My village can't be like this

Chapter 591 Lively Fieldside

Early in the morning, when the sun was high in the sky, Zhang An got up and went to the yard to sharpen the sickle at home.

Nowadays, every household is harvesting rice, and Zhang An's family will naturally not be left behind.

The most taboo thing for rural people is to work slower than others. No one wants to finish the work in other people's fields and only their own family is left.

Generally speaking, if you finish your housework faster or earlier than others, that’s not a big deal. Others will just say that you are very hardworking.

But if the opposite happens, people might say that the family is lazy or not efficient at work.

So many people don’t want to be hardworking, but when they see others working in the fields, they get anxious and start working as well.

At this moment at home, Wang Fang is responsible for cooking, Zhang Jianguo is responsible for finding everything needed for harvesting rice, and Zhang An is responsible for sharpening the sickle.

There were four sickles in total. Before Zhang An had finished sharpening them, Zhang and his group had already come down the mountain.

After breakfast, Zhang An and his son, along with Zhang Yixing and his three companions, went to the fields carrying sickles.

In the morning, the main thing was to go to the fields to harvest the rice so that they could thresh it with a threshing wheel in the afternoon, so Wang Fang did not go with them.

There was no way, because today was not the weekend and Su Ying still had to go to class, so she could only let her look after Xiao Siqi first and also prepare lunch.

This year, Zhang An's family did not hire anyone to help with the work like they did in previous years. Only their own family members came to help.

It’s not that we don’t want to hire anyone, but because during this period of time, most people in the village are busy harvesting their own rice, and we can’t hire anyone for the time being.

Even the families of Zhang An's two uncles did not get together to harvest rice as they did in the past.

Because a few days ago, Uncle Zhang An took on a job to build a house for a family in a nearby village. At present, the project is estimated to be only halfway completed and there is no time to spare for the autumn harvest.

As for Zhang An's third uncle's family, the situation was not easy either. The kiwis were about to mature, and their family was focusing more on the orchard. The rice could wait for two more days.

It is for this reason that it is difficult for Zhang An’s family to hire anyone.

However, their family only has six acres of rice in total. Although there are relatively few people in the family, according to the normal progress, the harvest can be completed in two or three days at most.

Not to mention Zhang An, a guy who works as hard as an ox or a horse. Although he doesn't do much work on weekdays, once he starts fighting, he is better than several people.

They say that the heat is scorching in July and the temperature is low in August. Now that the Mid-Autumn Festival is over, the temperature has dropped completely.

The remaining power of the autumn heat has long gone, and the weather now can be described as truly cool and pleasant. It is much better to go to the fields to work at this time than in the previous months.

But as autumn gradually deepens, the morning dew becomes heavier day by day.

When we arrived at the fields, we saw that each plant of chicken blood rice, laden with fruits, was covered with crystal clear dewdrops, sparkling like diamonds under the morning sun.

This is also why during the autumn harvest, the rice is only cut and placed in the fields in the morning, and the threshing baskets are carried to the fields to thresh the rice in the afternoon.

Because there is too much dew on the rice in the morning, it is not easy to thresh the grains. Even if they can be threshed, they will be covered by moisture, causing the taste to deteriorate after drying.

In this way, the grain is cut and placed in the field. After waiting for a few hours, the dew will be washed away by the sun. Therefore, the afternoon is generally the best time to thresh the grain.

At this moment, what was different in Zhang An's field from other families was that no matter whether it was Zhang An, Zhang Jianguo, or Zhang Yixing, all three of them were wearing a pair of arm sleeves.

Even if the sun is not out, it will still be very hot when working, so most people will want to wear less. Even if they are wearing a long-sleeved shirt, they will roll up their sleeves.

But it doesn't work here in Zhang An's house, because the grains of chicken blood rice are covered with long thorns.

If you cut rice with bare arms for comfort, you will definitely feel extremely itchy at night.

Of course, it is almost the same when other people harvest glutinous rice. Although the thorns of glutinous rice are not as long as those of chicken blood rice, they will still be very itchy and even cause blisters if they prick people.

