In mid-August, it has been a whole year since I was unknowingly left on this desert island, which is not a short time, but the scene at that time seems to be right in front of me.

In one year, from being poor and white when I first came to the island to barely being able to solve the problem of food and clothing, the change is very obvious, and more importantly, I believe that the future days will get better and better.

Although fish has been the main product for a long time before and recently, it will take up to two months for corn and peanuts to ripen.

It doesn't take long for a major change in diet.

I have to sigh that it is precisely because of human adaptability, creativity and hands-on ability that human beings have always been at the top of the food chain from ancient times to the present!

I have complained about God's injustice to me and left myself alone on this deserted island, and I am also grateful that God can spare a life, and I am lucky compared to those who drowned!

More importantly, the living environment on the island is friendly to me, although it is not rich in products, it is relatively safe, unlike some of the island's birds, insects, snakes, floods and beasts, which is also a major reason for living until now.

On the other hand, although the food on the island is scarce, it is a safe life.

If there are all kinds of beasts that threaten my life at all times, even if they are very good food sources, I still prefer to live in peace now.

After a year of running in on the island, I have even become accustomed to the current days, if suddenly one day a boat on the island and finds me, and then tells me that I can leave, I may be at a loss for a while, and even hesitate!

Compared with the deception in the city, if it were not for the convenience of my relatives and the current society, I would prefer the simple life of doing it myself, doing everything by myself, and everywhere is full of my feelings and sweat.

The only drawback is the lack of supplies, even without electricity and appliances, even with more tools and more varieties of seeds.

Of course, all this is just a fantasy in my spare time, and the reality is not so coincidental that a boat will pick me up, and if there is, I am very willing to leave even if I have a little reluctance to this island in my heart.

......

Recently, I have been very angry with frequent insomnia at night, and it is difficult to fall asleep because the weather is too hot, and I finally fall asleep but I am woken up by the heat after a while, and the hand-cranked fan made of leaves is no longer very effective, and I even want to sleep directly on the ground!

In fact, now there is only a thin layer of hay on the ground, and it can be regarded as sleeping on the ground, if it is not for the fear of catching a cold, it may be more extreme.

This is also the reason why there are fewer mosquitoes on the island, otherwise you might not have to sleep at night.

After the temperature rises from 37 to 8 degrees during the day, the night days are not very good, occasionally there are mosquitoes to harass, occasionally woken up by hay, more often woken up by heat, hay is still not suitable for sleeping!

I want to get out of this situation and sleep more than 10 hours a day, but the quality of sleep every day is not so good that people have two big dark circles under their eyes.

I decided to find another way to weave a straw mat to solve this dilemma, although the mat is more comfortable, but because there is no bamboo on the island, this idea can only be adapted to a certain extent, and the straw mat can basically achieve its similar effect.

I've had this idea for quite some time, and at first I thought it was okay to put it off, and I forgot about it when I did something else.

The current difficult situation obviously can't drag on, and if you continue to sleep on the hay, you may not have a few restful sleep until autumn comes!

A mattress not only saves me from fire and water, but more importantly, in the summer I can completely get rid of the hay and put a straw mat under me and cover my body with sheepskin......

Originally, I was going to make a hammock, but I thought about it but it was rejected, the first was that I felt that the comfort might not be as good as sleeping on the ground, and more importantly, there were certain safety risks.

If you fall down and break a little skin while sleeping soundly, it is a trivial matter, and if you fall on the head or nose, it will be a tragedy......

There are two main choices for the material of the mat, one is a longer leaf and the other is a leaf stem that looks like a reed, and the last choice is the large leaf.

For novices, setting the difficulty too high is likely to face failure, on the contrary, the lower the starting point, the higher the probability of success, of course, the main thing is to save trouble!

Although I don't know all kinds of trees in the woods, I also know a rough idea of what plants are suitable for straw mats.

There are a few trees with leaves that resemble oversized palm leaves, the leaves are about two meters long, and they are also very tough, so they can be made into rope for a short time, so they should be a good choice for straw mats.

The distance of three or four hundred meters made the sweat come out again, which showed the high temperature, and I could also think of how miserable it was when I first arrived on the island.

At that time, I was running around for all kinds of time except for rain, and the conditions at that time were no matter how big the sun was in the sky, everything was about surviving!

The trunk of this tree is very straight, but the height makes me feel troublesome, and the trunk is at least three or four meters high, so it seems that it is difficult to climb directly without considering cutting down the tree, so I can only go back to my home and carry the simple stairs that were used to build the house.

