Once they had finished with breakfast, they decided to begin digging the tunnel. Using the backhoe made the job easy since the ground had only frozen down a couple of inches. They began work around eight o’clock in the morning and had the trench dug by noon. Then they began laying the cement blocks they had stored in the barn in the tunnel. They used sheets of corrugated tin they had stored in the garage to create a roof over the block walls and then began pouring bags of Portland cement over the tin. They laid sheets of plywood over the six-inch deep concrete mix and then backfilled the entire walkway with the dirt and gravel they had dug out earlier in the day. The moisture from the soil would eventually allow the cement to cure and create a very rugged roof structure over their new tunnel. While Randy finished leveling out the backfill over the tunnel, the other two men cut entrances into the Mountain House wall and into the side of the barn. They finished the project just before midnight.
The girls had cooked food and helped the guys whenever they could and everyone was exhausted by the time they had washed up and crawled into bed. Britney had turned into bed around eight that night. She would need two or three more weeks of rest before helping with the hard physical work. Her help in the kitchen and tending the two boys was all that the clan expected of her until she healed a little more; besides, she was an excellent cook.
The clan slept in until almost noon the following day. The weather had turned miserable again and the wind was howling around the mountain. By nightfall on November 15, they had forty-eight inches of snow on the ground and wind chill factors below zero. Building the tunnel in the cold wind had taken a toll on them, but they now realized that if they had delayed the project for even one day, they might not have been able to complete the tunnel. Having the tunnel would provide easy access to the animals and to their backup supply of firewood. As things stood now, they would not have to butcher the animals. They could feed and care for them during the winter months and have a ready supply of goat milk and cheese and fresh eggs. Carrying water to the barn for the animals would be the only hardship the humans would have to suffer during the winter.
On the second night, with the new tunnel in place, they lit two lanterns and headed out to the barn. They had partitioned off a small area under the haymow and the heat from the hour or so of sunlight had warmed the area by late afternoon. They had each carried a pail of water with them to water the animals and to wash the teats of the goats before milking them.
Once they finished caring for the goats and chickens, they headed back through the tunnel towards the house. Once inside, they placed sand bags in front of the tunnel to prevent smoke from traveling down the tunnel and into the Mountain House if a fire were to destroy the barn during the night. Meteorites still raced across the mountains and many landed within a few hundred miles of the farm. Any one of them could strike close enough to set the barn on fire.
As they sat down for the evening meal, they discussed how they were going to prevent cabin fever from setting in after a few weeks. They could walk out of the mineshaft and spend time in the Mountain House whenever they wished, but they were certain even that would not prevent tiny squabbles from developing. Living in such tight quarters was not going to be easy.
Britney had begun making entries in her diary about such things as the weather, the antics of the children and events that seemed important to the clan. She had also noted all of the clan’s birthdates and anniversaries. It seemed important to document such things; each member of the clan provided a piece in their survival puzzle. Keeping up the morale was terribly important.
The weather no longer followed the four-season pattern that humans had enjoyed for hundreds of centuries. Trying to predict the weather was near impossible with the shorter days and seasonal daylight hours. The time between sunrises had remained relatively constant for the last few months at fourteen hours, yet the seasons no longer resembled years past. The seventeen-hour days equated to a year on the planet only lasting 168 days instead of the normal 365 days. The shortened year resulted in a drastic change in the growing seasons on the planet.
The girls began building wooden growing boxes in front of the south facing windows in hopes of growing some extra vegetables. Once they finished with the construction, they filled pails with straw, animal bedding and dirt from the barn floor into the house. Once they had filled the boxes with the material from the barn, they began planting and watering the seeds. Within ten days, the first seedlings began to appear. They had used some of the dried seeds from last year’s harvest. They planted carrots, potatoes, beets, radishes and squash in the first six boxes they built and tomatoes, green beans, peas and radishes in the last five boxes. The seeds quickly sprouted and began to grow, but the girls were not certain that the plants would produce an edible crop with the reduced amount of sunlight they received. Time would tell.
The entries in Britney’s journal showed the true extent of the changes in the seasons:
January 20 - Very-warm temperatures and heavy snow melt.
February 19 - Found first crocus flowers in bloom.
March 25 - Eighty-five degrees and thunderstorms.
March 26 - Nine hours of daylight.
April 28 - Grass has begun to turn brown from lack of rain.
June 4 - Leaves on maple trees turning yellow.
June 22 - Harvested garden vegetables.
July 4 - Pulled remaining carrots, turnips and beets.
July 5 - Harvested squash, pumpkins, cucumbers and potatoes.
July 21 - Leaves have turned red and have begun to fall. Bears have begun to hibernate.
August 6 - Heavy snows in the mountains.
September 12 - Artic blast is making things extremely cold in the mountains.
October 10 - There is only two hours of daylight each day.
November 10 - Fifty mile per hour winds for over thirty-eight hours.
November 12 – There is not enough sunlight to charge the radio batteries.
November 30 - Shoveling enough snow from porch to insure we have fresh air.
