Free Web NovelChapter 390: Chapter 192: Goat Milk!
By the time he returned to the campsite, it was already afternoon, and Li Younan’s stomach was a bit hungry.
However, as soon as he arrived at the campsite, he suddenly became alert because he noticed a pile of feces underfoot.
Li Younan immediately turned on his sports camera and filmed the pile of feces, then frowned and explained, "Guys, we might have trouble. This is a piece of feline feces."
He casually picked up a stick from the ground and poked at the feces, carefully observed it, and pondered for a moment before saying, "If my judgment is correct, this should be lynx feces." ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
To be honest, lynxes aren’t considered large felines; they’re much less formidable compared to top predators like tigers, lions, and leopards. Even without bows and arrows, you could easily kill a lynx with a hunting knife.
But what worries Li Younan is that if this creature ambushes the mother goat, it would be very troublesome.
He began thinking about how to protect his goat.
Whether he can live comfortably in the upcoming days depends on this goat.
He confirmed once again that the surroundings were safe before carrying his bow and arrows back to the campsite, temporarily placing the mother goat in the semi-completed house.
Li Younan quickly surveyed the area again to ensure the surroundings were currently safe, then sat down to rest for a while.
Next, he boiled some water and checked the drying progress of the earthen walls.
Currently, the height of the rammed earth wall had reached over a meter; if all goes well, it could be completely closed off in two or three days.
However, even when newly capped, the house won’t provide a very good experience because it needs a long time to fully dry out, and until then, the house will be a bit damp.
Fortunately, there’s already a fireplace inside, and Li Younan can now basically ensure that the household’s fire source remains uninterrupted 24 hours a day.
If there’s heat, the dampness will dissipate much quicker, but you can’t use a big fire to dry it, as doing so might cause cracks in the rammed earth wall. You have to let it dry slowly, which may take about two weeks.
However, fortunately, the thing Li Younan has the least of is time, and it’s currently summer; even though the temperature drops to six or seven degrees at night, overall, it’s not too cold.
The water quickly boiled, and Li Younan set up his camera to demonstrate to the audience the process of preparing a pheasant.
With one cut, he ended the pheasant’s suffering, then poured its blood into a wooden bowl he made during his free time last night, saying, "We can make a bowl of chicken blood soup with this blood, mixed with wild spinach, which will taste great and effectively supplement iron and zinc, such trace elements for us."
Then Li Younan placed the whole chicken into a wooden barrel filled with boiling water to scald it, and the next task was plucking feathers and cleaning the innards.
He kept all the edible parts, processed the entire chicken, and said, "Next, I’ll show you a traditional Chinese delicacy called Beggar’s Chicken."
About 20 minutes later, Li Younan placed the wrapped Beggar’s Chicken onto the charcoal stove to roast, while he turned his attention to the mother goat he had already brought out.
He needed to make arrangements for this mother goat next.
Before doing so, Li Younan needed to verify one thing.
He took the pot which was now free and placed it under the mother goat’s teats, then pressed a few times.
The mother goat struggled twice but soon calmed down.
Li Younan felt a lump inside, indicating a tendency to block milk.
He massaged it relatively gently, gradually kneading the lump away.
Before long, goat milk sprayed out, and Li Younan was instantly delighted: "Indeed, there’s still milk."
He had to admit, his luck was truly good.
Li Younan set up the camera again to demonstrate the milking process, explaining to the camera: "This is probably the luckiest day since I entered this place."
"You might not know what it means to have a goat that can produce milk."
"Let me explain how difficult it is to get a milk-producing goat. First, it has to be a female goat."
"Second, this female goat must have birthed a kid, and it should be within six to eight months because after that time, it will stop producing milk. Judging by the current milk production, her birthing time could not have exceeded half a month."
"Remember the kid we saw at the bottom of the valley? That kid is about half a month old."
"Next, the most crucial point: if a female goat goes more than two days without a kid suckling or being milked, it will stop producing milk. Luckily, we’ve met all these conditions."
"This is practically miraculous good fortune."
"If I found this mother goat one day later, even if she were alive, she wouldn’t produce milk anymore. But now, as long as we can ensure milking her once a day, she can continuously provide milk for at least four or five months...though we truly don’t need that long."
Then Li Younan turned off the camera, tried milking again, and found the mother goat had already stopped producing milk, with only about one liter of goat milk in the pot.
Such a large mother goat could produce about 2 to 3 liters at once, considering she was injured and hadn’t eaten for about a day, having even this much goat milk was extremely precious.
Li Younan touched the mother goat’s head, finding her particularly pleasing to the eye, and stood up saying, "Don’t worry, I’ll protect you."
While saying this, he went outside to chop wood to make a simple wooden splint, fixed her injured two legs, gave her water, and gathered some moss.
This moss is a food rich in carbohydrates, better than forage, and fed it to the mother goat. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓
Next, he began thinking about where to settle the mother goat.
After a long contemplation, Li Younan decided to situate the mother goat in the space behind the house, close to the mountain wall.
This way, if a predatory animal tries to steal the goat at night, it can’t jump down from the hill behind, nor can it cross the house from the front, and one side of the house has a fireplace, with the fire burning through the night; animals instinctively fear firelight, leaving only one direction to defend against.
Li Younan then chopped a considerable amount of wood, creating two sturdy wooden fences, sharpening all the tips of the wooden stakes, and built a goat pen.
This goat pen offers about six to seven square meters of space, so the mother goat won’t feel confined.
Previously, when Li Younan built the house, both the front and back doors were left open, thereby allowing direct entry into the pen via the back door.
After completing all these tasks, evening had arrived, and the Beggar’s Chicken was thoroughly cooked.
Li Younan cracked open the outer layer of clay wrapping, took it inside the house.
Today, he planned to temporarily stay in the house, although it’s a bit moist, the presence of the fireplace makes it no big issue.
Then he looked at the pot containing about one liter of goat milk, which had been boiled once, and began recalling the skill he learned back in Western Sichuan...
Milking the goat, he initially did not intend to drink it.
