20 years of teaching

Chapter 31

The brightness of the 25-watt incandescent lamp seemed a bit dim in this old tile house, and the original white walls became dark gray.

There is a nave hanging in the middle of the back wall of the house. Under the nave is a table with two water heaters, a lot of ceramic tea cups, and other bottles and jars.

There is a large pile of sweet potato vines in the middle of the main room, which is the daily ration of Lin Feifan's five pigs.

On the right side of the front door, a chicken coop is made of earth bricks, and on the left side are farm tools such as digging hoes, shovels, poles, and grass rakes.

In the first half of the main room, a wooden building was built, and the wooden building was full of firewood.

There are two swallow nests above the east wall. Several wooden stakes are nailed under the swallow nests, and two blue tiles are placed on them to catch the waste excreted by swallows.

This house is older than Lin Feifan, and it was built by Lin Feifan's grandfather during his lifetime.

The house is too old, and it has been raining a lot this year, and there are leaks from time to time. Whenever there is a heavy rain, all the pots and buckets in the house have to function to catch the rainwater that has leaked.

Whenever it rained heavily, Lin Youde would hold a long bamboo stick and spot the leaks everywhere, but it was all done, and there would still be leaks in many places when it rained next time.

Some time ago, Lin Youde bought 2000 yuan of blue tiles, renovated the roof once, and added some tiles to it, which completely solved the problem of rainwater leakage.

The house should have been redone a long time ago, but Lin Youde had no such plan.

The money from selling four or five pigs each year is the biggest income of the family, and I have accumulated some money by doing masonry work every now and then. After so many years, I have collected enough money to rebuild a house.

But Lin Youde didn't want to build a new house in the Jinghu group. He wanted to leave all the money he saved to his son. His dream was to build a building in Lingnan Town for his son's marriage.

Building a house foundation in the town requires money. Lin Youde was worried that his family would not have enough money, and he never wanted to use what his grandfather and father had left behind...so he did not see any action.

In the kitchen, Wu Xiulan put the rice washing water into the iron pot, added a fire to the stove, and washed the dishes with this slightly hot rice washing water, which was clean and easy.

There is still some chicken left, all of which is poured into a large iron bucket, and one third of the fish is left. Use chopsticks to clamp the fish meat into the iron bucket, and throw the fishbone into the stove.

The remaining vegetables and rice were also poured into the iron bucket. The only dish on the table tonight was the bottle of fermented bean curd in sesame oil. Close the lid tightly and put it in the cupboard for tomorrow.

When her son was at home, Wu Xiulan never left overnight food. Wu Xiulan was willing to pour the leftover fish and meat food into the iron bucket. The iron bucket was a pig food bucket, and she would feed the third pig food later.

After washing the dishes, scoop the dishwashing water into the iron bucket, and then clean the iron pan with clean water.

After wiping the stove, Wu Xiulan put the dishcloth into a washbasin. The dishcloth will be taken to the pond for scrubbing tomorrow.

There are several dishcloths prepared, and once the dishes are washed, the dishcloths will be changed every time.

Many people's dishcloths are dirty and have changed color, which is too eye-catching.

But Wu Xiulan's dishcloth is as clean as new and can be used to wash your face.

After finishing the cleaning work, I opened a large iron pot on the inside of the stove. This pot is larger than the outside pot. It is mainly used for cooking pig food. In the pot are cooked sweet potato vines and some other ingredients. vegetables and a scoop of corn kernels.

Scoop the pig food into an iron bucket, mix it with some cold water, and mix it with a few ladles of rice bran from the crock.

Tonight’s pig food is prepared in this way, unlike preparing two buckets in the morning and noon, and only feeding one bucket at night, it can save a little. At this time, the sweet potatoes are not yet ripe, and some vegetable plots dedicated to growing sweet potato vines are not available. superior.

Keeping the pigs from overeating at night is beneficial to the health of the pigs, but if they are not fed at night, the growth rate of the pigs will not be able to keep up. This is one of Wu Xiulan's experiences in raising pigs.