December 25 – The clan celebrated Christmas Day by cooking one of the turkeys and some sweet potatoes. Plumb cobbler for dessert.
January 9 - Sixty-three degrees and water from snowmelt running under front door of Mountain House.
January 10 - Six inches of water covering driveway. The water from the driveway created a huge waterfall over side of mountain causing deep erosion.
February 12 – We are planting the garden today. Hope to get enough sunlight and warm ground to produce a crop before cold weather sets in.
February 13 - Cutting wood in the barn and moving it into the mineshaft.
As Robert pulled a bale of hay from where it was stacked in the haymow, a mouse ran up his arm and onto his shoulder. He jumped backwards as he tried to swat the critter from his shoulder and stumbled off the edge of the hay bales he was standing on. He fell backwards and down five or six feet onto the wooden floor of the mow. He landed on his right side and heard the sound of bones breaking as he landed. The impact knocked the wind out of his lungs, but he soon was able to roll over and assess his injuries. He feared he had broken some ribs, but as he regained his breath, he realized that only his right arm was broken. Once he was able to stand, he unbuttoned the middle button of his shirt and slid his injured arm inside for support. He walked over to the ladder and considered whether he could climb down using only one arm. He realized he had no choice in the matter and began to climb. Each time he released his grip on the ladder rung with his left hand and moved it down to grab the rung below, the sharp stabbing pain in his right arm made him feel as if he might pass out.
Once Robert reached the floor level of the barn, he sat down on one of the bales of hay he had already pushed down from the loft and rested for a moment or two. He knew he would have to get himself to the mineshaft where Randy was working to get some help setting his arm and splinting it. Randy, being a medic during his time in the military, was his best source of help with this
broken bone in his arm.
When Robert walked into the mineshaft and sat down at the kitchen table, he laid his broken arm on top of the table to look at it. It had a forty-five degree bend in it just below the elbow. When Robert spoke Randy’s name, he heard Britney begin screaming for Randy to come quick. Robert tried to calm Britney down, but the sight of his bent arm sent her emotions over the edge.
When the clan had all arrived at the kitchen table, Bonnie yelled at Britney to calm down and finally slapped Britney on the shoulder to get her attention. Once she had Britney sitting down, Bonnie began talking to Robert to assess any further injuries. She talked calmly to him and said, “I understand your tough guy Marine mentality over pain, but you need to tell me if you have injured more than just your arm.” He explained that he had knocked the wind from his lungs, but he felt no pain anywhere except for his arm.
Randy had heard the discussion Bonnie was having with Robert and realized the extent of his injuries. Randy headed to his bunk and returned with his medical bag. When he sat down at the table across from Robert, he looked into Robert’s eyes and said, “I need to check your arm to see if I can properly set the bone. If I need to set it back in place, I will give you some morphine before doing it. I understand you can tolerate a lot of pain, as can I, but there is no need when I have a perfectly good drug to help.”
After a few minutes of careful checking, Randy said, “I will need to set the bone. Only the large bone in your arm is broken, the small one appears to be okay. Without an x-ray, there is no way to be certain, but I see no reason for concern. Once I set your arm, I will splint it for now and if we can get the swelling down in the next few hours, we will make a cast to support it while it heals. If the swelling does not subside, we will take a trip down the mountain and have an x-ray taken at the clinic in the morning. With the bad weather we are experiencing today, I hope that trip is not required.”
While Randy tended to Robert’s arm and checked to insure his ribs were not broken or bruised, Rodney headed out to the garage to find the bag of plaster of Paris to create a cast for Robert’s arm. When he returned, he found a pan to mix the plaster with water and put the materials on the kitchen table. Jenna found some rolls of gauge to soak in the plaster and Kathy found an aluminum rod. She bent a gentle ninety degree bend about six inches from the end of the rod so they could use it to strengthen the cast as they added strips of plaster soaked gauge.
Randy gave Robert some Tylenol to help with the pain and offered some morphine, but Robert refused the morphine for the time being. They kept icing Robert’s arm, trying to keep the swelling down as much as possible. After an hour or so, Randy decided to splint the arm and then put Robert in bed so he could use elevation to help reduce the swelling. As Randy used wet towels, ice and elevation to get the swelling down, they soon realized that there was more damage to the arm than was visible from the surface. Randy said, “I need to get you down to the clinic so I can get an x-ray taken.” Jenna said, “I will try to get a connection on the telephone land line. If I can get a connection, I may be able to request a county snowplow operator plow a lane up to the Mountain House so we can get down the mountain with the pickup.”
An hour later, Jenna sat down beside Robert’s bed and said, “I finally got through to the gas station manager. He had his employee contact one of the snowplow operators and a plow is now working its way up the mountain. It will be an hour before he arrives. The man stopped here once before and knows where our driveway is located. He said he can take two people down the mountain with him if you can sit up in the cab of his truck.”
