In the evening, after returning home from work, Yun Xiaotang took out the hair needles she had found and showed them to Zhao Xueer and Dou Hongxia.

Zhao Xueer and Dou Hongxia took a look and realized that they had all eaten these things before, and they had used them as snacks before.

After ruffling her sister's hair, Zhao Xueer said, "Chun'er is really amazing. You guys eat slowly, while Aunt Dou and I will make dinner."

Dou Hongxia put down Xiaopingan and went to the kitchen with Zhao Xueer. Now it is chef Dou Hongxia who cooks most of the food, with Zhao Xueer helping from the side.

I rummaged through the rice bags and flour bags, and there wasn't much left.

The relief food was not much. Considering that there were many children in the family and they all needed to grow up, they had to eat three times a day. No matter how careful they were, the food was not enough.

Zhao Xueer secretly thought that she had to think of a solution.

Dou Hongxia looked at the rice and flour bag that was about to bottom out, and felt anxious. It was okay for her to be hungry, but the children at home couldn't be hungry.

She was also thinking about finding food and thinking of ways.

During the famine years, people in some places would eat not only wild vegetables, but also tree bark and Guanyin soil. They are not as miserable as eating Guanyin soil here, but the bark?

Dou Hongxia recalled seeing others eating elm bark on the way to escape the desert.

Since the leaves of the elm tree can be eaten, can the bark of the elm tree also be eaten?

Of course, it doesn't mean that you just peel off the bark and gnaw it, but it needs to be processed. For example, rice bran is made from the crushed husks of rice and wheat.

The more she thought about it, the more she felt it made sense, and Dou Hongxia told Zhao Xueer her idea.

When Zhao Xueer heard this, her eyes lit up and she had an idea in her mind.

"Aunt Dou, after hearing what you said, I thought, maybe the elm bark can be made into elm noodles. If it can be done like this, we can have elm noodles to cook in Huhu. There are elm trees everywhere in our village.

Don’t worry about the elm bark.”

Having made a decision in her heart, Dou Hongxia finally showed a smile on her face, "Not only that, we can also go to the mountains to see if there is anything to eat."

In the mountains in summer, there is not as much food as there is in spring.

Zhao Xueer and Dou Hongxia went there several times and dug some purslane back. Now the purslane is still drying in the yard.

However, the mountain is so big that we can't find anything to eat right now. Maybe we can find some newly grown wild fruits somewhere in a few days.

Zhao Xueer nodded. During the cold winter, she could find food in the mountains. This summer is better than winter after all.

The two of them were talking and cooking dinner.

The firewood in the Tukang was crackling. Dou Hongxia liked the smell of fireworks very much. It was the smoke of fireworks at home.

In the main room, Yun Xiaotang and Zhao Tian'er were rolling up hairpins to eat. Little Ping An, who was sitting in a bamboo basket, looked at them without blinking.

To be precise, he was staring at the silk wadding in their hands.

Yun Xiaotang glanced at Xiao Ping An, Xiao Ping An couldn't eat this thing, for fear that she wouldn't be able to digest it.

However, the child's eyes are hard to ignore.

Yun Xiaotang peeled one off, pulled out the silk wadding, and waved it in front of Xiao Pingan's eyes. Xiao Pingan's eyes stared at her sister's hand holding the silk wadding, eager.

Then, Yun Xiaotang put the silk wadding into his mouth.

Xiao Ping'an's eyes suddenly filled with tears, "Sister-sister, bad~hum~"

At this time, Zhao Xueer and Dou Hongxia, who walked into the main room, happened to see the scene of Yun Xiaotang teasing Xiao Ping An. Zhao Xueer held back her laughter and patted her sister's little butt gently.

"Naughty again~"

Dou Hongxia also laughed at the side, watching them playing around, she felt extremely peaceful.

At noon the next day, after lunch, Zhao Xueer took the tools and peeled the bark of the elm tree in the yard.

The rough, dry outer bark of the elm tree fell off, revealing the white bark at the heart of the tree. She carefully peeled off the white bark.

The white bark at the heart of the tree is clean and does not need to be cleaned. Dou Hongxia took the elm bark aside and put it into the bamboo plaque on the shelf.

The white bark that an elm tree can produce is limited, but there is a lot of elm bark in the bamboo plaque. Zhao Xueer thought that the bark should be dried first and then ground into powder.

This preliminary work is now completed, just waiting for the bark to dry.

…

While waiting for the elm bark to dry in the sun for the past few days, Zhao Xueer and Dou Hongxia took advantage of their lunch break to go to the mountains.

Nowadays, corn is planted on the private plot, and the harvest will not be harvested until November. The fish raised in the water tank at home are now eating less and are almost gone. There are no seasonal vegetables in the vegetable garden in the yard.

I really feel like I'm sitting on my hands.

The mountain forests in summer are deep and noisy, and the chirping of insects is extremely penetrating, irritating the eardrums.

Although the sun is scorching, it is relatively cooler in the mountain forest. Due to the long-term drought, the trees in the mountain forest are somewhat dry, and the green grass in some places is still yellow.

The land is dry, the trees are thirsty, and the mountains and forests are no longer as vibrant as they were in spring.

There are large purslane rhizomes on the ground. The bracken at this season has also been dug up by the villagers, and they have to wait for it to grow back.

Walking on the trail in the mountains and forests, Zhao Xueer and Dou Hongxia looked around, hoping to make new discoveries.

At this moment, the two of them were already halfway up the mountain. There was a very big tree here. Zhao Xueer raised her head to observe and found something yellow on the leaves. She lowered her head and saw something in the grass, which looked like the feces of some very small animal.

.

"This seems to be the excrement of bees." Dou Hongxia looked carefully, then walked around the tree and said, "There might be a beehive here."

Sure enough, on the branch on the other side of the tree, there was a large beehive.

The two looked at each other and were both happy, maybe there was honey.

But this wild bee has strong attack power. Once it pokes a hornet's nest, it may become a living target. Thinking of this, the two people calmed down instantly.

The two of them discussed it and reluctantly left. When they left, they remembered the location and would try again when the tools were fully prepared.

They continued walking into the mountains and through the pine forest, but they found no edible wild vegetables.

When I finally gave up, a wild hawthorn tree stood in the wind on a hillside not far away, and the tree was covered with red hawthorns.

Zhao Xueer felt happy, she thought she would return in vain today.

She ran quickly to the hawthorn tree, put down the bamboo basket, tied the sickle to her waist, and climbed up the tree on her hands and feet.

Dou Hongxia had developed a tacit understanding with her. After telling her to be careful, one of them shook the branch from above and the other picked up the fruits below.

Some of the soft branches covered with hawthorns were cut off by Zhao Xueer with a sickle and thrown on the ground.

When it was almost time, Zhao Xueer slid down from the tree and picked hawthorns with Dou Hongxia.
Chapter completed!