April 12, 2011
~*~ Jesus ~*~
Jesus isn't entirely surprised when all of the Hilltop visitors end up going on the tour of Jazz's sheep farm. Luckily, the Polaris UTV that Jazz uses seats six, and Logan didn't wake to insist on coming along.
They've already toured the milking barn and are watching Jazz cycle two separate flocks of sheep through the system. The second set of ewes is different from the first.
"These are the Romanovs, like what I suggested sending with you," he explains. "And I doubt they were milked before now."
"If they aren't a milking sheep, why are you trying?" Olivia asks.
"Partly to see how much they'll produce, since there's very little information on the breed I can lay hands on right now." He fiddles with the equipment that Enid and Kenneth actually helped him with after observing with the first flock of the well-behaved sheep. "But I only started cycling them yesterday."
"Why's that?" Jesus remembers from the ride down that this set of lambs is ten days old.
"You always let the lambs have all the milk the first week at least. They need the colostrum."
The milking part of the tour ends with an offer to show Olivia how it ends up in the cheese the community center uses for meals.
Once they're back outside, the pattern that isn't quite clear at the site they saw yesterday lays out easily before them now. There are four long rows of paddocks here, with sheds at the shared corner of each set of four small paddocks.
Jazz is explaining to Olivia and Earl about the system, which leaves Jesus to look and listen. Setting up anything like this back at Hilltop will fall more under their domain than his, other than him finding the supplies. He's seen enough abandoned farms that he can probably find enough to duplicate it, although on a smaller scale. They don't have this much acreage securely fenced.
They're led into one of the unused paddock quads. "The gates into the shed area slide around. Dad designed them so that I can move sheep from paddock to paddock without taking them out in the lane, at least as far as the old plan when I had fewer sheep. The lane's mostly for going to the milk barn."
Earl calls Kenneth over as he sketches down the layout.
"How many sheep did this work for?" Olivia asks.
"My original flocks were two dozen each flock, give or take depending on when I was replacing ewes. The extra paddocks were used for working with the ewes at different times."
"And the rams?"
"They're housed on the other side of the milk barn. If you want to have a set breeding program, you can't have the rams with the ewes. In fact, come meet a few of the ram lambs."
There are more than a dozen little lambs of various colors in a pen alongside the milk barn.
"These are all male?" Enid asks, leaning in to pet one of the friendly critters when Jazz gives permission.
"All sixteen of them, yes. The females from the same lambing are actually on the other property while we make the new paddocks. They have to be separated early because to avoid accidental crossbreeding."
"What will happen to them?" From the dour tone, Jesus thinks Enid already knows the answer.
"They'll be castrated and this batch will probably be moved around the property in electric sheep fencing to act as little lawnmowers until August or so. Once they're around a hundred pounds, they're destined for the freezer."
"I kinda want to be vegetarian now," Enid mutters.
"One of them is going to escape that fate," Jazz adds, looking more sympathetic than Jesus expected with apparently years of experience with the farm to table process.
"Really?"
"One will go north with you along with the Romanov ewes I'm sending." He turns to Olivia. "In a couple months, we'll send another half dozen bred ewes and another unrelated young ram, if you think you'll have room for them by then."
"Why the different breed of ram?" Jesus asks. He figures there's got to be a reason. Apparently, there are even spreadsheets set up for the sheep farm.
"Because I don't know enough of the background on the Romanov sheep on how they're related. Running loose like that, we aren't even sure exactly what farm they come from to see if there were records."
That makes sense, and he can see Olivia jotting down notes as fast as her pencil will scratch across paper.
"Ron said you had one hundred and fifty-two sheep," Enid muses. She's glancing out at the paddocks, doing a mental tally. "Seems like more than that."
"That count is the confirmed breeding sheep. It doesn't include the sixteen little guys here or either of the two sets of lambs belonging to the ewes we just milked. That's forty-three for the Katahdin and forty-five for the Romanov.
"Two hundred and fifty-six sheep?"
Jesus is impressed at Olivia's near instant mental tally.
