by Sally Six
“Yeah that’s fine. In fact, that’s a lot later then I thought you would wake me.” He said with a smile.
Titus grabbed his boots and pulled them on. He hadn’t taken the time to do that when he heard knocking on the door. His toes were getting a might cold. He then picked up his rifle and strapped on his pistol. He slipped on his gloves and stuck on his wool stocking cap and went over the hay. He pulled an extra bale over the side to sit on leaning against the main pile. Soon the rest of them were all snug in their sleeping bags. They could hear the wind pick up outside, but it didn’t take long and soon they were sound asleep.
Titus sat on the hay bale thinking, maybe too much. He wondered if he should have gone and seen if he could find his girlfriend. The problem was since she didn’t answer her phone she could have been at any of two dozen places. No he thought it through, that would have not been a smart thing to do. He was better off making the decision that he did. He could have gotten himself stuck in town somewhere when everything stopped and still most likely would not have been able to find her.
When you make a decision like this he thought. It’s best not to second-guess yourself. Then you are able to not make the right decision when you need to. He listened to the wind and started to go over what their supplies were and how long they should hold up here. He thought they really should just stay one day to rest up, mainly for the women. Then make their way to the farm. He wondered how the rest of his family was making out since they were scattered all over the place. Did Tom make it home or was he up here somewhere also holed up with the kids. He and his younger brothers really should have told him about this place and the plans they had made.
“Well can’t cry over spilt milk.” He said to himself. “We need to not make that mistake again. We need to tell everyone in the family what we were planning to make it easier to find each other.”
He was so deep in thought it never dawned on him that it was getting light outside until he looked around and realized the barn was pretty darn light. He could no longer hear the wind howling and thought “Gads that was dumb. Can’t lose touch anymore. I could have risked all our lives by not being more aware of what was going on around me.” He waited awhile longer and then woke Les for his shift. Then he laid down for a while until the others started to wake.
Chapter 10
Home
Next Day On The Home Place:
It seemed strange to not have the clock go off, but Michael knew it had to be about the time that he usually got up. Old habits do die-hard. He tried to get back to sleep, but all he managed to do is start to toss and turn.
After about 45 minutes of that, Ann opened her eyes and said. “Okay, why don’t we just get up? Neither one of us is asleep anyway.”
Michael thought about a shower which is what he did right after he got up each morning. He wasn’t looking forward to a sponge bath this morning instead of a nice scalding hot shower which is how he liked them. He would have to get something set up so he could shower in the tub with a pail or something with holes in it. Ann was thinking along the same lines. No hot shower to help her muscles and bones feel better in the morning.
What Michael did do was decide to talk about radiation. He hoped they wouldn’t get much or any for that fact. They didn’t even have a root cellar to take refuge in. At this time of year, they didn’t get prevailing winds from the west exactly, but more like from the north.
Ann looked at Michael with a worried look. “Oh Mike, won’t the winds just coming down from the north help us out with that?”
“That’s what I am hoping too. Going into winter may be the pits. If it had happened in the spring, we wouldn’t have been able to stay here at all. We would have had to try and get out of the way of the prevailing winds from the west.”
Ann looked at him aghast. “We would have had to hike out. There’s no way that I can see that we would have made it out of the way before it got to us. That’s a really scary thought that this is a blessing that this happened now.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right. There’s no way we would have made it out in time if this was summer. Well I am going to head out and see how the spring is. We will have to figure out soon how to pump the water out of it instead of using buckets. There’s no way were going to get water up from our well with no electricity for now. So the spring is our only option.”
“I will get the woodstove going and get some breakfast cooking. I’ll heat up some hot water for our baths while you’re seeing to that. I will help with the animals as soon as it gets light.”
As Mike went out the door, he noticed the temperature must be about 28 degrees, not real cold. He might as well go ahead and start putting another good pile of wood on the porch so Ann wouldn’t have to come to the outside pile for it. The porch was about empty. The weather had already turned cool enough to have the wood stove going for about two weeks now. He usually had more wood on the porch but he had put it off.
The yard was a winter wonderland. Talk about an early snow, wow. Even though it had turned cool so soon this year, they really hadn’t expected the snow.
He and Ann had spent all spring and summer getting in about twelve cords of wood gleaned from permits in the National Forest and trees down at friend’s houses. They still had about seven cords from last winter left because it had been such a mild winter last year.
So all he had to do is spend time splitting it. It would be all by hand like last years.
He trudged over to the garage to get the wheel barrel, knocked the snow off and headed back toward the house. The tarped woodpiles were about 20 feet from the house in the back yard. He had another one up the hillside about 50 feet from the house under the 80 foot pine trees. He took the green tarp off the front pile and began to fill the wheel barrel. Thirty minutes later, he had what he hoped was a week’s worth of firewood on the enclosed porch. It was pretty light by this time. He latched the screen door back up because he had it hooked open to bring in the wood. He took the wheel barrel back to put it upside down beside the garage. He heard the back door closed and looked up to see Ann coming out the door all bundled up. She was headed his way to get grain for the poultry which was kept in trash barrels in the garage.
