Chickens in Heaven

For posterity's sake, it would be interesting (for me, perhaps not anyone else) if I went into excruciating detail about how we spent our time in Okayama last week. However, it's 11:30 and I do want to go to bed tonight, so I'll just settle for one story:
Last Wednesday, Aya, Ken, Koji and I were to dispatched to the middle of Okayama to pick up some chickens. Aya's dad had bought some chickens at the same place last year and had success with them, so he wanted to expand his collection. Since we were the only ones around who didn't have to report to work, off we went.
It was two hours of driving through winding mountain roads, some of which reminded me of the Road to Hana in Maui, Hawaii, but thankfully didn't make me as sick. At last, we arrived at Makiba no Yakata.
First, we took turns walking around the restaurant and gift shop so that Koji's nap would last longer. Once he woke up, we went into the restaurant for lunch. The lunch was delicious; I wish I had taken a picture of it. The small factory attached to the restaurant makes ham, sausage and cheese, and all of these things were featured in the lunch set that Aya and I tried. Unfortunately, Koji spotted the fruit and yogurt dessert that came with my lunch before he had eaten much of his sausage.
So a battle of the wills ensued. I'm dying for him to understand the idea of "first, next, last". I tried to tell him that I would give it to him after he ate more of his sausage, but he didn't get that and started screaming. I even took him outside for a lecture and leg slap, but that didn't really help either, even though he gave his requisite "Hai" when I asked if he understood what I was saying.
Eventually he did eat most of his sausage, after Ken came up with the disgusting and yet clever idea of having him dip the sausage in the yogurt...
Next we went down to the athletic field to play. There were two slides, a seesaw, a couple of wooden climbing forts, and best of all, two zip lines there. I was so excited...see picture above...the time we spent there reminded me that I LOVE to "play" outside, but I don't get around to it often because I don't like to do it by myself.
(Major digression from the story: in fact, this is a big problem for me in many areas of my life. Perhaps other extroverts have this dilemma? It's this--if you know me well you've heard this before, so I apologize--I have quite a lot of interests, but I don't pursue most of them because I don't want to do anything alone. That sounds really childish, somehow, but it's just true for me. The exception to this rule is reading, though even that is more fun with the Book Club! For awhile, before I was married, I tried to overcome this challenge by traveling to various places alone. It was sort of fun, but not really. I still wanted to share the experience with someone, which meant that I was left desperately trying to describe it later to some half-hearted audience. This is a topic that doesn't have an ending or a solution for me, so I'll just leave it abruptly here and get back to the story.)
After we had worked up a sweat, which wasn't too hard to do because it was so hot, we went off to visit the horses. Koji wanted to try and feed them, so at first we were picking grass here and there. Once we started observing the area more, we realized that horse snacks--carrots that had been cut in thirds lengthwise--were for sale, 100 yen for three carrot strips. Spendy carrots! Had we known, we would have brought our own!
Koji thought feeding the horses was lots of fun. He said "motto, motto" (more, more) and I was persuaded to spend 200 yen on two carrots. It was worth it for the great pictures!
Finally, we were ready to tackle our mission: picking up the chickens! Once we had stopped by an office to get directions and pay for the chickens (1000 yen each) we drove off to another area of the farm, where a man drove up with a forklift carrying two crates of chickens.
They were meant to be "chicks," but they looked pretty well like grown chickens to me! Yikes! The guy picked them up any which way, wings, neck, whatever, and stuffed them into the boxes we had brought, five to a box and ten total.
Once we had taped the lids closed (but leaving some air holes on the sides), we put the boxes in the trunk and headed for home. The chickens were making a great ruckus in the trunk. It sounded to me like a fight, but what do I know about chicken relations? Koji heard them too, and kept asking me, "Tori?! Tori?!" (bird?!)
We stopped twice to give the chickens some air. Some time after the second stop, but while we were still at least 30 minutes away from Aya's parents' home, we heard some kind of un-chicken-like shriek and then all was still.
Being city kids and not knowing much about chickens, we weren't suspicious. Maybe we should have been. When we arrived and called Aya's dad out to open the boxes, rather than the lively chickens that had been stuffed in a mere two hours earlier, we found ten piles of feathers and a few smears of blood.
ALL of the chickens were dead!
Koji had been looking forward to seeing the chickens, but I wasn't feeling up for trying to explain death to a two year old, so I just told him "Tori nenne" (birds sleeping). Thankfully (or regretfully, I'm still not sure which), he latched onto my explanation.
The next morning at breakfast, we were still shocked by the unexpected deaths of the chickens--more our naivete than anything, after all, the trunk of the car wasn't air conditioned or ventilated and it was a super hot day!--and as we talked about it, Koji, clever boy, chose that moment to ask "Tori? Nenne?"
Rest in peace, chickens.