My village can't be like this

Chapter 708: Miscellaneous Events in the Village
When Wang Fang called people from the village, Zhang An had already moved all the fermented oil residue to the backyard.

More than a thousand pounds of oil residue, plus the wood ash he mixed in, made for a huge pile.

After the person who called came over, everyone started to carry the dung in buckets to the orchard on the mountain behind.

A pair of dung baskets can't hold much, about 60 pounds. Because the dung baskets are relatively shallow, they can't hold too much, so it's easier than carrying water normally.

Moreover, the distance from the backyard to the orchard is not far, strictly speaking, it is only a few steps away.

And everyone is used to doing it on a daily basis, so it’s not a big deal at all.

Even though one load could only carry about 50 to 60 kilograms, Wang Fang still found six people to come back.

Including Zhang An himself, they can carry seven loads at a time, about 400 kilograms.

On average, it takes about ten minutes to make a round trip, and all the fruits can be transported to the orchard in about an hour.

So the old people often say that it is easier to get work done when there are more people, and this statement is absolutely correct.

When Zhang An carried a load of oil residue to the orchard, Zhang Jianguo had already cleared the weeds under the roots of the trees.

After all, most of the plants in their orchard are plantains, and only the circle under the trees grows other weeds.

Although plantain is a weed in the countryside, it is a medicinal herb after all. Zhang An's family has sold it several times before, so Zhang Jianguo would definitely not touch it. It would not take much time to just clean up the weeds under the roots of the trees.

"Xiao An, the plantain is growing much better this year than last year. Why don't you contact Boss Xie and ask him to come and harvest it?"

Looking at the plantain that was growing very well on the ground, Zhang Jianwen said to Zhang An.

Now, he and Wang Fang would be extremely happy every time they saw the plantain all over the forest.

After all, this thing can be sold for money, and the money made every year is not small, so of course they are happy to smile.

"Okay, I'll find time to contact you in the next two days. The peaches are almost ready to be picked, so we can solve it together."

After hearing what his father said, Zhang An thought about it for a moment and nodded in agreement.

The plantains in their orchard have not been treated with any drugs such as growth hormones. They grow completely on their own, and the growth rate is relatively slow.

But this year there was plenty of rainfall and the weather was neither dry nor flooded, so not only did the crops grow better than last year, they also grew faster than last year's batch.

Ever since he first came here to collect plantain, Xie Wentian would come regularly every year to collect it.

Even though he no longer needed it as urgently as he had a few years ago, he still came and the price he offered was not low, much higher than what his peers offered.

Of course, not everyone can enjoy such treatment, only Zhang An can.

Because he felt that Zhang An helped him a lot that time, he had to remember this favor.

It is precisely because of this that everyone who has dealt with Xie Wentian thinks that he is a good person and is willing to continue cooperating with him.

So there is a reason why their business is so big.

After Zhang Jianguo knew that his son had made arrangements, he didn't say anything more.

Zhang An poured the oil residue and wood ash in the dung basket onto the ground, then put the tender grass cut by his father into the dung basket and carried it down the mountain to feed the livestock.

Even though they have planted several acres of pasture grass, it will grow again soon after being cut, so they don’t have to worry about fodder at all.

However, after driving the deer back this year, the silage reserves from previous years are a bit insufficient, and we may need to mix some dry straw in this winter.

However, if there were other sources of forage on weekdays, Zhang An would definitely harvest the acres of forage in the depression and compile them into silage for storage.

In this way, the livestock at home will have enough silage in the winter instead of having to eat bland dry straw.

The dung basket is different in filling grass and oil residue. When filling oil residue, the amount cannot exceed the dung basket, otherwise it will be scattered on the ground.

It is very simple to fill the dung basket with green grass. Just stuff it in until the grass in the dung basket can touch the top of the carrying pole.

In this way, a lot of green grass can be loaded into one basket.

When the other people who came to help saw Zhang An was going to carry the grass back home, they also came over to pack the grass when he had poured out the oil residue and carried it down the mountain together.