Before she opened the garage up, he was by her side and went into the garage with her.
They needed two five-gallon grain buckets. One would be for the chickens and ducks. The other was for the geese. He filled one bucket while she filled the other and he said. “I guess I best get a couple more buckets and dip some water out of the spring for their water while you take these over to feed them.”
This way they could fill the feeders and not have to again for 3 or 4 days.
The spring was only about 70 feet from the house. It was hard to believe it would now become their main source of water. There was a thin layer of ice that had formed under the snow. He broke it up and dipped the buckets in.
Ann looked up at Mike as he came over. “This is going to get hard, isn’t it?”
“Yeah it sure is. Maybe we should butcher some of these geese and ducks so there aren’t so many to feed and water. Not all at one time, but as needed say four a week until the flocks are at more of a size that we can easily take care of. We want to leave enough to hatch out some next spring for the year’s food and maybe for trade down the road.”
“Yes, you’re most likely right,” Ann said. “Well no time like the present. When we get done with this and have some breakfast, we should butcher a few geese. Then we can take our sponge baths when we’re all done with that. Another thing I just thought of. Our eggs, how will we keep the eggs good after things warm up again next spring?”
“Well we won’t have to worry about it until then. In the meantime, we best go through our old time how to do stuff information that we gleaned from here and there. Maybe see what we can find about preserving eggs without refrigeration,” Mike told her.
The poultry all fed and watered, they went inside to get some breakfast because they knew it would
be awhile until they would be done with the geese. Ann had made malt-o-meal. It was waiting for them on the bricks beside the living room woodstove.
The woodstove was an old Forrester with two levels. Now it would be used for more than just heating the house.
“Okay, I guess we’re ready,” said Mike as they had finished eating and washed up their dishes.
He went into the bedroom and collected his hunting and gutting knife. Ann dressed again in her warm clothes and headed to the barn to get the big pot to scald the geese for de-feathering them.
In the meantime, Mike had dressed a bit warmer and went to build a fire out on the driveway in front of the garage to use the garage as a wind break. He shoveled a place off the gravel, got two cinder blocks, set then about three feet apart and built a fire in between the cinder blocks.
They had buried a refrigerator in the fall to stick their beets and carrots in as small homemade root cellars. They had pulled off the back and the racks from inside them. They made great strong grates for holding the water pots or for grilling on.
Ann brought the metal tub down from the barn. Then Mike went over and picked up the two five-gallon buckets and went to the spring to fill them. He poured it in the tub to get the water heating.
While the water was heating, they headed over to the goose yard. It was 70’ by 60’. The 12 geese were in the upper part. They each took a different direction in the goose yard and cornered the geese in the left upper corner. After several minutes of honking and squawking, Mike had a hold of a large Toulouse gander. They had found that they had eight Toulouse ganders. They sure didn’t need that many. Two would do for the females.
Mike had set up a large log by the heating water. He tied the gander’s head down with a wire and proceeded to chop its head off. He had set another tall log up to tie its feet to. That would let it drain upside down. Five minutes later it was time to gut it. They would throw all this to the chickens. They would eat anything and yes it does sound disgusting. With that done and the water boiling by this time. He took the goose over and dunked it upside down in the boiling water for about two minutes. Then he took it over to the clean cloth covered table and started to pull off as many feathers as would come off with this dunking.
The down feathers underneath were the hardest to get to. So he had to dunk it again. This time dunking it up and down a few times holding it by its feet. He took it back to the table to finish de-feathering with Ann helping with this process. That done he took the leg joint and separated the legs there.
Ann took the goose liver and heart into the house to rinse and clean off to get it ready to go into the pot for dinner which she would set on the wood stove to cook. Meanwhile, Mike proceeded to go get another goose. He would do them all today and then clean up the mess, throw that to the chickens, put out the fire and put things away after everything was cleaned up.
The chicken’s thought they were in seventh heaven. They came running to the fence when they saw him coming. They just loved scraps. Ann called them sharks with feathers.
Mike came in and took off his things in the kitchen. Most of his old clothes would have to be washed now, but the rest he could just hang on the hooks to dry in the kitchen. At that time the grandfather clock struck 9 AM.
Ann was just finishing putting things in the pot for dinner and had their bath water heating on the lower part of the wood stove. As they were preparing for their sponge baths, they discussed the children. They were sure some of them would and should make it up the house today. At least they certainly hoped that would be the case.
“It will mean that we will be crowded, but maybe Tom can take more into his place so we can kind of divide up the crowd,” said Mike.
Ann thought and knew they had an extra room. “We do have Kate’s old room that we left the bed in there. We have the loft to double as a sleeping room. We can just blow up a couple of air mattresses for someone to use. Tom has just about the same set up. He could put two kids in one room if he had to. He could put someone or two in the other bedroom as well as someone in the loft area. The bedrooms for the kids were 10’ by 12’ so they were plenty big enough for two. Even if more had to sleep in a bedroom that would work.”