Lin Feifan helped to lift a large bucket of pig food into the pigsty. Other people's pigsty smelled bad, but Wu Xiulan's pigsty was very clean and tidy.

In the pigsty surrounded by a low wall, the ground is covered with bluestone slabs, the innermost side is the edge of the cesspool, and the mouth of the cesspool is outside.

Wu Xiulan has to go into the pigpen several times a day to shovel the pig manure into the cesspool in time, and wash the bluestone slabs with water once a day.

The pigs have also developed a good habit. Every time they defecate on the edge of the manure tank, the place where they sleep is very dry and hygienic.

A long stone trough was placed beside the low wall. Two big pigs and three medium-sized pigs lined up, standing beside the stone trough with their heads held high, grunting and chirping happily.

Lin Feifan vigorously lifted the pig food bucket over the low wall, supported the bottom of the bucket with one hand, tilted it slowly, and poured the pig food evenly into the long stone trough.

Let's go.

tsk tsk tsk.

The five pigs huddled together, buried their heads in the stone trough, gobbled it up, and ate with all their might, fearing that they would not eat enough.

Wu Xiulan also followed, and the sound of the pig eating was the most beautiful melody to her.

Seeing that the pigs had a good appetite, Wu Xiulan was very satisfied, and said happily, "After the Mid-Autumn Festival, let's feed the sweet potatoes for a while to fatten them up. I'll sell the two big ones and catch two more pigs."

Lin Feifan carried the pig food bucket and followed his mother outside, saying, "Mom, don't be too tired. I think it's better not to catch pigs and raise less. Now that I'm paid, you and Dad don't have to work so hard."

Wu Xiulan took the pig food bucket from her son: "Mom likes to raise pigs. Seeing them look different every day, Mom is happy and not tired! The money saved at home is not enough to build a house in the town. My father and I You have to hurry up and earn more money, and strive to build a new house as soon as possible, and then you can go to the new house to get married. However, although building a house is short of money, my family is not poor, and you will know it in the future.”

"Get married? It's still too early." Lin Feifei smiled and shook his head, "You always say that my family is not poor, I know! Mom, don't worry, I don't envy other people's rich."

"How early? I'm already 21. You see, most of the people in the village who are as old as you have given birth to children, and those who haven't had children have also found girls. You are the only one who hasn't brought me a daughter-in-law home yet." " Wu Xiulan smiled mysteriously, "You don't have to envy other people's money at all, other people will envy my family in the future!"

"Mom, I haven't reached the legal age for marriage. It's illegal to get married at this time."

"Don't scare me with the legal age of marriage. Er Gouzi is one year younger than you. She has two children, and she hasn't been caught in a cell! Huihui is a good girl. I can tell that she has grown up I treat you well, now that I’m older, I treat you even better! You’re a boy, so you have to take the initiative.” Wu Xiulan always looks envious when she sees people in the village who are her own age hugging their grandchildren.

"Mom, I'm going to take a shower." After entering the house, Lin Feifei picked up two plastic buckets and ran into the kitchen.

"You child, every time I mention this to you, you run away, aren't you shy? What are you afraid of? You and Huihui's childhood sweetheart, childhood sweetheart, are destined to be a couple."

Wu Xiulan hasn't read much, but she likes to say "childhood sweetheart and childhood sweetheart" the most, and she uses this sentence every time to describe the relationship between her son and Huihui. She is reluctant to use this sentence for other people.

Lin Feifan lifted two buckets of warm water onto a three-foot-square concrete platform in front of the door, along with shampoo, soap, towels, and a plastic ladle.

The cement platform is about [-] centimeters above the ground, and there are three steps to go up. This is what Lin Youdete made for his son, and it is used as a place to take a shower outside in summer.

Lin Feifan took off his coat, put on boxer briefs, and squatted on the concrete platform. He washed his hair with a scoop of water, then wet his body, rubbed soap, felt the bubbles all over his body, rinsed them with water to remove the bubbles, and finally picked up the bucket from The top of the head rained violently.

This open-air shower is really refreshing!
(End of this chapter)