Chapter 1329
Preparations before the event: Junhai cooks fish, Yundong learns the skills.
After having breakfast and dropping Mingming and Haohao off at school, Li Long drove to the countryside as usual.
There's no one in the cotton field yet, but the setup for the meeting is already halfway done.
This cotton field is located by the roadside, parallel to the asphalt road running from east to west, separated by a 20-meter-wide patch of trees.
Normally, agricultural machinery enters from the west end of the field, where there is a dirt road that goes through the trees and fields to reach the field.
However, if we want to hold an on-site meeting, it would definitely be more convenient to be at the east end of the site, because the pump house, filter tank, and main pipeline are all located at the east end of the site.
If the current route is used, it would be inappropriate to guide the leaders attending the meeting from a location hundreds of meters away to the site for a visit.
To facilitate passage, Principal Yang consulted with the township officials and they cleared a road through the fields. They cut down about seventeen or eighteen poplar trees, each about the size of a bowl, and brought in several truckloads of yellow soil to pave the road. After that, it became a side road that turned into the map.
There's also a gate-like structure at the intersection, where banners will be hung, such as "Warmly welcome all leaders to visit and inspect."
Li Long drove onto the side road, parked on the side of the road, got out of the car, and observed the changes that had occurred here since he left yesterday.
Signs have been put up in front of each facility, and the paths in the on-site guidance area have been paved.
It was still a bit chilly in the field in the morning, and some of the grass leaves still had dew on them.
Principal Yang and Professor Yang hadn't brought their students over yet, and Li Long didn't care about that and started his on-site meeting rehearsal as usual.
He would do this twice a day, as if the leader were on-site, explaining everything from the construction of the entire field to the function of each specific facility such as the pump house and filter pool.
Although he has faced reporters and even higher-ranking leaders, Li Long believes he will not be intimidated.
But the more prepared you are, the better. No one can guarantee that there won't be any unexpected situations. Doing it a few times will form muscle memory, making it a subconscious recitation that's less likely to be interrupted by unforeseen circumstances.
So when Principal Yang and Professor Yang arrived with their group, they saw Li Long waving his arms and loudly reciting his own lines.
Professor Yang exclaimed sincerely, "Hey, Xiao Li is really great. Just for that kind of dedication, he deserves to have achieved such a great career."
Principal Yang nodded in agreement: "Yes, yes. In my opinion, Xiao Li's explanation was already qualified. Look at him practicing again and again. That's called professionalism and perseverance. You young people should learn more from him."
The group didn't interrupt Li Long's introduction and went about their own business.
The cotton seedlings in the field have already grown, with two or three leaves. Under the guidance of Er Yang, the trainees began to thin out the seedlings.
The second year of drip-irrigated cotton planting has already yielded good results, with only 1-2 seedlings per hole, and most of them do not require thinning.
According to Professor Yang, this drip irrigation cotton has another advantage: it saves on seeds.
Li Long first gave an introduction, and after finishing, he thought about the parts that he felt were not quite right, changed a few words, and did it again.
After finishing the task twice, Li Long felt it was about time. He went over to say goodbye to Professor Yang and Principal Yang, and then drove away.
The trainees were quite envious of Li Long, who could come and go as he pleased and even had his own car. They, on the other hand, could only miserably search for the extra seedlings in the field.
Professor Yang and Principal Yang didn't care about Li Long. At first, Principal Yang would even let Li Long stay for lunch in the village.
After all, he was now in charge of this experimental project, so getting a government job wasn't a problem. However, after eating out a couple of times, Li Long felt that eating out all the time wasn't appropriate, or rather, it didn't suit his taste.
So they simply told him that they had a place to eat and that he didn't need to worry about them.
Li Long drove to Team 4. When he passed Old Ma's place, he saw Uncle Luo and the others picking grass out of the enclosure. So he drove over, found a wooden fork, and went into the enclosure to help.
Yang Laoliu has already gone to herd sheep. There aren't as many cattle and sheep as in previous years, so there isn't much cow and sheep manure in the pen or much hay to feed them every night.
While working, Uncle Luo chatted with Li Long about the current condition of the livestock in the old horse stable, and they were generally in good condition.
"The lambs and calves are growing well this year, and few have died. Some sheep gave birth to two or three at a time, which couldn't be covered by subsidies, so we ended up having to hand-feed them."
Fortunately, a significant amount of milk from the cows and sheep could be used to feed most of them.
However, the red deer and roe deer foals didn't have many offspring, and while they all survived, very few were female.
Li Long said with a smile as he picked through the grass, "Male ones are good too. They can be harvested for antlers in two or three years."
Uncle Luo nodded and said, "That's true, but the development is a bit slow."
