Chapter 35:
Pierre Architect is a conscientious and responsible, even a little stubborn little old man. As soon as he accepts Wei Wei's job, he must fix her house.
The serious and responsible architect spent nearly a month considering everything from the surrounding environment of the house to the choice of building materials before finally starting to draw the design drawings.
In the design drawing, he designed the house as a two-story single-family building with a loft covering an area of 300 square metres. The internal layout is divided according to Wei Wei's requirements. Each space is marked with a purpose, which is very clear.
He is probably used to repairing buildings such as monastery churches. The shape of the house on the design has a clear church style, but compared to the booming decoration and fancy structure of the Gothic churches that are emerging now, his design tends to be simple and simple, with a low-key beauty, which is in line with Wei Wei's aesthetics.
The place marked as the back garden has a pattern representing the dry toilet, and the stables and livestock sheds are connected to the side of the dry toilet. Of course, he did not forget the cellar, Wei Wei's request. The entrance to the cellar is on the side of the house near the kitchen. The location is far away from the place where Wei Wei pointed out for him to dig the well before, to ensure that there will be no water seepage.
"According to your request, the window will be made large and can be opened and closed freely. Considering that the current glass cannot be cut too large, I refer to the painted window of the church, divide the window into equal small lattices, and then inlaid glass, what do you think? If it seems too simple, we can also add some stained-glass on it as decoration."
Pierre specially drew a detailed drawing of the window in the corner of the design drawing. This window is a push-out type with symmetrical left and right sides. The lines of the window indicate the division of the glass, which is divided into two parts from a window commonly used in the 1970s and 1980s. Casement windows with small panes of glass or three panes are almost identical.
"There is no need for extra decoration. This is all it takes."
Wei Wei was very satisfied with the design drawn by Pierre, she asked for some details, and after getting a reply, she decided that the design drawing did not need to be modified anymore.
"The sooner the quality is guaranteed, the better. Are there any problems with materials and manpower?"
"I can get the materials from the merchants I know. The materials I used to build the church for the Count were also purchased from them. The manpower can be purchased from them. It is best to recruit people with some craftsmanship in the surrounding villages and towns, what do you think?"
The workers who came when the church was renovated before were all serfs from the earl, but in Wei Wei's place, she can only recruit workers.
Wei Wei nodded: "I will arrange for people to recruit workers. As for building materials, can I trouble you to contact those businessmen and ask them to show me some samples?"
Although I believe in the ability of the other party, it is related to my own future. She still has to check the house.
Pierre, of course, had no opinion. He said that he could write to contact those businessmen, but because these people did not live in Sardinson County, there might be some delays in time.
Wei Wei asked him: "If the distance is too far, will there be a problem with the delivery of materials?"
She heard that there were many robbers operating in the Prady Empire, and many of them are disguised as knights under the lords of various places.
"Don't worry about this. They are all businessmen who have been in business for decades, and they are very guaranteed in this regard. Even if there are some accidents, the risk is not with you."
He has been in this business all his life, and he knows There are naturally many building materials merchants.
"That's good. If you can, I hope you can contact more merchants, and I will make the most suitable choice. I hope they can give me a 'reasonable' price, not a Nobel Prize." She deliberately emphasized The word"reasonable" was added.
"Of course, I can also pay for the tolls for those who are not selected, and I won't let them go in vain."
The merchants from the east side will cooperate with the purchasers of the big families and sell them to their masters at high prices. In the same way, there is also an unwritten rule in the West that "things sold to nobles are several times more expensive than those sold to ordinary civilians." She doesn't care how other nobles will be fooled by her. As soon as Pierre heard it, she knew that although she was a foreign lady, she obviously understood the way of the businessmen: "Okay, I will invite a few more businessmen I know to come to Sardinson."
A businessman with a dark heart in this regard silently drew out the invitation list.
The building materials have not yet been purchased, but the foundations and cellars can be dug first. Regarding the recruitment of personnel, Wei Wei called George, the steward, to look for it in the surrounding villages and towns according to Pierre's request. Recruitment notice to him.
George has now officially become Wei Wei's steward. His salary is paid by her, and his military service is also for her. Felix gave this person and his family to Wei Wei, as her payment for helping to settle accounts.
George has no dissatisfaction with this, even if he was chosen by Butler Barton to be in charge of manure because of Wei Wei's suggestion, he was registered with Felix.
Because from the current situation, he felt that being one of the many stewards of the Count is not as good as being the only steward under the countess in the future. Compared with the former, the latter is more likely to be valued by Felix.
Moreover, Wei Wei is generous, and she often gets some extra rewards for doing things for her, so many people are now envious of him and the few serfs who work for her.
