After a heavy snowfall, followed by two moderate rains, the ground was wet, and it was always dry, Liu Guiyuan didn't want to go out, for fear of wetting the cotton shoes on his feet, and when he had to go out, he tied a pair of straw sandals under the cotton shoes, and pulled them out and back again.

They are ordinary people, and the shoes they often wear in winter at this time are cotton shoes, which are very similar to the style of old BJ cloth shoes in later generations, but cotton is added to the upper. Liu Guiyuan once asked the eldest sister why they didn't buy boots to wear, and the eldest sister said that boots can only be worn by dignitaries, otherwise it would be trespassing.

Today is the day when Liu Guiyuan's family kills pigs, the sisters have discussed, the two pigs are not big or small, rather than starving for a winter, it is better to kill them directly, leave more pork and pig blood or something, sprinkle with salt and pickle, and have a fat year this year.

Soon, the pig killer invited by their village came, a strong man with a little black appearance, and I heard that in addition to killing pigs for people, his family also ran a butcher shop in the town, and after killing pigs every time, he would buy the pork that the villagers could not eat.

Early in the morning, Liu Hongjube and Liu Huahua drove the two pigs to the open field, and at the same time, Liu Guiyuan called her second uncle to help watch the butcher kill the pigs.

When it was time to kill the pig, the three sisters closed the door, covered their ears and hid in the house, after a while, there was a heart-rending pig cry outside, and the puppy in the house heard the movement and snorted twice, so he hid under the bed and did not dare to come out, fortunately, the lotus seed did not react, and the little baby was always bold.

After killing the pigs, the second uncle told them that the two pigs looked small, the meat monster was strong, and the scale was about 280 catties, the meat was fat and thin, the color was white and red, and there was almost no smell, so the price offered by the butcher was higher than the pigs killed a few days ago.

Liu Guiyuan's family kept ten catties of pork in one go, plus a pair of pork liver, half a pork rib, and sold the rest to the butcher, earning a total of five taels or three dollars of silver.

Of course, raising pigs requires capital, a small piglet of five or six hundred Wen, and it costs a lot of food to raise in the later stage, and it takes a lot of food to fight pigweed and take care of the pigsty on weekdays, so not every household can raise it. I think that at the beginning, Liu Guiyuan's family could have these two little pigs, or they were from the Wang family.

"When the spring comes, our family will hold two more piglets, and we will have to raise two or three more sheep, the mutton can be sold, and the wool will be kept to spin the wool, oh, yes, we have to hold a batch of chicken seedlings, and the three chickens in the family will be slowly killed and eaten."

Liu Guiyuan stood at a long table, grinding the coarse salt with a rolling pin, while talking to his two sisters, one of them was stewing pork ribs and the other was marinating fresh pork, and after sprinkling enough salt, they tied it up with twine and hung it on the beam of the hall.

"Okay, you can raise whatever you say, I don't have an opinion anyway." Liu Hongjube took out a spoonful of blood foam from the pot, poured it into a bucket of dirty water, and then pulled off two pieces of chopping wood at the bottom of the stove, leaving only one thick one to burn slowly.

"Then raise another cat, there is so much food at home, and these pork, and the dry goods that are usually fried, I am afraid that they will be eaten by mice." Liu Huahua was worried about mice at home, so she wanted to bring a kitten back to raise, if in the past, her family would not talk about raising a cat, and it would be difficult to feed the three of them. But now it's different, the family has money and no shortage of food, and it doesn't matter if you have cats and dogs.

"By the way, what day is the lunar month today? It's time for our dad to come back, right? Liu Guiyuan grinded a large handful of coarse salt, half of it was packed in a small clay pot, half of it was wrapped and put away, and then walked to the pot table, lifted the lid of the small pot, scooped up a full pot of water, and prepared to boil water to wash clothes.

"I don't know, I'm worried about this, Guiyuan, you help me look at the pot, I'll go to Liu Jindi's house to ask." Liu Hongzao was anxious, her father and mother said in the letter that she would come back at the end of the year, seeing that November had passed, and she would enter the wax moon after today, why didn't she see the little figure, don't have something happened on the road.

