235. Chapter 235: Stinky Ditch, Catching Redworms

"Due to the influence of the cold air from the north, the temperature in the southern coastal cities is lower than usual. Please prepare for the cold."

Although the weather is very cold.

But the farmers on Dandan Island are very busy. The dock is full of shouts for help to pick up kelp seedlings.

"Lao Chun, are you free tomorrow? Come and help me pick up kelp seedlings. I'll give you three yuan a day."

"It's useless to give me five yuan. My hands have frostbite. Now it's itching to death. I can't pick them up even if I want to."

"Is your scum free?"

"My scum is helping Zhang Jinsha."

The last month of 1984.

It was the busiest month on Dandan Island. There were more than 20 farmers on the island, including Chenjia Village, raising more than 800 acres of kelp.

At this time, someone dug up what Li Duoyu said to the leader in the newspaper last year. Everyone found that he didn't seem to be bragging. He really made kelp farming bigger and stronger.

For a whole month, half of the villagers on Dandan Island were constantly picking up kelp seedlings, and all the kelp farmers were scrambling to get people to pick up kelp seedlings.

However, because the weather was too cold, many people had frostbite on their hands and feet within a week of picking up kelp seedlings, and they couldn't work even if they wanted to.

This also caused the wages for picking up kelp seedlings to double directly. The wages used to be only two yuan a day, but now the wages for picking up kelp seedlings are at least four yuan a day.

For those who are more skillful, it is not a problem to earn five or six yuan a day.

Fortunately, Li Duoyu has enough relatives, and in less than half a month, they took the lead in picking up more than 200 acres of kelp seedlings.

Among them, Li Duoyu has 100 acres, his uncle's family has 100 acres, his third uncle has 50 acres, and his uncle Chen Dongqing has 20 acres.

During this period, Li Duoyu also took time to attend Chen Wenchao's wedding.

Marriage in this era is quite simple, and there is not much emphasis on the sense of ceremony.

Both parties take a wedding photo.

Then go to the town to register, and it is considered officially married.

As for the three big items, four big items, etc., even in this era, they are the standard configuration of rich people. Ordinary people buy a few enamel basins and a sewing machine at most when they get married.

Don't even think about refrigerators, color TVs, and washing machines.

After all, for fishermen, it is more practical to save more money and build a big boat than to spend so much money on luxury goods.

On the wedding day, Chen Wenchao and Liu Xiaolan mostly listened to the bride's mother saying good things, and then worshiped the heaven and earth, ancestors, and elders.

Then, it was a banquet for relatives and friends, and various toasts. Since Liu Xiaolan had more brothers, they, as brothers-in-law, did not get any benefits from her younger sister's marriage, and they still had some resentment.

On the wedding day, Chen Wenchao was given a lot of wine.

And in this month.

Li Duoyu's eel pond was finally dug.

A total of seven large ponds.

Li Duoyu also upgraded the original simple bamboo factory building and built six shallow cement pools in it, which were specially used to raise eel seedlings.

Li Duoyu, who has been through this, knows very well that newly dug ponds cannot be used to raise fish directly. They must go through a series of treatments.

First, add water to the new pond and soak it for ten days or half a month to observe whether there are any leaks in the pond. If there are any leaks, they must be blocked.

Then observe whether there are any small fish fry in the pond. If there are, they must be cleaned up.

In the past, he was also very curious about why there were fish fry in the newly dug pond. Later, he heard from others that he knew.

Some land with relatively low terrain and close to the stream may have fish eggs in the soil even if it was not a pond before.

Thousand-year-old grass seeds, ten-thousand-year-old fish!

In the rainy season some time ago, Li Duoyu had already discovered that after these newly dug ponds were soaked in water, some small fish fry inexplicably appeared. For eel ponds, these small fish are unnecessary, so the last step is to use quicklime to sterilize and disinfect the pond, and by the way, purify these small fish fry.

In addition to the outdoor earth pond, the indoor cement pool also needs to be treated. Since the cement pool is alkaline, they usually use oxalic acid or alum to purify it in the past.

But in this era, these two things are hard to buy, Li Duoyu directly used the dumbest method, boiling the cement pool at high temperature.

Put a few iron pots there, keep boiling hot water, and then pour it into the cement pool.

Chen Dongqing, who was "watching" and "learning" the whole time, sighed from time to time. He was too lazy to ask Li Duoyu why he knew so much.

Anyway, no matter how he asked, he couldn't get the point, but felt a little stupid.

After the preliminary work was prepared, Li Duoyu officially prepared to start catching eel seedlings. He heard from some women who were talking about Xiaohai that some eel seedlings had been caught on the beach recently.

Li Duoyu also looked at the calendar. It would be January in two days, and the eel seedlings were indeed coming.

But before catching the seedlings, there was a higher priority, that is, Li Duoyu had to catch a small thing called red worms first.

Bloodworms are the larvae of midges, and they usually live in stinky ditches.

The method of catching them is also very simple, just get a piece of gauze, and then scoop up the bloodworms wherever you see them.

Dig up the mud and worms directly, and then put them into the gauze, shake and wash them in clean water. After the mud is washed away, the remaining ones are the bloodworms.

After the eel breeding farm was built, in addition to Chen Wenchao, Li Duoyu had two more employees, namely his brother Li Yaoguo and his second sister-in-law Zhu Xiuhua.

Their first day of work was to go to the stinky ditch with Li Duoyu to catch red worms.

After learning about the job content, Li Yaoguo wanted to take a sick leave on his first day, but was dragged off the bed by Zhu Xiuhua.

Five people wore rain boots and kept scooping red worms in the stinky ditch full of foreign objects.

Li Yaoguo vomited while scooping. He had never done such a dirty job since he was a child, especially in the stinky ditch, where there were often children's excrement.

"This Yaoxiu is tight, he doesn't go to the toilet, why did he poop in the ditch."

Li Duoyu smiled.

"If they didn't poop here, maybe there wouldn't be so many red worms."

And their weird behavior also attracted the attention of the villagers.

If it were someone else, everyone would probably say disgusting, but if it was Li Duoyu, everyone suddenly felt that red worms might become very expensive.

Many villagers couldn't help but want to catch them together, but they didn't know what Li Duoyu was catching red worms for.

In fact, even Chen Dongqing from the Fisheries Research Institute was confused, but he was still deceived by Li Duoyu to come here to catch red worms.

At first, Chen Dongqing refused, but when the big boss Li Duoyu offered a price of two yuan per kilogram of red worms, he knelt on the spot.

In less than two days.

They searched all the stinking ditches in the village, but only caught less than 20 kilograms of red worms. After all, there are few freshwater resources and stinking ditches on the island.

The number of these red worms is far from enough. Li Duoyu has seven large ponds, each of which can raise at least 7,000 adult eels.

Li Duoyu has to catch at least 50,000 eel seedlings. Considering that his breeding equipment is not very good, if the mortality rate is taken into account, he must raise at least 100,000 eel seedlings in the early stage.

And 20 kilograms of red worms can only be raised for two or three days at most. Li Duoyu had no choice but to release a red worm purchase broadcast through the village loudspeaker.

He will continue to collect red worms for a period of time at a price of two yuan per kilogram.

After hearing the price, some villagers who originally wanted to catch red worms were so angry that they slapped their thighs.

Many of them ran to the town and other villages to fish out these inconspicuous red worms from the stinking ditches.

Li Duoyu has already made special nets for catching eel fry, and they can start fishing tomorrow. (End of this chapter)