So when Zhang An and his children were young and were busy harvesting rice at home, when they reached the glutinous rice field, the adults would not let them work and would tell them to go home first, because they were afraid that they would get pricked.

Of course, at that time they did not understand their parents’ good intentions. They just thought it was a happy thing to be able to return home from the fields early.

"Although there was some drought in the first half of the year, the rice harvest this year is still pretty good. This crop of rice is comparable to the previous crop and a half."

When harvesting rice, Zhang Jianguo looked at the rice in his own field and couldn't hide the smile on his face. It looked like this year would definitely be a year of bumper harvest.

Only after experiencing the disastrous harvest last year, everyone will realize that such great achievements are hard-earned.

"Not only that, not only are there more buds, but you can see that the grains hanging on each rice plant are much more than last year, basically starting from the middle of the plant, and there are not many empty shells."

Although Zhang Yihang doesn't farm himself, he is very happy to harvest rice at this moment, because emotions are contagious, especially the joy of harvest.

In previous years, if the rice stalks were too big, it would not necessarily be a good thing, because many of the rice stalks that had grown too big would have empty husks in the middle without any rice in them, and most people would only use them to feed cattle and horses after taking them home.

But this year is different. Not only are the rice seeds bigger, but there are few empty shells on the rice plants. This means that the yield this year will definitely increase significantly.

After the rice is harvested, it is first placed on the ridge of the field, with two or three clusters of rice gathered into a handful, and then the harvest continues into the field.

In this way, when the fighting buckets are carried over in the afternoon, there will be space available to put them.

Because Zhang An's chicken blood rice has many nests, two or three nests of rice are already a lot if they are put into a handful. If there are more, it will be impossible to carry them all over to thresh them.

At Zhang An's side, when the three were harvesting rice in the field, many people came one after another from the Dongli yard and stood by the ridge to watch.

As a result, although not much rice had been harvested in the field, the edge of the field was very lively, just like the big leaders in later generations coming down to stand by the field and watching the farmers harvest in autumn.

"Zhang An, your family will have a bumper harvest of millet this year. You must leave 400 to 500 kilograms for me."

These tenants are basically city dwellers, and few of them have ever farmed themselves, but this does not prevent them from seeing what a good harvest is.

They came here not just to watch the fun, but more to buy rice from Zhang An's family. Because everyone here usually eats chicken blood rice bought from Zhang An's family.

At first, they just thought that this chicken blood rice was rare and different from the rice they usually ate, so they bought some from Zhang An's family and took them back to try and see what the difference was.

However, after eating it for a period of time, they found very obvious benefits that eating chicken blood rice can bring to themselves and their families' health. This is an effect that ordinary rice has no effect at all. It is no exaggeration to say that it is a treasure.

It is easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but difficult to go from extravagance to frugality.

After getting used to eating top-quality rice like chicken blood rice, few people can get used to eating the ordinary rice they used to eat.

Although Zhang An's chicken blood rice is much more expensive than ordinary rice, they have no intention of changing it to other ordinary rice because they can afford it given their conditions.

After all, those who can afford to rent a yard in Dongli Yard are all well-off. These old men and women are either retired workers in the city or have sons who can earn money.

But the problem now is that even if they have money, they can’t buy Zhang An’s chicken blood rice whenever they want.

Maybe this was possible in the past, because there were fewer people buying, and Zhang An's family could supply it, so it was normal to buy one or two hundred kilograms.

But later, more and more people discovered the benefits of chicken blood rice, and they all came to Zhang An's house to buy rice.

But because there were too many people, Zhang An's family's production was simply in short supply. But they were all elderly men and women who spoke kindly, so Zhang An felt embarrassed to refuse anyone.

Therefore, the decision was made to limit purchases, with each household only being able to purchase a certain amount per year. This way everyone would be able to buy a house, and it would be fair and no one would be offended.

Some people also thought of asking people who didn't visit the house often to come to Zhang An to buy rice, but Zhang An knew every household in Dongli Yard, and after failing, no one did so anymore.

