Monday, August 29, 11:00 AM. Brewer.

It’s time for me to do some deep digging.

We’re on our own. The weather will be turning cool in another month or two. We’ve got a baby coming in seven months. Beyond that, the day will arrive when we’ll need to go out and look long and hard for other people. How do we get ready to do that without upending everything we’ll have prepared?

Farther into the future, we’re going to get sick of canned food or it’s going to start making us sick and we’ll need to grow everything we eat. Later, maybe ten years from now—unless there are more people out there than it seems like, people with knowledge and skills and factories and equipment—it’s going to get harder and harder to keep cars and machines working.

We’ve got a lot to get ready for.

For now we’ve got to focus on the basics. How do we make it through the next year?

We love this house. It’s the one constant in all this change, our one link with the past. And it’s home.

But we can’t stay here. We’re running out of water and there are no fresh sources for miles. We’re going to need space for animals and, eventually, crops. Here we’re six feet away from the neighbors on either side of us and we’ve got thirty feet of yard back and front. It’s not enough land, not nearly enough. And, truth be told, this subdivision is an eerie place now. It’s like a graveyard on a hillside, and our grave is the only one still haunted by ghosts. The others are all silent and decaying. It’s time to move on.

A couple weeks ago Garrett and I found a beautiful place in the woods down by the creek. It’s where the cows are. We’ve been going out every day to take care of them.

We call it “The Farm” but it’s really kind of a yuppie farm. The house is big and new, with all the modern amenities (if I can keep them powered and working). It’s pretty: brick, stone, classic-looking. It’s got a 24 kilowatt generator already installed. That might just be big enough to run everything we want. There’s a propane tank to fuel the generator and to burn for heating and cooking. There’s a big barn for animals and a shop (kind of a yuppie shop) for the tractor and tools. And it’s got nine cattle, including three milking females and four calves.

The main thing is water. The map (we’re back to using paper maps) shows the house sitting on Lampasas Creek. At first I wasn’t sure what that would mean. In Texas there are creeks and then there are creeks. Sometimes what we call a creek is a trickle in winter and a footpath in summer. This one is the big kind, almost a river, and even in this 100° August it’s still got a little trickle flowing. Setting up a pump and pipes is going to take some doing but it should provide us with water all year, most years. The house has a pool, a nice one with rocks and a waterfall and hot tub. It’s green as a Louisiana swamp right now but still salvageable. When there’s water in the river we can use the pool for swimming. When the river is dry, the pool can serve as a backup supply and we can sanitize the water and drink it. Between the river and the pool we should be all set.

Sometimes I wonder about defensibility. When people finally do show up will they come in as roving bands of outlaws? Every movie I ever saw about the end of the world says “yes,” and it’s possible they were right. The farm sits in a large clearing, five or six acres, in a sort of valley between wooded hills. The river runs east-to-west about thirty yards north of the house. The driveway runs south, between the pastures, into the woods, around a curve, where it meets the main road. In essence, the woods make it so there’s no way to get a vehicle, short of a tank, onto the property except on the driveway. But there are many ways in on foot. I’ve thought about setting up some kind of perimeter fence all around the property that would make trespassing difficult and block vehicles on the driveway. I’ll probably do that eventually.

But the more I think about it, the less sense it makes for us to focus on it early. At this point the chance of encountering people looks very low. If they did come, why should they be outlaws any more than we are? If the end of the world had arrived with radiation and zombies and sand storms and starvation, people might have fought it out for the few resources remaining. As it is, God has left us with more of the essentials than we know what to do with. We have the pick of a thousand gas stations, stores, warehouses, depots, car dealerships—everything you could need. Oh, there’s enough to go around all right. The only thing there’s not enough of is human connection. So why would they come in guns blazing?

If Amy were nervous about it I’d move quicker, but she agrees with me. And she’s usually right about most things.

There is one breed of outlaw that we know to be roaming around in violent bands. Coyotes. They’ll snatch our animals—calves, foals, chickens, cats—if they can get them. The farm has good pasture land fenced in with barbed wire, but I think that’s to keep the cows in, not predators out. I’ve heard that coyotes can scale an eight-foot fence, so these fences are no help. We’ve been keeping the cows in the barn at night and I guess that’s the way to do it. I’ve also heard of people keeping donkeys to ward off predators, and of course certain dogs could be good for that. Not Coolidge. I can’t see a corgi standing up to a pack of coyotes. Maybe I can find a dog with shepherding experience. There are sure plenty of stray dogs wandering around these days.

I’m going to need to find a horse trailer and move the horses over to the farm. It’s going to be quite a crowd in the barn, at least until we can find a guard dog. Then some of the animals can stay out at night.

I don’t even know if all of this bother is necessary. Do coyotes even attack cows or horses? I bet they attack calves, but maybe the cows defend them?

I wish there was somebody I could ask these kinds of things. The books are helpful but there’s so much they don’t say. The Almanac tells you when to plant and reap and has advice on building a chicken coop, but that scratches the surface of all the agricultural knowledge that humans have gathered over ten thousand years. My grandfather is looking down from heaven, laughing at me. I always thought his job as a rancher was archaic and backward, but now it’s the only future we’ve got.

Will we make it? Can we establish a decent life at the farm? Or will the cows all die from diseases and animal attacks, the crops from bad weather and mismanagement? Can we keep enough fuel to get us through the winter? And will we be able to stand each other, or will we slowly go mad in our inescapable isolation?