Friday, October 1, 2010

Here and There

Not a lot to report today. The situations in both Michigan at Jack's compound and at the factory where Pat and his team are holed up are unchanged. Will is taking a second day off from patrolling to do an inventory of what Jack's people have that can be used to beef up the defenses there. Pat says that the trucks are about ready to roll out, they are just waiting for the zombies gathering around the factory to disperse. I don't know when I will hear from him again, since he has to sneak out and move about a mile from the factory to call...

Here, things are going well. Work on the two adjoining neighborhoods is almost done. It has gone so quickly since the mornings started getting cold. Quite a sight, I promise you, to watch more than a hundred people hauling and hammering, working in unison to a common purpose. Six men with a pile of wood and panels (since the posts are all up already...) can put up a ten foot wide section of wall ten feet high in about twenty minutes. It doesn't work out that efficiently all the time, of course, but since we have people working on prepping lumber and supplies nearly around the clock, it goes fast.

Roger has made a few wood stoves that seem to work pretty well. He has had to reinforce some of the extra charcoal grills, but much more importantly, he has made a form from which he can quickly produce a lot of stoves from scratch. He has his own team of people that are working on that, including Jess. She is learning to weld with the same amazing speed with which she acquires all new skills. He has some folks stripping cars of their paneling and prepping them to be turned into the pieces needed to make stoves.

Jess is doing well, though I worry about her overexerting herself after the shooting. She tells me that she's tired of sitting about in bed, tired of being waited on. Tired of feeling useless. I can't say I blame her, really, and Roger is making sure that she is working with her still-healing wounds in mind, and not pushing too hard. The truly difficult work of pulling panels off so many of the abandoned cars out in town, reshaping them into flat pieces of metal, is left to those uninjured and better suited to it.

And here I am, working at my computer all day. I haven't had the time to learn new things, join in on the classes I had hoped to attend regularly. Pat, Will, Courtney, Steve, even Jess, are out there doing things that will change our lives, keep us going, building bridges...while I am here crunching numbers and writing on this blog during my lunch break.

I know that what I and my brother do is important. I know that someone has to coordinate and create the plans for our various projects...but at the same time, I think back to just seven months ago when all of this began, and I almost wish for that simplicity.

Then again, I'm not an idiot. I might yearn for the simplicity of it, but not the danger. Not the uncertainty. Not the fear of living without walls. Not the loneliness.

Too maudlin. I know when I'm getting too introspective.

Finally...

I have harped on this the last two days, but remember, October is the month in which we need to spread the word to anyone and everyone we can. It is vital that we all work together to locate survivors wherever they might be that we can help each other through the coming winter. It's going to be cold and hungry for many, and every person who finds this blog, which we hope to make the central point of communication for all survivors, is a person with options for survival during what is likely to be a hard winter.

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