Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie (66 page)

They stopped at a Cracker Barrel and found
it already looted and no food remained. They almost walked out of there with nothing before Josie took notice of all the old-timey gadgets and gizmos all over the walls. They looted the Cracker Barrel walls. I don't know what half of those gadgets are for but I'm sure Pop, Nana, or Emma can tell us. I hope they're not decorative reproductions.

Josie began pulling out clothes. There are clothes for women, men, children, and babies... wait a minute... baby clothes?

A thought suddenly occurred to me and I looked to Josie for confirmation. She nodded her head and grinned. I stopped paying attention to what was coming out of the trailer and started paying attention to Josie. She motioned for me to join her around the side of the trailer and I left the rest of the crew “ooing and ahhing” over all the new stuff.

As soon as I
got near her, she burst into tears and threw her arms around my neck. “You're the first one to know” she said.

I didn't know what to feel. She looked happy and was smiling
, but I knew this child was a result of her experience in the fake National Guard camp.

I asked her if she was going to be okay not knowing who the baby belonged to
, and if she was gonna be able to raise it. She looked me square in the eye and said “I know who this baby belongs to. It belongs to me, and I'm definitely gonna keep it. You won't be able to pry it out of my hands.” I laughed and hugged her again. I assured her I wouldn't even consider prying it out of her hands.

We walked back to the rear of the trailer and I looked to her for permission while holding out a little dress, silently asking if it was okay to say something in front of everyone. She nodded yes.

I held up the dress and called for everyone's attention. Several seconds of silence went by and Mick looked like he was gonna pass out. I had to break the silence right then and there to assure him that the little dress wasn't for us. I thought he was gonna fall to the ground with relief.

Everyone continued staring until I turned to Josie and handed her the dress. Several seconds later
, everyone turned to stare at Rick and Ian. Both men threw their hands in the air and looked just as shocked as the rest of us. Then, everyone got it.

I loudly proclaimed that Josie was very happy about this and we were going to welcome with open arms a new member to Kapper Hill Compound sometime around Christmas.

The entire group hesitated only for a second before they began patting Josie on the arm and congratulating her. I was proud of each and every one of them.

When the trailer was emptied and the contents were loaded into the basement we all turned to head back to the house. Rick told us to hold up a minute and led us to the rear of the Jeep.

Those three crazy idiots went to Walmart. I couldn't believe it! They climbed on top of the greenhouse area and onto the roof. They entered through the roof access of the warehouse area. They manually rolled open a loading dock door and all three of them ran to bring the Jeep around. They wanted to get the loot to the Jeep as fast as possible.

They found
two HDI's inside the warehouse/storage area. Ian stabbed them through the skull instead of shooting.

They went through the door from the storage area into the
retail store itself.

They used shopping carts and shelves laid over on their sides to block off the sections they wanted to loot. They took turns shooting HDI's that tried to walk through
the barricade. More often than not, two of them had to shoot while the third one grabbed the loot. As time went by, more and more HDI's tried to get through the shelves.

When the shelves started sliding and HDI' arms started coming through the cracks
, they abandoned the store and left with what they already had loaded.

We are extremely happy and blessed with what they got.

There was no food left in the place, so they avoided the grocery section all together.

The clothing section has a lot left
, but it also had a lot of HDI's walking around and crawling through the racks. Rick said there were too many places for HDI's to hide among the racks and there was too much HDI goo all over the hanging clothes.

Josie
wanted to head straight for the cookware section. She grabbed freezer bags, plastic bags, containers, and freezer containers which she threw in plastic tubs to load in the jeep. She got casserole dishes, cast iron cookware, and all sorts of utensils. She got two Food Saver devices and a box full of bags to go with them.

There were backpacks and duffle bags strapped to the luggage rack. The backpacks and bags held playing cards, games, and DVD's.

Rick said the warehouse area is a total mess and things are strewn all over the place, but there were untouched boxes and wrapped items including food on top of the tallest shelves.

They didn't see any forklift or machine that would give them access to the top shelves
, and they didn't look for one because they needed to get out of there. The number of HDI's was rapidly increasing at the store access door. Ian said there's probably some kind of loading device underneath all the debris.

They were lucky to get in and out of there alive. They went back through the store access door with supplies in one hand while shooting HDI's with the other.

Rick says it's definitely worth another trip with a larger trailer, but only the well-trained folks should go back because there's a large number HDI's both inside, and outside, the store. Any future visit should short and carefully planned in advance.

We began unloading the Jeep
, and Josie was standing beside me when Rick walked up to her and told her that he doesn't want her to go off the compound until after the baby is born. Then he went to his little house and didn't help unload the Jeep. Hmmm.

I've lingered long enough and I have peas to get into brand new freezer bags and laundry to get done.

I'm very happy about everything they brought back, but I'm also very concerned that Josie put herself in danger knowing that she is carrying a child.

See ya later.

11:00 PM...

I love peas. We have lots of peas.

Emma, Nana, Marisa, and
I got every pea that Pop and Emma have harvested to this point shelled and in the big freezer. I plan to dry the next couple of batches.

We finished laundry just in time to run inside because it started pouring rain.

Of course, there's laundry hanging all over the house because it's still pouring rain.

Pop's “bones” tell him that we're in for a day or two of rain.