"Now you know why I need new paddocks?" Jazz actually smiles at that. "I won't be keeping all of them. About half of each lambing is male, or sometimes females that shouldn't be bred."
"And the meat?"
"The Katahdins produce about forty-five pounds of meat per lamb, and the Romanovs will probably add another five or ten pounds to that. Crossing the breeds may change that around some."
It sounds like a lot of meat if you think about going to the grocery store, before, but Jesus knows just how much is needed to feed a larger community. "It's going to be a treat at first, until we can manage a full flock, right?"
Jazz nods as he hops over the fence into the pen with the lambs. He's walking among them, assessing for something as he answers. "Eat the surplus males, rotate the females back into breeding stock."
He snags one of the lambs and lifts him up. The solid-black lamb bleats and wriggles. "How about this one, Enid?"
She grins and accepts the little male. "He's like the nursery rhyme."
"Yeah, except no wool to keep up with." Jazz is back over the fence while Enid cuddles her new buddy. "We'll keep him up in the barn until y'all leave."
It's a tight squeeze, getting back in the Polaris with the lamb on board. Jesus ends up in the center seat between Jazz and Enid, instead of the girl riding between them like on the way down. Jazz keeps the speed even lower on the return trip, conscious of the extra passenger.
"With all the sheep, is that why you don't do runs?" Enid asks.
It's a source of conflict with the girl and Hilltop, where no one other than Jesus is really comfortable with the idea of a fourteen-year-old girl being outside the walls. Personally, he thinks that since she survived several months on her own outside of protective walls, it's shutting the barn door after the horse already escaped.
"Gotta be sixteen for the big supply runs, and that's not til August," Jazz replies. "I go out on some of the hunting runs, but those aren't usually areas that have to be cleared. And I've gone out on runs where we were disassembling something, usually if my dad's along."
"Doesn't that frustrate you?"
Jazz doesn't answer right away, which seems unusual for his willingness to pass along information. Jesus glances up at him, and there's something about the set of his jaw that makes him dread the answer. Crammed in like they are, he knows Jazz is tensed up. He can feel it in every point of contact they have.
"Considering I've had to kill someone on a run before, no, it doesn't."
Jesus thinks of the gun holstered on the teenager's left hip and the knife similar to his own pair, and how Jazz wore both even at supper last night. There's also the high-powered rifle currently strapped to the cargo area of the Polaris, which he saw Jazz with out in the fields yesterday. He may stay inside the walls right now, but he's imminently ready to defend it.
It takes Enid a minute to comprehend the answer. "I'm sorry. Did they get bitten?"
"No."
By the time Jazz tersely relays the tale of the nursing home attack, they've reached the barn, but even Enid sits until he's done. The lamb just wiggles in her lap as if she's holding a dog.
"It's not the dead to worry about out there, Enid," the older teenager says softly. "It's the living. At least the people that attacked the nursing home only wanted to kill them. Ask Dr. Denise about the others."
He slides out of the driver's seat and rounds the vehicle to take the lamb and disappears into the barn without another word.
Enid doesn't seem to be capable of moving yet, and when Jesus turns to look at the three in the back, he can tell the Suttons look as disturbed as he feels. And Olivia? She's got traces of tears on her face.
Jesus knows enough from Honey, and how her team in Virginia hunted the Wolves to the very last man. He suspects the rest won't like what Denise has to say.
~*~ CP ~*~
Carol leads the two Hilltop council members from the community center to her office just outside. She laughs a little as they both eye the beanbag chairs in her actual office and she motions for them to just pick a desk in the outer area.
"It'll be easier to show you some of the things if you're at a computer." She opens the inventory program on both computers, although she thinks it'll mean more to Olivia than Jesus.
She watches as Olivia smiles a little, settling in at the desk Carol still thinks of as Lori's, even though it's just as likely for Patricia to use it. The two mothers keep the baby area stocked with the little playpen and various baby supplies.
"There's no daycare?"
"Officially? No. Excluding the babies, we only have three children younger than school age. The woman who normally watches those three while their parents are working just had a baby herself on March 24th, so we shuffled someone else into her place."
"So, the babies all stay with their mothers?"
