarcane juice to remove impurities, put it directly into a pot and boil it into syrup, pour it into a mold, and cool it to become a sugar cube.

This kind of sugar block is yellow in color and can be eaten like white sugar after being crushed.

Although it looks very different from white sugar, it actually tastes similar.

The conditions on the island are very simple, so forced multi-stage evaporation and clarification are barely possible, but that is like taking off pants to fart, and is a waste of time.

As long as the syrup is boiled, made into sugar cubes and crushed to eat, it is enough to satisfy Chen Zhou's needs.

When living a life alone, one should be exquisite where it should be exquisite, and keep things simple where it should be simple.

He never cared about such insignificant things.

Compared to sugarcane, from which sugar is produced, aloe vera is less important.

But as a Chinese herbal medicine with diverse functions, it can not only relieve heat, but also reduce inflammation and itching, treat mosquito bites, relieve sunburn and cuts, and can always be used in life.

Once sugarcane and aloe vera are established, they can be planted in large quantities in open space outside the shelter.

When Chen Zhou was a child, he watched the agricultural channel's program on how to get rich and learned that these two cash crops are very easy to raise and grow quickly. They are also very tolerant to pests and diseases, drought and floods, and are much tougher than rice and wheat. Plus, there's no need to worry about them being eaten by birds.

Especially aloe vera, which is covered with thorns. Rodents will never chew it easily unless they are extremely hungry.

……

In addition to sugarcane aloe, grapes, as a delicious and high-yield fruit, have long been included in Chen Zhou's planting list.

A few months ago, when he was still moving supplies on the ship, he had already thought about building a small courtyard, setting up a grape trellis, digging a well, and enjoying the cool under the trellis.

Grapes are a nutritious fruit and have extremely high yields when grown on a large scale.

After building the grape racks, he also plans to find a good place on the sunny slope with sufficient sunlight and high temperature to build a few drying rooms specifically for drying raisins, and even try to make some fruit wine with grapes.

Compared with grapes, melons, which are easily affected by drought and flood, performed mediocrely.

As the saying goes, melons grow in drought and dates grow in flood. Since there is plenty of rainfall on the island, the melons will definitely not taste very good. Even if you calculate the time right and let the melon seedlings grow in the rainy season and bear fruit in the dry season, you still have to water them diligently and take good care of them every day, which is too troublesome.

Moreover, wild melons are small in size and have many seeds in the flesh, which is not to Chen Zhou's liking. If it were a watermelon, he would be willing to put in the effort to cultivate it.

……

On the afternoon of March 3, Chen Zhou worked hard to clear the weeds on the vacant land.

Not to mention, the grass here is tall and the land is flat, which is suitable for hiding. There are also no trees around to block the sunlight, which can help snakes quickly raise their body temperature. There are quite a few snakes living here.

While mowing the lawn, he saw at least five or six species of snakes.

Among them are ordinary-looking small snakes, yellowish-brown snakes with triangular heads, small pythons with round heads and dark green scales, and a thin snake with a red, white and black body that does not look like a good thing.

The sky was gloomy and the temperature was low. These cold-blooded killers lazily hid in the grass, lying in wait, waiting for their blind prey to come to them.

Unexpectedly, their habitat was suddenly destroyed. Faced with large areas of fallen weeds, they were frightened and crawled away.

Several times, poisonous snakes approached within one meter of Chen Zhou, which scared him so much that he broke out in a cold sweat. He immediately took the iron knife and chopped at them repeatedly.

If the snake reacts quickly and has good luck, it can dodge the blade and escape. If it is unlucky and is hit, it will immediately break into two and twist in pain on the ground.

They don't have the strength of earthworms. After struggling for a few times, they slowly become soft.

After cutting a few blades of grass, Chen Zhou saw so many snakes in the grass. Worried that Lai Fu might recklessly provoke these creatures that could kill him with one bite, he took it to an open space and tied it up.

He didn't untie Lai Fu until he finished mowing the grass and checked that there were no remaining "nail house owners" under the stones in the grass.

After piling up the cut grass stems and leaves to be used on the roof of the shelter, Chen Zhou looked at the sky and returned to the cave with Lai Fu.

Take out a small iron can, light a fire, add water, and add some diced meat into it.

After it was cooked in a moment, he took out a piece of dough, chopped it in half with an axe, and holding the small iron can, he soaked the dough and ate it while putting salt into a small wooden box.

Before it gets dark, Chen Zhou plans to add some salt to the sheep, and check whether the ram's injury has healed, and then take a walk to see if the sheep trap he set a few days ago has yielded any results.

Today, he patrolled the edge of the woods with rabbit traps but got nothing. He just hoped that the sheep would bring good news.

After all, seal meat is not pork or beef, and it is not quite to his taste.

When the seal was just slaughtered, I hadn't eaten fresh meat for a long time. It tasted so delicious that it felt better than any other delicacies.

After eating it for two months, he was a little tired of it, even though he only ate two strips of jerky a day.

Before leaving, Chen Zhou had made plans. If he caught a sheep today, and if it was an adult ram, he would not keep it for breeding but would just slaughter it and eat its meat.

If it is a ewe, you still have to control your appetite.

With the development of animal husbandry, there are only two males and one female, and one of the rams is the ewe's child.

If a family raises sheep and practices monogamy, even if it doesn't have seventy-two concubines, at least the big ram must have three harems and six courtyards, otherwise it would be unjust for the beating it received.

　Thanks to: book friend with the last digit 2678, book friend with the last digit 8595, Pandora II, chocobox, Tea Color Like Wine, Mysterious Slacker, Galaxy Bat Man, book friend with the last digit 4637, Aqing is the best in the world, Classmates are all in love, oωo, Nine-vine Insect King, lis Confucius, and Pengpeng’s dad for their monthly tickets. Thank you all for your support!
　　Thanks to: UGig from Yueheifenggao for the reward, thank you for your support!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)