It’s mid-February, and I’ve decorated the house with heart decorations. I check my bug-out supplies weekly and it seems that I add things every time I check. I’ll need to sign up a pack of sled dogs to get the wagon out of the house.
Bugging out may be more imminent now that the weather is not dangerously cold. I discovered today that someone tried to break into the camper. I ran to Corey’s house and he and Mindy came over to the house, with Ken. They looked all around but the only evidence was the damaged handle on the door. The alarm was raised and all the neighbors checked their property for any sign of unwanted visitors. We met, in early evening, to discuss a plan. Ken was missing a chicken, by his count, but nothing was broken or damaged in or around the coup and barn. Corey had no signs of anything amiss. Brandon ran in, late, to the meeting, out of breath. One of his horses is gone, and someone obviously used his grill. Chicken feathers were all over the ground around the grill, and the head had been hacked off, but no other evidence of the chicken was found. Peter and Lori had seen nothing amiss, but they were a little farther out of the neighborhood and felt themselves to be somewhat on their own. We took inventory of weapons and ammunition. I knew Ken and Peter had big storehouses of ammo, but I didn’t say anything. It was ok with me if they didn’t share that with everyone. We are all still new to this apocalypse and not everyone needs to know everything. We were all fairly well equipped, considering the circumstances.
We set up watches. Everyone was paired up to take shifts. Since we didn’t have night vision goggles, the night watch would be the most dangerous, so the men took most of those. We have just enough people to make it work without anyone getting too tired. We have walkie-talkies so we can communicate and schedule check-ins. We’ve had it good, so far, but we knew this was coming. Considering the possibilities, this was a good wake up call.