The happy little days of the Ye family

Ye's father hummed a little tune and returned to the door. Ye Qingqing and Mrs. Ye were picking vegetables for dinner in the small vegetable garden at the door.

The grandfather and grandson picked a large bundle of cabbage and two green and tender lettuces.

The beans, eggplants and cucumbers in the small vegetable garden are growing just right, and I can't finish them every day. The weather has been nice recently, and Mrs. Ye plans to pick some beans and cucumbers tomorrow to make sour beans and pickled cucumbers.

Hearing the sound of the donkey cart, the grandfather and grandson raised their heads at the same time.

Mrs. Ye: "I'm back."

Ye Qingqing: "Dad, you are smiling so happily, is there something good going on?"

"Yes, something good happened." After saying that, he drove the donkey cart into the yard.

"I hate it. What good things can you say? It's so exciting." Ye Qingqing made a face at Ye's father's back.

"Let's go, you'll know what good things will happen when you get back."

Mrs. Ye put the lettuce and cabbage into the basket and took the little girl home.

The grandfather and grandson walked into the yard. Father Ye and Mother Ye were carrying fish from the donkey cart.

"What a big fish. This one weighs 8 pounds, right?" Ye Qingqing was very excited and poked it with his hand.

Old Mrs. Ye: "Why did you buy so much fish? Do you want to dry the fish?"

"I went to Fujia Village today. I originally wanted to buy a big grass carp to stew with dried tofu, but I didn't expect to meet some old men fishing by the river. The fish only cost 4 cents a pound, so I bought them all."

"It's very good. Let's make it into dried fish. It's good whether it's used for favors or eaten at home." This is much more cost-effective than buying pork.

Seeing that two buckets could not hold so many fish, Mrs. Ye quickly went into the kitchen and took out two buckets and a large wooden basin.

Father Ye lifted a bucket full of small fish from the donkey cart.

Ye Mu: "Why did you buy so many small fish?"

Father Ye: "This small miscellaneous fish was given as a gift, and there are a few crucian carp in it. Let's make crucian carp soup tonight."

"Okay, did you borrow this bucket from Fujia Village?" Ye's mother remembered that Ye's father didn't take the bucket when he went out.

"I borrowed it from the fishing old man. I'll return it tomorrow."

There were 11 large grass carp, one weighed more than 7 kilograms, two weighed 6 kilograms, two weighed 5 kilograms, and the remaining 6 weighed only 3 or 4 kilograms.

Father Ye and Mrs. Ye brought all the fish to the well in the backyard, and the mother and son killed the fish together.

Ye's father first cleaned a few small crucian carp and took them to the kitchen to cook crucian carp soup for Ye's mother.

When killing the fish, Mrs. Ye did not forget to nag: "Dry the 6 smaller ones whole, and cut the 5 large ones into wide strips before drying. Remember to keep your back open when killing the fish."

Mrs. Ye has already made a plan. She will save the complete 6 pieces for when she needs a favor, keep half of the 5 pieces for her own consumption, and sell the other half for large gatherings.

"The summer harvest is hard work, so every household will buy some meat to replenish the body. The weather is hot in summer and fresh meat is not easy to store. Dried fish is cheap and easy to store. Now it is definitely a good business to sell it in big markets."

Father Ye has a quick mind, and Mrs. Ye is full of business knowledge.

Father Ye thinks this is a good idea, "It's too little to sell. I'll go to Fujia Village to buy some fish tomorrow afternoon."

Fish is cheap, and dried fish will not go bad even if you keep it for half a year. Even if you can’t sell it, you can keep it at home and eat it slowly.

After killing 11 fish, we got two large pots of fish meat and one pot of fish heads, as well as half a small pot of cleaned fish roe, fish intestines and fish soaks.

The fish roe, fish intestines and fish bubbles are used to stew dry tofu. The fish meat and fish head are marinated in salt and hung in the well to dry the fish tomorrow.

After handling a bucket of small miscellaneous fish, it was already dark.

It was too late and the small fish had no time to be fried, so Father Ye hung the small fish in the well to keep it fresh.

