Traveling through troubled times to escape famine and cultivate crops as a grain merchant

Chapter 618 Etiquette

Wu Jiang was puzzled. "Master, we have enough manpower in the mountains. Isn't the fertilizer on the farm more important now?"

If we are not careful, all the compost will be ruined. How will we pay back so many farmers next month? The most important thing is that the crops in the fields will be delayed.

Zhou Guo said, "The compost pile has just been turned over, and it will take another eight or nine days to ferment before it can be turned over again. So many people are left there and they have nothing to do. I want to take advantage of these days to pick the first batch of flower mushrooms and dry them. In ten days or so, the sheep mushrooms can be harvested. If the two are squeezed together, there will be no place to dry them."

Wu Jiang thought about the mushrooms that were about to grow. Some of them grew fast and could be picked. "I know."

Everyone went to the mountains happily.

Compared to making compost on the farm, they actually prefer to pick mushrooms in the mountains. It is not tiring and is fun. They can pick a whole basket at a time.

It took the Zhou family three more days to harvest the first crop of mushrooms from this mountain of flower mushrooms.

All over the farm, any open space that could be exposed to the sun was covered with mats, sieves, and hay, all of which were covered with flower mushrooms.

A lot of things were also dried in the Zhou family’s yard.

It rained every night during the past two days and there was not enough sunlight during the day, so Zhou Guo simply asked them to heat the kang and dry the mushrooms on the kang. After two days, the first mushrooms picked were dried.

The dried small flower mushrooms smell fragrant, much more fragrant than when they are fresh.

Counting the days, there are only eight days left until the Dragon Boat Festival.

She began to prepare holiday gifts for a few shopkeepers. In fact, in previous years they only gave New Year gifts during the Chinese New Year. As for holiday gifts, only a few shopkeepers gave them to her.

The intention was to remind her not to forget the pine mushrooms in autumn. The things sent were all food, not particularly expensive.

She didn't have as many staff in previous years, the journey was long, and she was poor, so she thought she should save money wherever possible.

We still have to prepare this year.

However, after wandering around the house for the entire morning, she couldn't find anything worthwhile that could be used as a holiday gift except the flower mushrooms.

The sheep mushrooms have not been harvested yet. The only things left at home are the ones picked from the mountains some time ago, and even these are the leftovers. They are worth a penny in a few cities, not even half a pound.

How can I get these things?

Li said, "Aren't there a lot of bacon hanging in the kitchen? Bacon, rabbit, and fish. Can you take some down and put some in there?"

Zhou Guo hesitated, "That's not good. They don't lack meat. They can't finish all the meat. Maybe they will think our meat takes up too much space and want to throw it away."

The old man laughed, "When did you start to care about this? Are you still worried about whether others like the gifts you give? When giving New Year gifts, don't you care about anything? Just put in whatever you like, as long as the box is not empty?"

Zhou Guo said, "How can it be the same? I'm asking for something from someone. I have to sell them something, so of course I have to cater to their needs. What if I give them something that makes them angry and they don't want it anymore? Then I'll have to open my own shop, right?"

Li said, "Why don't you stuff those good leathers at home into it? Didn't you buy them quite cheaply? You don't feel bad about it."

"No way!" Zhou Guo objected without even thinking, "Although they are cheap, they are really good things. I can't bear to give them away like this. They don't need them."

He walked around the house and even the ice cellar.

When I saw the ferns stored in the cellar, my eyes lit up. They have a lot of dried ferns at home!

When I was collecting the food, I found that there were quite a lot of dried goods at home, including shiitake mushrooms, sheep mushrooms, pine mushrooms, ferns, dried beans, and dried toon. I put a little of each, and with so many things, half a box was filled.

After taking a look, I felt that there were still too few things in the box, so I put some dried walnuts in. Although I had given it as a New Year gift, it wouldn't be a problem to give it again now.

Preserved eggs and salted duck eggs were wrapped and placed among the pile of dried vegetables.

In the afternoon, all the Zhou family members came back and saw the boxes in the house. They took a look and found that they were full of worthless dried vegetables. No one spoke a word.

Zhou Xing asked again: "Isn't that too casual? How can you give someone only dried vegetables as a holiday gift?"

Everyone else looked at Zhou Guo.

Zhou Guo had already thought about it, "It's okay, don't we have some cured deer legs at home? We can use that."

Zhou Mai said: "Why do I remember there was only one deer leg?"

Zhou Mi nodded, "You remembered correctly, there was only one left, the others were eaten."

It's good enough if there is one left. In winter, we consume a lot of venison by eating hot pot and roasting venison.

Zhou Guo said: "There is only one leg. If you divide it into two, there will be four parts, right?"

A deer leg is not big to begin with, and it becomes even smaller when divided into four parts.

The Zhou family looked at the four small pieces in amazement, "They are too small, not even as big as five pounds of pork. Putting them in will make them look even shabby!"

Zhou Guo didn't say anything. He looked at several pieces of meat and cut a small piece from each portion.

Li twitched her lips, "What are you going to do?"

Zhou Guo said: "Nothing, I just remembered that we haven't eaten this cured deer leg ourselves, and I want to try the flavor. Let's make a dish ourselves."

The old man nodded.

Zhou Gu said, "It's okay if it's small. You can also put two cured rabbits in there. I saw that they gave gifts for festivals, and they always gave mutton, beef, pork, chicken, and duck, but I didn't see any rabbits. I'm afraid they don't have any."

Zhou Xing said, "Now that the weather is warm, the meat can't be kept for a few days. It will go bad on the road before it reaches home. At this time, the shopkeepers usually won't send meat."

In the past, the gifts included rice, noodles, oil, snacks, candied fruits and dry goods that could be stored. This time it will probably be similar.

Wax deer legs steamed in a pot.

There are not many pieces on a plate, just two or three pieces per person.

Zhou Guo took a bite of it and found it salty, fragrant and delicate, much better than the cured rabbit.

The old man said, "Catch a few more deer this fall and make hams out of all four legs."

Zhou Su said, "Sir, I don't want too many. One a year is enough. Deer are very hard to hunt."

It is more difficult to beat, but it is still possible to do it if you think about it one year at a time.

On the second day, she asked Wu Jiang to pick a few reliable people, divide them into four teams, and send them to deliver holiday gifts.

Each city had two boxes, containing dried vegetables, fresh vegetables from the vegetable garden, bacon, and tiger bone wine brewed at home, with each person getting a small bottle.

She originally planned to get only one box, but it still looked too shabby and ugly. It was better to go in pairs during the holidays.

Before leaving, he wrote a letter to each of the shopkeepers.

The letter detailed the methods of making various dried vegetables, especially dried flower mushrooms and dried sheep mushrooms, saying that they were grown at home and were not worth much, so they were given to the shopkeeper for him to try.

After breakfast, the four convoys set off.

On the afternoon of the third day, holiday gifts from several shopkeepers arrived one after another.

The first to arrive were Shopkeeper Yang's two boxes, which were unmovable.

Li prepared a sumptuous meal for the people who brought gifts and gave them some tips. The group left happily.