Thursday, September 1, 7:36 AM. Claire.

Good morning, Diary.

I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you but it’s for a good reason. We have been so, so, so busy getting the farm ready to move to. Daddy is making it so the electricity and water will work forever. Garrett has been trying to get the pool clean and I have been helping. We have also been cleaning up the house so that our things will fit in. I have an upstairs room and I LOVE IT. I think a girl lived there before because everything is purple and lace and stars. Daddy says I can decorate it how I want. I want to paint it green with trees like a forest and have animals on the walls as big as real animals. That way when I look out the window I will see the forest and the river and when I turn around there will be forest everywhere.

We are mostly happier now. Daddy whistles and smiles a lot. He likes to work on the farm. Garrett acts like a big man because he gets to help Daddy with the hard work. They carry the heavy things. Trevor gets mad sometimes because he wants to be a man too but he’s the littlest.

Yesterday Mom brought our lunch and she cried. I don’t know why. Maybe because she was so glad to see us. She gets very scared when she’s alone. We all do but her especially. I told her that we’ll be okay. I prayed that God won’t take any of us and I know he won’t. She doesn’t believe me but she’ll see.

We get to get another dog. Coolidge is nice but he is too little to protect the cows and horses. We are looking for a big dog that is still nice and won’t hurt them but will bark at things that try to get them. We saw bobcat tracks beside the river. Daddy says we have to watch out for mountain lions too and we shouldn’t go in the woods by ourselves.

Today is the first of September. Mom says it usually gets cooler in September. I can’t wait. It has been 100° forever. This morning I prayed it would get really cold this week. I also prayed for Mom and Daddy and Garrett and Trevor that they would be safe and happy and protected. I prayed for Coolidge and Louis Armstrong and the horses and the calves too.

I forgot to tell you we made butter. The cows make lots of milk but most of it we leave for the calves. We just take a little. Mom showed us how you can put it in a jar and shake it and it turns into butter. We took turns shaking it all night while Daddy read, and suddenly we looked and it was butter! It looked and tasted just like butter except it had water on top, but we poured out the water. This morning I had butter on my toast!

Mommy’s bread is not as good as the stuff you get from the store. It’s not as soft and the crust is really hard. We have to cut it ourselves, but Daddy says he can get a slicer for us if he can remember. I miss the old bread but I’m glad Mom knows how to make it. She’s teaching me and Trevor. She says we have yeast now but we won’t always and we have to learn how to make bread without it.

I also miss eggs and bacon and baloney and fried chicken and hamburgers. Especially hamburgers. We still have summer sausage but it is not as good and you can’t eat it after summer. We can still have pizza if we make it and Mom puts summer sausage on there. We still have apples and oranges and bananas but they will probably run out by winter too. She says she will try to freeze some but she thinks that will make them gross except for pies. I even miss salad even though I don’t like it much.