Parrot Aoi and Raven Ado

In the hot spring hotel, the number of plum branches in sunflower metal cups is increasing day by day, from budding to blooming, the faint plum fragrance wafts in the lobby, attracting guests who come and go can't help but stop and watch.

This day was cloudy again, and the cold northwest wind rolled fine velvet-shaped snowflakes, glued them together in the air, and flakes, goose-feather-sized snowflakes fell from the sky one by one.

In this ghostly weather, no matter whether it is human or animal, as long as they are willing to die, they will hide at home and refuse to go out easily.

There are guests who come to the hot springs from the hotel. After enjoying the hot spring bath, they wear thick bathrobes and invite friends to come to the bar in the lobby for a drink.

This is already the fourth snowfall after the beginning of winter, and each snowfall is bigger than the last. Even though the water vapor on Simu Mountain is rich and the temperature changes rapidly, such frequent and large-scale continuous snowfall is rare on the mountain. of.

Along with the heavy snow comes the temperature drop. Less than two weeks into winter, the lowest temperature has dropped below minus ten degrees, and it is making great strides towards minus twenty degrees.

Aoi stood on the bird stand, lowered her head and absent-mindedly tore the piece of strawberry she was holding on her claws, but raised her head from time to time, keeping her eyes on the weather outside.

No way, even in this kind of windy and snowy day, Du still insisted on fulfilling his lord's duties, and flew out early in the morning to inspect the territory.

Aoi really wanted to ask, who would choose to make trouble in this kind of weather?

Guys with more brains will hide in the nest obediently, and those who come out casually, I'm afraid they will come out and return to the nest.

But Du insisted, and Aoi couldn't stop it. After all, it had never been a lord before, and it didn't know what to do, so it had no right to dictate to Du.

Seeing that the snow outside is getting heavier and heavier, and Du who flew out to patrol has not come back, Aoi is naturally very worried.

But at this time, the TV in the lobby rest area began to broadcast the people's livelihood program again. This time, the content of the program was to deal with the abnormally rapid cooling in the county in the past two weeks and several consecutive heavy snowfalls.

On the screen, the young host in a cherry blossom pink professional suit held a microphone and asked the meteorological expert specially invited by the program group: "Professor Iketani, we all know that our county has been plagued by cold snaps since last week. .Not only has the temperature dropped significantly, but the snowfall has also increased by 30.00% compared to the same period in the same period. Everyone says that this year must be a cold winter. What do you think about this?"

Professor Iketani, who was sitting at the lecture table in the TV with a gentle temperament, adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses when he heard the words, and after a little reorganization of his thoughts, he answered: "It's too early to say whether this winter will be cold or warm. Because the judgment of cold winter and warm winter is to be determined by looking at the daily average temperature after the end of winter......."

Wow, the professor on the TV show said a lot, but in the end, he summed it up in one sentence. He doesn't know whether this winter will be warm or cold. He won't know until the end of winter.

The hostess who asked the question obviously didn't expect such an answer, and the scene was a little awkward. Fortunately, although the lady is young, she still has the professionalism she should have. Upon seeing this, she immediately said: "Okay, we Thank you Professor Iketani for your professional answers, so may I ask if there will be blizzards recently?"

The hostess lady's skill in smoothing the field is extraordinary, and she immediately turned the topic back, but even so, the sunflower parrot who listened to a lot of nonsense carefully at the side still gave it to the professor on TV. A contemptuous look from Mr.

Cut, when the winter is over and the cherry blossoms on the mountain are in bloom, what is the use of knowing whether it is a cold winter or a warm winter?

Who wouldn't let it go after the fact?Is this still useful for research?

Thinking of this, Aoi couldn't help but began to shake her head again and again. It really couldn't understand some of the human beings with the title of brick family. They spoke clearly, but it turned out to be useless.

Those fellows are not so much to the group as the sparrow is to the bird.

But this time Aoi's contemptuous gaze didn't last long, because Du, who went out to patrol in the wind and snow, came back.

Seeing the black raven with icicles on its head and snowflakes on its feathers flying in from outside the door, the sunflower parrot, who had been worried all morning, immediately greeted him with a smile on his face.

After Du shook off the frost and snow from his body, he still waited until his body was warmed up before allowing Aoi, who was shy from the cold, to approach him.

The two birds leaned together to share food, and continued to watch the TV program on people's livelihood that Aoi just complained about in their hearts.

This time, Professor Iketani, who is not as useful as a sparrow in Aoi's heart, finally said the good news, that is, this cold snap is about to pass, and after tomorrow's snow falls, the large-scale cooling this time is even It's over for now.

At the dinner table at Hayakawa’s house in the evening, in order to replenish energy for the family members who have worked hard and studied all day in the cold weather, Grandma Hayakawa specially made sukiyaki for everyone this evening.

In the cold night, there is nothing more enjoyable than a family sitting around the dining table happily eating hot sukiyaki.

After dinner, Grandpa Hayakawa walked to the window with hot tea. At this time, the heavy snow had stopped, but it brought a thick and fluffy white frost to the earth.

"Father, are you enjoying the snow? Hey, the snow has stopped?"

Hayakawa Chengyi, who was also holding hot tea in his hand, came to his father's side, leaned out and looked out, and saw that not only was there no longer snow in the sky, but a crescent moon rose high into the sky.

