Chapter 235 - 106: The Kittens’ Grandfather
After giving birth, Grape almost entirely stayed in the wooden box.
Her food bowl and water bowl were placed by Chen Zhou next to the box, and the customized "cat litter pan" was not far away.
Grape is a very patient mother and takes good care of the kittens.
Newborn kittens cannot defecate on their own and need their mother's licking to stimulate them.
After drinking milk and falling asleep, kittens can easily get squashed by their mother because their physical abilities are weak and their bodies are not strong enough. If pressed down for long periods, they are very likely to suffocate.
Chen Zhou placed the cat bed by the bedside to care for Grape and to keep an eye on the kittens.
After all, Grape watches over the kittens all day, licking their fur and nursing them. She's bound to be very tired, and if she's not careful, she might accidentally squash them.
At critical moments, he, as "Grandpa Cat," can be of some help for the kittens' growth.
In addition to assisting Grape in taking care of the kittens, Chen Zhou also had to rack his brains to prepare the "postpartum meals" for her.
With three kittens, which isn't a small number, their need for milk will increase as they grow.
Grape is of medium to small size among mother cats, and without good food, the three kittens nursing for a month could certainly drain her completely.
To supply Grape with nutritious "postpartum meals," Chen Zhou planned to brave the rain to go to Pigeon Cave again, catch some pigeons, and also gather some saltpeter.
...
Speaking of saltpeter, Chen Zhou had been researching how to make an incubator during this period.
There are many good materials on the island suitable as insulation, like driftwood and the foam he received as a reward.
Chen Zhou always had a dream of drinking chilled beverages in the dry season.
The island's temperature doesn't drop below freezing, so his dream can only be realized with saltpeter.
Besides chilled drinks, he also wanted to preserve some fresh lamb and rabbit meat, fruits, and vegetables.
He was really sick of seal jerky, rabbit meatballs, dried kelp, and lemon peels.
Especially the seal jerky.
At first, it was somewhat novel, but now eating it feels like consuming prepackaged dishes from small modern workshops or the freeze-dried meat pieces from instant noodle seasoning packets, making him nauseous.
Compared to these storable dried foods, frozen foods obviously taste much better.
The cooling ability of saltpeter is undisputed, but with the island temperature being too high, it still couldn't guarantee a long-term freezing preservation effect when placed in normal locations.
Chen Zhou originally planned to dig a cellar, but due to Grape about to give birth and other trivial matters, it had been delayed until now.
If it weren't for this, the new round of excavation to expand the cave should have started long ago.
After several cuts, the safe steel plate placed on the beach had successfully been turned into a pickaxe head.
A pure steel sharp pickaxe head is much sturdier than an ironwood one.
The only downside is that the pickaxe head doesn't have holes for mounting a wooden handle and can only be tied with a rope.
Having lived on the island for so long, Chen Zhou, initially clueless about knots, could now use hemp rope to bind sticks tightly and build sturdy tent cabins.
For him, tying the pickaxe head and wooden handle with a rope was no longer an issue.
However, the wear resistance of hemp rope is limited and, applied for a long time in a heavy work environment, it would soon wear loose and break.
If he wanted a more durable steel pickaxe, there was only one suitable binding material available—
The climbing rope that came with the mountaineering bag.
But using the climbing rope to bind the steel pickaxe required cutting it, and such a good thing couldn't be remade; once cut, it couldn't be restored.
Worried about needing the climbing rope for urgent work in the future, Chen Zhou didn't do such a wasteful thing.
Though hemp rope needed frequent replacements, it was troublesome, but still sufficient for use.
...
According to Chen Zhou's plan, he wanted to extend the depth of the kitchen by about two meters, and then dig out a three-meter-deep cellar in the innermost part.
The cellar entrance was one meter square, with a wooden cover above it, accessed via a ladder.
The inner walls of the cellar would be constructed with stone bricks and white mud, then covered with cut driftwood panels—he also planned to make some Fish Swim Bladder Glue.
In the driftwood-wrapped cellar, a few double-layered square ceramic pots were to be placed.
The ceramic pots consisted of a large square pot and a small square pot nested together, with water and saltpeter placed in the gap between. The small pot was for storing the meat or fruits and vegetables requiring refrigeration.
However, due to the arrival of the rainy season, the large kilns couldn't start operation for some time, and the double-layered square ceramic pots could only be postponed.
The foam boxes, however, weren't affected. Once cut, glued, and fixed in shape, they could be used.
Of course, the durability of foam couldn't match that of ceramic pots, and limited by the number of foam pieces, the volume of refrigerated items couldn't be as large as those in ceramic pots, so they could only temporarily make do.
...
With constant rain, the "fully functional cellar" was temporarily impossible to achieve, leaving Chen Zhou to rely on a large amount of saltpeter to achieve his goals.
Between August 21 and 24, he ventured outside multiple times in the rain, not only catching pigeons to stew for Grape but also catching some small fish and frogs. As for the rabbits caught in the traps, there were even more of them.
Most of the time, these ingredients were simply processed and directly put into a pot for stewing.
Chen Zhou would occasionally add a pinch of salt to enhance the appetite since overly bland meals didn't appeal to Grape.
While taking care of Grape, Chen Zhou often thought that if the mother goat had given birth before Grape, milking two cups every day to feed the kittens wouldn't have been an issue, which would have significantly reduced Grape's pressure.
Fortunately, now that the kittens had limited appetites, the "postpartum meals" provided by "Grandpa Cat" were fully capable of meeting Grape's nutritional needs.