From: Fred Hearne <fthearne@sweetwaterfarms.com>
To: Bill Hearne <wrhearne@nasa.gov>
Sorry to take so long getting back to you, but we’ve been rather busy, and I know you’ve got worries of your own, so I didn’t want to burden you with our problems.
So far, we’re coping well enough, although I’m becoming more and more glad that Dad insisted we kept the capacity to raise our own grain, hay and silage, unlike some of our neighbors who went to buying all their feed. We may be running low on concentrates and supplements, and we’ve been having trouble getting resupplied, but at least we’re able to feed our herds.
The milk truck’s still hit and miss. From what the driver said the last time he did show up, the dairy is having trouble keeping their equipment working, and they’re having to dump milk half the time. It doesn’t help that jug delivery is getting spotty, so even when everything’s working OK, they’ll run out of jugs to put the milk in.
You really don’t realize just how interconnected everything is, how the whole country is like one huge, finely-balanced machine that depends on everything working like it should, until it starts breaking down. And from what little TV and radio news we can get, it sounds like a whole lot of things are breaking down at once. The TV stations around here are only broadcasting a few hours a day now, and even those are uncertain. Most of the radio stations are managing to stay on the air, but there’s an awful lot of time when they’re pretty clearly just put a bunch of music on and let it run.
I wish we had the bandwidth to listen to Shepardsport Pirate Radio, but out here in the middle of nowhere, we’re still trying to get decent broadband, and half the time we have to fall back on dialup.
I can’t even remember when we were inside a proper church. We’ve taken to getting together with the boys at each other’s places for a sort of home church, like we’re back in the catacombs or something. It’s better than nothing, but it’s still not the same as driving in to town and sitting in a pew in a proper church.
I hope I haven’t burdened you too much with our problems. Take care, and write back to me when you can.