Chapter 222: 222 Spring Planting
The little donkey no longer needs the mother sheep to lead it.
On the first day, Su Yuanyuan planted three acres of land. At this rate, it would take at least half a month to plant all fifty acres.
Su Yuanyuan calculated the days and figured it was doable. So she decided not to sow in the evening.
The Zhao Family siblings were, of course, faster than Su Yuanyuan. The six of them, with two little donkeys, planted sixty acres in five days.
So on the sixth day, the six of them came over.
When they got here, they saw that she had already planted twenty acres.
"Yuanyuan, you’re planting pretty fast."
They all thought Su Yuanyuan was doing the digging and planting by herself, and expected she wouldn’t have done more than ten acres. They didn’t expect twenty acres.
"Look at my seeding basket, this way I can save on labor."
Wang Qingxiang and Zhao Qingjie stared curiously, noting that the seeding was even better than doing it manually.
"Yuanyuan, after the spring planting ends, lend me your seeding basket. I want to make a couple too."
"Sure, you can come and get it yourself then."
With the six of them added, it went much faster, and in five days, Su Yuanyuan planted seventy acres of wheat.
That evening, as the seven of them ate, they said, "We’ve planted quite a lot now, but it’ll be tough to harvest the wheat later."
Su Yuanyuan was already worried about it.
"It’s okay, I’ll work fast and come back to help you harvest the wheat," Zhao Yanli said very loyally.
"Alright, I’ll be waiting for you."
The six of them finished eating and drove back. Next up, they would start making ridges for sweet potatoes and potatoes, which was also hard work, needing to dig one hoe at a time.
The next day, Su Yuanyuan didn’t rush to make ridges but drove to deliver five hundred pounds of wheat seeds to the farm station.
Feng Baoshan was surprised to learn she had finished planting.
"The Zhao Family helped me for five days."
"It’s good you finished planting. By the way, how’s the winter wheat?"
"About half survived, so now I’m just waiting to harvest the wheat."
"Xiao Su, keep some winter wheat seeds for yourself, and hand the rest over to the station."
"Alright, no problem. I’ll keep a thousand pounds and give the rest to Director Feng, but he should pay more for them since these are seeds and I did incur some losses."
"Don’t worry, I’ll give you eighteen cents per pound."
Normally, wheat sells for ten to twelve cents per pound, so eighteen cents is really high.
"Great, I’ll head back then."
Su Yuanyuan then started making ridges. Honestly, when Tan Shaoting was around, it didn’t seem so hard, but now alone, it’s really tiring and lonely.
Meanwhile, during his training, Tan Shaoting was also thinking of Su Yuanyuan.
He figured that girl must be planting wheat, knowing her determined nature. She surely wouldn’t plant any less.
"Bai Lang, are you daydreaming? Missing your wife?"
Tan Shaoting nodded. Here everyone had a code name instead of a real name.
But everyone knew Tan Shaoting had a wife. They were all quite envious because most of them were just eighteen or nineteen-year-old guys who hadn’t settled down. Only Tan Shaoting claimed to have a wife; how could people not be envious?
"Bai Lang, you must be very fond of your wife, right?"
"Yes, I cherish my wife." That girl hadn’t agreed yet, but in his heart, she was already his wife.
Because Su Yuanyuan planted twenty more acres of wheat than expected, she planted twenty fewer acres of sweet potatoes. Otherwise, she would be crying. Even with the donkey pulling the furrows.
Ten days later, all the land by the reservoir was furrowed. With time still early, she started covering the ground with film.
The cotton seedlings had grown quite a bit. She planned to plant five acres of cotton, and the rest would be sweet potatoes and potatoes.
Over the past month, Su Yuanyuan lost a lot of weight, but her spirits were still good.
Covering with film had to be done on windless days, so she also used the donkey to plow furrows and planted vegetables in the courtyard.
There was no choice; she couldn’t cut corners even on her own.
The wheat had sprouted and looked good. Su Yuanyuan thought that if the weeds weren’t too overwhelming, she wouldn’t weed this year; it’s just too tiring.
Just after she finished laying the film, it started to rain. This rain was actually good for planting corn.
With nothing much to do today, and rain outside, Su Yuanyuan lay on the kang to sleep.
She felt like she couldn’t get enough sleep, wanting to wake up but unable to open her eyes, feeling as if her eyelids were glued shut.
So she didn’t push herself and slept through until the evening, and after dinner continued to sleep. She finally got a full rest.
The next day, her back was aching; lying down all the time is also exhausting.
Though it cleared up that day, it still wasn’t suitable for planting. So she tidied up the yard, planning to plant winter melon seedlings in Tan Shaoting’s old yard.
In reality, planting so many winter melons was unnecessary. But Su Yuanyuan planned to raise pigs. With this grain readily available for pig feed, what was there to be worried about?
She thought of seeking out Feng Baoshan in the next few days to ask where she could get pigs.
At noon, Zhao Yanli came over. That girl had walked here.
"Are you tired?"
"Not too bad, my brother said it’s almost time to plant corn, so I came to check on you."
"I’m doing quite well, no need to worry. Otherwise, I’d have to go to your place. Look, the cotton seedlings are ready for planting. I’m not in a hurry to plant corn, I’ll plant the cotton seedlings in the next couple of days."
"Yuanyuan, how much cotton are you planting?"
"Planning for five acres. As you can see, I’ve already covered it with film."
"Alright, I’ll go back then, we’ll do the same. You gave us quite a bit of film.
Yuanyuan, how much cotton seedlings do you have left?"
"I think there’s enough for another five acres."
"Okay, got it." She said, starting to head back.
"No need to rush, have lunch here first. I’ve made something good for you to replenish your energy."
For lunch, the two of them had white bread buns, steamed sausages, and stir-fried potatoes. The soup was pickled vegetable soup.
"Is this sausage? It’s delicious."
"Of course it’s good. It’s pure meat; one pound of meat makes seven to eight ounces of sausage."
"Wow, did I just eat a pound of meat?"
"Eat up, there’s not much left. Today, you can eat your fill; there’s still more.
By the way, I plan to raise pigs, though I won’t be able to this year. I want to go out in the winter, but I’ll start raising pigs early next year, so we can even slaughter them ourselves for eating in the fall."
"Raise pigs? I want to too. My sisters and I used to take care of them, I was good at it."
"Then you can raise them next year too, right?"
"We still owe you for the fertilizer and wheat seeds."
"It’s fine, my money isn’t urgent. If you want to raise pigs, go ahead. Don’t be afraid of the hard work, plant more winter melons and feed them to the pigs."