It is not easy for people in the mountains to eat sugar, and they all have a love for sugar.

In general, there are two sources of natural table sugar: one is sucrose, or gin sugar, and the other is bee sugar.

Sucrose is sugarcane juice, which can be eaten as long as it is planted, but this cannot be preserved and is not convenient for transportation.

Gin sugar, also known as maltose, is made from wheat that has been sprouted. Before doing, it is necessary to choose a sunny and sunny day with high temperature, first wash the wheat, remove small stones, clods, sundries and other particles, soak it in cold water for three days, and then put it in a basket woven with bamboo strips, and cover the frame with a layer of coarse cloth.

Water the wheat every three to five times until the goose-yellow shoots grow inch long. Then, spread it out under the sun and let the sprouted wheat quickly dehydrate and dry. After drying, the malt is crushed with a stone mortar, which is nearly powdered.

After putting the malt powder into a boiling cauldron to boil, after the water in the pot is slightly sweet, consider the impurities in the pot, continue to boil over high heat, and slowly wait for the water in the pot to evaporate, leaving some black and red color, slimy sugar porridge, put it up with a spatula, quickly pour it into the basin, and then the sugar porridge sticks tightly to the basin.

The sugar porridge at this time is very malleable. Then, pull a piece of gummy candy with your hand and pull it into the distance, and turn it back when it is about ten meters long. Pull this again and again until the black brown sugar porridge turns golden brown and gradually hardens.

The finished gin candy is harder than a stone, and it can be beaten down with a hammer or iron plate and eaten piece by piece.

Standing guard after the meal, it is a two-to-two ratio, the two sons start, the father and the younger son sleep and rest. It was also quiet, nothing happened.

Early the next morning, they had breakfast, grabbed their tools, and set off.

Walking on the mountain road, my father whispered something to a dog, and the dog walked to a fork in the road on his own, as if looking for something. But my father didn't say anything, and everyone didn't ask.

Climbing over a small mountain, they came to a place that resembled an alpine meadow higher up, and below was the bottom of the ravine where the cave where they lived, and above was a large pine forest, under which grew a thick layer of hairy bracken, and occasionally some places where there was no grass showed the original yellow color of the earth, like a small world dotted among the grass.

In early spring and March, these hairy bracken sprouts are pumped, and the top grows into curly rings, a bit like a shy little girl, it is an authentic mountain wild vegetable, crisp and slightly bitter.

In the few loess soils, in some places there is a thatch, and piles of fresh soil have faded from the roots, and under the roots of the grass is a freshly dug mud hole, from which the soil has receded.

It seems that this is the masterpiece of some kind of animal that is good at digging holes and digging in the soil. The father hurriedly arranged the division of labor: "This is the badger's nest." I'll take a dog to guard the entrance to the cave, and you'll see if there's any other exit. ”

After speaking, he squatted down at the entrance of the cave and stretched out, and a terrible whistle blew, which was the sound of a dog.

The dog howled from afar in the opposite hill, which was a response. After a while, he came to the place where the master was, and gently held a mouse in his mouth. When you look closely, the rat is not injured, it moves, and it is a live mouse.

The father smiled and patted the dog on the back as a compliment, and then pinched the mouse's neck, took the mouse from the dog's mouth, tied it up with a green vine beside him, and put it on the ground for later use.

"Daddy, there's no other exit!" the cries of the three sons began to sound.

"Well, you guys come back. Father said.

He grabbed his hoe and dug it at the entrance. Ten minutes later, a hole more than one meter deep had been dug in the direction of the badger's digging, but there was no sign of the badger.

The badger's hole is dug from the bottom, along the steep slope up with sharp claws to dig the soil, the excavated soil then rolls down the hillside due to gravity, no need to spend extra time to the hole to withdraw the soil, so the badger digging the hole is very efficient, the speed is very fast, and the hole can be dug two meters deep in ten minutes when escaping.

Because there is movement outside, when listening closely, the badger can no longer hear the sound of the badger digging the soil, and it is estimated that it is also listening to the movement outside.

At this time, the father stopped digging the soil, caught the mouse on the ground, put a dozen dried soybeans in the rat's buttocks, until he could not stuff it, and waited for half an hour.

The dried soybeans in the sun slowly absorb water and expand in the warm buttocks of the mouse, which makes the mouse very uncomfortable, but it is difficult to expel it like defecation for a while.

The father then untied the green vine that had been tied to the rat's body, threw it into the hole, and quickly sealed the hole with a cloth bag.

This cloth bag has a particular point, the bottom is woven with white coarse cloth, which has a great transmittance to the sun, and the whole body is woven with black muslin, with fine thread legs, which is basically opaque.

After the rat was released, he ran into the depths of the cave with a puff of smoke, and after a while was blocked by the fat butt of the badger digging in front of him.

The barking of dogs outside, the noise of humans, and the uncomfortable feeling of suffocation that came from time to time in the buttocks, stirred up the rats, as if they could get rid of this pain as long as they kept running forward, so they were unceremonious to the badger's butt that stood in the way, and they opened their mouths to bite, and the badger "squeaked" and barked, so they had to dig forward and drill forward. But the speed of digging is not comparable to the speed of the rat to follow up and the strength of the buttocks, and after a while, I feel that digging forward like this is useless, and only by turning around backwards and rushing out of the hole can I escape.

But at this time there was no way to retreat, so the badger used its claws to dig the earth to the left and right, and in a short time a hall was dug out, and there was room to turn back. When the badger turned around, he saw a bright light in front of him, which was obviously the entrance of the cave, so he quickly rushed to the entrance of the cave.

With a click, the badger rushed out of the hole and fell into the large cloth bag that had been waiting for it with its mouth open.

The father quickly tied the mouth of the bag with his hand, tied a knot, and then shook it with his hand, and said, "This badger is very fat, and the fat is enough to eat well for a while." ”

Animals in the mountains have a hard time surviving, and they have to run long distances in order to find food, and they are not often full, so the average animal is skinny, with more lean meat and less fat, and many animals don't even have any fat on them, let alone fat.

Hunting in the mountains, it is not enough to eat meat, sometimes you have to pick some wild vegetables, these are not a taste without oil, just dry to eat, so there must be oil, the food has a taste.

At the end of the day, they took the badgers back to the cave, skinned them, took the oil, and cut the meat.

And the mouse will no longer care about it, let it go by itself, and the soybeans in the butt will be excreted quickly, and it will not be uncomfortable for too long.

In the past few days, although they have eaten meat, they have not been stained with a little oil, and they always feel that they have no appetite for eating, their mouths and stomachs are empty, and they lack oil and water.

Tonight's meal is twice the amount of food eaten a few days ago, and my father only shouted to save food, eat leisurely, and the days will be long.

After dinner, the father and the children replaced all the stones blocking the cave door with large long stones, and arranged them in the direction of entering the cave, and reserved a thigh-thick lookout at half the height of the cave, and such a lookout was also on the top of the cave door.

After doing this, they divided the labor, stood guard, added firewood, and passed the night peacefully.