The happy little days of the Ye family

Ye's mother returned to Ye's house from her parents' home and told Mrs. Ye about raising ducks.

Mrs. Ye thinks it would be good to raise some ducks. "There is a big puddle at the foot of Xiaohou Mountain and a stream, which is good for keeping ducks."

"If I raise it on the mountain, will it be eaten by wild animals on the mountain?" Ye Mu was a little worried.

"The small back mountain is full of pheasants and rabbits. There are no large animals, so it should be fine. However, the creeks and puddles must be fenced with bamboo before raising them, otherwise the ducks will easily get lost."

The more Mrs. Ye thought about it, the more she thought it was good. "There are many snails and field snails in the stream, and there are also water celery and wild vegetables growing along the stream. These are enough for ducks to eat."

Putting the ducks in the stream during the day and driving them back at night doesn't require much care and saves food. Of course, Mrs. Ye will not let go of such a good thing.

As soon as Mr. Ye came back from the fields, he was pulled by the hot-tempered Mrs. Ye to talk about raising ducks.

After hearing this, the old man thought it was good. He patted his chest and said, "Leave this matter to me. I will cut some bamboo in the afternoon and enclose the place where the ducks are kept together with the creek."

"Okay, then I'll go find out who has ducks and bring back some duck seedlings." In the afternoon, I went to my in-laws to ask who they got the duck seedlings from.

At that time, the duck eggs will be used to make salted duck eggs, which is a great thing to deliver porridge in the morning, and the ducks will be used to stew soup or dried bamboo shoots. Before raising the ducks, the old lady arranged for the ducks to be taken care of.

Ducks eat less food, which is more cost-effective than raising chickens.

Today’s lunch was very sumptuous. In addition to rice dumplings and duck stewed with dried bamboo shoots, there was also fragrant roast chicken. At the end of the meal, there were sweet and sour candied haws and soft, glutinous and sweet moxa balls.

Everyone in the Ye family ate until their stomachs bulged, and they sat slumped on stools to eat.

After lunch, Mr. Ye took Father Ye to Xiaohoushan.

The father and son inspected the foot of the mountain for a long time, and finally decided to encircle a section of the stream in front of the puddle. Counting the stream, it would cover an area of ​​about thirty or forty square meters.

Each bamboo in the bamboo forest is as big as the mouth of a bowl and is very straight.

Old bamboo is harder and more durable when used as a fence. The father and son specially selected some old bamboo to chop.

Old bamboo is relatively hard and difficult to cut. The father and son spent an afternoon cutting down only twenty or thirty bamboos. Father Ye felt that it was too slow for the two of them to work, so he decided to call Tang Yilin and Tang Erlin as well.

The brothers settled the accounts, and no matter how good the relationship between the three of them was, every time the Tang brothers came to help, Father Ye would pay them wages.

After returning home in the evening, Father Ye went to the Tang family and told the Tang brothers about going to Xiaohou Mountain to cut bamboo. As soon as they heard that they wanted to help chop bamboo, the brothers agreed immediately. The wages were still the same, 20 cents a day.

The Ye family has a small back hill, several pigs, and several acres of fields. From time to time, they have to ask for help from people to work. It is unrealistic if they don't charge money. After all, they have to support their family.

The Tang brothers were very strong and could chop down the bamboo in a few strokes. One of the brothers was responsible for chopping the bamboo, and the other was responsible for chopping the leaves on the bamboo. They cut down the required bamboo in one day.

The next day, several people went to Xiaohoushan to start making fences.

Bamboo as big as the mouth of a bowl is chopped into a person's height, and then one bamboo is split into four, and then one end is sharpened, and the sharpened end is firmly inserted into the soil, and then the inserted bamboo is tied up with a rope.

It took the four people three days to complete the area where the ducks were raised.

There is a family in the village that specializes in raising ducks. They have a lot of ducklings. Mrs. Ye went to buy 30 fluffy ducklings.

The little duck I just bought was so fluffy that it was no bigger than Ye Qingqing's little fist.

Such a small duck can't go into the water yet. It needs to be raised until it is one month old before it can be released into the creek in Xiaohoushan.

"Where's Qingqing? Didn't you take a nap today?" Mother Ye didn't see her daughter, so she casually asked Mrs. Ye who was feeding the ducklings.

"Some little girls just came to see Qingqing, and they ran off to play somewhere."

Mrs. Ye put fresh grass on the ground for the ducklings to eat, then poured out the water in the broken bowl and replaced it with clean water.

"Little girl, it's better to be lively. You can live happily for a few more years before you get married, but you won't be so happy when you get married."

Ye Qingqing doesn't have to go to the fields. She usually does embroidery at home. She can't hang out with the girls in the village. She only has two close friends. Ye's mother still hopes that Ye Qingqing can make more friends.

"What you said is wrong. We can find her a husband who can make her happy all the time. It is best to marry in front of the family." My granddaughter is still young, so we need to choose a good family for her.

"I said something wrong. When the time comes, I will find Qingqing a good family like ours, with a well-off family and harmonious elders." Ye Mu said cheerfully.

"It's true. I'm not ashamed to say that our family is indeed a rare good family in the village. Many people in the village are watching Dong Lin's marriage." What he said was true at all. Mrs. Ye was very proud. .

"Don't worry because Dong Lin is still young. I want to wait until he is older before marrying him a wife that suits his heart." The eldest son will not turn 13 in a month, and there are still several years left until he gets married.

"It's better to strike first. According to me, it's best to start paying attention now. If I hadn't acted quickly back then, that brat Fengshou would never have been able to marry such a good wife like you."

Old Mrs. Ye took a fancy to Mother Ye early on. Not only did she create opportunities for her son to get along with Mother Ye, but she also went to her in-laws from time to time to increase her presence.

Grandma Ye was an embroiderer when she was young, and Grandpa Ye was a carpenter in the village, with a good family background.

Mother Ye has a delicate appearance and fair skin, and is considered a very good-looking girl in the village. In addition, Ye Mu's embroidery was good and she could earn a lot of money every month. At that time, there were dozens if not hundreds of people who wanted to marry Ye Mu.

Among these people were wealthy landowners and famous scholars, and even people from the town came to ask for Ye Mu's hand in marriage.

Grandma Ye knew that many of them came here because Mother Ye could make money by doing embroidery. Grandma Ye first excluded scholars from poor families.

Grandma Ye had a good sister who was skilled in embroidery and married a scholar. She made nice words when she proposed to marry her, but after she got married, her face changed and she looked down on her daughter-in-law who was born in the countryside.

She was a noble scholar, thinking about scientific examinations all day long and not considering her livelihood at all. Her husband's family forced her to do embroidery all day long, which caused her eyesight to burn out early.

She worked hard to support her husband in his education. Later, he finally passed the examination and thought he would finally be able to live a good life. Unexpectedly, he was divorced immediately, and the husband soon married a rich girl from the county.

As the saying goes, if two families are of the same family, one of them is destined to be wronged if the two families are too different.

Father Ye and Mother Ye grew up together, and the two families knew each other well. Although the Ye family was not the richest, they had no shortcomings.

In addition, Mrs. Ye is very powerful and directly promises that Ye's mother will not have to work in the fields. Ye's mother only needs to pay half of the money for embroidery for household expenses, and the other half will be used as Ye's mother's private money. Only in this way can Father Ye win the beauty.

Mother Ye originally thought that the child was still young and the matter of marriage was not urgent, but when Mrs. Ye told her, she really needed to pay attention. It was too late to start, and both the good girls and the good boys were picked away.