On the fourth day Tim and I are exploring one of the barns when we open a door in the loft of the largest barn and find a short wave radio hookup. The antenna needs reset, but after climbing out onto the roof of the barn and reattaching it to the roof mount Tim is actually able to get static on the radio. This radio is better quality than the one we found in the city and there is a much more open area to receive signals in. Tim decides to come back up this evening to see if he can raise someone. There is apt to be more traffic at night than in the middle of the day. Dayna and her sister were going through the basements of the houses that we live in when they found a wheat mill. The only reason I recognize it is because Ma Horton used to grind her own wheat flour sometimes and I was lucky enough to help her. I didn’t think it was so lucky at the time, but right now I am very happy that I helped her. I am even happier that I remember at least some of what she taught me.
We found some jars of wheat in with their food storage in the basement that seems to be fine. Of course none of us know enough about wheat to know the difference. The jars are still sealed so no air has gotten to it. When we open some, it is still dry as it can get so we decide to grind enough to make some bread with. We find some cakes of yeast that are sealed in foil with an expiration date of like twenty years ago, but we have nothing to lose by trying it. At first it doesn’t do much, but when we add just a little bit of sugar, it seems to work fine. At least the dough rises pretty well. This little experiment has everyone’s attention. The only ones of us who have ever tasted bread are the older ones, and it was so long ago that they don’t remember what it tasted like. Dayna and Charity say that is probably a good thing because they are not too sure how this is going to come out.
It actually comes out very good and being able to put some preserves on the hot, fresh made bread is a treat for everyone. We all agree that our first crop is going to be winter wheat. According to the almanac we can plant that right now to harvest in late spring, early summer. In the evening, Tim tries the radio again with no luck. One of the ladies who is expecting goes into labor and just before midnight our family has grown by one baby boy. He and his mom are healthy and are able to rest comfortably after the ordeal. As excited as everyone is there will be no shortage of babysitters. The mom whose name is Eve told us tonight that back at the city she was regretting having this baby, but now she is happy about it. Apparently the father went out to gather food one day about three months ago and never came back. That happened a lot in the city. Hopefully we can make our home here safe and a good place for the children to grow up.
We are just sleeping soundly when Teddy, the ten year old young man who lives with us, comes in to our room and wakes me up. He says he hears someone in the front yard and it could be more than one. This is not good news. I grab my gun and go to investigate. I can’t see anything out the window so I decide I am probably going to have to go out and see if we are in danger. Dayna doesn’t want me to go, but if this is trouble we should stop it before it gets started. Once out the back door I can hear noises in the front yard. It sounds like someone walking around, but they are making enough noise they can’t be worried about being seen. I go quietly around the side of the house and I can see who our intruder is. Silhouetted against a fairly bright three quarters moon is a horse. It looks around at me when I come around the building and then walks over to me and nuzzles my hand.
I call to Dayna to turn on the porch light and come out to meet our new neighbor. She is afraid of her at first. In the light I can see this is a lady horse. She is a pretty brown almost red, or at least she will be when she gets the burrs and knots out of her coat. We all finally say goodnight and go back to bed. There is plenty of grass in the yard for the horse to eat, but I won’t be too surprised if she is gone in the morning. Actually we are informed by the children, who live with us, that their horse is still in the yard and she brought some friends back with her. When we get to check this information out we find that she has been joined by three cows that look to be quite full of milk. Milk is another thing that very few of us have ever had, it takes a while, but we do manage to fill a bucket with milk. It doesn’t taste like what we were used to drinking, but it is not bad. The others agree. We found a butter churn in the barn, so now looks like a good time to clean it up and figure out how to use it.
While we are doing that, three calves that must have followed the cows into the yard show up. They are full of mischief and act like they want to play with the children who are a little afraid at first, but warm up to the little calves quickly. They all seem content to walk through the largest barn and out into the area behind it which has plenty of grass for them to eat. Everyone is excited by how much our family is growing lately. Today Tim, Billy, and I decide to try to figure out how to plow the ground for planting. Getting the tractor started is easy, figuring out how to hook up the plow is somewhat harder, but trying to keep the rows even close to straight is an endeavor that brings a lot of laughter out of our family. Getting the right depth is a trick as well and then getting the rocks out or at least the big ones. By the end of the day we can proudly say we have a little over two acres plowed.
I am beginning to see why farmers go to bed early, this type of work is hard if you are used to it. When you are just learning like we are it is backbreaking even though we are in pretty good shape. Up early again and we start right where we left off only today we have a better idea of what we are doing and actually do about three or four times what we did yesterday. The girls got the butter churn cleaned out good and with the help of one of the books we got they make butter today. It definitely makes the vegetables that we have for dinner taste better. Everyone is so excited that we are doing so well. The books we got from the library are a big help, but in some cases we realize we are just going to have to try until we get it right.
In the morning we finish our plowing at least for the time being, but we still have to disk the plowed ground to break up the clumps of dirt and smooth out the field. The women want to help with this part as well as most of the other men who have been cleaning the barns and making the homes more comfortable. Winter is just starting, so we need to get in a large supply of firewood from the woods around us. The windmills are supplying all of our electricity so far. We have been seeing herds of large deer and cattle not far from the house every day. We decide to let everybody taste fresh meat for the first time tonight. Tim and I intentionally go about a mile from the houses before we look for deer to shoot. We figure one good sized deer or two medium sized should feed everyone.
