Hope and Tragedy

My trip out to the farms was interesting and productive. Also, AWESOME.

Though the zombies managed to trample most of our crops, there were a fair number of potatoes undamaged beneath the soil. Enough to feed us for a few days, anyway. Most of the farm equipment was in good shape, so we've got tools to use as we begin the process of converting the annex over to farmland.

What made the trip truly great was the chickens. I guess zombies have a hard time catching them, which really shouldn't come as a surprise. We found about sixty, and teams are still looking for more. Chickens mean eggs. I know that sounds a little third grade, but I'm ecstatic.

Huh. I guess it took zombies destroying society to get me excited about farm animals. Strange world we live in.

We've also been trying to find the group of Latino people we saw in Shelbyville quite a while back. They didn't seem to want much to do with us even though they saved the lives of we who were on the ill-fated trip into their territory, so we haven't tried. We've been avoiding that area for the most part, not wanting to come into conflict with people who helped us and clearly wanted to be left alone.

We're at a desperate point now, so polite indifference is no longer an option. Yes, we've had a little luck in the last few days, but we need to explore every possible avenue. I'm hoping we'll be able to find them today, as I'm about to go out with a few small hunting parties to search Shelbyville. If we can establish communication (we've got a few people that speak Spanish) then we'll work on figuring out if trade is anything close to possible. I'm hoping so. Anything we could bring in would help stabilize our dwindling resources.

I'm in a good mood, but there are dark happenings going on around here as well. I'm trying to stay positive, but there have been two suicides in the last three days. Both of them were homesteaders that chose to work with us and give up on the larger, more intractable group of homesteaders that were exiled.

The notes they left cited the constant and worsening hunger as the reason. One of them, a woman, wrote that the pains in her stomach brought back nightmares of living under the Richmond soldiers, some of whom would make her do awful things just to get rations. Dancing nude in the snow was the least offensive thing she mentioned.

Two dead for fear of reliving the hell that was the winter. I see determination to survive in the eyes of the people around me, but there is suffering there as well. It's impossible to know who will finally give up in the face of all the hardships in the here and now, much less the ones we're sure to face down the road.

If we're very lucky, we can make things easier. I'm going out now. I try to make my own luck.