Goodness, what a day! It was hard to sleep last night through the noise of the wind. That storm is still with us & still more or less stalled - moving at only a few miles an hour out of here. We have 2 feet of snow now Andy reckons & still no end in sight. It's a strange sight out there, mountains of snow, only the quickest glimpse of other houses; everything is white, white, white.

We're going to have a heck of a cleanup effort ahead of us when this finally ends. Andy & Sam have been out several times, walking as far as a few blocks up the road. Safe enough; they were the only fools out there. Sam got a bit of a fright. He fell over in the snow & when he got up, wasn't sure which way he was facing. He wasn't sure if he'd become turned around or was still facing the same way. With the wind swirling around the way it is & visibility down to nothing he became quite worried. He was smart enough to not move for a minute until he felt able to get his bearings. He was able to backtrack himself until he found Andy. I reamed them out for allowing themselves to get separated, believe me! I don't think they'll make that mistake again.

Anyhow, the radio says to expect a good 24 hours of this yet, so I don't expect anything will be moving unless it's absolutely crucial. The hospitals & care centers have enough fuel left to power their generators for another 72 hours at best, so we're all praying here that the storm ends soon. I hope they're fine in terms of water & food. Actually, they can always melt & treat snow the way it's falling.

We've spoken to Drew & Noreen several time over the walkie talkies. Drew is having a heck of a time just keeping his cattle fed. He opened up the barn so they could have shelter & had to rope the door so that it remained open enough just for air & access. He's roped off a path from the barn to the house, dropped hay bales from the loft & his only concern now is keeping them watered. Thank God it's not cold out, although the boys tell me it's pretty bad in the wind.

We're keeping the children inside for now; it's just too bad out there. On the west side of the house, the snow has drifted up to the second story windows. I 'caught' Greg & Sammy planning to get dressed, open the windows & jump out into the snow banks - the idiots. They don't realize they can easily smother in the snow, as high as it is now. They'll have plenty of opportunity to mess around in the stuff when it ends. There's a lot of snow to move to we can have access both through the front & back doors. The garage door is completely covered & I don't know where we're going to put all that snow. Don't let me get started on the problems we might have in the basement come spring when it starts melting.

As I suspected, we've seen no sign of ration deliveries since this storm got bad. I thank God we don't need them & pray for those depending on daily food deliveries to sustain themselves. I only hope they've kept by a few days worth of food, for storms such as this one or other problems. I suspect too many people had too little food to begin with & if what everyone is getting is similar to what we were receiving, I doubt they would have been able to put aside anything. Sam & Max confirmed what I'd thought - we have a good 18 months worth of food, so even if we can't grow quite enough this coming summer to see us through an entire year, we'll be fine.

Drew & I have been talking & putting together a tentative plan. Anne really feels this is going to get worse before it gets better & that the nation will be left bereft when the final death tolls are estimated. I say estimated because I don't know who would count them & how they would go about that. I'm thankful it's winter. No one has time to collect & dispose of all the bodies & the stink would be horrific. Even if this begins to abate by spring, I don't know who would collect bodies & give them any kind of dignified farewell. I'm not even sure who stayed in this neighborhood, if they're well or not. We've seen no signs of life at all up or down the streets in the area & the boys use the binoculars to check from the attic & second floor windows at night.


We're staying well here & keeping busy in spite of being cooped up. I thought the kids might get restless, but they're all busy reading & learning, even little Sammy. I can't believe how resilient kids are. You'd think this way of existing, (hard to call it living), has always been what they've known. They had some nightmares, tears & all at first, but now seem caught up in preparing for what may lie ahead.

I wish I had hard & fast answers for them, or even for myself. I still can't grasp that everything I knew as normal is gone, at least for now. How can we begin to return things to the way we knew? Is it even possible? It's far too early to tell considering we're only a month or so into this crisis. Facts are hard to come by with national media not available to us. Power is out just about everywhere & again, I don't see how that can be repaired any time soon. I'm going on the assumption that it won't be; that some regions may be able to get some power up again, but that it's safest to assume that will NOT happen.

There are simply too many things broken, not working, nor likely to start working again soon. I think for at least several years, this nation is going to reorganize itself into regions rather than think of itself as a nation. After all, who's going to be able to repair & maintain road & rail networks, never mind airports & all the facilities that need to be running well to ensure safe travel.

Food production; I don't even known how to begin to think about large scale food production post outbreak. Is it even possible in the near term? Are we looking at thousands, perhaps more plague survivors starving to death next year? There have got to be stockpiles of canned & packaged good, elevators full of grain... somewhere; isn't there?

What about fuel to run combines, disks, harrows, balers, factories & canneries... how can we get those operational again? What about the pipelines? It gives me a massive headache just to try & grasp the scope of the problem, never mind begin to think of possible solution.

We haven't heard from Washington in several days & speculation must be rife. If the President even alive? What about members of the Cabinet, FEMA, the Chiefs of Staff, the Supreme Court? We've heard nothing other than news of the outbreak & as days go by, news from outside the immediate area seems harder to come by. Odd though, I've lost almost all interest in any news from overseas. I'm sure they have problems as serious as ours or worse, but it hardly seems important in light of what we face right here. I wonder if other countries, if people there are thinking the same way? If they're facing shortages & outright outages of crucial items as we are, I doubt their focus is anything but their local conditions.

It may seem odd to you, years from now; that so quickly into this emergency, my thoughts have gone to what may lie ahead; that I'm assuming it will be a long time before life resembles anything that we're used to. I can't honestly think of any other way to think right now. Locally, most people are stricken, with many expected to die. The weather is dreadful & winter just beginning. We have a good 4 months of very unpredictable weather ahead & who knows what spring will bring in terms of storms or extremes in weather?

I have my family to think about, not just now when the emergency seem to be at its height, but afterwards. And nowhere am I hearing anything about what comes after. It's understandable that official attention is being focused on the outbreak; conditions are surely dreadful for so many people, but is any attention being paid anywhere to what may come following this illness?

It may turn out that only individuals, families such as ours are able to give any though to what lies ahead. I wish I was able to speak with more people. Drew & Noreen are sensible folk; good, solid farming stock from way back & there must be many others like them who are prepared to ride this out, who once essential tasks are done, are finding themselves with time to think about what lies ahead for all of us. Perhaps sometime soon, we'll find ways to communicate. I regret not having spent more time thinking about that. I pity those alone at this harsh time & pray they find a measure of peace knowing they are really not entirely on their own, that the prayers of myself & my family rest with them.

And speaking of rest, Anne is standing here frowning at me & tapping her watch. I'd best take my nap before she starts telling me off.