Her Cultivation Diary
Chapter 455 - Chapter 455 455. Sorghum Wine_1

Chapter 455: 455. Sorghum Wine_1 Chapter 455: 455. Sorghum Wine_1 The rain poured down all day, and Wu Lei had just yanked the freshly washed sofa covers from the washing machine–

Don’t ask why to do laundry on a rainy day, the answer is that the usual chores are too exhausting. With the rain as an excuse, Qiaoqiao, Xin Jun, and Zhang Yanping had already crazily arranged the work–scrubbing, washing, mopping, changing the bedding sets…

Anyway, there wasn’t a moment of downtime all morning.

Wu Lei felt bitter.

“We’re living in a mansion, yet we still have to do our own housework. What kind of mansion is this…”

Xin Jun happened to pass by, hugging a brand-new sheet, and couldn’t help wondering, “But this mansion isn’t ours, right? Aren’t we just freeloading here?”

“Oh,” he then realized, “I’m actually here with room and board included in my deal.”

Wu Lei: …

He, he too had a blood relation with Tantan!

Downstairs, Seventh Uncle stood in the corridor watching the drizzling rain, and now in the yard, he had found a spot: “Just right, the rainy day can save some effort, and later this area will be a good spot to clean.”

“Clean what?” Song Tan asked curiously.

On a rainy day, except for Grandpa who had to go study grass mat weaving with Great-grandpa early in the morning, everyone else was idle. It was indeed a rare comfortable and relaxing time.

Song Tan wanted to try if he could infuse Spiritual Energy into the water, that’s why she came out to fiddle for a while. Turning her head, she heard Seventh Uncle saying this.

Seventh Uncle glanced at her: “Have you forgotten the sorghum planted in the two fields under the Peach Forest?”

“It’s already July, I went to check last night, and it’s ripe, but the rain prevented us from harvesting it in time.”

“Ah!”

Song Tan had indeed forgotten–after all, like the corn, they didn’t plant much sorghum, and Qiaoqiao was the one who insisted on planting it.

“If we don’t hurry to harvest it when it’s ripe, won’t it get soaked and rotten in the rain?”

Like with rice, if it rains during harvest, not only can it not be dried, but it might even start sprouting again right on the stalk…

However, Seventh Uncle shook his head: “Have you heard the saying, ‘Sorghum raises its rifle, not afraid of waterlogging’? This stuff isn’t afraid of water or drought, don’t worry.”

“I was thinking, since nobody eats sorghum now, we might as well use the harvested batch for brewing.”

Oh my, having worked at Song Tan’s house for several months, they only had a little drink when guests came; life had lost its pleasure.

“Ah?” Song Tan was hesitant, “Whole grains, though, don’t you want to try them?” Supposedly high in nutritional value and with a sweet taste, she had never tried them.

Just then, Song Sancheng came out for a smoke, and upon hearing this, he was shocked:

“What?! Eat sorghum? No, no!”

He despised the idea: “It’s bitter, astringent, hard to swallow, and it scratches your throat… Isn’t our rice good enough? Why bother with that?”

Song Tan: ??? Is it that bad?

“Forget it then!” She decisively shook her head, “Let’s brew alcohol instead!”

Speaking of alcohol, though Song Sancheng wasn’t particularly fond of it, he did drink occasionally.

Now excited, he joined Seventh Uncle: “What kind of distilling are we talking about? Is it strong-aroma or light-aroma type? I can’t really handle the strong-aroma type.”

Seventh Uncle was also thrilled: “Anyway, we have plenty of sorghum, let’s brew both!”

It’s just a bit of a hassle.

Then he asked, “Do we still have the rice husks from threshing the rice?”

“Yes!”

Song Sancheng pointed to the warehouse: “There’s a pile of them.”

The straw had been piled into a haystack behind the mountain, and the husks were intended to feed the chickens and ducks, so they were all bagged in burlap sacks.

