CHAPTER 74: CHAPTER 74: AFTER THE DOWNPOUR

Originally at ease while drying his wife’s hair, Jiang Hu heard Erniang’s words and suddenly slapped his thigh: "Oh no! The chickens haven’t returned yet!"

After speaking, he couldn’t continue drying her hair and left the towel on Erniang’s head. He grabbed the wet clothes he had just changed out of, used them to shield against the rain, and ran outside.

Erniang quickly followed a few steps: "Tiger Brother, wait a moment, put on a coir hat and rain cape first."

"I know, Erniang, you stay inside, don’t come out." By the time Jiang Hu responded, he had already entered the adjacent room.

A moment later, Jiang Hu came out wearing a coir hat and rain cape, rolled up his trouser legs, donned straw sandals, and headed towards the back of the house.

The heavy rain came too suddenly, and both the wild and domestic chickens were still outside.

The few wild chickens they had caught earlier had their wing and tail feathers clipped by Jiang Hu. Then he weaved a bamboo fence, fenced off a piece of land beside the house, and raised the wild chickens like domestic ones.

Back then it wasn’t as busy, so when Dawu and Erni found time, they went to the fields to catch insects. Consequently, the wild chickens got fatter and even laid two clutches of eggs, which were almost ready to hatch.

Additionally, due to the insects, the hens Jiang Hu had bought initially laid one egg each every day without stopping!

The chicks bought later in these two months had grown to half size, and in another three or four months, they would also be laying eggs.

However, because there were more vegetables in the garden, both wild and domestic chickens were eventually raised together by Jiang Hu. After all, there was a large empty area beside the house. He would fence it off, and after awhile, move them to another area, allowing the grass to recover.

Jiang Hu hurried to the chicken pen and, as expected, saw all the chickens huddled at the spot where the door was usually opened and closed.

"They’ve really become drenched chickens now."

Jiang Hu quickly opened the fence. Without him needing to call, a dozen chickens scurried past his feet and dashed under the eaves, then ran along the eaves to avoid the rain and went back home.

They were all old residents who knew where to rest at night, even the wild chickens didn’t need Jiang Hu to worry about them.

Since he was already outside, Jiang Hu braved the rain and made another round inside the pen, collecting two domestic eggs and one wild egg.

Then he went to check on the rabbits next door.

During this period, Jiang Hu had also rearranged the house. Previously, due to lack of time, both chickens and rabbits were kept in an empty room.

But now that the empty room was tidied up and used to store miscellaneous items, he built a shelter next to the hut, specifically for raising chickens and rabbits.

Especially for the rabbits, keeping them indoors all the time wasn’t good, they needed to go out and move around.

So Jiang Hu fenced off the outside of the rabbit shelter, specifically went to the mountains to cut very hard ironwood, and hammered them into the ground as stakes to effectively prevent the rabbits from digging holes to escape.

However, Jiang Hu later discovered that this precaution was completely unnecessary. These wild rabbits, having been born on their property and fed by them, had no intention of escaping.

Of course, the wild grass at their place couldn’t compare to the wild grass in the mountains outside.

The rabbits had already returned to their nests. The original six big rabbits had now become five big ones with more than a dozen little ones, one of which was pregnant and about to give birth.

One male rabbit had been sent to an inn a few days earlier.

The raindrops were large, and the rabbit nest was a bit splashed. Jiang Hu placed some dry grass inside and then closed the chicken pen gate before returning with peace of mind.

However, in just this short amount of time, the torrential downpour had already begun to let up, and even the dark clouds had dispersed quite a bit.

By the time he returned to the front room, the sun had already been released from the clouds, the rain had subsided, and the wind had stopped.

Dawu leaned against the door, marveling at the sky: "Dad, you made a trip in vain. Those chickens were already wet from the rain anyway, what’s a little more time?"

Inside, Xiaomi nodded repeatedly. What Dawu said was right, Dad made a trip for nothing, not to mention his trouser legs got wet.

Jiang Hu didn’t see Xiaomi’s gesture but noticed Dawu’s exaggerated expression and lightly knocked him on the head: "Chickens getting wet in the rain will still get sick and won’t lay eggs, and here you are making glib remarks!"

Dawu was instantly alarmed: "What? Not lay eggs? Then Milan and Tie Dan would have nothing to eat?"

The family needed three eggs every day, Xiaomi and Tie Dan needed to eat one each daily, and the remaining one was saved up, so every four days, everyone else could have one each.

Every month four had to be specifically saved for Grandpa Ding. If the chickens didn’t lay eggs for a day, the family’s food supply would significantly decrease!

Jiang Hu let out a snort without humor, then took out the three eggs from his pocket: "Go and put them away. Two clutches of wild chicken eggs are being incubated, in the future, the wild eggs can be brought back to eat."

Jiang Hu took off the coir hat and rain cape, then looked at Erniang: "Erniang, now that the rain has subsided, let’s remove the tarpaulin, shake the water off the rained-on sorghum, and hang it up to dry."

There was a lot of water on the tarpaulin, it wasn’t easy for one person to manage it. Two people, one at each end, had to be cautious not to let the water flow onto the sorghum while removing the tarpaulin.

By now, places with mud on the ground were very muddy. Jiang Hu shook off the tarpaulin, folded it up simply and placed it aside.

"In two years, when folks in the village build new houses, we should also build a new house ourselves."

Let them start first, then they can continue without being too conspicuous.

Erniang nodded: "When the time comes, we’ll pave the ground with blue stone slabs, and also pave the courtyard, making it easier to dry things."

There’s a clothesline under the eaves, and now they were tying the sorghum into bundles with straw, shaking out the water, and then hanging them on the clothesline.

Sorghum grains were scattered all over the ground, both under the eaves and in the courtyard, some were even washed into the vegetable garden.

Feeling distressed over the food, Erniang, after the rain stopped, gathered the sorghum grain along with the mud, placed them in a wooden basin, and dissolved the mud in water to separate out the sorghum grain.

From rain to sunshine, in less than half an hour, the sky returned to its vast blue, and the sun came out, it was still very hot on the ground.

Jiang Hu and Erniang together lifted the clothesline into the courtyard, so they would dry faster in the sun.

After these tasks were finished, Jiang Hu again picked up the sickle and basket.

"Erniang, the fields are probably very muddy now. One step and you step into mud. And after this rain, it’s sure to be sunny for several days. Just don’t go to the fields, I’ll go collect the sorghum knocked to the ground by the rain, and the rest we can handle tomorrow."

Erniang nodded: "Sure, with the kids, there won’t be anywhere to put them in the field either way."

The ground was full of soft mud, Xiaomi could manage, but with Tie Dan, in less than half an hour, he’d turn into a mud person.