The men worked on the fence until the rain started. Elaine, Rebecca, and Valerie took sandwiches to them for lunch and they ate like lumberjacks. Dane says they have 40 feet of fence finished on both sides. He estimates that the fence will be completely finished within three weeks. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Jesse and Jeremy brought home a load of square bales before it started raining. They were throwing them into a trailer when the rain started. Jesse said they got every bale inside before it got more than a few drops on it. They went to the basement to help Carisa and Rebecca fold and store the clothing according to size. It's mostly winter clothing
, but there’s quite a few short sleeved shirts in the mix.

Luke and Larson added six more quail to the freezer today. I've lost count on the quail situation. I'm sure Rona will let us know when we have enough for a quail supper.

Hisa says that Sabrina, Isabella, and Anna are ready to move out of Clinic Diane and into more permanent quarters. If we don't get them out of Clinic Diane soon, Hisa will become a mass murderer and kill us all. The only problem is that we don't have any more permanent quarters. We'll have to send the men out for wooden buildings when the rain stops. I pray that no stagecoach will follow them back.

When Deuce went to feed the animals this afternoon
, he found dozens of flies in the barn and around the pigpen. They'd been driven in by the rain. I must have asked him ten times if he saw any large flies with green spots on their wings, and ten times he said he didn't. I plan to put out fly poison tomorrow on empty feed bags inside the empty stalls.

The back brace is really helping me get through all this work. I should have lost 30 lbs and wore it every day five years ago. I hope it continues to help because we'll be doing a lot of preserving.

Pop plans to harvest peas again tomorrow morning, and we'll spread them out on the table to dry a bit before shelling them. I'm not worried about the peas getting wet, but I am worried about leaving wet peas piled in a basket on top of one another. Plus, it's easier to shell peas when the shells are a little dry.

Mick has watch duty out front tonight so I'll be sleeping alone. I'm so tired that I don't think I'll move all night. I'm heading to bed.

Bye for now.

Thurs
day, April 3

It's still raining. We had on and off thunderstorms last night
and that woke me a couple of times.

Mick's in the bed asleep right now. He had watch duty until 4:00 AM. He usually only sleeps five or six hours a night
, but he's well known to catch a cat nap or two during the day. I wish we had more food, so we could take in more people, so we could all stand shorter watches less often. Oh well, it is what it is.

I had horrible dreams of giant flies carrying off Amber and Michael.

Flies were the first thing on my mind this morning and as soon as I got dressed I went straight to the barn and put out fly poison in all the empty stalls. I've always believed the only good fly is a dead fly, and now I'm totally convinced that I've always been right.

Rick stopped me near the radio building when I was headed back in the house.

He's been hearing transmissions from the real military. From what he can gather, they're about 50 miles east of us and headed in our direction.

They're “checking” addresses, killing HDI's
, and rendering aid to survivors. They have a large contingent of troops behind them, performing “clean up duty,” and that doesn't mean they’re sweepin' the floors. They get the task of going behind and taking out any HDI's that are still moving after the bulk of the unit goes through. He's not positive, but he believes they've been using cluster bombs in large cities to take out the hordes. Holy Smokes! Cluster bombs? I thought they were illegal.

Anyway, they're also taking any personnel they find from the fake
National Guard as prisoners. He asked me to send Josie and Ian to the radio building when they come in for breakfast. This is gonna make me a nervous wreck.

Elaine and Shawna made pancakes for breakfast and served them with the last of the home canned sausage patties.

Mick, Isaac, and Jason headed out to try and get more wooden buildings. I'm nervous about that because it's raining and I think there must be something bad about using construction equipment in the rain. All the crews around here would take off work when it rained.

I keep having visions of one of those little buildings falling on top of the men. I can imagine their work boots sticking out from underneath like the ruby slippers on the feet of the bad witch.

I hear Pop bringing in peas so I better get out there.

See ya later.

2:30 PM...

The military is definitely coming here. Josie expects them sometime near the end of next week. She says everything sounds like it'll be okay, but she's still nervous about it. She's worried they'll try to put her, Ian, and Rick back on active duty. I'm worried about that as well. I wonder if we need to hide them somewhere.

Dane wants to hide most of our food in case they try to requisition it. We'll load it onto a big rig trailer and hide it somewhere in the boonies until they leave. I'm in total agreement with him.

The wooden building crew brought home two buildings and have them in place on the hillside. They headed back out for more.

Dane and Kevin took a second big rig and trailer and went along. They'll try to get the last four buildings from one of the display lots. Ian and Rick said they'll assemble the gas grill and thingamajig that holds the big pots from the restau
rant and we will use one of the buildings for a mini-kitchen.

I had lunch duty today and decided to try something a little different. I used a waffle recipe and omitted half the sugar. I added buttermilk
, which I made by adding ¼ cup lemon juice to 1¾ cups of goats milk. I make my buttermilk biscuits this way all the time and they usually turn out great.

To the batter, I added fresh dill, parsley, chives, freeze dried cheddar cheese, and crumbled bacon. I plugged up my waffle iron and made a lot of little waffles. We ate them with ranch dressing. They were delicious and the fresh herbs really popped.

Michael loved them so much that he asked if I'd make them again tonight. I don't have supper duty, but I put two waffles in the cold cook stove oven so he can have them for supper if he wants. God Bless children! You can feed 'em mac 'n cheese and they'll make you feel like the best chef in the world.