“That’s good,” Seventh Uncle pondered a moment:

“Tantan, then you’ll need to buy a large steaming pot, a distiller, as well as containers and bottles for the alcohol.”

Otherwise, relying on the family’s big iron pot would make distilling too cumbersome.

Song Tan quickly took out her phone: “How big should it be?”

Ah, this.

Seventh Uncle hadn’t brewed alcohol for many years.

Now, although he was confident that he hadn’t lost his touch, he still couldn’t be certain–

So, he cautiously said, “There’s no need for a big steamer, a fifty pound one will do. I reckon those two plots of land of yours could yield two or three hundred pounds of sorghum, which should produce about a hundred pounds of alcohol–prepare for that.”

A hundred pounds of alcohol?

Song Tan couldn’t help but ponder, “If this were to be sold, how much would a bottle fetch?”

She still didn’t quite understand the market for this white liquor.

Seventh Uncle couldn’t help but be speechless–the sorghum hadn’t even been harvested yet!

He could only huff, “At the very least, we won’t know the taste until a month from now; you’re worrying about the price too early. It’d be better to think about what to do with the soybeans from the Chestnut Garden when the time comes.”

After the sorghum harvest, soybeans would likely be next.

Speaking of soybeans, Song Tan was truly looking forward to it:

“I’ll buy a big bean sprout machine first!”

Stir-fried bean sprouts, vinegar-flavored bean sprouts, crispy meat stewed with bean sprouts!

Okara, soy milk, tofu pudding, silken tofu, thousand-layer tofu!

Fried soybeans, bean flour, pork trotters braised with soybeans–

She stared at her phone, her eyes gradually going wild:

“Do I also need to buy a grinding stone…”

Seventh Uncle: …

The three great miseries of life: boating, blacksmithing, selling tofu; you really don’t know what you’re getting into.

But…

“Show me a small grinding stone, the kind that’s the size of a palm. I’ll grind some seasoning particles later on. The ones bought from the store are either too fine or too coarse, and the powder mill at home doesn’t do a good enough job either.”

Song Tan nodded in agreement, feeling for a moment that her half a year’s effort wasn’t wasted–aside from anything else, the variety of food she could eat at home was increasing!

When the big stone mill arrived, she could have Brother Wu Lei tied to it to turn it a few times when he had a moment…

Cough cough cough.

No, she couldn’t do that; after all, they were relatives, and Brother Wu Lei’s strength would be utterly wasted on turning a mill, ruining her soybeans.

Anyway, she had to find something to turn the mill!

Her thoughts wandered again, and gradually, she set her sights on the mountain behind–

Meanwhile, Song Sancheng, who had silently finished a cigarette, looked out at the vast curtain of rain and suddenly asked:

“With this rain, there’s no need to add more water to the rice fields–Tantan, how are the seedlings growing now? Are they ready to plant? This month is for harvesting sorghum, and we also have to gather the soybeans. I reckon your peaches are about ready, too, and we still have to plant rice–our village probably doesn’t have enough hands.”

Song Tan was startled: “Weren’t there so many people helping to plant peach trees on the mountain in springtime?”

Song Sancheng waved his hand: “In the past, during July, August, and September, many of them would go out to work, they all had to prepare.”

This time of year, heading to the south to work in electronics factories, toy factories, shoe factories, and such–if one encountered opportunities for lots of overtime, they could earn five or six thousand a month.

However, if one was older, it would be harder, the income would be less, but even then, you could still earn three or four thousand yuan.

Working until the New Year’s return, not to mention anything else, next year’s supply of rice, flour, grains, oil, social gift money… It should be enough, right?

Working at home is good, but the work at Song Tan’s was unpredictable; it wasn’t secure.

Song Tan: …

What about the several hundred acres of mountain she’d just contracted!

Keeping workers, she must retain workers this time!

Of course, it wasn’t just a matter of keeping this group of middle-aged and elderly folks; indeed, this New Year, just as Secretary Xiaozu had said, she had to go all out to lure more young people from her hometown!