Although Zhang An's family invited them mainly to apply fertilizer to the fruit trees, they were happy to do this kind of convenient task without Zhang An's family asking.

After all, Zhang An's family pays a lot of money, and even now, it is also the job with the highest daily salary around.

Therefore, as long as there is something that can be done, everyone is willing to do it. On the one hand, they want the work they do to be worthy of the wages they receive, and on the other hand, they want to leave an impression of diligence on Zhang An's family. In this way, if there is work in the future, they will definitely give priority to them.

I have to say that this is very useful. Every time Wang Fang looks for someone, she has her own standard in her mind, which is that people must be diligent.

In this way, everyone carried a load of oil residue and wood ash to the orchard, and came back with a load of green grass.

However, there was not much cut grass, and each person only picked it two or three times to finish it.

After all the oil residue and wood ash were delivered, Zhang An told them how to apply top dressing.

In fact, the process is very simple. You just need to lift up the circle of soil under the roots of the tree, then put in the oil residue mixed with wood ash by Zhang An, and finally cover it with soil.

This is just like applying fertilizer to corn in the fields on a daily basis. Everyone present is very experienced and can do it immediately.

So as soon as Zhang An finished the demonstration, everyone started working on it.

Zhang Jianguo, who had finished cutting the grass, also joined the team applying fertilizer like Zhang An. After all, if there was one more person working, the work could be finished earlier.

Wang Fang originally came over, but Zhang An directly asked her to go back.

Although she still wanted to work hard after Zhang An spoke, when Zhang An mentioned the great god Xiao Siqi, Wang Fang did not insist and went home to take care of her grandson.

After working for a while, Zhang An put down his tools and went to the nearby peach forest to pick some peaches so that everyone could quench their thirst while taking a break.

This is their family’s usual practice. Every time they work, they provide some food for everyone.

This time it was just a coincidence that peaches were ripe. If there were no peaches, he would have looked for something else.

It is also because of this that many people in the village are willing to come and help Zhang An's family with work.

After all, everyone wants to get other good benefits while getting a high salary.

"Zhang An, you are not in a hurry right now, right? If you are not in a hurry, come with me and help me."

Before it was time for lunch, Zhang Jianwen came to the door.

"It's not too urgent. Just tell me if you have any problem." Zhang An estimated that it would take two days to complete the topdressing, so there was no rush. Zhang An readily agreed to Zhang Jianwen's request.

After all, according to Zhang Jianwen's personality, he would only look for other people when he had something to do. Especially when he was doing the work himself, he continued to ask for help, which proved that the thing that needed help might really be something that only he could do.

"The village wants to plant some road signposts. We went to the stone quarry to ask, but the people there asked for an exorbitant price, so we didn't want to spend the money. Fortunately, Lao Huang and a few others in the village can carve road signs, so we discussed and decided to do it ourselves, so as to save the money from others. However, they can carve, but they are not good at writing, and those who can write are ugly, so I called you to help, write the words on the road signs first, and then let them carve."

Zhang Jianwen told Zhang An the general situation in one breath, then he grabbed a peach and took a bite.

As the country joined the WTO, the economic development speed has been getting faster and faster in recent years, and even this small mountain village can feel it.

After all, in the past two years, the number of people coming here to travel during holidays has increased year by year, and this year it has reached a new high.

As more and more people came, the beautiful mountains nearby gradually caught everyone's attention.

Changqing is a makeshift team that was established not long ago, and many things need to be improved.

Although at the beginning of the year, the village spent a lot of effort to repair the nearby mountain roads.

However, the mountain roads are complicated and crisscrossed. It is not a big problem for people who are familiar with the way, but it is easy for people who are not familiar with the way to get lost. Therefore, it is very necessary to plant signposts at the intersections.

Everyone had been busy these past two days and had a few days of free time, so the village decided to get this done.

In this way, it will be ready for use when the National Day holiday comes soon.

There are many people in the village who can write, but not many can write beautifully. They can be counted on one hand.

Moreover, these words have to be written on a stone tablet and look good, which makes it even more difficult, and very few people can do it.

