Between our normal chores and translating the books from the Nazi base, we did not have time for much exploring. What we did explore we used the bikes to cover more area.
Over the next year, we made great strides in both compounds. We made use of the Nazi vehicles. We moved a bulldozer by truck and trailer to the first compound. It allowed us to clear the area around the walls better. Added a armored car for in case of emergencies or large animals. We found that the Nazis had placed artillery and a few anti-aircraft pieces on the top of the mountain range that formed the boundary of the valley around their base. Most of the artillery pieces were small but at one place there was two large artillery pieces. Besides the steep terrain and only one real entry point that gave access to the valley, anyone who tried to invade the base from the landside would be in for a hurting.
Any one of the aircraft or ships would be a way off the island except we did not have the needed skills to use them. Talk about a carrot on a stick. Only thing we knew was to translate the books and make sure we stayed alive.
We started repairing the farm area and separated the animals into the different fenced areas. The chickens took the longest and was the most hilarious to move them back to the hen houses. It took over eight days to get all the animals back to there areas. We also found that the Nazis had brought deer, rabbits and dogs to the island also. Once we had all the animals in the pens. We were able to get something we were lacking in our diet. MILK and EGGS! We also thought about if we would able to kill and butcher a cow. We quickly found that a chicken or rabbit was easy but with the size of a cow we did not want to try our luck. For the first time in almost a year we ate meat that was not from the sea.
The Nazi compound had a infrastructure based out of the mountain but with the passage of time we did not want to test it's ability. So we only spent a day or two at a time at the Nazi base. There is just something about hot running water and a efficient sewer system.
As the months past and as we explored the island our love for each other seemed to grow without limit. We were getting to the point of finishing each others sentences and almost reading the other mind.
As the months passed, we tried to keep up on our education. We made use of the libraries of the compound and of the Nazi base. Between the English-German dictionary and the vinyl records we found at the Nazi base, we were getting very efficient? in the german laungauge. Only time would tell how many languages we would learn while we made the island our home.
We thought one of the ways to help us explore the island better was to see if any of the ships had small motorized boats. We were lucky that out of six small boats that we were able to get one started. This allowed us to use the german binoculars and survey the shore. During our water exploration we spotted several shipwrecks. We savaged anything of use form the ships. Some of the wrecks we could not access due to being too far underwater. We spotted some aircraft that had crashed on the island and savaged these also. The few remains that we came across were took back to the prairie that we first came across when we woke up on the island. There we gave them a christian burial. We marked the graves with stones and kept record of where they were found and the spot they were buried.