I'm really trying not to. I'm still in that uncomfortable transition period where my distance geographically only makes the unknown consequences of the zombie attacks on Haven that much worse in my head. I don't know if that makes sense to you, but it does to me. Rather than harp on about it--especially since Haven seems to have the attacks under control--I'm going to leave it there. I'm worried, and writing about it only makes it worse.
We're dealing with our own problems at the moment. While no great swarm of them has (so far) appeared since the initial rush, we are getting a steady stream of zombies. They follow our trail from Haven, coming across the farm in ones and twos, a trickle compared to the flood we dealt with back in Kentucky. I should note here that these are the zombies we're seeing, which doesn't mean they're all we're getting. I imagine the New Breed are spreading out around us in a n effort to gain an upper hand. Tricky, given how flat the land is in every direction. We'll definitely see them coming.
We haven't had any rain, either. That's not a life and death problem since we've got a well with a pump, but it does present some difficult choices for our farming efforts. We have someone on the pump literally around the clock. K and Jess rigged up a foot pedal to the thing so people wouldn't have to wear out their arms using it. We're collecting every drop in the cistern and our other catchment systems, save for what we're using to drink and water the crops. After four solid days of effort, we've managed to reinforce and expand our fencing quite a lot. We've got a dozen of those giant livestock water tanks linked together in our back yard. We have a rabbit warren all stocked up, canned (well, it's in jars, but you get the idea) food to last for months, and enough firepower to make our heavily reinforced perimeter almost unnecessary.
And here we are worried about rain.
It's not an absurd concern to have. The people we sent here ahead of us have been setting up our farm for quite a while now. They're the ones who put up the first fence, cleaned out the house, began filling the cistern. Since Jess and K and I got here, it's been a mad dash to improve, expand, and ensure our food crops are going to be enough to last us through the winter. We're not a tiny community, really, and with the last of our number due in any day, we're going to be using a lot of water. We've already used a great deal of what we had stored. Somewhere along the line there was a miscalculation, so we're a bit stressed. No worries, though. We'll figure it out even if we have to leave someone pumping day and night, a quart at a time.
It's not terribly hot here, so at least things aren't desperate. We've managed a lot in a short time, not the least being our defenses. Haven is amazing, but the sheer area it sits on made defense an enormous pain in the ass. At least here we can see through our walls, which are also higher than the average wall in Haven. Harder to climb, too. Creative people can do much with endless fields of abandoned farm equipment and supplies and the stores that used to provide them.
Our compound is small by most standards, but we've fenced it into a geometric shape that's just below two hundred yards long and about fifty wide. Easy to farm, easy to defend, and given its straight walls, easy to expand. It encompasses the house, barn, and the old farmhand houses with enough ground to let us do all the things we need to survive with space left over.
Jess wants to do some vertical farming to maximize production, K wants to section off an area for more solar panels if we can get them, more turbines in addition to the one we're building. Everyone, it seems, has some plan or idea they want to make into a thing that will help us. I suppose I should be trying to manage it all, that being my experience and job since The Fall, but I find myself less worried than I'd have expected. The arguments between people here are good-natured, even joking, and it's clear we all have the group's best interest at heart. For once I'm going to let other people worry about who gets to do what.
People are just funny that way. We're not even done dealing with our other issues, and everyone clamors for time, help, and resources to make their own ideas into reality. They're excited and eager, bless them, so I can hardly be upset. Maybe I really am worrying overmuch. Maybe all these troubles--elsewhere if not here as much--are things I should let go of. They are nothing I can change, and a burden I no longer need to bear. Is it cold or terrible to stop worrying about things I can't fix? I don't know.
I just know I'd rather live in the here and now, and stop the lurching in my heart every time someone I know is in danger.
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