At the dinner table, the family kept discussing building the workshop. They all felt they needed someone watching the place and something fencing it off.
With such a large open space, anyone could come over to look and touch things, and stray cats and dogs would come nosing around too. How could that do?
After some discussion, they decided to cut a few bamboo poles, set them up around the perimeter, and enclose it with worn fishing nets. They did not expect that to keep people out, but at least people would not be able to touch things so easily.
Father and son had to go out to sea and had no time to deal with it. Once the land had been measured tomorrow, they could leave the job to the two brothers-in-law coming over. That would give them something to do right away, instead of leaving them sitting around tomorrow, feeling uneasy about taking the money.
The two sisters-in-law from the Lin family could also join the fish-cleaning crew as soon as they arrived. There would be work for everyone.
Once squid fishing ended, they would put up the walls right away. Since they would have made a good sum of money, setting some aside to build the workshop would not hurt so much.
Over dinner, they settled the basic arrangements for the small workshop.
Outside, the women cleaning squid were still hard at work, their voices much louder than those inside the house. Neighbors had also come over to watch, while children ran and bounced around outside the door.
After eating, they joined in too. Ye Yaodong and Father Ye also made trip after trip carrying water.
Dried squid was generally sun-dried without salt.
To clean a squid, they usually started cutting at the head and sliced down