The leisurely life of farmers in mountain villages

Chapter 118 Catch Bugs

In order to let the chickens adapt to their eating habits in Songbai Mountain, Wang Shaodong decided to catch some small bugs for the chickens to eat.

The centipede's experiment was successful, and the chick has a strong affection for the little bugs.The newly hatched chicks will use their yellow and tender claws to dig around on the ground to find small bugs to eat.

After the sting, many small insects began to appear in the soil. When the rocks were turned over, scorpions, centipedes, gnats, wood turtles, rats, earthworms, etc. all began to move.

Previously, when Wang Shaodong was a child, after the Jingzhe every year, the thing he looked forward to the most was to go to the mountain to catch scorpions.

Yimeng scorpion is a high-quality Chinese medicinal material. There are people in the Longting medicinal material market to buy it, and some people will go to the countryside to buy it from the village.When Wang Shaodong was in elementary school, the price of a female scorpion could be sold for around 20 to [-] cents.A hard-working third-grade elementary school student can catch [-] big female scorpions in a total of two months from Jingzhe to Kuailixia, which can be sold for [-] yuan.

In the 20s, [-] yuan was a huge sum of money for a teenager.During the material exchange meeting in Chengzipo Town, the ticket for the song and dance hall was only five yuan, while the ticket for the circus was only two yuan.Two yuan can buy an air pistol with BB bullets, and five yuan can even buy drinks for married relatives and friends.

However, in the 21st century, as the money gets worse and worse, the purchase price of scorpions remains the same, and at the same time, the newly grown children become more and more pampered, so fewer and fewer children come to the mountains to catch scorpions .

Another reason is that in the 90s, every winter, many people went to the mountains to collect firewood, and then in the spring of the next year, the hay, jujube trees, and thorns on the mountains were all cut. Looking at the bare mountains, the children's parents didn't see any danger, so they would allow the children to play on the mountains while catching scorpions to earn pocket money.

From the second grade of elementary school to high school, Wang Shaodong would catch hundreds of scorpions every year in exchange for 30 yuan pocket money.

But, now, in 2003, this traditional children's ride that seemed so fun was in danger of being lost.

Children’s pocket money has increased. In 2003, wealthy families gave their children pocket money worth a few dollars at a time. Earning 30 or [-] yuan in two months is no longer a big deal for children. attractive.

Children in the mountains have many ways to earn pocket money, and after the Waking of Insects, catching scorpions on the mountains is just one of them.There is a large steel factory in Gangcheng County, so there are many steel-related industrial chains in the entire Gangcheng County, such as scrap iron purchase stations in every village.Therefore, picking up scrap iron in the garbage dump is also one of the ways for children in various villages to earn pocket money.Luzhong City is a well-known pepper producing area in the country. Every autumn, the peppers on the mountain need to be picked by a lot of manpower. The labor cost for picking a catty of fresh peppers is [-] cents. Skilled pepper pickers can pick more than [-] catties of peppers a day , which can basically be equivalent to the income of working on construction for a day.And like a ten-year-old child, he can earn four or five yuan in a day if he lifts seven or eight catties, which is much more efficient than catching scorpions.

In addition, picking coke on the railway, selling ice cream from the ice cream shop in Dazhai Village in summer, and digging Bupleurum, Polygonum multiflorum, Artemisia mugwort, etc. in the field are also Wang Shaodong’s children. It is a means for children to earn pocket money.

Wang Shaodong and Zheng Hui left a note for Zheng Tao, then took two large empty plastic bottles and went up the mountain.

The small bugs they found from under the stones on the road, whether they were ground beetles or soil silkworms, they never refused to come, and all of them were clamped into plastic bottles with tweezers.

Zheng Tao slept until twelve o'clock at noon. When he woke up, he found a note on the dining table, so he picked it up and read it.

"Zheng Tao, your brother and I went to the mountain to catch bugs, remember to add water to the chickens."

During the day, when the weather is warmer, it is enough to use the electric heater to keep the temperature of the chicken coop, and then the stove only needs to add some more coal, suppress the fire, and turn it on with a hook at night.

After reading the note, Zheng Tao hurriedly went to the chicken coop to have a look. When he saw that the water in the drinking bucket was about to bottom out, Zheng Tao hurriedly carried the bucket into the chicken coop to fill the chicken coop with water.

"Really, what kind of bugs did they go to the mountain to catch, and they didn't know how to wake me up before they left."

Zheng Tao complained while talking to himself, while busy filling the drinking bucket with water.

"Hey, Zheng Tao, why are you alone? Where are your brother and Dongzi?"

Zheng Tao was busy pouring water when he suddenly heard a corner of the plastic sheet being lifted, and then a head poked in from the outside.He looked up and saw that it was Wang Shaodong's mother.

"Oh, ma'am, my brother Dongzi and my brother went to the mountain to catch bugs."

Zhao Shiling frowned: "Catch bugs? Brother Dongzi, you really have a big heart. There are 500 chicks here, and it's not even two weeks old, so you want to catch bugs?"

Zheng Tao filled all the drinking buckets with water, and then walked out of the chicken coop with more than an hour before the feeding time.

"Ma'am, why are you here?"

After Zheng Tao came out of the chicken coop, he looked at Zhao Shiling and asked while wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"Are you going to vaccinate the chickens tonight? Your uncle asked me to come up and ask if I can help?"

"Oh, brother Dongzi has already said about this matter. The three of us are enough for this matter. You don't need your help. Madam, let's not stay here. It's too hot. Let's talk in the room over there. "

Zhao Shiling nodded, also feeling that it was too hot inside the chicken coop.

After arriving at the dormitory of Wang Shaodong and the others next door, Zheng Tao saw that there were a lot of potatoes beside the chopping board at the entrance, and on the square table where they usually ate, there was a plastic bag of pancakes and a dozen of them on the burden. Steamed bun.

"Auntie, Brother Dongzi said that we will go down and get it by ourselves when we run out of food. The road is far up the mountain, and it will be too hard for you to bring it here."

"Zheng Tao, Zheng Tao, you are much more talkative than your brother Dongzi."

Zhao Shiling saw that her son's dormitory was a little messy, so she started to tidy it up without saying a word, and Zheng Tao saw it and helped tidy it up.

The two of them were packing up when they suddenly heard Wang Shaodong's voice from outside.

"Zheng Tao, Zheng Tao, have you filled the drinking buckets for the chickens?"

When Zheng Tao heard it, he knew that it was Wang Shaodong who came, so he rushed out to greet him and said, "Brother Dongzi, I joined, come quickly, my aunt is here."

Upon hearing this, Wang Shaodong hurried into the house.

Zhao Shiling frowned as she looked at the big plastic bottle in the hands of her son and Zheng Hui, who was following behind, and each bottle was full of gnats and claws.

There were too many bugs on the mountain, and in just two or three hours, Wang Shaodong and the others caught a whole catty of all kinds of bugs by themselves.

"You, son, I'm really worried that brothers Zheng Hui and Zheng Tao will be ruined by you. If you raise chickens, you raise chickens. Why do you go to catch bugs?"

Zhao Shiling tidied up the room. Wang Shaodong sat down happily, and poured his and Zheng Hui's booty into the washbasin.

"Mother, you don't understand, the worms Zheng Hui and I caught are for chickens."

"Well, if you don't feed so much feed, what are you doing all this time?"

Zhao Shiling obviously didn't understand much about his son's grand plan, and Wang Shaodong didn't bother to explain. After dismissing his mother with a few perfunctory words, he hurriedly discussed with Zheng Hui and Zheng Tao how to deal with these little bugs.

(End of this chapter)