Today's dinner was very sumptuous, including a large pot of fish roe, fish intestines and fish soaked in stewed dried tofu, stir-fried cabbage, stir-fried lettuce and crucian carp soup.

Ye Mu is good at cooking, the fish offal is not fishy at all, even the two stir-fried vegetables are sweet and delicious, and the milky white fish soup is also very fresh and sweet.

Everyone at the dinner table was immersed in their food and no one could talk. There was only the sound of picking up food and eating.

There was no doubt that everyone was full. Ye Mu thoughtfully made a pot of hawthorn water and poured a cup of hawthorn water for everyone to help them digestion.

After dinner, Mother Ye and Mrs. Ye rolled the small fish in flour and fried it in a frying pan until golden and crispy.

You can eat the fried dried fish even with the small spines inside. As the aroma in the kitchen gets stronger and stronger, the little greedy cat at home is hungry again.

Mother Ye gave each of the three children a small dried fish to coax these greedy little cats.

Early the next morning, Father Ye drove a donkey cart to Dashan Village. Dashan Village was too remote and there were no blacksmiths nearby, so there was probably a shortage of farm tools.

Father Ye's guess was correct. Father Ye sold 14 sickles in Dashan Village, as well as 3 hoes and a large iron pot.

There are also people who want wooden basins and barrels, but the wooden basins and barrels were sold out yesterday, and Father Ye can only promise to bring them over in a few days.

The village chief came to find Father Ye. It was about bacon. The bacon last time was wild boar that the village went hunting together. The money from the sale must be divided equally among each household. Now there are 7 bacon heads that cannot be sold. I don’t know how to divide them. This money.

The village chief wanted to sell these waxed pig heads to Ye's father at a cheap price.

Village chief: "We don't sell it by the pound, we just sell it for 120 yuan per waxed pig head."

"It's a lot cheaper, but you can't sell the cured pig heads. With the money, people would rather buy cured pork."

Although the cured pig head meat that Ye Mu made last time was delicious, the cured pig head meat was too expensive and there was no money to be made.

"100 yuan for a pig head." The pig head could not be sold, so the village chief had no choice but to lower the price by another 20 yuan.

"Let me think about it again."

Last time, Ye Mu stewed half of a cured pig head, which contained about three kilograms of meat. One cured pig head weighed about seven kilograms of meat.

With salt and seasonings, a pound of braised pork head costs about 15 yuan, which seems to be okay.

You can go to the market or the wharf to sell pig head meat, half a catty for 10 cents a piece.

In the end, Father Ye spent 700 yuan to collect 7 wax pig heads.

After leaving Dashan Village, Father Ye went to Fangjia Village. Yesterday, many people in Fangjia Village said they wanted sickles, so he happened to go to Fangjia Village to sell the remaining sickles.

Ye's father sold 7 sickles and a hoe in Fangjiacun. The iron products that Ye's father ordered from Fang Blacksmith only had one sickle.

Father Ye went to Blacksmith Fang and ordered a few hoes, a few pairs of scissors, two large iron pots, and 10 more sickles.

Father Ye came to the river, and the five old men were still fishing in the same place, but those rich boys did not come to fish today.

Father Ye returned the bucket to the old man. The old men's luck today was not as good as yesterday. They only caught 7 big fish, and they were not as big as yesterday.

Father Ye bought all 7 big fish and got half a bucket of small miscellaneous fish for free.

Father Ye gave the money to several old men. At this time, a small boat came back from fishing. There were seven or eight large grass carp and a small half bucket of river shrimp on the fishing boat.

Ye's father wrapped up another seven or eight large grass carp, and the boatman enthusiastically gave Ye's father half a bucket of small river shrimps.

Fortunately, Father Ye brought two old buckets this time, otherwise there would be nothing to hold the small fish and river shrimps.

As soon as Ye's father entered the yard, he saw that the bamboo pole where clothes were hung was covered with dried fish. Ye Qingqing held a small bamboo pole and guarded the yard full of dried fish like a little warrior. There were two wild cats on the wall, looking and coveting. Dried fish in the yard.