Clearly, the elderly people at the old horse stable still hope to develop these livestock into a large herd.
After picking through the grass and piling it up outside, Li Long went inside, had a couple of sips of tea, chatted for a while, and seeing that it was almost time for dinner, he declined Uncle Luo's invitation to stay for dinner and then drove to his elder brother's house.
When Li Long parked the car in front of his older brother's house, he smelled the aroma of stewed fish wafting in the air.
Following the scent, it seemed to be coming from the front yard.
Seeing that his mother wasn't in the yard, Li Long walked towards the front yard. Before he even reached the gate, he heard a group of people talking and laughing.
The loudest voice came from Li Junhai: "Let me tell you, during this Spring Festival, back in my hometown, I cast several nets in the river, and there were quite a few fish and shrimp."
I took the fish home and cooked it the way my third uncle and aunt always did. Guess what? My whole family said my stewed fish was delicious!
"You think your cooking is delicious? I don't believe it!" someone retorted.
Li Junhai wasn't angry. He chuckled and said, "I didn't think I was that good at cooking. I just watched my third uncle and aunt stew fish, and I learned how by watching."
Turns out, it really was my cooking that tasted best! Then, on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, my brother brought home some more fish, and my mother cooked it the same way I did. Hey, that fish really wasn't good!
"What? You have a secret recipe? The same method makes it taste good when you make it, but not when your mother makes it?"
Li Junhai said with a grin, "That's really true! Let me tell you, you'll understand if you think about it. Doesn't the stewed crucian carp we eat here in northern Xinjiang taste better? Doesn't the fish soup taste better? The fish soup made back home doesn't taste as good, does it?"
Everyone else agrees on this point.
Li Junhai asked smugly, "Do you know why?"
Everyone else shook their heads.
Li Long was also a little curious, so he went over and found a large pot of crucian carp stewing on the stove in the yard, and the aroma was coming from there.
The method for stewing the fish was the same as my sister-in-law's. At this time, the green peppers hadn't grown yet, and you could see that besides the crucian carp, there was ginger, scallions, Sichuan peppercorns, and dried chili peppers in the pot. On the cutting board next to the stove, there was a table full of chopped cilantro, which was to be added when the dish was finished cooking.
Li Junhai continued, "I didn't think of that at first, but then I watched them do it, and that's when I noticed. When they stew fish, they turn off the heat as soon as the fish is cooked. How can it not smell fishy?"
They say tofu needs to be boiled a thousand times and fish a thousand times, so the stewed fish we're eating here needs to be stewed for at least half an hour, until the fish soup is almost gone, and it tastes so good.
"We don't have much firewood at home, so in the dead of winter we use that little honeycomb briquette stove to stew things. We folks in my hometown are very frugal with coal, so we turn off the heat as soon as it's cooked, which naturally makes it taste terrible."
"Yes, yes, now that you mention it, I remember too. My mom also cooks fish, and it seems like it's on the table in no time. I was wondering why it was so fast, but it turns out it wasn't cooked long enough."
Most of the others also suddenly realized that they hadn't thought of this point before. They used to think that the fishy smell was normal.
After arriving in northern Xinjiang, where there is plenty of firewood, the fish can be stewed for a longer time, resulting in a better flavor. That's where the difference becomes apparent.
At this moment, Li Junhai and the others also saw Li Long and stood up to greet him.
Li Long pointed to the pot and asked, "Did you catch this fish?"
Li Junhai said, "Yes, we went to the cooperative's fields to thin out seedlings this morning. A couple of days ago, the irrigation canal was filled with water to water the wheat, so there were a lot of fish in the remaining water. On our way back, we picked up some fish from the puddles. These fish were so fat, almost every one of them had eggs in their bellies."
There's a saying that goes, "Don't shoot birds in spring, don't catch crucian carp in spring," referring to the time when crucian carp lay their eggs, which is their spawning season.
However, Team 4 is an exception, not because these people lack compassion. The main reason is that these fish flow from the reservoir to the canal and then to the fields. Even if Li Junhai and his group don't catch them, they will dry up and die in the canal within two or three days.
Bringing them back is purely for recycling. Even so, the people patrolling the canal see puddles of dried-up crucian carp in the pond many times each year.
Crucian carp seem to spawn several times a year, resulting in a huge yield. As soon as spring arrives and the sluice gates are opened, crucian carp the size of a finger float down the river like a tide.
The dense, black swarms could startle anyone with a phobia.
"So what do you eat for your main meal?" Li Long asked.
Chen Qianjin chimed in from the side, "Junfeng's wife said she's steaming buns for lunch and will bring us a basket later."
Li Long laughed: "Alright, I'll have lunch here. I see there's quite a lot of fish stewed in this pot, and it tastes pretty good."
