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 threshing the previously harvested rice.
With a rock…
He’s really threshing 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 assume 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 threshing 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!

And with that, I asked Maru to take me to the riverside again.
With the NEW straw sandals & straw hat!

Since it’s a rice straw hat, it’s hard compared to a wheat straw hat and it’s irritatingly pickling.
I might have failed.

Concerning the fish basket, everyone in my family asked what it was. That’s what the reaction was, but as for the sandals and the basket they were greatly shocked and father even asked me to make a few for him. Whenever those are needed, they buy from from peddling merchants. They’ve got straw right at their feet, what a waste!
Usually they use straw to reinforce the houses (since they’re made of straw) laying it on top like mats and it seems the rest is just burned. If the Mottainai-ghost ¹ comes out, it’s not my problem!

So when we, the ‘Sibling Trio of the End’ arrived at the riverside, most other village children were there as well. Looking at my sandals and hat they were chattering about them. My sandals got an “ah that’s nice” kind of jealous reaction, but my hat didn’t. Well, I gotta admit it’s pretty uncool, this thing. It doesn’t do anything, other than being irritating.
It’s kinda shaped like Kasajisou’s hat ².

Still, to keep my skin white, a tan is taboo! A woman that doesn’t choose her ways for beauty, that’s me – Ryou!
(美しさのためには手段を選らばない女、それが私リョウちゃんなのです！！)

After enjoying the opinion meeting on my sandals and hat, I set up the traps in the river.

The traps are of course my night shift-less traps for small fish. I put some stones into them and sunk them into the river. When I come again tomorrow, they will be full with small fish.
… probably.

“Listen Maru, I want to go to the mountains!” After reaching the first stage of catching fish, I called out to my kind brother. Shuu is playing something like tag with the other kids.
“Mountains? Why do you want to go to the mountains?”
“I want to catch some things to eat at the mountains. Put them into the new baskets!”

I tried looking with the best upturned and encouraging eyes. Well I probably don’t have to, my kind brother Maru will probably come with me anyway. That’s what I thought.

However, what! I was refused!

“The mountains are dangerous. Kids can’t go there alone. There are monsters there after all.”

That’s the point my brother made. What, Monsters!? Is some more Fantasy mixed in there?
Like with the magicians. It’s probably just wild dogs or a bear, right? Saying something like ‘monsters’. Puripuri. (this is supposed to sound angry)
Well, either way a place with bears or wild dogs might be dangerous for children to go alone. Just a little to the surroundings of the mountain – I’ve kind of want to say that, but let’s give up. Besides, there should be edible wild grasses around this riverside as well. I’ll just be patient for now.

“Then, will you come and pick some eatable grasses around the river?”
“Sure… but are there are any wild grasses like that? Can you tell that?”
“… before, when I made the sandals, Jirou taught me.”

Yeah, when a one year old child suddenly tells you ‘that’s edible and that isn’t’, it’s scary right? That’s way too suspicious!
I messed up. Just like that I used the name of that silent boy. Please forgive me Jirou.

Like that, Maru, saying something like ‘did Jirou know lots about grasses’, caved into my request and we went to harvest some wild grasses.
I love my kind brother!

There were quite a few edible wild grasses at the riverside.
Dandelions, Watercress, Japanese Mugwort, Fleabane and Jersey Cudweed.

Picking based on the information of a picture book I’ve read in my previous life, outside of Watercress and Japanese Mugwort, I haven’t eaten any of these. I knew you could eat Dandelions, but I didn’t think I’d actually ever eat them. But the current me was different.
If it can fill my belly, then I’ll eat anything – that’s the condition I was in.

Just a while after we started picking, the small bag was already full, so we took an afternoon nap and went home together.

In our retreat, mother made porridge with just a little bit of dry rice and I had mother put in bit of the grasses. I’ve already escaped from the milk life. I mean, there’s just no milk coming out. So it’s babyfood right now. Or rather, everyone in the family is on babyfood-tier right now…

At the beginning mother made an ‘Is it edible? It’s safe right?’-kind of expression, but when I vaguely said that the other villagers are eating it too, she obediently put the grasses in the pot.
That days dinner, the porridge with with the soup stock of wild grasses, had a taste of nourishment that spread to all corners of the body. I was relieved as my other family members all ate with a satisfied expression. Finally, we’ll eat fish tomorrow!

…probably

^{1. Developed in 1982, the Mottainai-Ghost was a mascot to prevent people from throwing away food they didn’t like. It was published with that advertisement. It’s still referenced here and there.}

^{2. Reference to a myth with relation to the figure.}

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