Chapter 968: The school sweetheart’s first love who took a check and went abroad (6)

Gold panning in the summer is not a hard job, but it is more painful in the winter. That is why stowaways or homeless people from overseas soak their feet in the seawater to pan for gold all year round in order to make a living.

Local young men who want to make extra money usually choose to work part-time in the summer, work for two or three months, and come back in autumn.

Anyway, summer’s work is relatively simple—

 The weather is sunny and the pasture is abundant. In the morning, the sheep are let out to let them have fun and have enough to eat. In the evening, they rush back to the sheepfold to sleep.

 Because they are outside during the day, the sheepfold does not get dirty that quickly. It only needs to be cleaned every few days.

Unlike autumn and winter, because you need to light a fireplace, you need to store more charcoal and dry firewood than in summer. You also need to store as much hay as possible and strengthen the sheepfold. When the rainy season comes, you have to prevent the sheep from being bored in the sheepfold and fighting; Being crowded into a sheepfold makes cleaning difficult; not to mention the heavy task of shearing sheep in late winter and early spring.

So young people can't stay in the summer and want to take leave to try their luck in the south. The kind-hearted Hunters always allow them to take leave.

 At this time in previous years, sheep herding was Old George's job. This year, when Xu Yin came, he took a back seat and stayed in the village to dry and sort the sheep.

Freshly sheared wool is highly moist and has a foul odor. It needs to be dried in the sun for several days to eliminate the foul odor and sterilize it. Only in this way can the wool be sold at a high price.

Old George liked drying wool. After drying, he could sit in the shade of a tree and smoke his pipe and rest for a while. Unlike herding, he had to keep following the sheep. If a sheep misbehaved, he would have to chase after it. Rush.

 Xu Yin enjoys the daily life of grazing—

Under the blue sky and white clouds, she wore a refreshing fishbone braid and a wide-brimmed straw hat to protect her from the sun. She was carrying a small satchel that the cook had packed with water and dry food for her, and she was slowly walking across the vast expanse while driving her sheep. on the grass.

 Go out after breakfast and don’t come back until evening.

The sheep ate as they walked, and she picked wild vegetables and flowers as she walked. If she was lucky, she could also dig up wild medicinal herbs.

The grass in the pasture is either wild or grown from grass seeds spread by ranchers in spring.

 The grass seeds we buy are mainly ryegrass and alfalfa, but there are also some other types of grass seeds mixed in. You won’t know what they are until they grow out, but they won’t be poisonous or harmful weeds anyway.

Xu Yin had a great time following the sheep.

Dandelions and wild daisies are the most common herbs. They can be harvested and dried to make tea.

Occasionally, I am very lucky, and I can dig out Adenophora adenophora along the bunches of purple flowers that look like hanging bells, and I also dug up a bush of Atractylodes atractylodes.

Ever since she lit up the "Illustrated Book of Chinese Herbal Medicine", she has been able to dig up such herbs with ease.

She had thought about it. When her colleagues who went to the south to prospect for gold came back to work, she would take a few days off to go to the Southern Alps across the front. There must be more wild vegetables, fruits and medicinal materials there.

 At the moment, we can dig as much as we can.

I also picked a lot of naturally sweet red alfalfa flowers, and this mixed vegetable salad tastes very good.

There are even a lot of wild onions, which are particularly fragrant when taken back to fry fish or barbecue.

There are also mustard, mint, and basil leaves. Pick them while they are fresh. They are all good partners for seafood dishes.

Although Cook Town is far from the sea, the seafood sold in the town, except for shellfish, is relatively rare. Salmon and cod are frozen. Although shallow-water fish and crabs are not frozen, they are also chilled. Whitebait, seawater, etc. Shrimp is mostly dried food. She doesn't like chilled and frozen seafood, and it's not like the system warehouse doesn't stock any seafood. If she wants to eat, she'll eat the freshest ones. Fortunately, she will live here for several years, so she will always have the opportunity to visit coastal towns.

Xu Yin also discovered a bush of wild peas. Young peas are a supplementary food that sheep prefer to eat. Some pea seeds are scattered on the pasture every year, but no one takes care of them. Over time, they turn into wild peas. She pinched a handful of the tenderest pea shoots, which were still young at the moment, and brought them back to blanch them for cold dishes.

Since enjoying her massage skills, these sheep listened to her words very much and did not need her to use the whip to urge them. If she said go, the sheep would not stay; if she said stop, the sheep would not dare to have fun.

At noon, the sheep used to go to a shallow stream to drink water, and Xu Yin had lunch on a backlit stone.

This stream originates from the snowy mountaintops of the Southern Alps, gurgling along the terrain, flowing through this grassy slope, joining the river outside Christchurch, and finally flowing to the sea.

The more Xu Yin saw, the more she liked this place. Unfortunately, there was no free land nearby. This pasture belonged to the Hunter family, next door to the William family, and near the foot of the mountain to another rancher.

But what’s strange is that the family raises neither sheep nor cattle. It’s just deserted. The wild pastures are swaying in the wind, giving a sense of grandeur as if the wind blows the grass and makes the cows and sheep disappear.

 It is said that Cook Town has a small population, but the land area owned by each household is quite large. The per capita area is actually measured in hectares.

 Xu Yin is so envious.

 It’s a pity that she doesn’t have much money saved now. Even if there is land for her to buy, she won’t be able to buy much.

There is no shortage of gold bars and bricks on hand, but there is no shop in town that buys gold and silver. If you want to sell it, go to Christchurch.

She is a single girl, and she only has a thick piece of gold bars and bricks. If she is targeted by someone, she will be uneasy in the future.

 Let’s save money slowly, since I haven’t found a suitable land now anyway.

In this way, she drove the sheep out in the morning and drove the sheep back in the evening. During the day, she walked with the sheep on dozens of hectares of pasture. In the morning, she dug wild herbs and picked wild flowers. In the afternoon, she found a shady place where the sheep could rest. Also take a rest and think about the hair remover.

  She spent some energy points and bought a set of the most advanced electric hair clippers from the system store. She studied the drawings that came with it, went back to find parts, and tried to improve the current electric hair clippers.

 In short, there is a lot of gain every day.

 Store half of the wild vegetables and medicinal materials collected and bring back half.

Several seasonal wild vegetables gradually appeared on the dining table of the Hunter family: cold pea shoots, red alfalfa flowers mixed with potato salad, and stir-fried watercress.

There are more and more dandelions and wild daisies drying on the windowsill. I make tea with a mint leaf, which is particularly refreshing in summer.

Although these things are not valuable, no one usually picks them.

 Some of them didn’t know, and some didn’t know how to cook and eat them after picking them. Xu Yin not only recognized them, but also knew how to eat them, which made Mrs. Hunter extremely happy.

Every night before going to bed, she would praise Xu Yin to Mr. Hunter:

“Sean, this kid, knows so much! Since she came to our ranch, she has not only improved everyone’s work efficiency, but also the dining table has become richer and richer. I really like her so much!”

"The wild flowers she dried taste good when made into tea. It is said that her hometown also uses them to treat diseases. I had a urinary tract infection not long ago, and I drank dandelion tea for a few days. I feel much better. It seems really good. It works!”

“Is it time for you to give Sean a salary increase? She has saved our family a lot of money.”

Mr. Hunter: “…”

 (End of this chapter)