Chapter 4 (1/2)
Farm Village Arc ④ – Anti-Hunger Plan
Geez, it took me forever to translate this one.
The link and the footnote are two different things, please keep that in mind. I still haven’t solved these things in an elegant way :
Enjoy!
Farm Village Arc ④ – Anti-Hunger Plan
The next day Maru asked me if I wanted to go to the riverside again, but I politely refused.
I-It’s not like I’m being bullied at all, alright?!
It’s because I still have things to do.
…but eight year old girls are kinda scary.
Sniff, I’m just a precious young girl.
After that, I sent my two elder brothers off and entered the storehouse, right next to us. Saying “Excuse me” and opening the door, Jirou was thres.h.i.+ng the previously harvested rice.
With a rock…
He’s really thres.h.i.+ng the rice with a rock.
Leaving an ear of rice on a large rock and holding another big one in his hand, he’s shaving the rice off.
The first time I saw this spectacle was when mother was carrying me on her back.
I was shocked.
What’s this, the Stone Age!? Is what I thought.
I kinda guessed by looking that there aren’t any electronic goods (like no telephone poles…) but I did a.s.sume they would have a Thousand Seed Thresher!
That’s why the previous harvest still isn’t threshed.
Just what is with this village. As if they threw away all their civilized convenience…
Just when I thought that, I looked left and right in the village and thought “how was that made?”
For example, a water tank. Everyone calls it ‘stone for water’.
A 1m square, carved into the stone that catches rain water for domestic use.
Particularly surprising was, that it wasn’t made of concrete but basalt-like hard stone and seemed gouged out.
Which reminds me of what the girls said, that it was someone calling themselves ‘Magician’ that made this tank.
This time, let’s ask the so called ‘Magician’ (pupupu).
Casually asking about things things they don’t understand is a child’s right after all!
But before the ‘Magician’ comes, I’ve still got things to do.
Calling out to the diligently thres.h.i.+ng Jirou I said: “Can I have some straw? Oh, and can I be here too?”
Upon which Jirou looked at me with a bewildered face and nodded deeply.
Jirou doesn’t really talk much. Even though we live together, I haven’t really heard his voice that often. He’s the silent kind of boy. He’s got blond hair, but otherwise looks simple.
I’ve gotten permission, so I grabbed some threshed straw bundles and just sat down where I could. The goal is making a tool to catch fish.
If I’m not mistaken, making something with small holes that open and setting it up in the river would allow fish to come in, then making it so that they can’t get out again should be a trap for small fish.
(確か、小さな穴の開いた篭みたいなものを川の中に設置し、その穴から魚が入ってくるが、出口側は、凸になっているため、外には出られないという仕組みの小魚用の罠があったはず)
Making something like that should be easy.
Even though I can imagine the complete thing, I’ve never made anything with straw, so first I’ll make a pair of straw sandals. I’ve made cloth sandals in elementary school once after all.
That time it was cloth, but doing the same with straw should work.
Once I’ve gotten used to knitting straw, I’ll make fish traps.
Chaotically pursuing trial and error, then losing strength because of an empty belly, it took about 10 days to make one trap for small fish, one small basket for carrying mountain herbs and a straw hat.
It wasn’t huge trouble, but as a one year old child I’ve used up my strength countless times and slept like a log. Actually I mainly slept. After all, sleeping brings up a child well!
So sleeping totally my job!