An orphan girl from a farming family: Everyday farming in the mountains during natural disasters

Chapter 218 Facial Cream Sorghum

After two filters, the heated beeswax liquid turned orange-yellow. Han Zhibai was filtering the third time. He held a large ceramic pot at an angle in his hand, and the yellow liquid poured out of it was very clean without any impurities.

He thought for a moment and said, "I estimate that there are still more than 20 kilograms, which is enough for more than two months."

"Then we'll make tung oil candles later." Xia Qingyue clapped her hands, ready to get to work.

Tonight, she wants to make some orchid hydrosol and camellia hydrosol. Now that the weather is cooler, the finished product can be preserved for a longer time.

The important thing is to make a few bottles of skin care cream for face and hands.

Originally, she thought that there was no other oil at home except lard and peanut oil, so she took the washed and drained flowers, put them in beeswax and boiled them on low heat, and then put them on the stove to soak them in the residual heat of the charcoal fire overnight.

Unexpectedly, Han Zhibai asked her how she wanted to make a skin care cream, and said that he had recently read some skin care recipes recorded in books and wanted to make some for her. During the conversation, he mentioned that he had camellia oil and pearl powder at home.

Pearl powder is real white pearls ground into a fine powder.

So, they agreed that she would use camellia oil and beeswax to make orchid cream for her face, and honey lard cream for her hands and body lotion; he would use beeswax, camellia and roses to make beauty cream, and pearl powder and several other medicinal herbs to make jade cream.

An hour later, Xia Qingyue prepared hundreds of milliliters of hydrosol, five bottles of honey lard ointment, and six lipsticks made of honey and beeswax.

The orchid for the orchid cream needs to be soaked in camellia oil overnight and can only be made tomorrow night.

That night, after taking a bath, she returned to the room and tried the seven-seed white medicine powder prepared by Han Zhibai to apply on her face and hands. She applied it for about a quarter of an hour, then washed it, wiped her face dry, patted it with pure water twice, put a proper amount of honey and lard ointment on her palms, rubbed it to generate heat, and pressed it on her face again and again.

After applying it, my face no longer feels tight and dry.

Before going to bed, she applied a thick layer of lipstick, which turned a light yellow color and was suitable for night time application. She also rubbed honey lard ointment on her hands.

The next morning when she woke up, her mind was still not very clear. It was not until she washed her face with warm water and her fingertips touched the soft and smooth skin on her face that she suddenly remembered that she had taken care of her skin last night.

She quickly brought down the basin and waited for the water to calm down before using it as a mirror. She couldn't see very clearly, but she could feel that her skin looked better and more rosy than before.

My lips feel soft and free of dead skin, and my hands don't seem as dry as before.

Early in the morning, her mood improved.

Han Zhibai could clearly feel that her mood became cheerful and happy. When she was happy, he was happy too.

After breakfast, the two men went to pull out the last of the peanuts, then cut the sorghum, leaving the stalks in the ground and collecting the red ears on top.

The red ears are dried and the seeds inside are beaten out. The empty ears are tied into bunches and made into brooms for sweeping the floor.

Han Zhibai said that this year's sorghum planting was not as good as in previous years, and the harvest was estimated to be one-third less than in previous years.

Sorghum seeds can be used to make wine, cooked into rice or cakes, and eaten in a variety of ways. They can also be used as grain to feed poultry.

The cut sorghum ears are put into a basket and a wooden barrel and carried back, then spread out in the yard to dry in the sun. They can be threshed only when they are dry enough.

Xia Qingyue, fully armed, worked for about half an hour and was sweating in the cold November. The hair on her temples was hot and wet, sticking to her face in strands.

In addition, as she walked in the sorghum field, her hair, body, and the veil covering her face were covered with many broken twigs and leaves, and the palms of her hands were so black that they were unbearable to look at.

If she wore short sleeves in the summer with her arms exposed, she couldn't imagine how painful and itchy it would be if the sorghum leaves poked her body.