Liu Hongzao wiped his hands as he spoke, opened the west door, walked east around the afternoon, and soon came to Liu Jindi's house. When I entered the small courtyard, I saw Gu and Liu Jindi knitting sweaters in the house, so I asked:

"Haven't you sent a letter lately?"

Liu Hongzao thought to herself that the last letter was written in June, and if they sent the letter in the autumn, then it should be delivered during this time, but she was afraid that if they didn't write the letter, it would be troublesome to write the letter.

"No, I'm sure I'll tell you about it." Gu sat on the edge of the bed knitting a sweater, knitted two or three stitches before looking up and continued: "You don't have to worry, my family is your uncle, he is used to walking outside the north and south, nothing will happen, it is estimated that we are all on the road, and the road is difficult to walk, so we will definitely go slowly." ”

Gu Shi had been begging for food outside for two years, and she still knew a lot about the situation outside, plus Liu Daquan only rushed back before Chinese New Year's Eve last year, she guessed that this year was still the case, so she didn't worry at all, and waited slowly.

When Liu Hongzao came home, Liu Guiyuan had already boiled hot water and was washing clothes, and when he saw that there was no expression on her face, he opened his mouth and asked, "Does she know when her father and mother will come back?" ”

Liu Guiyuan washes warm water, the eldest sister is troublesome to boil hot water, and uses cold water every time she washes clothes, Liu Guiyuan can't look past it, so she boils water to wash her clothes, she just washed her clothes for the first time, and the second sister Liu Huahua came back from the town with two things in her hands.

Liu Hongzao shook her head, sighed, picked up the lotus seeds from the stroller, tried to teach her to speak, taught for a while, and then went to the hall to get two eggs, beat them in a bowl and mix them evenly, and prepared to put them in the pot to steam.

At that end, Liu Huahua tied the last piece of pork, and suddenly said: "Daddy doesn't know when to come back, but I remember another thing, tomorrow is the first day of the lunar month, longan, do you want to celebrate your birthday?" ”

Liu Huaanhua's birthday is on the eighth day of the lunar month, and the two are close to each other, but her family used to have a thin foundation, and almost never gave them a birthday.

How did Liu Guiyuan remember his birthday, and the second sister didn't mention it, so she forgot it, so she asked Liu Huaan: "Then what day are you here?" If it's close, let's live together. ”

In fact, she doesn't pay much attention to birthdays, anyway, she just eats some longevity noodles, eggs, and longevity peaches, like the Mid-Autumn Festival, just in time for the eldest sister's birthday, which is the longevity noodles that Grandma Luo gave her, eating auspicious pictures.

Liu Huahua's birthday is on the fourth day of the lunar month, and she is only three days away, so she plans to spend it with Liu Guiyuan, and proposed with a smile: "Then let's spend it together tomorrow, anyway, there is nothing to do recently." ”

The sisters discussed for a while, and felt that they were all children, and there was no need to celebrate their birthdays with great fanfare, so they thought that they would just call Liu Jindi and Xu Shanmei to come over for a gathering, and the little sisters would sit together to eat something and cheer up, just be lively.

The next day, at the fourth grandmother's house, Xu Shanmei had just had breakfast, so she planned to knit a sweater for a while, knit half a sleeve, and then go to Liu Guiyuan's house to play. At this time, the fourth grandmother took out six eggs from the bamboo basket on the table, asked her to take them to Liu Guiyuan's house as a gift, and persuaded her:

"Little girl, how can you do needlework every day, and your eyes won't be broken?" As he spoke, he put the eggs in a small basket, handed them to her and said with a smile: "I'm going to play for most of the day today, and I'll be back before dinner." ”

Since Xu Shanmei came to her house, she has been diligent and quick in her work, and she is even more filial to her, and she doesn't want to ask her to do that tiring work, she sees all this in her eyes, how can she not feel sorry for her?