“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Then who we end up with. I know we would rather be crowded than not have them,” said Mike.
“You can say that again. I know all this speculation doesn’t do any good. I sure wish they would just hurry and get here.”
After their baths and the cleanup of that, Mike went over to their bookcase and started to look over their Do It Yourself Books and books on old time ways to do things. One he didn’t want to not get to soon was a book called “Handy Farm Devices”. There was also he noticed a couple of cook books in that book case that he might want to look over too. They were 18th Century cooking and one called The First American Cook Book from the 1700’s. He was sure they had old time advice in them that could give him a leg up on some things. So he had reordered the books in the order that he wanted to read them. He took out the first one and went over to the chair by the large living room window.
He was just kind of glancing through it first before he settled down to read the book. He had grabbed one of the old cookbooks. Yes, right there on a page was how to preserve eggs for 6 months.
***
Preserving Eggs
½ cup lard
¼ cup powdered borax (Twenty Mule Team Borax)
The lard preserves the eggs and the borax preserves the lard.
Mix the lard and the borax to a smooth paste
Have at least 12 hour old eggs so they don’t take up the taste of the lard.
Go ahead and smear your hands with the mixture and completely grease the eggs.
Put eggs in paper egg cartons, pointed ends down. Turn over once a week.
Then store in a cool dry place, they will keep for six months.
***
“Well that should work well come warm weather,” he thought to himself. “Especially if I don’t have something better for them to be stored in. I will also have to build a building around the spring. Dig it deeper so we can put the milk, butter and so on in the water to keep it cool.” Mike got up and got himself a pad and pen to start a list of the things they would need to do. Later when he had more of a list, he would order and number them in order of importance.
Ann brought in a tray of soup and sandwiches. “Wow where did the time go,” he said. “It’s lunch time already?”
Well one thing that they wouldn’t have to worry about is how to pass the time. He had an idea that wasn’t going to be a problem anymore.
Chapter 11
Bug Out
A few miles from home, Tom awoke to hear the kids giggling from the kitchen. He didn’t know how in the world that he could sleep through them waking up and whoever else was in the kitchen with them, but he did assume it was Mrs. Wilson.
At that moment, the old grandfather clock started to clang. He looked over to see that it was 6 AM. Tom pulled himself out of the sleeping bag just as Paul Wilson was coming down the stairs with Gus right behind him.
“I see you slept in.” Paul said with a grin on his face.
“We’re headed out to do the morning chores before breakfast. Would you like to join us?”
“Give me a minute to get dressed and I’ll be out.” Tom told him.
Tom said good morning to Gus, but all Gus did is grunt in return.
“Gus wasn’t what you would call chipper this morning either,” thought Tom.
Fred and Bitty came out of the kitchen as Tom was pulling on his wool socks and then his flannel shirt.
“Guess what Dad?” Bitty said.
“Guess what Bitty?” Tom said as he buttoned his shirt.
Fred got in on it also. “Ah Dad, can’t you guess?”
“He can too Fred.” Bitty said to her brother and back and forth they started. “Can’t.” “Can”.
“All right you two, what can’t I gues
s?”
“We’re helping to make pancakes, hash brown potatoes and bacon for breakfast.” Bitty said excitedly.
“That sounds wonderful kids.” Tom headed to go through the kitchen to get to his boots. He was sure that he could help out with the chores before they took off for his place and Mom and Dads. With Tom helping, it only took about 45 minutes to finish everything outside. Gus was still surly as they walked back to the house for breakfast. So Tom didn’t really say anything to him that would remind him that the world had changed around him without him even knowing it.
As the men entered the kitchen, they could smell the food and that made their stomachs growl even more. Good hard work makes for very hungry men. The table was already set. Nancy was just putting the warmed homemade syrup onto the table. The three of them went to wash up and in a few minutes all were sitting at the table.
Paul looked at Tom. “Thanks for the help out there Tom. Another hand sure makes things go quicker.”
“You’re very welcome Paul. It made me feel better to help out with your family putting us up for the night and feeding us and all. That’s what neighbors are for Paul. Now more than ever I think.”
Paul said. “I think saying Grace is in order. I will do that if none of you mind?”
Everyone nodded their heads and then bowed them as Paul said their morning prayer.
When everyone was nearly done, Tom told the family that they should be headed on their way to his parents’ place. The sooner they got on their way the better.
Penny and the kids helped clear the table. Nancy said she would do the rest after they were on their way. Tom had redressed and headed out to the truck to haul their bikes out of the back. He also took out the packs and things to tie onto them. There was no way they could ride them in the snow, but they sure could use them to haul whatever he could get on them without making them too unwieldy. He would carry all he could on his bike and his backpack would go on his back as well as wearing his guns. They would hopefully come back for the rest of their stuff soon. At least he hoped that’s how it would go.
