After the War--The Journals

In which we find we've entered Aladdin's Cave!

Day 18 In the Mountain House

6am

I slept better last night than I have since Day 1. I am relaxed and feeling safe.
These two feelings have been in short supply of late and I am so very much enjoying them. Another feeling is totally clean! Last evening Duncan found an old brass tub in the attic! (We had a lot of fun exploring…more about that later) There is a stream behind the cabin so we trekked in pots of water, heated them up over the fireplace and we all took hot baths for the first time in over two weeks. Clean hair, clean clothes: Life is good! Amazing how perceptions change. How the importance of certain things changes given circumstances. We have toothbrushes and toothpaste. We have juice. We have coffee! (with milk even if it IS powdered!)

10 am

Breakfast this morning was powdered scrambled eggs, orange juice, sliced pears and coffee. I’ve never had a better meal! We spent this morning organizing what we found last night and continuing our exploration.

We have enough food to keep us going for at least a year. Down in the basement is a huge pantry-(room actually, maybe 8 foot square with floor to ceiling shelves) that is chock full of
canned goods (vegetables, tuna, canned meats),
dried foods, bags of powdered eggs, milk, rice, potatoes, sugar and flour,
packages of pasta, cookies, chips, cereal, dried fruit, and nuts and
jars of peanut butter, jellies, cooking oil, vinegar, tomato sauce, juices and water as well as a 6 foot stack of cases of soda and beer.

Along another wall are shelves with cleaning supplies, dish soap, regular soap, laundry soap, and batteries!!!!! (every size imaginable) We found ropes and tools. Lilac found packages of seeds from last year that probably won’t grow, but who knows? (Might be worth a try when it warms up more) Inside a locked cabinet behind some metal shelves, we found a locked gun cabinet containing 6 guns and many boxes of ammunition for them. We found jars and jars of oil for the oil lamps up stairs!

We also found a chest freezer that we will not open again!

Upstairs we found a small locked box in one of the bedrooms with a complete medical kit, surgery instruments, all sorts of medications (we found blood pressure medicine—lots of it! This is a very good thing for Lilac and I as we both are supposed to be taking it and haven’t been.) And an expanded first aid kit. (Ex-father in law is/was a doctor)

I remembered, from years (!) back, hearing something about his burying gold on the property somewhere. He was very into collecting gold, so this might be reality. In the medical kit we found something that might be ‘directions’ of a sort to find it (or so he’d remember where it was) although there is no mention what goes with the directions, but then he wouldn’t have done that.

I remember his saying that it paid to always be prepared for contingencies. I hope I am not being selfish, but I sure hope they don’t show up now.

7pm

Duncan writing now.

Sammy said she wanted all three of us to feel that we could write our thoughts in the journal at any time. I have missed writing in that it is a way for me to make sense of my thoughts and feelings. We have agreed that if we put a star near the beginning and end of an entry that it is a private entry and not for general reading. This is the level of absolute trust the thereof us have. Trust had become a valued and oft missing commodity of late. It is good to be able to totally trust those I’m with.

This is a good place. We can safely stay here a while, I think. We have enough supplies, we could almost open a ‘store’ of sorts, I am thinking. Down the road, maybe, it may well be a viable option as supplies in the general sector dwindle.

I saw deer when Danny and I went for a morning ramble. Fresh meat may well be on the menu soon. The cabin (or mountain house as Sammy calls it) is set back about ¼ mile from the road. There are woods behind it as well as a stream. Bromley Mountain is across the road and up. We have a fairly decent view down the road and down on into the valley from here towards the west and south.

Along one of the walls in the main room is a rather large collection of books. Not quite a library, but enough reading material to keep us busy for a good long time. There is a smattering of classics, recent fiction, how-to type books on plumbing and wiring (maybe I can fashion an indoor outhouse?), numerous paperbacks, mostly romances (found several of mine) and old medical texts.

There is an immense pile of firewood, maybe 4 or 5 cords worth out back, as well as a ramshackle shed which I’ve yet to check out.

It is immensely satisfying to sit here by the fire, drinking a glass of scotch and being able to write. We also found a well stocked liquor cabinet in the kitchen! Ice would be nice, but I expect we won’t see that until next fall. Danny is lying at my feet and the women are in the back bedroom sorting clothes. I can hear them exclaiming now and again. It is so good to hear them laughing. They are having such fun. They are both also looking much better having had decent food. Lilac’s color is better. That and their vanity restored after their baths. But then, it was nice afterwards when they both were so simply happy.

I seem to have a new family: Grandmother and what? Not sure what Sam is. To me, I mean. Or what she might become. Or, more to the point, what I want her to become.
10pm

I am lying here in a bed, oil lamp burning brightly on the nightstand next to me. I read a few chapters of one of Duncan’s books I found on the book wall. Thought I would write a little more about our day. I see that Duncan has written a lot about today. I wonder what it was he scratched out????

Lilac and I went through all the clothes we found, sorting out what would fit whom. Mostly jeans and flannel shirts, some summer clothes and flannel nightgowns. Lilac and I had a good laugh when she was trying on some of the jeans. Mostly, they were too big for her. She looked so funny. Here is this elegant lady who had never in her life worn jeans, wearing them with the legs rolled up, held up by a pink and silver belt we found topped off by a flannel shirt easily three sizes too big! What a fashion statement…but you know what? She looked great! It is so nice to see her eyes sparkle!

Dinner tonight was at the kitchen table! By candle light with real silverware and napkins! We had a drink before dinner. (Lilac and I had screwdrivers, Duncan had a beer-says he’s used to drinking it warm) We had spaghetti with meat tomato sauce!

What a nice day today has been. Sleepy. God, this feels so blessed normal!