Li Junhai said with a smile, "Good, good, that's great. We caught quite a lot of fish. Uncle San has already sent some over, and we also took half a basin to Junfeng's family. We had prepared more than half a basin of fish for you since you were coming today, and they're all pre-peeled. You can take them back for your aunt and uncle to eat."
Li Long said with a smile, "Then I won't stand on ceremony, I'll take what I can."
"Why are you being so polite with us?" the others said with a smile. "We're all family, it's right not to be polite. Look at us, we're not being polite at all."
They were all young people, chatting and laughing, having a lively conversation.
When the fish was almost cooked, Li Long went to the backyard to talk to his older brother and the others, and then they ate in the front yard.
After finishing their meal, Li Long originally planned to go to the cooperative's fields with Li Junhai and the others, but Xie Yundong arrived in his car shortly afterward.
Upon seeing Li Long, Xie Yundong came over and started talking to him about cotton.
"I heard that your project in the township is going to hold an on-site meeting. Did you participate? How was it?"
Li Long smiled and said, "That's what I'm busy with every day. I have to memorize my lines and prepare to answer the leaders' questions."
Xie Yundong said half-jokingly, "That's the treatment of a leader. But to be honest, the yield of that experimental field was indeed high. I wonder when our cooperative's cotton fields will be able to achieve that kind of yield."
Seeing the envy on his face, Li Long said, "After this on-site meeting, there might be new policies coming out. I'll go and see if I can get a good policy for our cooperative."
If we can get the contract, we can switch to drip irrigation for our cooperative's cotton fields, and a yield of 300-400 kilograms per mu shouldn't be a problem. However, reducing costs will be difficult.
Xie Yundong excitedly pumped his fist: "If the yield can reach three or four hundred kilograms per mu, then a slightly higher cost is acceptable. The gross income per mu can reach seven or eight hundred yuan, so even if the cost is five or six hundred, it's still worthwhile!"
Li Long shook his head: "I'm afraid five or six hundred yuan won't be enough."
Upon hearing about the high cost, Xie Yundong immediately backed down, though he also seemed somewhat skeptical.
Li Long then counted on his fingers and explained to him: "At least 1 kilometer of drip irrigation tape is needed per mu (unit of land area). Even if I have a set of equipment here, we can go by cost price and I will give you 500 yuan per mu."
Add to that the costs of mechanized farming, watering, fertilizer management, and cotton picking... If we can secure project support from the autonomous region and save some money on drip irrigation, then we can still make a living.
After listening, Xie Yundong did some calculations and nodded thoughtfully.
Ultimately, we still need support; otherwise, small businesses or cooperatives can't succeed, and they can't afford to lose money farming.
Li Long is waiting for raw material prices to drop, and of course, it would be even better if he could secure some support.
When we arrived at the cotton field with Xie Yundong and the others, we could clearly feel that the cotton here was weaker than the cotton in the experimental field.
Li Junhai and his group continued working. Tao Daqiang and the others were also there. They chatted with Li Long and the others for a while, and then went to work with them.
Xie Yundong continued to stay with Li Long, asking him about some technical aspects of drip irrigation farming.
Li Long could sense that Xie Yundong had already grasped the direction and knew that although it was just an experiment now, drip irrigation farming would be a major trend in the future, which was why he was doing his research in advance.
He sincerely told Xie Yundong everything he knew, since the cooperative would still need to be managed by Xie Yundong in the future. As a hands-off manager, it wouldn't be of much use for him to keep those technologies to himself, so it was better to tell Xie Yundong everything so that he could be mentally prepared.
The weather was already quite hot in April, and the surrounding vegetation hadn't grown yet. There was a breeze, and dust would occasionally rise up, so the air quality wasn't very good.
In just one or two hours, Li Long felt a burning sensation in his nose, as if he had inhaled a lot of dust into his lungs, and he coughed from time to time.
He found it somewhat amusing that he hadn't been to the fields for only a few days and was already not quite used to the spring climate of Team 4.
It seems that it is truly easy for people to go from frugality to extravagance, but difficult to go from extravagance to frugality.
P.S.: Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm currently recuperating in Manas. My days consist of eating and sleeping, and when I have free time, I just scroll through my phone.
So I thought I'd write some text using voice commands while lying in bed, so it wouldn't be a waste of time. I'll write a little if I can, and if I can't, I'll figure it out later.
Writing like this doesn't strain my mind or body, so it's still acceptable.
Thank you all for your concern. I'm recovering now and will have my stitches removed in a couple of days. Although it still hurts when I turn over, cough, or make any slightly bigger movements, it's much better than when I was first discharged from the hospital.
I believe things will get better and better, and I wish everyone good health. (End of Chapter)