Strictly speaking, apart from Zhang Yixing and Zhang An, there are only two old people with the surname Zhang.

But he is too old, so if it’s just writing a few words, it’s okay to ask someone to help.

But they have a lot of stone tablets to deal with today, so it would definitely not be possible to call those two old men to help.

So in this situation, Zhang An, who is young and strong and capable of doing this job, becomes the first choice.

"This is a big deal. Zhang An, you go ahead. We are here, so it doesn't matter if you're missing."

Before Zhang An could say anything, several villagers who came to help started talking.

The village has been getting better and better in the past two years. No matter who their family is, as long as they are villagers in Changqing Village, they have all benefited from it.

So now when we hear about collective matters, everyone is very enthusiastic.

"Then everyone please work a little harder, I will go with my uncle."

Hearing this, Zhang An smiled and said to everyone.

In fact, he had no intention of refusing.

Before leaving, Zhang Jianwen also took a few peaches with him.

Because the peaches these two days are very delicious, he is no longer polite to Zhang An.

Zhang An followed Zhang Jianwen to the dam behind the village, where they saw many blocks of stone piled up.

Pier stones are still very common these days. In the past few years, many people liked to use them to build walls when building houses.

This thing is square in shape and only needs to be flattened by a stonemason with a chisel, and the resulting stone wall looks very nice.

Today, most of the houses in Changqing Village are built with pier stones, which look very beautiful, like works of art.

Of course, its functions are not limited to this. Large and flat pier stones can also be polished and used as road markers or tombstones, etc.

After all, there was no cutting technology like that of later generations, and many road signs and tombstones were made by chiseling and polishing a whole piece.

"Wow, there are so many of them. When did they get here? I didn't even notice it."

Zhang An had not heard any information about the fact that the village had received so many pier stones.

"They just called someone to bring him here these two days. You were not at home at that time. It seems you were helping to send Zhou Yang's family to the hospital."

While explaining to Zhang An, Zhang Jianwen threw the peaches he brought to Huang Weimin and the other people present.

Zhang An's peaches are very big. If he hadn't been thinking of giving them to several people, he wouldn't have taken so many.

"It must have cost a lot of money. The stones are all polished and smooth."

Zhang An took a look and found that they were all worn-out stone tablets. It would cost a lot of money to pile up so many of them.

"It didn't cost much. We bought rough stones. Otherwise, we would have asked them to do it directly. These are all polished by ourselves with rough stones. The ones below are also rough stones."

Huang Weimin shook his head and pointed to the grinding tools next to him.

The stone tablet that Zhang An saw was actually just the surface layer. The ones covered underneath were all rough stones that had not been processed.

"That's more like it, but it would be much more troublesome if I did it myself."

The price difference between buying the stone directly and buying rough stone and polishing it yourself is huge.

However, polishing the stone tablet is a troublesome task now. On the one hand, it requires a stonemason who has this technology, and on the other hand, it takes a lot of time.

"Anyway, there are people in our village who can do it, so it's definitely more cost-effective to buy it and do it ourselves. This way, the village can save a lot of money, and the people who come to help polish it can also get some wages, which is much better than taking it away from those people at a low price."

Zhang Jianwen has always been very calculative about village affairs, especially those that require spending money.

Now that he can save a lot of money by going in and out, he is so satisfied.

"Haha, this is called not letting the middlemen make a profit from the price difference."

Zhang An calculated and found that it was indeed true. Anyway, farm work was not busy now and everyone had plenty of time. For rural people, time was really not that valuable.

"Okay, okay, we've rested enough, it's time to start working. Let's start with the biggest piece first. If this is planted at the entrance of the village, Zhang An, you can think of a more appropriate way to write it."

After they chatted for a while, Zhang Jianwen blew the horn to start work and pointed to a huge rectangular stone tablet that had been carried over.

After hearing Zhang Jianwen and the others talk about the words they wanted to write, Zhang An immediately realized that not only did they have to write big characters, they had to write extra large characters.

Fortunately, he has profound skills and can still control it.

(End of this chapter)