Chapter 18 The House is Completed
"Aunt, mom, I'll come over to help you pick the vegetables." As she said that, she squatted down and prepared to help pick the vegetables.
"You don't need to help with picking the vegetables. Take the bamboo basket and the bamboo pole and go to the old chestnut trees over there to pick some chestnuts. Be careful when picking chestnuts, and be careful not to get your hands pricked by the thorns." Liu assigned her a task and reminded her carefully.
This sloping land for building the thatched house has now been allocated to her family, and the village head has also given them the land deed.
Then the few ownerless old chestnut trees next to it naturally belonged to her family.
The food her family used to build the house and cook was taken from the 150 kilograms of food they received from the family division. It would take at least ten days to build this thatched house.
Feeding more than twenty mouths a day is a strenuous job, and the rice cannot be too watery, otherwise everyone will be hungry after a while after the meal and will not have the energy to work.
Her husband's leg injury has not healed yet, so he can neither hunt nor farm. The family has lost its source of income, so she has to find a way to save some food for the three of them.
Otherwise, by the time the house is built and the food is almost gone, the family will have to live on wild vegetables.
Although it is late August now and the chestnuts are not yet completely mature, the tender chestnuts can still be eaten. Pick some, peel and wash them, and cook them with brown rice as a staple food. This will not only allow everyone to have enough food, but also save half of the food ration.
"Okay. I'll go pick chestnuts right now." Qianhuan was very happy to receive this task. She picked up the bamboo basket and long bamboo pole on the ground and walked under some old chestnut trees.
When she was in modern times, she started living with her grandmother at the age of 10. Her grandmother also lived in the mountains. September and October every year were the seasons when chestnuts were ripe, and Qianhuan would help her grandmother pick chestnuts.
When they arrived under a few lush chestnut trees, Qianhuan took a long bamboo pole and began to skillfully hit the fruits on them. The chestnuts rolled onto the grass at the foot of the mountain.
"Sister Qianhua, I'll come over to help you pick chestnuts."
When Wenjie saw his second cousin picking chestnuts, he immediately ran over to help pick the chestnuts. Several other kids who played with him also swarmed over to help.
"Wenjie, take everyone to stand farther away. Wait until your sister hits a few more times and drops more chestnuts. Then you can come over and help pick them up." Qianhuan spoke up to stop the children who wanted to gather around.
Wenjie obediently watched from a distance with a few children.
It was not until Qianhuan gave the order, "Okay, you can come and pick them up," that they all gathered around and started picking chestnuts.
"Pick them up slowly and be careful not to prick your hands with the thorns." She warned the children with some concern.
Even though these children are only eight or nine years old, they have lived in the mountains since they were young. They started picking chestnuts following the adults at the age of six or seven. The thorns on the chestnut shells are not a problem for them at all.
As the saying goes, many hands make light work. Although they are just a bunch of small fry, with their help, the speed of picking chestnuts is much faster.
After a while, all the chestnuts were picked up, filling up a whole bamboo basket.
These chestnuts have not cracked yet, and the surface is covered with hard thorns, like a hedgehog. If you are not careful, you can easily get pricked. How to open the hedgehog shell is a technical job.
Qianhuan took a hammer and smashed the thorny chestnuts with a few friends. The thorny shells were smashed open, and three or five fresh chestnuts popped out.
After peeling the chestnuts from the thorny shells, I had to shell the fresh chestnuts. It took a while to shell all the chestnuts.
After washing, Liu took out half of the chestnuts and cooked them with the brown rice, and left the other half to cook in the evening.
When it was time for dinner, a few children were also invited to eat.
The vegetables were all dug from the vegetable garden on the other side of the old house. Since the family had no extra money, they didn't buy meat, but just fried some seasonal vegetables to go with the meal.
Yunfeng Village is not rich, and the villagers live a tight life. They rarely eat meat at home, so no one complains about the food at Liang Laoer's house.
This fragrant chestnut brown rice will satisfy both adults and children.
Qianhuan told the children to come back tomorrow to help pick and peel chestnuts so that everyone could continue to eat the delicious chestnut rice.
Several children nodded happily and agreed.
Liang Laoer had difficulty walking, but he also wanted to help, so he asked Wen Yong to pull a cart to drag him over every day. He would sit on a stool and make thatch. When the house was almost finished, he could cover the eaves with the thatch as a roof.
Actually, Qianhuan had many ideas about building a house, but she didn't say it out loud. Her father had difficulty walking now, and apart from making thatch, he couldn't help with anything else. It would be great if everyone could help build a thatched house for free so that the family of three could have a shelter from the wind and rain after moving out of the Liang family's old house. How could she ask for so much more?
It took about ten days to build the thatched house of Liang Laoer's family.
A total of three bedrooms were built. The room on the west side was Qianhuan's, the room on the east side was the couple's room, and there was also a guest room behind Qianhuan's room on the west side.
There is a main room in the middle, next to the east wing is a kitchen, and further back is a toilet.
There is a courtyard surrounded by earth walls on three sides in front of the house, with only one gate on the south side.
In fact, there is about an acre of vacant land behind the house, and she also wants to fence it off, but the area is too large, and it will take a lot of time to build a mud wall. Everyone has come to help for free out of their time, so it is really inappropriate to make such a request.
Never mind. This small thatched house is just for temporary living. When she finds a way to earn money in the future, she will definitely rebuild a large brick and tile house. She will just have to make do with it for now.
According to custom, after the house is built, a banquet should be held to invite the villagers who helped build the house to have a good meal, but everyone knows the situation of Liang Laoer's family, and it is really impossible to invite guests to a banquet now.
"Dad, tell everyone that when our family makes money in the future, we will definitely invite everyone over for a good banquet." Qianhuan felt embarrassed, so she asked her father to make a promise to everyone.
"Okay, Dad will go and tell everyone right away." Liang Laoer ran to tell everyone with his crutches.
Everyone thought he was just being polite and no one took it seriously.
After all, everyone understood that he couldn't make any money now that he had difficulty walking, and his family was barely making ends meet, so how could he have the spare money to treat them to a banquet?
Liu was very excited to see her own house completed. Although it was just a simple thatched hut, at least her family of three had their own little home.
She cried with joy. Even though her husband's leg was injured and he could not work, and it would be hard for her to farm the land alone, she could finally live her own life and no longer have to worry about being bullied by her mother-in-law. Liu felt that no matter how hard her life would be in the future, it would not be as hard as being beaten and scolded all day long.