In the fourth year in Xia Province, the third year after the volcanic eruption.
Wen Qian was harvesting the things she had planted earlier, harvesting by herself.
In early spring, she had cleared and sowed the land by herself. During the growing season, she also watered, fertilized, and weeded the crops alone.
Now during the harvest season, she was slowly figuring out which crops to harvest first and which to leave for last.
She used the sickle she had prepared earlier to reap the wheat, and the shovel to dig up the potatoes.
At this time, all other plans had to give way to the harvest. Wen Qian was busy from morning to night, completing the main harvest of the fields. After the initial harvest, Wen Qian would also go through the fields again to check for any missed crops.
Even if she needed to rest, she would wait until the harvest was completed before doing so. Everything had to be gathered in before winter arrived.
That's how it is with growing crops - the harvest is not complete until the crops are stored. Fortunately, Wen Qian had storage space, so she could pack all the harvested crops together on the agricultural tarpaulin and store them.
This way, she reduced the steps of carrying and transporting, so she didn't get too exhausted.
If she had to carry and transport the crops over long distances, Wen Qian wouldn't have cleared the fields so far from her home.
During this period, Wen Qian was very happy, though tiring, to see the crops being stored away.
There were still many things for her to do over the coming winter.
First, she had to process the vegetables she harvested, mixing the roots, stems, and rotten leaves with fertilizer to be spread back on the fields after winter.
She would also add the ash from the firewood she had burned to increase the soil's fertility.
In the following time, Wen Qian would be threshing the grains, doing it partly mechanically and partly by hand.
After threshing, Wen Qian cleaned the old-fashioned winnowing fan she had brought from her hometown, using it to remove the light impurities and small stones from the grains.
Although it was a laborious task, the winnowing fan reduced some of the burden, though not as simply and effortlessly as mechanized equipment.
But even if she couldn't finish it all, it didn't matter, as she could store the unfinished work in her storage space.
In the cold winter, Wen Qian hardly went out, and there wasn't much to do. She often found ways to keep herself occupied, with threshing and winnowing taking up most of her winter.
The grains she had grown and tended to herself were truly handmade.
In her previous fast-paced life, she wouldn't have had the time to do these tasks, but now it was different - everything had to be done by herself.
She sometimes thought about how her grandparents had managed without all the modern conveniences, and the crop yields must have been lower back then.
Wen Qian's first grain harvest was not bad, though the yield might not have met her expectations. But it was still quite good.
In reality, if she had to support a whole family this way, the harvest would not be enough to feed them all. Wen Qian's personal reserves and the small surpluses meant she could get by on her own without worrying too much.
Just as Wen Qian was happily enjoying her own harvest, people growing crops in other places, especially in the tropics, were also reaping their harvests.
However, there were no longer any places with three harvests per year, and even two harvests per year were rare, with most places only having one harvest annually.
Yields in the north were very low due to the extreme cold, while the south experienced more frequent disasters, leading to reduced harvests or crop failures. The food shortage pressures remained high.
People's living conditions had not improved.
Because there were not many suitable tropical areas left, and many had already been occupied, those who wanted to farm in the tropics had nowhere to go.
This led to disputes and even violent conflicts over the ownership of farmland.
Conflicts were most apparent during the harvest season, with some countries able to grow crops in certain areas, only to have the harvests intercepted or robbed during transport.
Even heavily armed escorts could not guarantee the safe delivery of the crops to their destinations when people were driven by extreme hunger and panic.
The domestic situation was relatively better, but some were still very dissatisfied, feeling that many researchers were just wasting resources while collecting their paychecks. As these complaints grew, some researchers left due to the immense pressure.
The first snow fell before October, but Wen Qian had already stored everything away, so she could spend the time indoors organizing her belongings.
By the window, she still had garlic sprouts, sweet potato leaves, and a small bottle of mint growing.
Wen Qian got tired of just drinking plain water, but she didn't want to waste too much of her precious tea, so she would brew a mix of ingredients like orange peel, lotus leaves, mint leaves, hawthorn, and red dates.
From the first batch of rye harvest, Wen Qian ground some flour and combined it with wheat flour to bake bread, which tasted average but was very filling.
She cooked a hearty porridge with the barley and other grains she had previously purchased.
Wen Qian would cook a large pot at a time, so on days when she was too lazy to make breakfast, she could just scoop out a bowl and have more time for other things, whether it was sleeping in, daydreaming, or getting work done.
She would sample each new harvest to fully appreciate the joy of the harvest.
For her, the priority was taking care of her health and safety.
So while her meals were quite frugal, with two or three meals a day, she wouldn't deprive herself.
The large fish she had bought back home were still fresh in her storage space. When the weather was cold, she would salt-cure some to make pickled fish, which would eventually become dried, salted fish. She just needed to steam it when she wanted to eat it.
She also had the white radishes she had grown back home, which were still crisp in the storage space. She would slice them, dry them a bit, and toss them with chili sauce and oil and salt for a tasty side dish.
Wen Qian would also occasionally take out the fermented pickles she had prepared the previous year to have a taste.
She would also heat up a bowl of the canned goods she had prepared the previous winter to eat.
Overall, Wen Qian was living quite comfortably, thanks to the storage and preservation capabilities of her space.
As for the newly harvested potatoes, the smaller ones she would just wash, dry, and slowly roast in the oven next to the heater, eating them with thin slices of cured meat - a delicious meal.
As for the wild boar she had caught the year before, she still hadn't gotten around to butchering and draining the blood, as she disliked dealing with fresh blood. She planned to tackle it when she no longer felt squeamish about it.
