CHAPTER 46: 46 FARM ACTIVITIES

While working, her mind wandered, and the fatigue seemed to lessen.

She crouched the entire time, but luckily she was still young. By past seven, she finally finished thinning the sorghum seedlings in the two acres.

This made her feel much relieved. Now, with her improved physical condition due to the Spiritual Spring Water and daily labor, Su Yuanyuan thought she wouldn’t drink the Spiritual Spring Water today and see if she could recover by tomorrow.

Honestly, she didn’t want to rely too much on the Spiritual Spring Water, especially since there’s not a lot of it. However, she still wanted to satisfy her cravings, so she had a beef bowl and then laid comfortably on the kang.

The next day, she checked herself and felt okay. Although her calves were sore, it was still within an acceptable range.

After breakfast and feeding the sheep, she took a sickle and small hoe down to the fields.

Upon reaching the field, Su Yuanyuan felt disheartened. The corn seedlings looked quite robust, but so did the wild grass. It was like a green carpet had been laid out.

The fields she had cleared a few days ago also had some wild grass, but there was significantly less of it comparatively.

Su Yuanyuan resignedly squatted down to work. The areas where she had finished thinning seedlings would wait for her to finish this half acre before using the large hoe to weed. She had customized the hoe handle to be her height, making it much easier to use.

The nearby households started yesterday afternoon. They had larger fields and more workers, with each person taking two rows, pushing forward together.

The others were all families working together, while she was all alone. But she kept her ears open for people’s gossip.

In fact, for the most part, listening to those household discussions as an outsider was quite interesting, as long as she wasn’t the main topic.

At this time, a young girl caught up to Su Yuanyuan’s progress.

"Have you almost finished your work?"

Su Yuanyuan was taken aback for a moment. Was this person talking to her?

"No, the grass in the fields where I thinned seedlings a few days ago has started growing again. More weeding to do."

"Same here. My field is like that too. But after this weeding, we should be good. Can your sheep still work then?"

"Hmm, I think they can. My hoe was custom-made. Should be no problem."

"Su Yuanyuan, how did you train your sheep? Mine don’t work like that. Just tell me, then at least we don’t have to wait for my Uncle’s family to finish before we start."

Su Yuanyuan felt a bit at a loss, she couldn’t lie, "Actually, I didn’t train them. You know my circumstances, I couldn’t possibly manage these two acres by myself. I couldn’t afford to buy a donkey or a cow, so I bought the sheep hoping they could help with the work.

To my surprise, they actually could. I wasn’t certain before, but when I had the hoe made, the blacksmith even advised against it. It was a leap of faith."

The young girl was quite disappointed. She knew that Su Yuanyuan bought the sheep in December, so there wasn’t time to train them. She believed what Su Yuanyuan said.

"My family always waits for my Uncle to finish before using the donkey, and we paid extra for that donkey every year. We end up weeding once more than others each year."

Su Yuanyuan felt sympathy for the young girl. She knew her family situation well.

The one talking to her was Zhao Yanli, the youngest daughter of the Zhao Family. With two sons and three daughters, they were doing okay. But the patriarch, Zhao Tian, was rather stubborn and took special care of his brothers.

Even though they had divided the household, whenever something required their family to contribute effort or money collectively, he was always the one at a disadvantage.

His wife Han Lixia was honest and treated her husband as the sky, never showing dissatisfaction or contradicting him.

The children weren’t happy about it, but they dared not speak out.

As the two girls of the same age worked side by side, they naturally exchanged a few words. Although the Zhao Family wasn’t particularly warm towards Su Yuanyuan and didn’t interact much, they didn’t exclude her.

Their kids were allowed to associate with the girl everyone called a jinx, and they had no objections.

"You see, my corn seedlings are much smaller than yours because we’re always the last to plant," the young girl said softly, afraid her father might scold her.

What could Su Yuanyuan say? She knew this, that planting late by a day means harvesting late by ten days. This was common knowledge among those who grew up in the countryside, so she kept her mouth shut.

"Yuanyuan, your two acres will surely ripen earlier than ours."

Su Yuanyuan awkwardly nodded, "Yes, I planted them earlier."

She quickly changed the topic, "How many acres of newly developed land does your family have?"

"Six acres. There’s no time to develop more, while my Uncle’s family has over ten acres of newly developed land."

Why did the topic shift back to this? It seemed there was a lot of grievance, and she became the girl’s sounding board.

Never mind, let her vent out her frustrations. She just responded with "Hmm," "Yes," and the like.

She didn’t want to provoke anyone and didn’t want to get involved in other people’s family matters, fearing she might end up being blamed on both sides, like Pigsy looking in the mirror.

"Yuanyuan, when are you going to hoe? I really want to see your sheep at work.

But you should buy a muzzle for the sheep, to prevent them from eating the corn seedlings. If that happens, you’ll have nowhere to cry."

Su Yuanyuan thought this girl could be a good acquaintance in the future, much better than Sun Family’s Sun Hongying yesterday.

"Hmm, a muzzle might be too big for the sheep, but I don’t think my sheep will eat the corn seedlings."

"What animal doesn’t eat greens?"

"I’ll try. If it doesn’t work, I’ll buy one." It was a good advice, so she appreciated it.

As they chatted and worked, Su Yuanyuan was puzzled when she reached the end of the row, wondering how they finished a row so quickly.

Both were used to hard work, so when they reached the end, they didn’t rest. They simply turned around and continued.

Thus, their friendship grew quickly. With that, they found more topics to talk about.

This half acre was just six rows, and after three passes, they finished before noon.

"Yanli, I’m heading back. I’ll use the large hoe to weed in the afternoon."

Seeing the young girl’s envious eyes, Su Yuanyuan, the old lady, suddenly felt a sense of pride. Could it be she was getting childish because her body had become younger?

With a smile in her eyes, she turned away like a proud rooster.

Upon returning home, she didn’t rest, knowing the sorghum field in front of her house also needed weeding. Doing it now was much easier than waiting a few days for the weeds to take root.

Su Yuanyuan was forcing herself, even though she was exhausted. She didn’t want to give up, so she persisted until after twelve before taking off her straw hat and going home.

Her hair had grown quite a bit, but because of the sweat, strands were sticking to her scalp. If Su Yuanyuan had seen herself in a mirror, she would have immediately found a way to fix it. Her appearance was too embarrassing. But she had no energy to care about anything else.