Published: July 25, 2025
The most important thing for winter preparations is food.
Unlike Japan, there isn’t a supermarket open year-round without breaks. Most of the vegetables that can be harvested are gone, and depending on the weather, it’s uncertain whether the market will even be held. If I don’t want to starve to death, preparing in advance is essential.
That’s why right now, I find myself in a “donadona” state, sitting amid a huge pile of luggage on top of a cart.
It all started with my father waking me up abruptly in the pitch dark, long before dawn.
“Come on, today is the farming village! Are you ready?”
There’s no way I’m ready.
Rubbing my sleepy eyes, I glared at my father as if to say, “What are you talking about?” but my mother and Tulli smiled and nodded enthusiastically, saying, “Of course we’re ready.”
What should I do? I’m the only one who can’t keep up with the conversation.
“By the way, this was decided when Myne had a fever, so maybe you didn’t hear about it,” said my mother with a clap of her hands. Father and Tulli readily agreed, but I felt a little annoyed, as if I were being left out within the family.
I pouted stubbornly, but my family quickly began preparing and seemed to have no time to pay attention to me.
“Anyway, you have to keep warm. Myne had a fever last year too!”
While hurriedly unloading luggage, my mother called out as I changed clothes. Since I wasn’t allowed to stay home alone, I had no choice but to obediently follow along.
...Still, what exactly are we going to do in the farming village?
At first, I planned to walk there on my own as a way to build stamina, but my father, despairing at how slow I was, just plopped me into the cart.
There were barrels of various sizes, many empty bottles, ropes, cloth, salt, lumber, and other supplies loaded onto the cart—things we would probably need in the farming village we were heading to today.
Huh? Could it be that I’m the most useless piece of luggage on the cart?
I squeezed myself into the little extra space I could find and sat down as small as possible.
Father pulled the cart from the front, while mother and Tulli pushed from behind. Somehow, my uselessness felt even more glaring, and I felt a little sad.
“Hey, Mom. Why the farming village?”
“There aren’t many smokehouses in the city that produce lots of smoke, right? So, we rent a shed in the nearest farming village.”
“Smoke-making? Now that you mention it, we bought a lot of meat at the market the other day.”
I thought they had salted or boiled it to process it, but does that mean there’s still some left? Could it be pretty spoiled? Is it safe?
Counting the days on my fingers, I grew more and more uneasy, and my mother gave me an exasperated look.
“What are you talking about? Today’s the day to process pork. We’re buying two pigs in the village, and everyone will share the work and share the meat.”
“Huh?”
My ears momentarily rejected my mother’s words. It took a clear delay for the meaning to reach my brain, and when it did, my body started trembling.
“W-what do you mean by the day to process pork!?”
“It’s a day when the neighbors gather to butcher the pigs, then salt, smoke, make pot meat, bacon, sausages, and so on. Myne, last year... oh right, you had a fever on the back of the cart, didn’t you?”
If I could, I would have liked to have a fever this year too. Then, at least I might have avoided seeing all that.
“Mom, we bought meat at the market the other day, didn't we...?”
“That wasn’t nearly enough, right? Even with everyone processing together, we needed to buy more to make up the shortfall.”
I thought we had bought a huge quantity, but apparently it was just enough to top off what we processed ourselves. I had no idea how much meat was needed for winter preparations.
It seemed unavoidable that we would have to go to the pig butchering, which made me feel gloomy, but unlike me, Tulli pushed the cart with a big smile.
“There’s tasting while helping out, and freshly made sausages become dinner—there’s a lot of fun too. It’s Myne’s first time helping, but doing it all together is a bit like a festival. I’m looking forward to doing it with you this year.”