Chapter 176 - 75: Earthquake Approaching
Before sunset, Chen Zhou and Lai Fu arrived at the sunny slope platform to check the traps.
Having gone unattended for too long, affected by wind and rain, many of the nooses were dislocated or loosened, and apart from a few strands of wool, he found nothing.
While repeatedly checking the traps on the slope, Chen Zhou noticed that the hoof prints on the ground had become much sparser compared to before, especially the prints left by the strong rams, which were now only five or six.
Calculating the days, it was already March 29, with just over half a month left until the end of the rainy season. He figured the herd would migrate inland again.
Chen Zhou estimated that the goats' migration endpoint shouldn't be far from the Riverbank Prairie next to the Fruit Tree Valley.
In theory, the Riverbank Prairie, with its abundant water supply even in the dry season, vast flat pastures, and various fruits, had far better living conditions than the coastal areas. The herd's continued migration in and out of the island was unusual behavior.
Chen Zhou guessed that the herd likely traveled back and forth to the coastal saltlands to consume more salt or chased after the freshest plant stems and leaves.
There were no large predators on the island that targeted goats, making it feel like an idyllic paradise.
As long as they weren't injured or sick, every goat could live up to seven or eight years, only dying when their teeth were too worn down to eat.
Under such favorable conditions, led by the head goat, they naturally roamed and frolicked as they pleased.
...
"If they truly migrated into the River Valley Plain within the island, that would be ideal. I could build a fence there when collecting crops to keep them enclosed.
The coastal areas have uneven terrain, with significant elevation differences, and are greatly affected by the dry season, making them unsuitable for developing animal husbandry."
"However, the River Valley Plain is too far from the cave; feeding salt, milking, breeding rams, and tending to the lambs would all be inconvenient.
To prevent the herd from falling ill, keeping them constantly in the open plains to endure sun and rain won't do; I must also build a simple pen for them..."
Families in the north often raised sheep and cattle, so Chen Zhou was quite knowledgeable about animal husbandry.
Measured against the standards of modern rural individual farmers, the more he thought about his circumstances, the more he realized he couldn't possibly take care of both the herd in the River Valley Plain and the fields around the cave simultaneously without being able to clone himself.
Not to mention the incomplete inner walls of the cave, the charcoal kiln, the pottery kiln, the wood bending furnace, and the outer walls; just building the pen and fence was a massive undertaking in itself.
Compared to developing technology, improving productivity, and weaponry, animal husbandry was clearly a lower priority.
Thinking deeper, Chen Zhou felt that raising five or six ewes in the woods below the cave, changing a ram every other year, would be sufficient for him.
Keep the female lambs, castrate the male lambs, raise them for just one year, and slaughter them for meat at one year old, balancing milk and meat production.
The number of sheep must be strictly controlled; older ewes with reduced milk production should be slaughtered for meat.
Wild goat herds that grow too large also needed culling.
On such a fragile island ecosystem, without consumers like wolves and lynxes, the goat population would expand indefinitely until the island's vegetation was devastated.
To prevent this from happening, he could only reluctantly take on the role of this consumer, eating more lamb to compensate for the missing link in the food chain.
...
Returning home to rest with a heart full of disappointment.
On March 30, Chen Zhou officially began constructing a temporary shelter.
The shelter was about 500 meters from the cave, making it relatively convenient to transport tools, but before starting construction, Chen Zhou had to move all the building materials up.
This included the pile of cut wooden planks and stone bricks on the beach.
This was yet another exhausting major project.
To facilitate transport, Chen Zhou spent two days chiseling out the unfinished solid wood wheel before heading to the beach.
Then he spent another two days making and installing the axle and cart bed for the wheel.
The cart bed's capacity was roughly equivalent to six wooden barrels; if loaded with dirt or sand and piled high, the capacity could be increased, though this would accelerate the wear on the wheel.
Coinciding with Chen Zhou's illness, the wheel was left in the cave for almost a month, drying on the surface, but still carrying some moisture internally, making it heavy.
The heavy, clumsy solid wood wheel and the nailed-together cart bed made the entire wheelbarrow appear exceedingly ugly, like something made in a child's handicraft class.
Without metal reinforcement, the wooden wheel embedded stones when carrying stone bricks over the gravelly mountain tracks.
Falling stones left a bunch of small dents on the wheel's surface, which, if met with a stone again, would deepen further.
Wood supports significant lateral pressure well, but is almost defenseless against small high-pressure areas like pebbles.
Over time, these small dents would damage the wheel's structure, making it more prone to breaking.
Besides pebbles, Chen Zhou also found that the solid wood wheel, made in one piece, deformed with long use.
When first made, the wheel wasn't perfectly round but reasonably orderly, with the vertical and horizontal diameter discrepancy under 4 millimeters.
After a few days, the wheel visibly turned elliptical, making it extremely laborious to push. If chiseling another wheel weren't so strenuous, Chen Zhou would have discarded it long ago.
...
People instruct in vain, while things instruct with a single success.
Every day struggling to push the cart up the mountain, needing to pick stones off the ground and cut tree roots along the way, encountering countless frustrating issues.