I drove off with Tama. How long do chickens live again? I couldn’t imagine life without them anymore.
On my way, I stopped at the general store to look for something to bring the Yumotos. As always, I didn’t know what to buy—rice crackers or frozen meat. Yeah, yeah, I know—I’m terrible at choosing presents.
When I arrived, I hopped out of the truck. Machiko-san was in the front lawn picking weeds.
“Hello, Sho-chan!”
“Good morning. Let me help you.”
“Oh, it’s okay. This is...Tama-chan, right? Hello there.”
Tama bowed lightly. Well, more like just tilting her neck forward.
“Can you go get some beverages from the shed?” she asked.
“Sure.”
I took some beer and soft drinks from the fridge in the storage shed next to their house. The beer was for Yumoto-san. A large spider weaving its web between the house and the shed startled me, but it wasn’t hurting anybody, so I just let it be.
I’d told the chickens not to catch any spiders, since they eat bugs. That was probably why Tama left the spider alone.
I opened the glass door and called out to Yumoto-san, who was inside. “Good morning!”
“Hey, Shohei. Come here.”
“Hello, Yumoto-san. I brought you more vipers. I’ll go get them.”
“There’re really a lot of them at your place, huh?”
I put down the beverages near the front door and got the plastic bottles. Tama was next to Machiko-san, eating bugs while she weeded the lawn.
“Sho-chan, she’s amazing! She can even catch mosquitoes!” Talk about reflexes.
“Now then, I’ll go get everything ready for lunch. Tama-chan, do you want some veggies?” The old lady asked. Tama nodded. Machiko-san seemed to pay no mind to Tama’s sudden growth spurt. I guess she doesn’t sweat the details...?
“Whoa, now that’s a huge chicken. Never seen one this big,” Yumoto-san exclaimed, astounded.
“Yeah, I thought so...”
“My, you didn’t have to bring us anything!” Machiko-san exclaimed when I handed her the frozen meat.
“Ha ha...”
She seems happy about it, so it’s okay. The Yumotos often held gatherings, meaning that more food and drink were always in demand. Not vegetables, though. They already have more than enough of those.
“You don’t have to bother with this stuff, y’know,” Yumoto-san said.
The table was plentiful, as usual. It was the season for pickles—I saw various different kinds of pickled vegetables, all homegrown. We also had stir-fried meat, vegetables, and fried dishes, all delicious.
“So, it’s been about three months since you came here, hasn’t it, Shohei?”
“Yes, just about, I think.”
“Rainy season’s just around the corner, so be sure to take good care of your house. Check the roads too. You’re in the mountains. Worst-case scenario, if you run out of food, you can just go look for some. But if the roads get blocked by a landslide, that could be trouble.”
“Thank you for the warning.”
I would’ve probably forgotten about the rainy season if he hadn’t reminded me. The roads were paved, but they were in the mountains, meaning a higher risk of landslides. I had to check for any potentially dangerous places.
Is there anything I can do to actually prevent damage from landslides, though? It’s not as if I can just go and cover the ground in concrete. Only thing I can think of is barricading the roads.
“Mountain roads, huh...? Are there any preventive measures I can take?” I asked.
“First, you gotta look for any particularly dangerous spots. The only thing I know is that a few years back a tree fell on your road, and it became impassable for a while. You gotta stay on the lookout.”
“Impassable, huh...? Do you happen to know how long it stayed closed?”
“I heard they needed heavy machinery to remove it, so probably around ten days or so.”
Whew. Given the need for heavy machinery and what the road was like, ten days was probably pretty fast. There weren’t many people living up on the mountain, after all. They were lucky the road opened up so soon.
“Heavy machinery...”
“You’d have to ask the town leadership or look for a company that deals in that sort of thing.”
“I suppose there aren’t any here in the village?”
“Only small ones. These things are hard to maintain, y’know.”
“Right...”
Life in the mountains was tougher than I’d thought. There were excavators in the village, and also a miniloader, but for anything bigger than that I’d need to go to the nearby town or somewhere else.
“I also wanted to ask you... You know how I got my chickens at the village festival, right? Do you know if there was anyone else who bought dyed chicks from that stall?”
“I wonder. I’ve definitely never seen another chicken that big.” Yumoto-san turned to his wife. “Have you heard anything?”
“I don’t think I have,” she replied. “There is a chicken farm nearby, but they don’t sell chicks.”
“Don’t they hatch the chicks there?”
“They don’t bother with that stuff. The chicks are imported. Or was that only for eggs?”
“Eeeh?!”
Importing chicks? So my chickens are foreigners? I glanced over at Tama, who was in the earthen-floor room eating vegetable scraps.
“Tama, were you actually a foreigner all along?”
Tama raised her head and stared at me with a look that said, What the heck are you on about?
Uh, sorry.
“My, my, Sho-chan,” Machiko-san said with a laugh.
“Chicks sold at stalls like that are usually males unsuitable for meat. You got one rooster and two hens, so you lucked out.”
“I wonder if they’ll lay eggs.”
“I’ve heard they can start laying ’em as soon as four months of age. Usually five months or so.”
“So, I might see eggs around July?”
“I guess so.”
But I’ve got Pochi too, so won’t the eggs be fertilized? I don’t want to eat that...
“Oh yeah, what about vaccines?” Yumoto-san asked.
“What, me?” I did get vaccinated for tetanus and other common diseases...
“No, no, I mean the chickens.”
“Eh?! Do chickens also need vaccines?”
“Of course they do. Especially if they’re laying eggs.”
I guess that makes sense. Humans get a bunch of different vaccines when they’re kids, so it’s only logical that I should also get my chickens vaccinated if I want them to stay by my side for a long time.
It’s a good thing I got to talk to Yumoto-san about this. How do I get my chickens vaccinated, though? I don’t think they’re the type to let someone give them injections.
I had a lot I needed to take care of. For starters, I decided to pay the chicken farm a visit.