Most elderly people in the countryside were afraid of having nothing to do. Once they were idle, they lost their appetites and easily fell ill.
Many city people were actually the same. That was what the old saying about idle hands making trouble meant.
With no work to do, people started letting their minds wander, and once that happened, they easily got up to nonsense.
Why did people in later years believe both husband and wife should work outside the home? Having something to do kept them from thinking about all that nonsense.
In some formerly harmonious families, one spouse had no job and stayed home doing housework. With idle time on their hands, they started imagining things, then acted on them, and then the family fell apart.
So Uncle Lao Luo had to find himself something to do.
Of course, it had to be something he enjoyed, such as raising deer and wild boars.
He knew how exhausting summer work in the fields could be. He could do it, but it was not as good as this. After all, he had spent so many years tending livestock for the team that he was used to it.
Clearing snow was nothing much to Uncle Lao Luo, either. He liked having work to do, but he was in no hurry. So during the day, he only cleared a path from his door to the livestock pen.
The most urgent thing was checking whether any of the animals had suffered from the cold. Some of the roe deer and red deer were due to give birth, so he had to keep an eye on them.
When he entered the pen, the red deer and roe deer all gathered around him.
Some had been rather aggressive before and tried to butt people, but