Wei Wei doesn't understand about building a house, so she doesn't mix it up casually. Professional matters still need to be professional.
Temporarily finalizing this item, Wei Wei helped Felix to complete the final batch of accounting. After confirming that it was correct, he could finally withdraw from the daily "office work" and devote himself to his own planting business.
God knows that she wants to wash her eyes when she sees numbers now, and she can see a string of numbers flying around when she sleeps.
It's time to get up close and personal with nature.
It's almost May now, and the corn and wheat planted in March are growing very well. The interpplanted alfalfa and soybeans did not affect their growth, but complemented each other. The latter provided the former with more nutrients and allowed them to grow. Better and faster.
The corn has already pulled out the filaments, and it will not take long for male flowers to open at the top to enter the pollination stage for pollination, and the wheat is also growing faster than the wheat in the field outside, and there are vague signs of starting to head.
Similarly, the growth of sweet potatoes is also very vigorous. Because the planting area has been expanded, the sweet potato field has increased from the original one to three. The inconsistency of time before and after leads to inconsistent growth of sweet potatoes in each subterranean field. This is from the growth of sweet potato seedlings on the ground. It can be seen.
When Wei Wei came over, several children of the gardener Terrence were helping her to fertilize her in the field. The fertilizer was urine. The urine from the servants of the castle had been fermented for about a week before use. The proportion of water, fertilizing the crops in the field once a week can supplement the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium that the plants need, so that the plants grow better.
Of course, because of the source of the fertilizer, Wei Wei could not fertilize by herself. Even if she wanted to, she would be stopped by the people around her, thinking that it was an act that was not in line with her status as a noble, and it would affect her reputation if it was spread out. She hired Terrence's children to do the job for her.
It's not impossible to ask a few gardeners directly, mainly because when they first came to help Wei Wei, each of them got a big steamed bun. Afterwards, the grateful children would secretly help her to pull weeds and catch insects, Wei Wei felt. Instead of asking them to help in private and be free child labor without paying back, it is better to offer them this job and pay them some food, sometimes bread, sometimes steamed buns, and occasionally even pancakes with stuffing (mostly depends on what the kitchen does that day).
When several children were growing up, they originally looked thin and small because of malnutrition, but now they were fed by Wei Wei for almost two months. The spirit is also much better.
Seeing Wei Wei coming, the five children, big and small, all stopped their work and said hello to her.
It's just that the expressions on the children's faces are not very happy, and the reason is that they have found that there have been more bugs in these fields recently.
The corn, wheat and sweet potatoes that Wei Wei planted are separate from those that the gardener is responsible for. The children only need to be responsible for these small pieces of land. There is not much work every day, mainly weeding and catching insects, and then fertilizing regularly according to Wei Wei's requirements. It can be said that the work is very simple.
It is precisely because the simple workload is not large, so they can quickly find that there are more insects in the field.
They pointed out the bugs they found today on Wei Wei.
I saw a small green spot lying on the corn leaf, which is a very common pest — aphids.
The size of the aphids is very small, but when they appear, they are almost densely attached to the leaves, which makes people panic like a dense phobia.
These aphids were killed immediately by the children, so the leaves only left some traces and did not harm the plant itself.
Not only the corn, but the wheat next to it also showed signs of aphids. Although they have been eliminated by the children, there is no guarantee that they will still appear.
Wei Wei went to the kitchen to find some garlic. After mashing it, adding more than ten times the amount of water and soaking it in water for 24 hours is a natural insecticide. It can effectively drive and kill these pests such as aphids, red spiders, and black worms. Effect.
In fact, dried chili peppers or water made from pepper can also be used as insecticides, but there are no peppers now and peppers are precious spices, and the cost of insecticides is too high, so garlic water is more economical.
While soaking in the garlic water, she left the castle with a few children.
It didn't go very far, just a wasteland outside the back door of the castle.
She told a few children with jars and hoes about today's task — catch ladybugs.
When it comes to pest killers in the garden, ladybugs are definitely the most common and powerful ones . In modern times, some people will specially raise it and sell it to a farmer to kill insects.
Several children were very excited about this task. Although they were all catching insects, for them, catching insects in the garden is probably different from catching insects in the wild. The former is work and the latter is entertainment.
Except for a few insects, ladybugs are mostly beneficial insects. They move slowly and fly slowly, but they have a good appetite. They like to eat small pests such as aphids, scale insects, spider mites and usually like to find them on specific plants. Plants such as dandelion, yarrow, cornflower, and even garlic cilantro are its favorite foraging sites, so just look for these plants to find ladybugs.