From the journal of Nathan Sanchez, April 19

April 19, 2017

     It went as smooth as silk. We spent the last week watching our first choice target. It was an agricultural supply center and we watched it and made sure no one was living there. We also watched to make sure that no one was coming and going through there on a regular basis. After seven days, we decided we knew enough and that night, we planned out our scavenging mission. All the teams followed their orders and we made it in and out with no one hurt. We found lots of shit that we needed. We found some of the root vegetables still edible in the cellar area, although I think the most exciting find was the seeds for crops. We got sorghum, soy beans, potatoes and several other vegetables and even some herbs. We also got some feed for the horses and other livestock we had collected in the early days like the chickens, goats and sheep.

We found food for the dogs and cats as well as new clothing, shoes and boots for members of the family. Kids still grow like weeds, even during the apocalypse. Emilio even found some malt and other supplies for making beer. There was even a small selection of locally brewed beer on sale from the stack of boxes in the corner of the cellar. . There were also other locally made foods, like preserves, pasta sauces, and pie fillings.

     When we got home this afternoon, I thought Consuela and Maria were going to have heart attacks from all the excitement they showed over the seeds. They immediately started planning which crop to plant where and where the vegetable and herb gardens were going to be planted. They were not even upset that we found all the plants already dead, which is why we took all the seed, even though we didn't have enough room to plant it all at once. It would give us a couple of crops worth of seeds and by then, we could collect some seeds for the plantings after that.
      Within an hour, they were planning out the floorplan of a green house, so they could start as many plants as possible. Fernando and the rest of us had also started planning out a mission to a building supply business right away. Luckily, we had one on our list of possibly targets and we will start our surveillance tomorrow morning. It appears we need some supplies to make some new outbuildings. A greenhouse and some kind of storage area for our crops. Uncle Ramon says that a root cellar would be best, but our basement is already in use to house people. It might require a trip to the library to research how to build one best.
     DInner tonight was a real treat. The women cooked up some of the vegetables we had brought back and we broke out some of our precious supply of frozen meat. The solar system has been working great and we have been able to keep all the food we found with it nice and frozen. We have been very careful with it and have kept it for special occasions. We broke out the beer we brought home today and it was a true celebration of our finds at the agricultural supply center.

      Life is good right now. The only thing that could make it better would be finding a bunch of people we could trust who weren't related to us. Or maybe, just a couple of women. All the ladies here are a cousin or married to one, and so, off limits. I know that the women feel the same way, we had a great conversation about it after the older generation went to bed last night after drinking all that beer. We are going to have to keep an eye out for regular people, at least if we want to have any more children born. But not people like the bikers who came here to attack us. But, in order to make a larger population, we need non related adults. We will have to be careful and watch them even longer than we plan on watching any of our current targets. Shit, I guess I will have to be bring it up at the next family meeting to be cussed and discussed to death, before we start looking for people to consider. Just what we need, a subject to talk about that I already know will cause a huge argument before being settled. Shit.

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