Grey skies and bare trees, what could be worse? A temperature in the 20’s for one. In the 90’s for two. The worst thing about the weather these days is the complete lack of consistency. Even worse than it was back in the 20’s. These days it’s like there's only two seasons, fire and frost. Freezin’ into the burnin’ that has destroyed the west, the midwest, the eastern plains and somehow only the southern parts of the east coast. The north east just slid off the map. Mud slides. It’s like all the rain just dumped up there after the amazon tipped. Now I hear about border fights over the lake water, and folks staking out the highways robbin’ and killin’ folk out south and west. We’re still here, though.
Making things work here haven’t been easy. Haven’t seen deer since granny Cae’s time. She tells us stories about seein’ them dead on the roads and how they’d wreck the old cars everyone used to have. Says that after the big farms in the plains burned everyone shot whatever they could, wiped ‘em out in 8 months. That was 30 years ago now. We’re still here, though.
The fall came on slow, but hit fast and hard when it came. Granny says that it was a near thing gettin’ the folk together. Talks about them in the big cities that never made it out. How the lines went dead, and no one knew what was happening. How the folks from town came out to talk with her, how she didn’t know if they were coming to kill us or help us. We’re still here, though.
Folks from town wanted to band together. “Share resources.” Tell us what to do, what to grow. Elder ginny wasn’t gonna stand for that. She had been the first to break the earth here, to put seeds in the ground and feed us. She had learned what could stand the droughts and what could bear the frost. She tried to teach them. They didn’t want to listen to a tranny. We’re still here, though.
Eventually them town folk came to take what they couldn’t grow. Elder ginny tried to stop them, She’s lying in the woods now, just like she asked for. Took her due as she went, so granny Leah says. Granny Leah took up after Elder ginny, worked the soil, fed us all. She learned from Elder ginny and taught the kids, the ones the town folk kicked out. We’re still here, though.
Granny Leah teaches us the ways, Granny Cae teaches us the ways it was. So we don’t forget. Forget what we all did to make today and tomorrow. Why we gotta save the rain when it comes, and filter it to get the plastic out. Why we gotta spread last years’ outhouse pile on the field to get things to grow right. Why we grind charcoal and set it in the old filter canisters when the dust blows, because we’re not sure what’s in the dirt anymore. How to make the medicines that let us be our true selves. We’re still here though.