In winter, the only thing Wen Qian could store was snow, and the area in her space where she piled the snow varied each year.
This way, some snow could be melted and boiled for use, some needed to be disinfected before use, and some could only be used for watering crops.
In this place, during this kind of winter, the only thing that could be stored was this.
When planning her tasks, Wen Qian realized that she still hadn't processed some of the fruits stored in her space.
Back when she was in her hometown, she had purchased fruits in bulk several times, with people driving large trucks and selling piles of apples, oranges, and the like.
If Wen Qian bought in large quantities, she could bargain for a better price, so she had bought quite a lot using her manual three-wheeler.
Now, she ate just a little fruit each day, leaving the rest in her space. She thought of how these sour green oranges were fresh but extremely tart, and at this time of year, fruits were scarce and difficult to cultivate.
It was challenging for people nowadays to obtain fresh fruits with good appearance for sale, so Wen Qian decided to make fruit preserves for herself.
Eating canned fruit in public might make others envious, but eating fresh fruit would arouse even more suspicion.
Now that it was winter, Wen Qian had oranges, white sugar, and some containers she had prepared for making preserves. So she decided to try making some orange preserves first.
The orange preserves from childhood were delicious, but according to the recipes, the preparation process was complicated, especially the sterilization and disinfection step.
Once she had decided what to do, Wen Qian started taking oranges out of her space. She planned to make a small batch first as a trial.
First, she peeled the orange skins, which she also needed to keep. In the past, when people in her hometown ate oranges, they often kept the peels, even though they rarely had any use for them. But they would still dry and collect the peels, thinking they might find a use for them someday.
The instructions said to remove the thin white membranes, which could make the oranges taste bitter.
The canned oranges Wen Qian usually ate had even the transparent membranes removed, so she prepared them to that extent, which was time-consuming.
But fortunately, there was no need to rush in her current life. Wen Qian took her time, as long as she could make decent fruit preserves.
It was currently winter, with the wind blowing from the basin towards the Jade Mountain Range. Wen Qian didn't dare butcher livestock or spend too much time cooking at home.
She was worried that animals might be attracted by the smell. Bears might be hibernating, but wolves were different.
So in winter, any dishes with meat had been prepared by Wen Qian in advance and stored in her space.
Yes, Wen Qian was still eating pork and poultry that she had boiled in a large pot two or three years ago.
It was fortunate she had her space; otherwise, how could she have kept the food for so long?
Two things took up most of the space packed with various items: firewood and snow. The area for storing food was relatively small compared to those.
However, the meat she had bought from the wholesale market back then was still limited, even after she bought more when she returned to her hometown. The quantity was still less compared to the rice, flour, and oil she had bought earlier.
After all, the prices differed significantly.
She had enough staple foods and didn't need to worry about that.
After processing the oranges and putting the peels and scraps into her space, she started adding water, sugar, and heating the mixture.
The containers she had bought for making preserves were already washed and sun-dried before being stored in her space without collecting dust.
She planned to put the cooked oranges into the jars and then heat them in a water bath. This way, even if the preserves weren't kept in her space, their shelf life would be relatively long.
After the first experimental batch was done, she left one jar outside and stored the rest. Two or three days later, when she tried them, she found the taste was decent. Although not as good as store-bought, the sweet oranges left her quite satisfied.
So she decided to make some every day as her daily task, but not for too long.
She continued this routine for a week, using only a small portion of the oranges she had purchased in bulk, with plenty left over. However, her fingers had turned yellow from peeling so many oranges.
After that, she didn't want to smell the scent of sour oranges anymore. Plus, she didn't have many more jars left, so she used the remaining jars to make preserves from other fruits.
Speaking of fruit preserves, she had once bought two boxes of canned yellow peaches online, but she didn't have any yellow peaches among the fruits she had purchased in bulk. She did, however, have grapes, apples, and watermelons.
Most of them were bought when the fruits were in abundant supply and the prices were low.
Wen Qian tried making grape and apple preserves, and the results were not bad.
As her gaze lingered on the fruit pile, she became interested in the seeds.
Whether they were sour orange seeds or watermelon seeds, she wasn't sure if they were fully ripe, but she kept them all, thinking of trying to sprout them later.
If her previous hoarding self had been meticulously calculating money, her current self wanted to make full use of everything she owned.
Now, even when eating watermelon, she would slice the rind with a knife and keep it, because she knew watermelon rind could be stir-fried and eaten. She had even tried it herself.
The taste was average, but edible, which made it worth continuing to do so.
Living alone in Xia Province, Wen Qian had no idea what kind of life people were leading these days.
Wen Qian was relatively well-off because the items stored in her space were quite diverse and varied.
In other places, even if people had supplies, they couldn't keep them fresh for so long. The quality would deteriorate, especially for perishable fruits and vegetables.
Although there were so-called grain reserves, careful rationing might not be enough to last through the volcanic winter, which was predicted to last at least ten years.
Who knew what the situation would be like after ten years? So in the beginning one or two years, everyone was frugal, not because they had anything to waste, except for wasting time and their own lives.
Petty theft incidents were very common. At this point, no household had anything worth stealing, unless they had just received rations, which had also become a source of instability.
Some were dissatisfied with the current living conditions, believing that the supplies had all been taken by those with connections, leaving the common people to suffer.
In reality, it was to ensure a steady supply, with staple foods being the items stockpiled for distribution.
Fruits, snacks, and the like were not stockpiled for distribution to everyone; instead, synthetic vitamin pills were provided to compensate for the lack of vitamins.
In the volcanic winter environment, some people began to feel that humanity had no hope and wouldn't survive, so they refused to work for rations according to the assigned distribution.
