Peaceful Farm Life

Chapter 181: Chapter 181 I Have a Way_1

Fortunately, Xiao Changyi still remembered it was broad daylight and stopped what he was doing in time. He kissed An Jing reluctantly one more time before saying, ”I’ll go check on the fields first, then lead the ox back from where we left it grazing.”

The ox had been left to graze on the edge of the mountain all day.

”I’ll come with you.” An Jing didn’t want to stay at home alone, even though it was indeed time to start preparing dinner, but she just wanted to be with her husband at the moment.

”Mm.” Xiao Changyi had no objections.

The couple exchanged another sweet kiss before leaving the house hand in hand, their fingers tightly interlocked.

In the one-acre paddy field, the rice had already begun to ear. Since fish were raised in the field, not only did the rice grow taller than others’, but there were also fewer pests. More importantly, the rice ears were more plentiful than those of others’ crops.

As for the ricefish in the field, they had grown quite a bit, some reaching fifteen centimeters in length, and they were particularly lively, constantly swimming around the paddy.

Every time the people of Jiuping Village passed by An Jing and Xiao Changyi’s acre, their hearts were filled with stifling envy. Their own rice was not growing well, had fewer ears, and was infested with many pests!

Seeing those fifteen-centimeter-long fish, sometimes even swimming up to the edge of the field, made the villagers very tempted to catch them and cook them up.

How could fish possibly be raised in a paddy field?! And the rice wasn’t being ruined by the fish?!

In the end, the people of Jiuping Village were too jealous and didn’t want to torment themselves any further, so they simply stopped looking at An Jing and Xiao Changyi’s acre. Even if they passed by, they didn’t glance at it and walked straight on.

They thought that An Jing and Xiao Changyi must have stumbled upon dumb luck that their rice hadn’t been destroyed by those fish!

When An Jing and Xiao Changyi arrived at the edge of the paddy, they saw birds stealing the rice ears. Xiao Changyi hurried to chase the birds away.

After Xiao Changyi chased the birds off, An Jing said, ”This must also be why your rice yield is low.” Some of the ears were eaten by birds before they could mature.

Xiao Changyi said, ”There’s nothing we can do about it.”

Unless someone is here every day to watch and chase away the birds whenever they appear. But which family has someone to spare for such a task?

An Jing chuckled and said, ”I have a way.”

”Oh?”

”The method is simple. We go back and make a few scarecrows to place in the fields. Birds are very foolish; when the wind blows the scarecrow, it moves, making it more like a person. The birds won’t dare to come and steal the ears again.”

”Does it really work?”

An Jing’s voice grew even lower, ”It’s an old method passed down by my ancestors from that ’world,’ proven over thousands of years. What do you think, does it work or not?”

Xiao Changyi then said, ”Let’s go back and make them.”

Just then, An Jing saw a fish swimming by the edge of the field and frowned, ”Husband, this fish is smaller than I expected. It seems that the rice flowers and insects in the field aren’t enough for them to eat. We need to go catch some duckweed for them, to help them grow bigger.”

”Mm.”

Gazing across the one-acre paddy field, An Jing paused for a moment before asking, ”The rice can be harvested next month, right?”

Xiao Changyi nodded and said, ”It can be harvested in the middle of next month.”

”Mid-month? Isn’t that too early? It feels like the rice wouldn’t be fully ripe by then.” She had initially thought it would be late next month, but she didn’t expect him to say mid-month.

”Rice that’s too ripe tends to shed its grains easily when touched, causing us to lose quite a bit of the crop. We usually harvest early to avoid that, and besides, threshing rice also takes time. By the time we finish threshing, it will probably be late next month, or even early in the seventh month.”