Wednesday, June 24, 2020
Last night broke me. I had to sit and listen to little Nadley whimper in hunger as I tried to sleep after my watch. She is six and she has no clue why the world went to shit. She just wants her stomach not to hurt while she wants to sleep. I want her stomach full too. With Mr. Mitchell buried in the woods yesterday, raving for help, Gary and I are headed over to see if we can't be of some "neighborly" help to them. I doubt we will find anyone living there but animals and those will be coming home with us along with anything else we can ferry across through the woods. If we have too many chickens, mmm doesn't that sound like a good problem.
The crops are producing plenty, but there are five of us to feed. We can only fish and hunt so much. There is also more work to be done if we want to plant bigger next year. If we make next year. I am starting to have my doubts that all of us will see the spring and summer isn't even half done. I keep those reservations to myself. But as I look at what we have done but at how we struggle and the mistakes we are constantly doing, I can't help but wonder which face I won't see. We in the modern world have all but forgotten how to live this agrarian lifestyle and here is where we will pay. When the modern world is stripped away, I am beginning to wonder how many will die of starvation and how many will choose like Brad did, that quicker route? Would it be just more humane, in point of fact, the last humane thing we possibly can do, rather than suffer through starvation? I hope that Mitchell Farm has plenty on it, even if there might still be a partially living person there. I don't want to answer that question. Brad was braver.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.