"That can vary depending on the mother's duties and how long she wants to be on leave. The reason we have a set up in here is that the two women alternate duties between them now that they're both back working, and one watches the other's child as needed."
"What about the fathers?" Olivia laughs a little and exchanges a look with Jesus, who has been rather quiet. "Or the other parent in general?"
"Patricia's a widow, but she's part of the Greene family, so it's not unusual to see Hershel or one of his girls with the baby if Patricia needs help. She also has several teenage foster children who help out."
"Hershel's the veterinarian, right?"
"Yes, and head of our medical staff here, as well as council. We know we'll need to formalize a daycare structure at some point, with the baby boom here." She strokes a careful hand across her own abdomen with a soft smile.
"It's not really an issue as much at Hilltop, although Harlan told me before we left that we have our first pregnancy."
"We have six pregnancies at the moment and I wouldn't be surprised at more coming over the next few months. People like to reconnect in times like this. It's been nice to have Harlan to consult with us here." Carol reminds herself to send some sort of gift to the Hilltop obstetrician.
Despite her prediction that Olivia would be more interested in the inventory program Lori created, it ends up being Jesus with the most questions. She reminds herself that Lori quizzed Glenn and Scout heavily as she worked on it, so perhaps it's the supply runner mindset.
"You're sure it won't be a problem to set it up on a computer for us?" Jesus asks.
He's taken to the program, a duplicate copy of their own, with an ease Carol envies. There's something about him that reminds her of Glenn, and she thinks he's younger than she originally estimated when meeting him yesterday.
"We told Glenn one day we needed computer equipment. Thing that happens around here when I ask for something is that they tend to overdeliver. Check the electronics category."
Jesus whistles. "Well, at least it won't become obsolete in six months?"
It makes both women laugh, and Carol nods. "There is that advantage, at least. Those who are more computer oriented than I am will set up a couple of systems for you, and the backup storage. But I recommend making regular printed copies. At least nowadays, you don't have to budget for printer ink or toner."
"You're going to want a list of all the office supply stores in the Hilltop area, aren't you?" Jesus asks Olivia. After she nods, he looks back to his screen. "Would you be willing to spare the same for the other communities?"
"We can. It's not like I can't send Glenn out for more, especially since we go into the electronics stores for batteries and smaller items all the time."
"Alexandria isn't currently a true ally," Jesus admits. "But I suspect at some point, we will need to bring them into the loop out of necessity. Having them vulnerable, especially since they're not isolated geographically from Hilltop or our allies, makes me nervous."
"If you're concerned that communication or trade with them will make us cut ties because of the abuser in their midst, don't." She smiles reassuringly at him. From his expression, that's exactly what he worries. "As long as he doesn't show up down here, Homestead has no argument with Alexandria."
"And if he does?"
She likes that the young man covers all the bases and thinks ahead. "If we're forewarned of his disappearance from their population beforehand, there'll still be no problem. They should just be forewarned they won't be getting their doctor back."
"I suspect they would be grateful for his disappearance, if they had any alternative," Olivia adds. "No one there likes Pete. He's just seen as an ugly necessity."
"My assessment, along with what I know from Olivia and the lines of communication I've kept open with their recruiting pair, is that Alexandria won't last in the long-term," Jesus says. "They're not willing to adapt. It's like they're in a time capsule, waiting on the world to return to normal."
"And the other communities?" Carol knows what she's been told by her own people, but that's information from mere days of contact, not immersion like these two.
"The Kingdom was already the most adapted, although they were preparing more for life without electricity or technology. For being so close to DC, they ended up with very few people with the skills to maintain that for them. But they're good farmers and they have their own little militia."
"And Solomons Island?"
"That's a little bit of a different story. There's a research lab there, University of Maryland. They probably have a larger scientific population there than any of us do, but they got lucky that so many know their boats."
"Could they replicate the insulin closer to home? It wasn't terribly hard for us to collect Eugene's equipment." A university research lab would have all the goodies and more, she thinks. Most of their items were lifted from the Emory campus when Cricket's team went to find the research Eugene needed.