"Yes, the snow has stopped and the sky has cleared up. Let's go to the warehouse to find some tools in a while, and we will probably have to mobilize everyone to go out to clear the snow tomorrow morning."

The scenic spots on Simu Mountain have limited manpower, and it would be foolish to ask those dozen or so people to be responsible for the snow removal work of the entire Simu Mountain.

Therefore, the residents on the mountain and the operators of hotels and hotels established their own winter snow removal teams decades ago. After every heavy snowfall, these people can be seen beside the streets on the mountain.

Hayakawaya Onsen covers a large area, and the work of snow removal after each snowfall is very heavy.

But even so, after cleaning up the area that should be cleaned in their own home, Hayakawa and his son will still bring tools, call some companions, and go to the mountain road to clean up the snow.

In the words of Grandpa Hayakawa, it is their duty to provide safe and tidy roads for guests and tourists as businessmen who run hotels on the mountain.

That's what he said, and that's what he did, and the good reputation and word-of-mouth of the Hayakawa family was also spread in this way.

Early the next morning, sure enough, there were scenes of people working together to sweep the snow everywhere up and down the mountain.

After the Hayakawa family organized staff to clean the inside and outside of the hotel, they also mobilized staff to clean out the mountain roads connecting the hotel and the trails that the surrounding villagers often walk.

A group of young and strong lads, wielding shovels and shovels and other tools, were working outside in full swing. Even if their faces and hands were red and swollen by the cold wind, they could not resist their enthusiasm.

After working outside for more than two hours, everyone took off their hats when they came back, all in the state of being able to smoke.

The people who kept their hands in the hotel looked at the frost on their eyebrows and eyelashes, and took hot towels to wipe their faces with distress.

The head chef, Mr. Chi Tian, ​​who was in charge of the logistics support for the snow removal work, brought out the ginger tea that had been boiled long ago to keep them out of the cold. Don’t drink too much, save room for lunch. Today’s lunch is beef bone soup ramen, I got up early in the morning and stewed beef bone soup for more than 4 hours, it’s fragrant and thick, I guarantee you will love it.”

The head chef is an expert in making noodles, and his specialty is all kinds of soup noodles.

However, he seldom makes beef bone soup noodles because it takes time and effort. Today he is willing to cook beef bone soup noodles himself, which is really a surprise to everyone.

"Hey, that's great, Mr. Chi Tian's beef bone noodle soup, I can eat a bowl as big as a washbasin by myself."

"What's that? I can eat a bowl as big as a basin."

"I, I can eat a bowl the size of a bathtub."

Everyone heard the words and looked for the reputation, wanting to see who can brag so much, but when they saw Mr. Dashan, the big stomach king from the logistics department, they all nodded their heads to express their understanding. It's bragging.

After all, this person is called Mr. Stomach of the Four Mushan fans. Thinking about the big stomach king competition held in the city, this person easily won the championship.

"Hey, where is the general manager? Has any of you seen Mr. Cheng Yi?"

"Ah, yes, why didn't you see Manager Hayakawa?"

"Will you go back to the office first?"

"Impossible. Everyone came back together. I have been standing here. If he returns to the office, I will definitely be able to see him."

Mr. Chi Tian, ​​the head chef who was walking back with a big teapot heard everyone's doubts, slowed down his pace and replied, "Cheng Yi, I just saw him go to the kitchen to clean up the leftovers. Bread and some not-so-fresh fruits. He probably wanted to go out to feed the birds again when he took those things in this weather."

The climate in Simu Mountain is changeable, and the winter time is at least two weeks longer than that at the foot of the mountain.

Whenever the mountains are closed by heavy snow, not only the life and work of human beings will not change, but the wild birds and other wild animals on the mountains will also face the crisis of food shortage.

The vast snow covered everything on the ground, so that the birds who went out to look for food could not find anything to eat.

If it was just one scene, it would be fine after it melted, but this kind of continuous snowflake is very likely to kill the birds who have not been able to find food for a long time.

In the field of wild life, birds are an important part of the food chain, especially for Simu Mountain, which is popular in spring due to the sea of ​​cherry blossoms. If the birds are starved to death on a large scale due to lack of food in winter, It means that there is a high possibility of a large-scale pest infestation in spring.

The farmers on the mountain have known about this for a long time, so when they receive the goods every autumn, they will leave the fruits that are not easy to pick on the branches of the fruit trees, in order to give the birds, monkeys, squirrels and other small animals that stay behind. some rations.

Hayakawa Chengichi, who gave birth to birds, even had the habit of delivering food to the birds after snowfall.

After every heavy snowfall, Mr. Cheng Yi will clear out an open space in a place with few people.

Find the unbroken rice grains, bread crumbs, fruits, vegetable leaves, etc. from the hotel kitchen waste, and bring them here to feed sparrows, great tits, crows, ravens, and other local left-behind birds that have no winter habits.

Aoi knew that his master had this habit, so he knew what the master was going to do when he saw the huge pile of food he brought out from the kitchen.

It was the first time for Du to survive the winter, and it was very novel to see this. After listening to Aoi's explanation, Du looked at the bag of food and fell into deep thought. He was thinking about the situation of the ravens in the south of the mountain. From experience, there are so many birds in the flock, so they should be able to survive smoothly, right?