GBP Chapter 238 Shoveling Snow and Playing in the Snow
Chapter 238 Shoveling Snow and Playing in the Snow
She looked down at her hands. She was wearing gloves made of rabbit skin and duck down, which were very warm.
She didn't make gloves last winter, and she didn't know how to make them even if she wanted to. This year, she hired someone to make winter clothes. When she brought the duck down to the Huang family that day, she told the Huang family's daughter-in-law about making gloves. They had good comprehension and understood what she meant, and finally she successfully made the gloves.
"It should be fine with gloves on." She threw away the shovel, squatted down with a smile, and dug the snow with both hands. She hadn't made a snowman for a whole year.
An incense stick later, Han Zhibai, who had cleaned the roof, walked down the wooden ladder leaning against the study door on the right side of the main room. He turned around and saw her squatting there, making a snowman with a smile on her face.
The snowman has taken shape, with a fat belly, a round head, and a branch inserted on each side of its body as a hand.
She was happily piling up the pile when she felt a burning gaze staring at her. She raised her eyes and waved, "Zhibai, come here quickly."
Han Zhibai strode over and the first thing he did was to take off one of the gloves on his hand and touch her glove. The surface of the glove was cold. The rabbit skin was waterproof, but it could not withstand the constant contact with the snow, and the temperature inside would drop accordingly.
"I'm a little thirsty. Let me go back and drink some water. Do you want some?"
She shook her head. "I'm not thirsty."
He went back alone.
After a while, he brought a pair of dry gloves for her to change into, put the snowy pair aside, and then squatted down to build a snowman with her.
The one she was piling was almost done. She pasted some broken branches on it as eyebrows and mouth, making it look quite realistic.
He was silently fiddling with the snow pile.
After a while, Xia Qingyue, having finished his work, patted the snow off his gloves, looked at his snowman with satisfaction, then shifted his gaze to his. His snowman was obviously taller and bigger.
She knew at a glance that he was piling up the snow for himself, and she smiled with a curved lip, then thought of something and started to clear the snow and continue piling it up.
At the end of the stacking, there was a taller snowman next to the snowman that Xia Qingyue had made first, and there were two cute dogs beside them.
"The whole family is complete." She looked at the snowman and laughed.
After building the snowman, Han Zhibai took out a pair of dry gloves from his clothes on his chest and put them on her again.
She looked up at the dark sky and said regretfully, "It's a pity that this weather is not suitable for snowball fights, otherwise we could have a good time."
On cloudy days, the temperature is low and the snow will wet your clothes when it hits your body. The cold air can easily enter your body and you will catch a cold and get sick. However, with the warm sun, the situation will be much better.
He looked at her and said firmly, "There will be such an opportunity in a while."
They looked at the snowman for a while, then went to one side and started shoveling snow.
At first she was shoveling with great enthusiasm, but after an incense stick of time, she gradually became exhausted and her movements became slower.
Han Zhibai was responsible for loading the shoveled snow into a wooden basket and carrying it to a distant place. After carrying it one trip, he came back and said, "Qingyue, I'll take care of the rest. You go back and warm yourself by the fire and take a rest."
She panted as she shoveled snow. "I can do it. I've been slacking off lately and haven't been exercising. I have to keep working out even if I'm working slowly. If I stop, I'll only get weaker."
"If you are really tired, stop and rest."
"Okay, I won't act recklessly."
The two of them spent more than half an hour clearing the snow.
Back in the main room, she sat by the stove, feeling a little tired, and Han Zhibai came over with a wooden tray containing two bowls of brown sugar ginger tea and some roasted sweet potatoes.
The baked sweet potatoes are stewed in the stove after making breakfast in the morning. They are stewed for an hour. When they are cooked, the skin looks dirty and wrinkled, but the sweet smell is appetizing.
After drinking a few sips of ginger tea, she felt much better. Just as she was about to peel a sweet potato to eat, Han Zhibai handed her one that was half peeled, revealing a piece of steaming yellow potato flesh. The remaining unpeeled half was wrapped in a small piece of thick cloth.
She took it happily, blew on it, and took a bite. It was soft and sweet.
"It's true that plans can't keep up with changes. I originally planned to go down the mountain to sell honey, but I don't know how long it will take for the snow to stop."
"I was thinking since it's snowing anyway, how about slaughtering the pig tomorrow morning? A few days ago I took the time to dig a deep pit for freezing the meat, right in the backyard."
"Okay, it's snowing anyway. Come to think of it, I haven't eaten fresh pork for a long time!" she said expectantly.
The aroma of sweet potatoes lingered in the main room. The two sleeping little ones woke up when they smelled the fragrance and pestered them for food.
Seeing that they finally regained some energy and were no longer so lazy, Xia Qingyue took some sweet potatoes to play with them.
She was making a fuss, and he was looking at her with a smile, holding her two pairs of gloves in his hands to warm and dry them.
-
Early the next morning, Xia Qingyue did not lie in bed. Even though it was still dark outside, she got up quickly.
We have to slaughter a pig today and have a lot of things to do.
Han Zhibai got up a little earlier than her and had just finished washing up.
I cooked some warm dumpling soup for breakfast and ate it. After I cleaned up, the sky outside was just beginning to brighten.
The two of them lost no time and shoveled the snow quickly.
In order to kill the pig, Han Zhibai deliberately wore some light and old clothes today. He took down a few gleaming knives from the shelf. The knives were long and short, and all of them were sharpened very sharply yesterday afternoon.
Xia Qingyue washed her hands and placed them on the top of the shelf. She wiped them on the handkerchief used for wiping hands and said, "Let's go. Let's go to the pen and drive the pigs out."
"I can do it by myself. You stay at home and boil some hot water. The more hot water the better. I'm afraid it won't be enough."
"it is good!"
Xia Qingyue stayed in the kitchen and got out the stove and pots of water to light up.
Soon, bursts of pig-slaughtering screams came from outside, startling the two little ones sleeping in the main room. They jumped up and, ignoring the severe cold and Xia Qingyue's obstruction, rushed outside to watch the fun.
She was worried that the bloody scene of slaughtering pigs would scare them, so she took the breakfast she cooked for them and walked out to coax them softly: "Heihei, Xiaobai, look at what this is, it's delicious steamed eggs and porridge."
The two little ones just glanced at it and turned their attention back to the pig.
Han Zhibai had already pressed the pig onto an iron table with its belly facing up and its back on the ground.
The table is made entirely of iron, about 1.7 meters long, 1 meter wide, and 50 centimeters high. There is a set of thick adjustable locks on each of the four corners that can be opened and closed. It is specially used for slaughtering pigs.
Han Zhibai carried the iron table out from the corner of the poultry house yesterday afternoon. The bottoms of the four corners of the table were hammered into the ground and left to freeze for a day and a night, so it remained sturdy and stable.
The pig's limbs were tightly locked in the iron chain. No matter how it moved, it could not break free, and the iron table made a clanging sound.
Han Zhibai said to Xia Qingyue: "It's okay, I'm watching, you can get some hot water."
"Okay!" She turned and went to the kitchen, poured hot water quickly, and took out two wooden buckets.
Han Zhibai also came in and mentioned it several times.
The hot water was gone, so she added water to the pot, stuffed a whole piece of firewood into the stove, and continued to burn.