"Equipment wise? Probably. I'd have to ask. The problem would be that no community I've found so far has the livestock on the scale Homestead does."
Carol thinks over Eugene's supply requests and realizes he's right. They produced the quantity of insulin they did on the first trial run because they have so many sheep. Even if Hilltop began to collect stray livestock, they don't have the space for them yet and it'll take at least six months to have lambs old enough.
There's a plan taking root right now, but she'll need to run it by her own people, especially the council. Having Homestead as the primary location for livestock is risky in its own way, because disease or even natural disaster could cost them far too much. It's the sort of vulnerability that has Homestead expanding cropland far beyond their immediate needs.
But first, she should probably see if it's even welcomed. "If Hilltop had help in fencing in more property, would you expand your farming operations?"
Olivia actually makes the connection a few seconds faster than Jesus, by the brilliant smile she displays. But she doesn't speak, looking to the more long-term Hilltop resident.
"If you're offering skills and labor to make Hilltop larger, I can promise you that not even Gregory would turn that down," he says at last. "I understand helping us on the small scale. It fits what Honey says about good helping good. But why large scale?"
"Remember the saying about don't put all your eggs in one basket?" she asks him. He nods slowly. "Right now, we're strong and successful here and can share the wealth. But only one wealthy community isn't enough."
"Insurance." He gets it now, she sees. "But why Hilltop? The Kingdom might benefit faster."
"Because as long as you're there, my family has a stake in Hilltop's success. That's a tie we don't have to the other communities."
"Oh." He's looking at the desk, looking as out of touch with the idea as she felt back when Honey decided she and Sophia were family without any input from Carol herself.
She leaves him be to absorb the scope of what his importance to Honey and Logan means to the rest of the Dixons and goes to review the work rosters with Olivia. By the time the Hilltop folks return north, she thinks the true reality will have set in for Jesus.
~*~ Jesus ~*~
"Jesus! Guess what?" Logan plops onto the seat next to Jesus at lunch.
The room's a lot less populated than it was at supper or breakfast. He's actually missing most of his group, other than Olivia. Earl and Kenneth are actually out with the exterior fencing crew, and Enid's out with Jazz's paddock crew.
Lunch is served in the field with the prettier spring weather. He saw them load up boxed lunches and coolers earlier to deliver to the farm and building crews. Combined with run teams out for the day, he thinks less than half of Homestead's population is here.
"What's got you so excited?"
"Miss Gail says since I finished all my work and got a perfect score on my science quiz, I can have the rest of the day off."
The pleading, hopeful look on the boy's face tells him that he wants to spend that extra time with Jesus.
"And what are we planning on doing?" he teases. There's nothing he might do that Logan couldn't tag along with.
"Dunno. We could go help with the paddocks."
"You need to eat lunch first." His own plate is half-empty already. Even better, he actually helped with lunch prep, because Carol brought him and Olivia along.
He gets the feeling not many people ate capable of saying no to that earnest belief she has that you'll enjoy the job she's asking you to do. Olivia's happy chatter with the lunch staff reveals Carol popping in as an extra set of hands on various meal shifts is a regular habit of hers.
It reminds him of Honey's comparison of Gregory's inactivity versus her mother's need to be aware of the state of her people.
Logan whirs through the buffet, returning with a plate and companions. When he ends up surrounded by kids on their school lunch break, he looks to Olivia for help. She's hiding a smile where she's sitting with Carol. The Dixon matriarch doesn't even bother to hide her smile.
He recognizes Anaya from last night and is half-certain he met at least two of the other children at prior meals. Thankfully, they have pity on him and Logan reintroduces them.
"Abby, Anaya, Molly, Luke, Mika, and Lizzie."
He recalls Mika and Molly as part of Logan's sports team now. The two boys introduced last night are missing, but the family resemblance with two of the new children to Mika and Molly indicates siblings. He seems to remember a Dixon cousin named Abby.
They pepper him with questions about Washington, DC from before and Hilltop specifically. It makes lunch pass quickly, until a pretty older woman summons the school kids to her by shaking some sort of wooden musical instrument.