It is a shame to shoot the beautiful bucks that we do, they are not even afraid of us. We can pick the best looking ones from a herd of about forty. They are white tails and both go well over two hundred pounds. We field dress them where we shot them, then pick them up with the truck to take them back to the houses. Gunny showed me how to dress a deer, Ma always joked with him when he said he had a deer to dress. She always told him to make sure the clothes are in style and don’t clash. He would always give her one of those looks he had that was a mixture of confusion and disbelief, then they would both laugh and hug. I sure do miss them both. They would have loved to be here now. They were both pioneer stock and loved an adventure and a challenge. I had a dream shortly after they were killed that they both came to me and we were talking about how much I miss them. Ma told me that as long as they are alive in my memories, they will never be gone completely. If that’s the case, then they will live inside me forever.
This is the first time that most of our family has seen raw meat. They have had canned meats, but they are always cooked. When the meat is cut up and ready to eat, we fry up some small pieces to make sure that people even like it. Everyone agrees that it is different, but they seem to like it, so we cook enough for everyone and open some canned vegetables to go with it. The others finished disking the fields where we want to plant the winter wheat so we check out the bags of seed that we found in the barn that was marked winter wheat. We have no idea whether or not it
will grow, but we have nothing to lose so why not at least try. The bags tell us how close to plant it and how to take care of it. While we are looking around we find a planter for the wheat. That will save a lot of backbreaking work trying to plant by hand. We will plant tomorrow unless we have rain that will keep us out of the fields.
The cows need milked again and this time most of the family is ready for it. Personally I have never been a big milk drinker, but a glass every now and again is okay. Tonight we deliver our second new family member, she comes into this world screaming and complaining about pretty much everything. Mommy and the baby are both fine, and we can finally get some sleep about halfway through the night. Dayna and I sleep late because of the late hour when we went to bed. Naturally we get teased about being lazy good for nothings by everyone else. It’s all in fun and shows us that we are truly becoming a family. The planting is almost complete already and the cows have been milked. In fact, our little herd has grown now to seven head of adult cows and three more calves which makes six all together.
Each of the houses has a pantry for food storage and they also used the basements a lot. Dayna was going through the pantry in our house and found a box that shows ice cream being made on the front of the box. She has seen signs about ice cream and she once asked me about it while we were in the city. I told her it is delicious and that I hope to be able get some for her. She is so excited when she brings it to me and asks what we need to make some. When the others see the box and what the ice cream maker looks like they go looking for the same thing in their pantries. Everyone finds one just as we thought they would. We have plenty of rich milk and cream from the cows, and we have rock salt, and we even have some freezers that actually work well enough to give us ice. We have learned that we have to strain the milk to get all the gunk out of it. We follow the recipe except we use canned fruit instead of fresh. We have nine ice cream makers going at once for supper tonight as well as a very nice venison stew that the ladies got together and made for the family.
This is definitely one of the best meals we have had as a family. To top it all off after the ice cream is gone, and we have all gone to our separate homes for the night, Tim sends his shadow to get me. We shouldn’t call the young man Tim’s shadow, but he is a twelve year old that simply worships Tim. He is the son of one of the ladies that lives in the house with Tim and Charity and is never more than a few yards away. Tonight he comes running yelling for Billy and me to come up to the radio room. He is too excited to say anything more, so Billy and I along with Dayna and Billy’s wife Ramona run up to see what is so important. We get there in time to hear Tim talking to someone on the short wave radio. The voice definitely sounds southern like Texas maybe. The voice is saying that there are a few scattered groups of people where he is, but that is it. He says he is in his forties and remembers when everything changed much the same as Dayna’s father does. He says he has been in contact with people from California, Arizona, Mexico, and even as far away as England a couple of times. What he has heard is that so far everywhere he has talked to people they have the same kind of desolation we have found.
He verifies that he is in Texas, just outside Dallas. He has a group of thirty-five that all live on a ranch there and farm to survive. He says that in the big cities there were gangs of predators that preyed on the others. That’s why they moved to the country, that and the fact that eventually the food supplies in the city won’t last forever, so they decided to try growing what they need. So far it is working well for them, but they have been luckier than they have any reason to expect to be. One thing he tells us, before we lose the signal, is that we should beware of traveling gangs that have vehicles, and they go looking for those groups doing what we are. Just to be safe, we tell him that we are in South Carolina, in case someone is listening in. He tells us that he gets on a couple times a week so if we want to talk we can give him a ring. We all laugh and then his voice is gone, replaced by static.
