Chapter 17 The drunkard doesn’t care about drinking "Brother Long, I think there should be a fallen tree under the snow over there. Let's start working here!" Tao Daqiang panted and looked around, pointing to a fallen tree on the distant hillside. "No, let's go a little further." Li Long pointed to the slope next to the winter nest and said, "That's the best location." "But there is no road ahead. If we go any further up, our carriage may not be able to go up." Tao Daqiang was a little embarrassed. "Push it." Li Long looked at the smoke coming out of the winter nest and said with a smile, "This little difficulty won't be a problem for us." So he pulled the carriage in front and Tao Daqiang pushed it from behind, and they pushed the carriage to the gentle slope in front. "Okay, let's stay here." Li Long looked at the terrain and thought it was a good place. He pointed to the winter nest and said: "Come on, let's go have some lunch and then get back to work." "Go there... to have lunch?" Tao Daqiang was a little surprised. "Will they let us eat there?" "Don't worry, those people are very hospitable." Li Long pointed to the tea and salt on the carriage and said, "We are not bad guests, but we brought things with us."
Winter dens are the places where herders in the mountains live and graze in winter. In summer, they go to the alpine grasslands with higher altitudes to graze, which are called summer pastures. In winter, they go to places with lower altitudes to live in winter dens and graze on winter pastures. The process in between is called transhumance. Most of the people grazing in these mountains are Kazakhs. After the new century arrived, the government organized them and moved them to the foot of the mountain. They allocated land to them and changed these people from nomadic to fixed grazing. There are only a few households in Li Long's village that have been allocated land, so he is quite clear about the situation here. The Kazakhs are very hospitable. In the past, when strangers came to their yurts, they would usually take out milk lumps, naan and milk tea to treat them. The winter den is actually a triangle dug into the hillside, with the mountain as the back wall and wood as support, and then a row of houses are built, including warm pens for cattle and sheep, and places for people to live. There is usually a large amount of cattle and sheep manure piled up outside. Li Long also planned to wait until spring to come here to collect some manure, because he remembered that the first round of land contracting would begin in spring. Although each person was only allocated two acres of land at that time, it was land that truly belonged to them! After unloading the carriage and pulling the horses to the winter den, they saw two dogs rushing over and barking at Li Long, Tao Daqiang and the horses. The door of the winter den opened, and a man in his thirties walked out. He was a little surprised to see Li Long and the others. "Hello, we are here to pull wood. We are tired. Can we take a rest here?" Li Long said with a smile. The middle-aged man looked at Li Long and the others warily, nodded, scolded the dog, walked out and pointed at a wooden stake not far from the winter den. Li Long knew that he meant to tie the horse there, so he led the horse over. The man pulled a bundle of grass from the haystack next to the winter den and put it next to the horse. The horse that Li Long led immediately lowered its head and started eating. Li Long tied up the horse and smiled when he saw the herdsman's three horses grazing not far away. Sure enough, he was just like the one I met in my previous life, really enthusiastic. The man led Li Long and the others into the winter den, and the scene in front of them suddenly became dark. After getting used to the light here, Li Long saw that the winter nest was not very big, with a wooden kang, a kang table on it, a small stove burning, and a teapot on top. There was an old lady sitting on the wooden kang in the room, fiddling with a ball of wool with her head down. A woman in her thirties wearing a headscarf was looking at them awkwardly. There was a blanket on the wooden kang, and two children were playing on it with a pile of sheep thigh stones, also watching them. Li Long took out the brick tea and salt from his bag, handed them to the middle-aged man and said, "This is for you."
Tao Daqiang felt a little distressed. These two things together cost several yuan. He could have eaten lunch outside. There were so many sesame cakes. You could only eat one during the Chinese New Year! Why did he come here for such a luxurious lunch? But since Brother Long has made the decision, there must be a reason. "...Thank you." The man was a little surprised and excited when he saw the tea leaves Li Long took out. He turned his head to look at the woman, then at the old lady, before taking it. The old lady and the woman both smiled. Li Long could see that they really liked the gift. The man invited Li Long and Tao Daqiang to sit on the kang, and the old lady took out a sheet from the cabinet and opened it on the kang table. Inside was a piece of naan broken into small pieces. The woman began to mix milk tea, and the man went out for a while. When he came back, he was holding a dried leg of lamb in his hand, motioning Li Long and the others to cut it and eat it, then he took out a knife and prepared to go out. "No, no, no, no need to go through so much trouble. We need to finish eating quickly and then load up the wood to take back." Li Long saw that the family seemed to be about to make a big move, and immediately waved his hand, "This is enough." The man was unwilling, so Li Long pulled him back. He could see that if he didn't pull him back, he would probably go out and kill a sheep. That would be a big deal. Although sheep are not very valuable to herders nowadays, they themselves are reluctant to eat them. The old lady said something in Khajiit to the man, and the man tried to break free from Li Long. In a hurry, Li Long looked around, then pointed at something next to the stove and said: "Don't kill the sheep, just give that to me!" The man stared at the thing in shock. Li Long saw that there was a way, and said with a smile: "I want that one... I can sell it for money." He saw that they were deer antlers. A few decades later, deer antlers were not worth much, after all, farming deer was already very common. The price of velvet antlers dropped a lot, not to mention deer antlers. But at this time, deer farming was still a very rare thing and ordinary people basically could not see it. The antlers of male red deer in the mountains will fall off when they grow to a certain stage, and the antlers you pick up can really be sold for money. "Really?" the man asked doubtfully. "Really? One yuan per kilogram." Li Long said casually, "This is enough for me." This antler has three branches and looks like it must weigh at least two or three kilograms, which is definitely enough. The man then put down the knife, but after thinking about it, he walked out again. After a while, when the woman had mixed the milk tea and handed it to Li Long with both hands, the man came in again, holding a deer antler in his hand and placing it together with another one. Li Long could see that this antler was broken off, and it was not as beautiful as the original one, nor as heavy. "Nathan found this in the woods." The man pointed at the little boy on the kang and said: "We originally planned to burn it as firewood." As firewood? What a waste of resources! (End of this chapter)