[Verse 1]
I bought a large taro corm for 50 yen at my usual farm stand.
Contrary to the forecast, rain was expected much sooner;
when I stepped outside and looked up ten minutes prior.
[Pre-Chorus 1]
The sky had been clear,
so I was startled by the sudden, driving rain.
[Chorus 1]
Oh no – I hadn’t expected it to start so soon.
When I checked the forecast again,
I saw the rain was intermittent.
and would stop in about ten minutes.
[Verse 2]
As soon as the rain let up,
I went to the supermarket to buy tea leaves.
I was out of stock and needed to get some today.
and then hurried back home.
[Pre-Chorus 2]
It started to sprinkle a bit on my way back,
but I kept riding my motorbike anyway.
[Chorus 2]
On the way, I bought eggs from a vending machine in the poultry.
When I got home, the sky was clear,
and my neighbor was waving to beckon me
over from the field in front of the house.
[Verse 3]
I turned off the engine, put down the kickstand,
and walked over wondering what was up;
he was in the middle of harvesting sweet potatoes
and proposed selling me the tractor he’d bought used—for 200,000 yen.
[Pre-Chorus 3]
To me, that price seemed too high for an old tractor that had already been bought used and then heavily worn in.
[Chorus 3]
Then he asked if I wanted any of the harvested sweet potatoes.
He explained that the potatoes turned out so magnificent.
because he’d sterilized the soil,
applied massive amounts of fertilizer, and used pesticides.
[Bridge]
But I thought, simply put,
that sweet potatoes are a product of photosynthesis
determined by leaf surface area, hours of sunlight, and rainfall.
[Final Chorus]
The volume is really just decided by the time elapsed between planting the seedlings and harvesting;
surely sterilization and pesticides had nothing to do with it,
and fertilizer probably didn’t matter all that much either.
Still, I was happy to get them for free.