At least we verified that we are not the only ones, or that the East Coast isn’t the only geographic area hit by whatever hit the world. We all talk for quite a while about what we heard. Since the winter wheat is in the ground, and most of the repair work that is totally necessary is coming along fine, we decide that we should pay a visit to the town or small city that the map says is about fifteen miles from here. We decide, or should I say Dayna and Ramona insist on going with Billy and I, and three of the other men in the family. We are taking two trucks with us just in case there is something we can use there. When we finally get to bed, I have trouble falling asleep, because I have no idea how scattered groups like we are can bring the world or even the United States back to a nation. Dayna, who has been reading a lot of history books, tells me that we are not much different than the early pioneers. I remind her that there were people in other countries eager to come to the new world to make their fortunes in gold or by the sweat of their brow.
She asks me if I believe the Bible, I tell her I think I do. She reminds me that Adam and Eve started mankind and then Noah had to start over with his family and two of each animal. We are already ahead of him because we have more people and more animals. If he did it, why can’t we? I have to admit she has a point. I finally go to sleep, resigned to the fact that I can’t solve the problems of the world anymore now than I could when I was back in the present, or is that the future. See, I don’t even know where I am or how I got to be here. I do realize that all we can do is our best every day and let the world do what it is going to. Right here and now is the only thing we can control, to at least some degree. For some reason I dream about a greenhouse all night. That would definitely solve a lot of our problems, being able to grow vegetables all year round, but where would we get one. I wake up asking myself that same question.
In the morning we do some chores around the house that need done, then get ready to go to town. There is a gas tank on the farm that we have been getting fuel for the tractors out of, so we fill the trucks with it before we leave. Billy is driving the 1 ½ ton truck in case we find something big that we want to bring home. Besides, it has a bigger cab, and Billy is just a little too big to fit in a standard pickup cab comfortably. The weather isn’t bad, so the other men and boys that are going with us decide to ride in the back of the pickup. With map in hand, we set out on an adventure. We figure we will probably find more groups of people in the town. We will have to decide at the time if we want them to join our family. I know that sounds cold, but we have to be careful that everyone that joins our family is willing to do their own share of the work. We have been very lucky up to this point, but we all know how fast that can change.
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We are not in any great hurry to get to the town, we see what there is to see on the way and make notes of other houses and farms along the way. So far everything we pass looks totally deserted. I’m not sure if that is a relief or cause for concern, it is what it is, and there is nothing we can do about it right now. We see a lot more cattle and wild game along the way and with all the woods between our homes and town, we should never run out of firewood. On the outskirts of town there is a farm equipment store with a bunch of equipment still in the front and from the looks of it around back as well. When we figure out what we need, we can always come back and get some of it. One item that catches my eye is a small garden type tractor, and the attachments that go with it, right out in front of the store. That could come in real handy for the vegetable gardens we want to plant. It would be a lot easier than trying to maneuver the big tractor in smaller areas.
The town looks like it was a great place to live, when there were people here. It looks as desolate as the farms we passed on the way here. We see no signs of life whatsoever as we drive down the main street. The buildings are not in as bad shape as I was expecting. But then, even the buildings in the city and the farm buildings were not as badly run down as I would have thought they would be for being empty for as long as they have been. Tim and I have talked about it some, and the only
thing we can figure is that the radioactivity or the neutron bombs that destroyed the human inhabitants somehow preserved the building materials so that they don’t age like they normally would. Of course that is all speculation. However, based on some of the articles I have read, it doesn’t seem totally out of the realm of possibility.
We stop at about the center of the town in front of the only supermarket that we have seen so far. When we go in, it doesn’t appear that anyone has even been in the store in several years. There are skeletons in the aisles as there were up in the city and there is a thick layer of dust on everything. This store still has a very large number of fruits and vegetables in glass jars as well as in metal cans. We go into the stock room first and find hundreds of cases of food. We load the pickup to capacity and still haven’t put a dent in the amount of food here. We will definitely be back for more soon. There is no reason to let it go to waste. When we leave the grocery store we go to a sporting goods store right next to it. We find several very nice bows and arrows to go with them. I find the stash of good guns and ammunition that is kept in the basement.
There is a very nice supply of shotguns, as well as other rifles, and even some military surplus guns. We load as much as we dare take room for, since we have only begun searching and lock the other guns up for when we come back. We visit the other stores in town and they all look like no one has been in them in years. Both trucks are totally loaded when we start to head back to the farm with a lot of treasures that will help the family live better. On the way out of town we stop at the farm supply store, and this is a treasure all to itself. I am looking around the front of the store, trying to figure out how to get most of the equipment back to the farm, when Dayna calls me to the back of the store.
When I get there, she shows me the largest greenhouse I have ever seen. It covers almost the entire back of the store and is complete with tables for growing on and the heaters to keep it warm in cold weather. We men decide we can disassemble it without too much difficulty and move it to the farm. We find room on the truck for several bags of seed, when I say bags I mean like burlap bags full of seed, but these are plastic bags that size. There is lots of hard candy, in sealed metal cans, so we get as much as we can hold in the trucks and head for home with our treasures. We get back before noon and spend the rest of the day putting away the things we brought back. The guys ask if they can keep some of the guns in the different houses for protection. We all think that is a very good idea especially since we have been teaching the men how to shoot. We feel the bows and arrows will be a great help for hunting, because they don’t frighten the rest of the game away.
2nd Earth: Shortfall Page 7
