[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

“June 10th, 1972. The crop is looking better this year than ever. I believe I have this whole gardening process down pat now. I think I may need to expand my icebox this winter, as it’s looking like I’ll have too many vegetables to eat on my own. Between the produce I’ll be able to freeze and the game I expect to hunt this summer, I should be even better prepared for winter than I was last year. 

It is incredible how much there is to hunt now. It feels as if the deer are walking right up to my doorstep, offering themselves up to be eaten. There is no one else to scare them away. 

Once again, I find myself contemplating leaving North Dakota and seeking out other survivors. The radio has continued to yield no results. Neither have the regular trips I make to Bismarck. Nothing around me has changed except for the seasons and the unencumbered growth of the land beginning to overtake the roads. 

But I am no longer a young woman, and I feel that age in my bones more and more every day. What if I were to set out only to have an accident on the road, or run into bad weather or, worse, some danger that lurks out there that I can’t yet imagine? What if I find no trouble, but also no way to survive either? I’m afraid to leave my home for too long. It would only make sense to travel in the warmer months, and I can’t neglect my garden for too long. But then I look over the abundance I have and think that it is terribly selfish of me to have all of this to myself. Too many vegetables to eat and people out there who may have empty stomachs. 

I’ve decided, at least, to get the old signal fire going again. It was a right pain in the hiney to keep up those first few months, but now that every other part of my life is turning like a well-oiled wheel, I don’t think it will be too much of a burden to keep up. Perhaps this time someone will see it.”

[click, static]

So that’s how she was surviving—planting and hunting. She writes about some looting as well—that’s what she calls it, but I don’t think it’s looting if there’s no one to commit a crime against—but that’s mostly for supplies and equipment. So…just like us, it seems. It turns out she doesn’t just know how to do all this stuff because off her job, but also because of her father and her husband. It sounds like she and her husband both grew up living off the land. I found an old photo of what I think is Leann’s childhood home, and it looks like a one-room cabin. I doubt it had running water, let alone electricity. This house that she was living in probably felt like more luxury than she needed. I know what that feels like. 

And she was trying to contact people. I doubt a regular shortwave radio from North Dakota could have reached Pennsylvania, but then again my morse code friends seemed to have figured something out. If I had just put my foot down, insisted that we get a radio going…

There’s no point in wondering “what if”. But I still hate that she was out here, trying to reach out, while we were holed up in that stupid fucking house, blocking out the world. 

[click, static]

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