Of course, the purchase limit is not enough for them to eat for a whole year, at most it will be enough for half a year.

So when they saw Zhang An's family harvesting rice in the fields today, and it was a bumper harvest, they all hurried over to see if they could buy more next time, which led to the scene just now.

"Yes, Zhang An, your family must have a good harvest of millet this year. Next time we buy rice, we can't just sell the same amount as last year."

"Yes, yes, yes. Last year it was a bad year and your harvest was poor. This year the harvest is good, so you must let us buy more."

"I think so too. We also know that it is not easy for you to grow rice. You can raise the price if you want, as long as you can sell more to us."

Once someone mentioned it, the other old men and women would follow suit, fearing that if they didn't say anything, someone else would buy one more thing than them.

"Indeed, it's good that the price of your chicken blood rice has increased. It's not an ordinary product. At the current price, we feel bad about buying it."

In the crowd, several old ladies were hoping that Zhang An would raise the price quickly and sell at a higher price, the higher the better. This way, there would be fewer buyers and they would be able to sell more.

Zhang An recognized these old ladies. They were the most well-off among the tenants of Dongli Courtyard. Most of their sons and daughters were big bosses and were not short of money at all.

Others didn't think there was anything wrong with what they said, because although Zhang An's chicken blood rice was more expensive than ordinary rice, it still didn't match the value of the chicken blood rice.

You should know that the imported rice does not taste as good as chicken blood rice, but the price is several times or even ten times that of chicken blood rice.

"Okay, okay, everyone, I promise everyone that everyone can buy more this year. We will talk about the price increase later. I will definitely not raise the price blindly. It will depend on the grain price at that time. However, we will know how much we can buy after we finish harvesting the rice. Don't worry, okay?"

Zhang An felt his head buzzing as these uncles and aunts kept talking to him.

He immediately agreed to everyone's request, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Otherwise, they might not be able to leave the fields for the whole day.

Seeing that the harvest this year is really good, it seems to be more than the best years in previous years. So while ensuring our family’s own use, it is not impossible to sell more to them.

It just so happens that I spent too much money on buying a car this year, so I can make up for it in various ways.

After receiving a positive reply, the old men and women in Dongli Yard all became happy.

Although Zhang An didn't say how much they would be able to buy next time, it would definitely be more than before, and that would be enough.

"Okay, okay, we're not in a hurry. I have nothing to do anyway. Zhang An, why don't you go find some sickles and I can help cut the grass. Don't look at me like this, but when I was sent to the countryside as an educated youth, I also did farm work."

The old man and the old woman finally calmed down for a while, but then an old man suddenly had an idea to help Zhang An's family when he was watching him harvesting rice.

"Yes, there are so many of us who are idle anyway. Zhang An, your family has so many fields, why don't you let us come and help?"

After the old man said this, the others began to respond, rubbing their hands together, as if they were about to enter the sky in the next second.

"Hey, it's just a few acres of land, not enough for us to harvest it ourselves, why do we need you to do it?"

When Zhang An heard this, he immediately shook his head and refused. Although he also wanted to harvest the rice home as soon as possible, he didn't care about these old men and women.

They were not ordinary people, so Zhang Anke didn't dare to invite them.

Moreover, rice cannot be harvested casually with a sickle. If you don't know how to harvest it, a lot of grain will fall into the field when you use the sickle.

"Okay, I have to be busy harvesting rice, I won't chat with you any more."

Seeing that they wanted to say something else, Zhang An immediately added a sentence.

If he continues talking to them while wielding the sickle, he will get his hand cut sooner or later.

After hearing what Zhang An said, the old men and women gradually dispersed. Anyway, for them, the purpose of coming here was achieved.

Only after everyone had left the field did it become completely quiet and people started to work.

I was busy talking to the old men and women just now, and only then did I realize that my father and grandfather had already gone to the front to cut the grass.

So at this moment Zhang An was also ready to exert his strength. He bent down and started the small motor. With one slash after another, the rice was cut up in rows. Soon he surpassed Zhang Jianguo and Zhang Yixing.

(End of this chapter)