Chapter 168 - 72: All Matters Summarized
From March 21st to 25th, Chen Zhou was busy building cement load-bearing pillars.
The entire load-bearing pillars were made from stone and cement. A circle of cement was applied at the base of the pillars, revealing the gray-blue color of the stone above the cement. This color is similar to the exterior wall, giving the entire cave a geometric artistic atmosphere.
Life was as busy as ever, yet very fulfilling.
Even though there were no holidays, and the daily working hours were even longer than when he was working.
But on the island, there was no one to restrict his freedom. No one mandated him to complete certain tasks each day, nor were there loud machines and heavy dust.
When he felt bored, Chen Zhou could walk the dog, tease the cat, weed the fields, circle the woods, and check the rabbit traps for any bounty.
Or he could take Lai Fu to add salt to the goat family and see how the buck's foreleg was recovering.
Because of an ample stock of dried seal meat and four legs from the old goat, Chen Zhou could have meat for every meal. Therefore, he wasn't diligent in setting rabbit traps, just casually placing snares beside trails in the woods, and as expected, the results were unsatisfactory.
It had been a month since he last checked the rabbit traps comprehensively.
During this new month, he only caught one rabbit, which he found days after it had died.
Due to the island's hot climate, the rabbit's carcass was already foul-smelling when he discovered it, rendering it completely inedible.
...
There was meat and fat, vegetables and fruit. Except for a lack of calcium intake, the nutrition was relatively balanced.
For convenience in cooking, Chen Zhou's meals were quite routine.
Every morning, he would start a fire, ignite a bonfire, throw two bread cakes into a big iron pot to cook until fragmented, then add seaweed and minced meat to make a pot of porridge.
Having just woken up, his appetite was not good. He usually could only eat half a pot, sometimes feeding the other half to Lai Fu, or saving it for the evening.
While cooking seaweed porridge with minced meat, Chen Zhou would also boil a little water, scald bowls, or mix cold water for washing his hair and face.
Before obtaining canned food, he often had to boil water twice—as there was only one big iron pot, and he couldn't cook porridge while boiling water.
...
After finishing a can of yellow peach, he transferred a whole box of canned food into a sturdier wooden package for careful safekeeping.
The empty can of yellow peach came in handy for Chen Zhou.
He punched two holes on opposite sides of the empty can, threaded in a hemp rope, creating a small pot capable of boiling a pound of water.
The small pot used less fuel and boiled water quickly. Within a few minutes, it could boil more than half a pound of water, which was enough for scalding bowls and washing faces.
It saved time and improved the quality of life.
Additionally, the small pot was portable. As long as he had fire starters and kindling, he could light a fire and cook anytime, anywhere, making it a favorite for Chen Zhou.
Apart from the can itself, the lid cut from the can was also a precious material.
The thin metal could be cut directly with scissors or a knife and bent into various shapes.
Chen Zhou cut a piece of metal and fashioned a simple pen nib, rounding the tip to prevent it from tearing paper, then attached it to a wooden stick for use.
The metal nib provided a writing effect far superior to a quill, though requiring more frequent dipping into ink due to lacking a pen shaft.
Even though frequent ink dipping slowed writing down, Chen Zhou didn't mind this drawback.
Because as long as he used this self-made pen, he could draw pen sketches with purple-pink pineapple ink.
The thin, crisp pen lines produced cleaner and clearer images than those drawn with charcoal or quill pens, better presenting the scenery in Chen Zhou's eyes.
...
By noon on the 25th, the four cement load-bearing pillars were completed on schedule.
He put down the cement-covered trowel, took off his work clothes speckled with countless cement spots, climbed down the scaffolding made of stacked wooden boxes, and walked out of the cave to relax.
Habitually, he walked along the platform's edge down the slope and reached the fields.
First, he checked the growth of the transplanted chinchilla feed grass as he stepped into the field ridges.
With a suitable growing environment, the rice had sprouted tender green spikes after over two months. On closer inspection, the tiny spikes were densely covered with green spindle-shaped objects.
Some spindle-shaped objects had cracked open, revealing a white substance smaller than rice grains inside, which were the yet-to-bloom rice flowers.
Blooming is an important phase in the plant reproduction process.
As long as there are no strong winds or heavy rains during the flowering period and pollination goes smoothly, the rice can develop crucial seeds, and Chen Zhou's next season's grain harvest would be secured.
As for barley and wheat, they may not be well-adapted to the island's excessive rainfall, growing much slower than rice.
Fortunately, they didn't wilt or suffer from pests and diseases; otherwise, Chen Zhou would have had no means for curing them.
...
Aside from the impending rice bloom, there was another happy occurrence—the unidentified seeds Chen Zhou kept in his socks had mostly germinated successfully.
To care for these delicate "little ancestors," he made several trips to the dense forest to dig buckets of humus-rich soil and caught a few earthworms to aerate the soil.
Then he built a circle of stones under the outer wall window to form a seedbed, filled it with soil, placed in the earthworms, and planted these unidentifiable seedlings inside.
The topsoil in the seedbed was nutrient-rich, while sand at the bottom prevented drought and waterlogging.
Except for a lack of sufficient sunlight, it was already a very good growing environment for plant seedlings.
Having no idea what kind of plants these seeds would grow into or what soil and water conditions they preferred,
Chen Zhou could only provide an environment suitable for most plants to grow. Whether the seeds would grow up, he couldn't determine.