Xu Shanmei obediently put down her sweater, carried the basket and went out with a smile, and when she got to the door, the dog baby was sawing wood, and there was a big bundle of hemp rope at her feet, which was making a bed for her, although it was just a simple rope bed, but she was very happy in her heart.

"Brother Dog, I'm going to play." Xu Shanmei stared at him and smiled.

"Hey, let's go!" As long as the dog baby talks to his fiancée, his mouth is not good.

When Xu Shanmei arrived at Liu Guiyuan's house, Liu Jindi had already arrived first, and her younger brother Liu Jinbao also followed, playing with the dog on the ground, Xu Shanmei greeted her: "Sister Jin Di came early, I'm here to come." ”

Liu Jindi was wearing a flesh-red short jacket, and said happily when she saw her: "Good sister, come on, Guiyuan said that she wanted to make a chicken cake, and it was just right to eat it on her birthday, so let's help together." ”

Making chicken cakes to eat, this is obviously Liu Guiyuan's idea, she wanted to make cakes, but that thing had to add milk, and it needed a special oven, so it was not easy to make for a while, so she changed to a simpler chicken cake as a substitute for cakes.

"Chicken cake, made with eggs?" Xu Shanmei hurriedly handed Liu Hongjube six eggs, and said with a smile: "There are no good things at home, so I took a few raw eggs, do you think it might come in handy?" ”

"Yes, I just said that there are not enough eggs, and I usually steam them for lotus seeds. Let's go and help break the eggs, that's tiring. Liu Hongzao had long been accustomed to Liu Guiyuan's new ideas from time to time, and her ideas were not impossible to do anyway, so she took the basket with a smile and led them to the hall.

In the hall, Liu Huahua pinched two chopsticks, stood on the edge of the square table and was beating eggs, the original yellow egg liquid had been beaten into a paste, and asked Liu Guiyuan, who was looking down to sift noodles: "Okay, my wrists are sore." ”

"It's not good, it's early, I'm not available on the sieve surface, you can ask the eldest sister to replace you."

Liu Guiyuan was sifting the noodles from the town, saying that they were fine white noodles, but they were still not fine enough, so she decided to sift them twice by herself before putting them in the egg mixture.

Wait until the fine noodles are sifted, and the egg liquid has changed from yellow paste to white paste after the relay of the eldest sister and others, and if you don't look carefully, it is a bit like thick milk.

"There is no oven at home, so we can only steam it in the pot, and when we have time to build an oven in the yard one day, we can eat real chicken cakes." Liu Guiyuan stood in front of the pot table and talked to several sisters.

After half a cup of tea, Liu Guiyuan lifted the lid of the pot and saw that the egg liquid in the big bowl had been fermented and bulged out a large piece, which was actually a smiling tender yellow cake, although there was no cream and fruit embellishment, but it looked really like that.

"It's a chicken cake, it's delicious!" Liu Jinbao was the first to take it, swallowed it in two bites, and looked at it with joy.

"It's delicious, it's delicious, it's just that it's tiring to stir eggs, and our hands are still sour." Liu Jindi sat next to her younger brother and couldn't help rolling her eyes when she saw him eating so beautifully.

"Yes, good food is trouble." Liu Guiyuan ate two pieces in one go, and then he was a little satisfied, and then asked Liu Peanut, who was also eating chicken cakes, "Second sister, what does it taste, do you like to eat it?" “

"I like it, I'm going to eat this next time I celebrate my birthday." How can Liu Huahua not like it, this cake is soft and sweet, and it is different from the cake she has tasted before.

"What's good? You like to eat, you can do it every once in a while, as long as you're not afraid of trouble. Liu Guiyuan broke a small bite of chicken cake and stuffed it into Liu Lianzi's mouth lying on the small cart, and the little guy ate happily.

"Don't be afraid of trouble, you're afraid of wasting time, don't forget, this time the Yu store wants a lot of sweaters, let's not miss the work." Liu Hongzao always remembered knitting sweaters in his heart.

"I can't make a mistake, so many members."

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