After cutting a row of sorghum, she was so tired that she sat down on the ground below.

This scene reminded her of fragments of when she was a child in her previous life, doing farm work with her grandmother.

Among the many farm chores, planting rice in paddy fields, harvesting millet and corn in summer, and rubbing the corn kernels were the most painful, which was a true trauma of my childhood.

After sitting down to rest for a while, she continued chopping.

In fact, Han Zhibai did much more work than her. She only had to chop, but he not only had to chop the stalks and ears of corn, but also had to carry them back one by one and turn them over to the front yard to dry.

Near noon, half of the sorghum had been harvested, and Han Zhibai asked her to go home first, "Go back and take a rest. I have cooked salted peanuts on the stove. Eat some peanuts and some dried fruits."

After she finished the row she was chopping, she stopped and said to Han Zhibai, who was chopping ears of corn not far away, "Come back with me. It's almost time for dinner. We can continue our work in the afternoon after dinner."

"I'll go back after I finish this."

There was still a small pile of ears of corn left to be chopped.

Xia Qingyue walked over and finished chopping with him and then tied up the tail.

Walking back to the front yard, they went to the well to fetch water to wash their hands. The well water was warm in winter and cool in summer, so they didn't feel cold at all while washing.

The duck down was spread out to dry on a bamboo raft in the open space next to it, and covered with a tough straw mat that was bent into a hood. If the wind blew, the duck down would fly everywhere.

She opened a corner of the cover and flipped over the duck down, which was snow-white and soft to the touch.

"Tomorrow we will bring the duck down down the mountain. It will take a while to make clothes, trousers and bedding. It will take at least half a month to finish it."

By then it will be the end of November.

"it is good."

Han Zhibai went back to the house and brought out a small round table and two low stools. On the table were a bowl of steaming salted peanuts and a small bowl of dried persimmons.

They sat there, eating snacks to fill their stomachs and talking about their daily arrangements.

She peeled a peanut and found three peanuts in the shell. After being cooked, they were slightly purple in color. She put all three into her mouth and chewed them.

It’s slightly salty and tastes delicious.

"The day after tomorrow we'll go to the tiankeng. The peanuts and mung beans should be dried, so bring them back. We'll also dig up the sweet potatoes and camellia trees and carry them back."

"The focus will be on the valleys to harvest wheat and sweet potatoes."

Han Zhibai finished eating the peanuts in his mouth and took over the conversation, "Most of the dry firewood we found some time ago has been burned into charcoal. We have to find some more."

After chatting for a while, they went into the kitchen together to make lunch.

Han Zhibai was the chef and she helped by lighting the fire.

The lunch was always quite sumptuous. He came back from fishing in the morning and made a dish of fish head with chopped pepper, sliced ​​fish body, a bowl of pickled fish, stewed chicken with dried beans, and fried leeks with shrimps.

Although everything tastes delicious when you are hungry, Xia Qingyue clearly felt that his cooking skills had improved a lot and the food he cooked was becoming more and more to her taste.

So, she accidentally ate too much at lunch, and went for a walk outside, holding her bloated belly. She felt uneasy and uncomfortable.

While I was taking a walk, Han Zhibai brought me a bowl of water that smelled a bit sour.

He said: "This is water boiled with dried hawthorns. Drinking it will help digestion."

She gulped down the whole bowl, frowning. It was so sour.

After a while, she was so tired that she sat down on a low stool under the eaves, and her stomach finally felt better.

Han Zhibai came out after cleaning up the kitchen and said to her, "Go back to your room and lie down for a while. There isn't much sorghum left. I can finish harvesting it quickly by myself."

She felt a little unwell, but she didn't try to be strong. She took a shower, went back to her room, and lay down on the bed to rest.

-

She didn't know how long she slept. When she woke up, her whole body felt warm and numb. She sat on the bed and stretched comfortably.

After a while, she got dressed and went outside, but she didn't see Han Zhibai in the room, living room or front yard.