Li Long stopped buying cattle and sheep before the heavy snow came.
The newly built pens now held 110 sheep and twelve cattle.
Li Long was fairly casual about choosing sheep. As long as they were not too old or sick, he took both males and females. Most of the ewes were pregnant at this time of year. After raising them until just before New Year, he would keep most of them. They would lamb around New Year, leaving him with more sheep next year.
He was pickier about cattle. Almost all were two or three years old, with two that were a year and a half old.
He intended to fatten almost all these cattle until just before New Year, then slaughter them and sell the meat.
The livestock market was still running, but after the heavy snow, fewer people came to sell cattle and sheep. After all, the market was not very well established yet, and there were not many buyers either. Snow made things even less convenient, and if it grew too cold, people would stop setting up stalls.
The cattle and sheep Li Long had bought did not even fill half the new pens.
In other words, the newly built stable could easily hold another hundred or two hundred cattle and sheep.
Uncle Lao Luo dried sugar residue in the sun every day. It filled the empty pens and several vacant rooms at Old Ma's Place, with the rest piled outdoors beneath canvas.
Song Ming was still hauling sugar residue over every week. Neither Li Long nor Uncle Lao Luo thought there was too much.
Harimu and the others returned from the Summer Pasture before the first heavy snowfall. Li Long only learned this when he went to the Pastoral Team's caretaker station to deliver supplies