Logan isn't the only child who stays seated with him. Anaya smiles in a way that tells him he's about to get talked into something.
"Are you done for the day, too?"
She nods, neat braids bobbing. "I usually am. I usually go with Jazz or Sophia after lunch."
Ah. Logan's already mentioned Jazz, so he suspects he's being recruited as their escort down to the new paddocks.
"Are they allowed to go to the paddocks?" he asks Carol. He doubts they would pull any tricks with Carol sitting at the same table, but best to ask.
"As long as they're with someone qualified on firearms over sixteen and check out at the watch room, yes."
She tosses him a set of keys on a lanyard that looks remarkably like the gate keys he knows Honey has.
"Check by the watch room to get a walkie issued. You are armed, right?"
His knives are visible, but the holster at his back less so. He lifts his vest to show it.
"Good. Use the red tabbed key to check a rifle out of the armory. The kids know where it is. I usually walk them out if Jazz is off the main property, so you'll save me a trip."
He nods, gripping the keys tightly. She's casually handed him not only access to the property, but the armory too. He doesn't imagine everyone has that key. "I'll keep a close eye on them."
Carol just smiles, expression warm in a way that makes him understand Honey's attachment to her. The kids snag his dishes and take them to the sink for him.
The stop to pick up the walkie ends with a crash course on how it works. He considers going to the RV, which has his own rifle and Earl and Kenneth's, but figures he might as well opt to use the armory and spare the detour.
Logan chatters through most of the half-mile or so walk, only falling silent after they lock the second gate behind them. He sprints ahead once they're in sight of the main paddock gate, making Anaya laugh.
"All morning, he couldn't wait to see you at lunch. Now he can't wait to see Jazz," the little girl says.
"He seems to spend a lot of time with Jazz." More than Honey, but she doesn't have duties that allow a child along like her brother seems to have.
"Jazz doesn't mind teaching us stuff, and Logan really likes animals."
"He certainly does."
She frowns a little. "I heard Honey tell Jazz you were a foster kid, like me and Al. A real one, before, not like how it is now, where they keep you for real."
He feels a wave of sadness for the girl, if she were a long-term foster kid like he was. At least she's found a family now. He's only seen Scout with her so far, but there's no mistaking she adores the child.
"I grew up in group homes around DC. Never really stayed with a family long enough for adoption to even be mentioned."
"And then you got too old."
It's the knowing look she gives him, with eyes too old for nine. He's seen it in dozens of other kids before, kids stuck in the system only to age out to no support at all.
"And then I was too old."
"I liked the group home better." It's said with the air of telling a dark secret. "No one pretended you might get adopted once you were there."
"No, they usually didn't." He never quite looked at it her way, that the truth was better than false hope.
"When everyone got sick, all the adults left except one. She boarded up all the windows and doors on the bottom floor. She stayed until she got sick and said it wasn't safe for us if she stayed." She reaches out and slips a small hand in his, but she isn't looking at him.
"She was right, if she had the virus. Were there many kids left?"
"Just four. Some went to the hospital, before Miss Weber locked up our building."
"Are the others here?" God, he hopes so. Dead children walking is one of the more horrific things he's seen.
"No. Kenya wanted to leave. She was older, almost thirteen. She swore she could find her mama, and Elizabeth wanted to go try to find her family, too. They climbed out one of the second floor windows. Maybe they really did find their families."
"I hope they did." As unlikely as it is, maybe they did.
"Sonja and me stayed til there was no more food. Then we climbed out the same window."
She stops their progress short of the working group, and he suspects once she's speaking, she can't stop. When Jazz looks over, he signals for them to be left alone. Jazz corrals Logan away.
"Sonja got eaten. She screamed a lot."
She makes a hiccupping sound, and he recognizes the quiet crying he's far too used to from his own youth. He kneels so that he can hug her to him, shifting them both so he's seated on the ground with her in his lap. She begins to cry in earnest, accepting the comfort he offers, and he wonders if she's spoken to anyone at all about this.
But for now, he's just going to be her safe place to cry. The rest he can figure out later.
