Manufacturing

Today is a new day, and I feel pretty good. I spent the morning working with the council and a few others on a bill of rights, and most of us feel it's pretty solid. The nuts and bolts of the compound are running more or less smoothly at the moment, which means that duty rosters are worked out for the next week, the walls are manned, and people are fed and watered. In fact, I feel kind of scared about how well that is all working.

Because, of course, many people are still unhappy. Not the general "we live in a world of zombies" unhappy, but the more specific issues that have come up lately. But I will rant about them some other time, because today is a very important day.

One of our folks went out as a scout yesterday, to help in our search for more supplies to build the wall with, and he struck gold. He found a heavy equipment dealer in some county way to the south of here that I have never heard of that has some choice trucks and other machines used for cutting, transporting, and finishing lumber. This is a HUGE deal, as it will allow us to really get the walls how we want them, and given the rather copious trees around here, we can build them as big as we like.

So we are halting all construction at the moment, because we will need every available body here to maintain sufficient guards on watch. A bunch of us are going to have to go on this trip, my brother and I included. It will take us several hours to get there, god knows how long to load things up and possibly find gas if what we take with us isn't enough, and likely most of a day to get back.

This isn't like some of my other trips. No small group dashing in to pull out people. This is an expedition, and it seems to be drawing people together in common purpose. I like to see that. Yeah, folks are still upset, but knowing that we will be able to manufacture a lot of what we need is more uplifting than I had ever thought possible.

We will be leaving in the morning, at least twenty of us, if not more, and with luck, we can make it back in three days. But knowing our luck with trips out amongst the living dead, I won't be making bets on that.

Jess is staying home on this one.

She's two weeks overdue. I'm smiling.