Thursday, October 31, 2024

The Collapse CLXVII: Ready?

19 September 20XX +1

My Dear Lucilius:

The temperature had a sudden drop over the last two days.

This happens from time to time during the run up to Winter. It is a reminder that – while Winter is not quite here – it will soon be here with a vengeance. Nature’s gentle nudge, perhaps, that any business that needs to be taken care of should be attended to in rather short order.

In some ways, there is not much “business” left to attend to. All of the grain has been threshed that there is to thresh and this cold snap has put an end to any last lingering vegetables that were under the false illusion that they would make it to ripeness.

The beehives are girded up for Winter: feeders filled, access limiters in place, wrapped as they always are in hopes that anything is better than nothing (overheating here in Winter is not an issue). They, along with the quail, remain my biggest concerns, a non-replaceable asset if and when they finally die.

The inside of the Cabin has been reorganized for what feels like the 10th time since the start of Summer. Things were of course ferried over from Pompeia Paulina’s house, but even more things seem to have appeared in the last few days: jars of canned vegetables I have never seen before, a rather large collection of blankets, a stack of puzzles.

I started to ask but then got the raised eyebrow. I carefully found something else to concentrate on.

The stove is in almost constant use at this point – even more so during the last few days. I am re-evaluating whether in the depths of the incoming Winter we just plan to sleep on the futon that serves as our couch – yes, the bedroom is literally right around the door from the stove, but “right around” is not the same as “in the same room of”.

With the stove, of course, comes the wood. It does not use much, but even “not much wood” is going to be hard to come by this time. With deadfall and what was left from last year, we probably have enough to make it through to more temperate conditions. Probably. But there will likely still be expeditions every day as I am able to find more wood.

I think we are as prepared as we can be, Lucilius. Whether that will be enough remains to be seen.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:38 AM

    If I were Seneca, I would put in some effort now into collecting far-off wood now, keeping the easier to retrieve for later in bad weather conditions. If you want to stage their locations, so much the better to reduce amount of time finding it under snow later on.

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    Replies
    1. He very well might, Anon. As previous entries have indicated, he has been largely busy getting ready for Winter with the items that need dealing with near at hand. Now that this is done - for better or worse - likely he will have more time to invest in such activities.

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  2. Nylon127:13 AM

    Also keep the sharpening tools available for axes/hatchets to deal with firewood needs. You can NEVER have enough firewood TB.

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    Replies
    1. Good point Nylon12 - especially after the fact that smaller pieces are likely to become harder and harder to come by.

      Now being in New Home 2.0, the importance of heat is doubly made clear to me.

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  3. After I got married, my wife was homebound for nearly a year before she started working. During that time, I frequently came home to find new things around the house and things no longer around the house. After a year of this, it was almost as if I had done a complete swap with someone and all my bachelor stuff had disappeared.

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    Replies
    1. That may or may not sound familiar, Ed. I at least managed to get most of my things to New Home 2.0 with me, so I remain relatively confident that anything that was "left" behind I will probably not even recall having in the first place.

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