Li Long had planned to unload the furniture, drink a couple of bowls of milk tea, then leave the mountains and return to the county seat. If there was enough time, he could haul another load of furniture into the mountains.
But he had not visited in a long time, and now that he had finally come, Harimu's family had no intention of letting him leave in such a hurry.
They kept Li Long there while Harimu's mother and wife cooked together. They were making pilaf for lunch, which took some time. Li Long and Harimu took the opportunity to leave the winter camp and trudge through the snow to look at where they planned to lay the water pipe in spring. By the time they returned, the aroma of pilaf was already drifting through the crack in the door.
Nasen and Sasiken were both old enough to help with household chores now. When Li Long and Harimu returned through the snow, the children were clearing stalks stripped of their leaves from the Sheepfold. They gathered the stalks into a pile with wooden forks, then forked them out together and tossed them to one side. Once the Sheepfold was clean, they forked bundles of hay inside and spread them out for the cattle and sheep.
This work had to be done three or four times a day. The piles of discarded stalks grew higher and higher, and once they dried thoroughly in the spring sunshine, they could be used as kindling.
Li Long and Harimu did not enter the winter camp. They took the wooden forks from Nasen and Sasiken, finished the remaining work, then put the forks down.
"If we can get the water pipe over here, we'll put the outlet right here," Harimu said eagerly, pointing beside the