Randy asked the others to help him find a warm sleeping bag and then packed up his medical bag. He spoke to Robert and said, “I will give you a tiny bit of morphine before we leave the mine and a little more during the trip to keep you comfortable. I don’t want your body going into shock during the trip.” The others put on their warm clothes and headed outdoors to shovel some snow off the vehicles in the center of the driveway. They needed to make the vehicles visible to the plow operator so he could see where to plow and not run into any of their equipment.
Before the plow truck arrived, the girls all returned to the mineshaft to insure Kathy had enough cash to pay for her husband’s medical expenses. They had ample funds stashed away for just such an emergency. The clan decided that Jenna and Kathy would follow the snowplow down the mountain to the medical facility in the pickup truck. Having the truck in town would provide them with transportation back to the Mountain House if the snow held off for a few hours. If a storm rolled in, they would have to wait until the snowplow again cleared the highway before they could return home.
While they waited for the snowplow operator to work his way up the mountain, they put six of the gas cans into the bed of the pickup truck so they could fill them while they were in town. The added weight of the gasoline would help give the truck better traction on the return trip up the mountain. They were uncertain if any gas rationing was in effect in Hillsburg. They would fill as many cans as possible along with the gas tank of the truck if they could.
Once the snowplow made a sweep around the driveway and cleared an eight-foot wide path with its huge snow blower on the front, the operator stopped the truck and climbed down. He walked around to the passenger side of the truck and climbed up the ladder where he opened the door. This truck was very tall and Robert would have to climb up the ladder to gain access to the interior of the cab. The crew who built the ladder designed it with rungs designed for the shorter legs of resized humans. As Rodney climbed up the ladder into the cab of the truck to see if Robert would be able to ride comfortably, he realized that the county truck maintenance crew had removed the original truck seats and installed a new upholstered seat. The new seat was higher and designed to fit reduced size humans.
Rodney walked into the mineshaft and explained to Randy that Robert would be quite comfortable in the plow truck and that climbing up the ladder would cause him little problem, even with his arm in a splint. Rodney had also insured the pickup truck was ready for Jenna and Kathy to take to town. When the pickup was ready for the trip down the mountain, Randy and Robert headed out to the plow truck.
The snowplow operator moved slowly down the mountain. He plowed the outside lane along the guardrail as they went. It took just short of an hour to reach the clinic and Robert was becoming more and more uncomfortable as the large truck jostled them around in the seat. Randy had given Robert a little more morphine to help with the pain, but he did not want to give him much more; he feared that Robert might fall asleep in the truck or not be able to climb down from the cab of the truck.
When they arrived at the clinic, they helped get Robert inside. Randy stayed with Robert while the technicians took x-rays and tried to determine the extent of Robert’s injuries. Once Kathy was certain her husband’s arm would not need surgery, she and Jenna drove to the gas station to fill up the gas cans and the truck. There were no limits on how much they could purchase, as they had feared. It seemed that there were ample supplies of gasoline and diesel fuel available worldwide. Since most reduced size humans were unable to drive, they required less fuel. In addition, since millions of humans now lived in family groups in common dwellings, heating fuel consumption had reduced by over fifty-percent worldwide.
When the girls returned to the clinic, Robert’s arm was properly set and Randy was helping one of the nurses apply the casting material to his arm. Robert was still a little groggy from the drug the doctor used to put Robert out while he moved the bones into their proper place within his arm. As Kathy sat beside him on the edge of the bed, he began to talk to her. When she leaned down to kiss him, he closed his eyes for the kiss, but he fell back asleep as his wife moved away from him. She giggled over his response to her kiss and moved over to a reclining chair to let him rest for a few more minutes. When the cast was finished, they decided to let Robert sleep for another hour before beginning the trip back to the Mountain House.
As they wa
tched the weather, the sheriff walked into the clinic and asked how Robert was doing. As they talked, he said, “There is another storm moving in from the west. I suggest you all begin the trip back up the road before the snow arrives. If Robert is not ready to travel, I suggest you plan to spend the night at the hotel. The roads will quickly become too slippery for a safe trip home tonight.”
They helped Robert out to the truck and got him comfortable in the reclining front passenger seat; there was ample room in the club cab. As they began the trip up the mountain, the sky began to darken and they could tell the storm was quickly moving in. Randy drove as fast as he safely could, hoping he could beat the storm to the top of the mountain. As they turned onto the gravel road leading to the Mountain House, the snow was coming down hard. There was already six inches of fresh wet snow on the ground at this higher elevation and the gravel road was extremely slippery. After they drove a few hundred feet farther, they realized that Rodney had plowed the snow from the road. Then they saw the tractor up ahead of them. Randy laughed aloud as he followed the tractor the last mile to the front door of the Mountain House.
Randy pulled the truck up close to the front porch door and they all quickly helped Robert out of the truck. Kathy then took over. She helped her husband into the mineshaft and put him into his bed. Robert was quite all right, just extremely sleepy from all of the pain medication. She gave him one more of the pain pills the doctor had given them with some water and then covered him up. She would put an end to the high dosage of pain medicine in the morning. She knew her man well and he would do just fine with some Tylenol. If he needed any more medication than the Tylenol, she would cut the pain pills in half.
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