As the saying goes, one thing descends one thing, and with a staircase, you can simply climb up a tree.

Then I cut the leaves from the roots to keep them as long as possible, and there were several large bundles of leaves in one tree, and only a third of them were cut off, and the materials for making two straw mats were enough.

After going home and resting for a while, I tried to weave it with fresh leaves that had been trimmed and measured, but after weaving a large piece of my palm, I felt that after two days it would dry up and shrink again, and finally it would be more reasonable to wait for the sun to dry before weaving.

Thanks to the sun's strength, after only one day of sunlight, the fat leaves are dehydrated and dried up and ready for use, which is the perfect weather for drying grains.

In order to better weave the dried leaves and not tie the flesh when sleeping later, the two sides and ends of the leaves were strictly trimmed with daggers and scissors, and finally the uniform size was about one and a half meters long.

The width of the blades is almost 1 centimeter, so I don't think it would be too much effort for such a large blade!

The next step is non-stop weaving, and it is better to put it into use as soon as possible.

The size of the big leaves is large enough to make the progress fast, but I just tried many times to find the right weaving method, I have to thank the experience of weaving bamboo fences at home when I was a child, and the practice of straw mats basically feels similar, but the difference in feel.

There is always a process of refinement and learning when making an item that has never been done before, and at first only a layer of leaves is used, but soon it turns out that it is as thin as a piece of paper, and it is absolutely impractical, and it is not effective to use it forcibly.

Later, it was added to two layers and three layers, and now it is used to use four layers to feel that the thickness is appropriate, such a thickness is longer whether it is daily use or preservation, but the difficulty of weaving has increased too much, which makes people have a headache.

The number of long leaves looks messy, like a large mess of grass on the ground, and while weaving, you have to go through the leaves one by one, which greatly increases the workload.

The mat took a little longer than expected, and it took almost two days to finish, and the delay was mainly for edge banding, which was the most troublesome step.

The final product is crooked, and because of the softness of the material, it is uneven.

What's even more unbearable is that there is a small braid at the end that seriously affects its beauty, of course, there is not much beauty in itself, so you can only use it like this!

There is no doubt about the practicality, although it was a little unaccustomed to sleeping at the beginning, but it took two nights to get used to it and slowly remove the burrs on it after smoothing it out.

Compared with the previous experience of hay no longer piercing the meat, although it is still a little less breathable, the quality of sleep has improved a lot, and the frequency of being woken up by heat at night has been greatly reduced!

......

Corn should be harvested in a maximum of 20 days, and although this season's corn has been devastated by two typhoons, the rest is strong.

Although the yield of corn per plant in the field is not twice that of last year, two top three are still more than enough!

Originally, corn is a sunny crop, and the selected seeds are also the best of the best, it seems that this season's harvest is very safe, but it is a pity that the two hundred plants destroyed by the typhoon were originally more than 100 catties of corn......

At this time, the problem goes back to the beginning of the year when I was thinking about eating corn, and the increase in yield must no longer be able to cook and eat corn kernels as in the previous when the quantity was small, and the eating method should be more refined.

Without a doubt, I am going to grind corn kernels into cornmeal, which is the most convenient and practical way to eat, not only can you make corn porridge, but also can be made into tortillas for easy portability, it is simply the first choice food when you go out!

Such ambition also comes from the confidence of metal tools, if it was before ironmaking, I would not even think about this aspect, and directly boiled corn kernels.

But now that the tools are available, the production of the corresponding tools is on the agenda.

The next step is to consider which structure will be easier to achieve my goal, and there are two directions of research at present.

Making a stone mill or making a stone mortar like a glutinous cake is not a day's work, and it may take a long time to dig and polish.

In terms of production, the stone mortar should be simple and time-saving, but the stone mortar will consume physical strength in the process of operation and will also splash corn everywhere, which is not efficient and the effect is not good!

Stone grinding is almost the opposite, it is quite difficult and time-consuming to make, and it is necessary to find a large and hard stone, but in actual operation it is much simpler, not only high efficiency, but also fine and uniform grinding surface.

I had a headache for two plans for a long time and couldn't make up my mind, and it wasn't until the next day that I decided to give up the stone mortar to make a stone mill.

From the short-term point of view, the stone mortar should be more suitable, and from the long-term consideration, it is obvious that the stone grinding is more scientific, and the choice must be more long-term, not too short-sighted!