As they listened to the local newscast for that evening, the reporter said, “The state police arrested four local police officers and jailed them for their part in conducting illegal search and seizure and for the harassment of private citizens. A local judge filed grievances against the men for their involvement in disarming private citizens, theft of private property, harassment of business owners and their customers, illegal confiscation of weapons, ammunition and customer records from local storeowners in the city. The state police have turned the case over to the district attorney for prosecution of the officers. It appears that the four officers have not heard about a citizen’s second amendment rights to own and bear arms. I guess they will have plenty of time to study up on constitutional law while in the slammer.”
Randy laughed aloud over the reporter’s words. Rodney said, “I guess we don’t have to worry about those sorry ass cops anymore; although, I was looking forward to meeting up with them again; possibly in a dark alley.” Britney sucked in some air past her teeth, making a sound that told Rodney his daughter was not pleased with his words. He looked at her and said, “I am sorry if my attitude towards disrespectful cops offends you. I believe that if an officer accepts a badge and swears to protect and serve the citizens, he should treat those citizens as equals until they prove themselves unworthy of his respect. If the officer does not respect the law abiding citizens he serves, it is time to turn in his badge and find another line of work.” Britney walked over to her father, put her hand on his shoulder and said, “I agree with you, but I don’t think you, Randy and Robert need to be the enforcers of justice in the city. The state police took care of the bad cops; you have no right taking a chance of someone killing you over your sense of morality. I do understand that the three of you are quite capable of dealing with four cops, but still and all, I love all of you too much to stand by while you get shot down in some dark alley.” Britney stood looking into her father’s eyes a moment longer and then stomped off towards her bed. Jenna stood up, kissed Randy on the cheek and said, “She is right you know!”
After the girls went to bed, the guys grabbed their rifles and walked along the tunnel to the barn. They intended to spend a few hours building a dozen more rabbit coops and another fenced in room for the newly hatched chickens. The chicks would need a few weeks away from the older aggressive chickens that would kill them if given a chance. As they worked, they discussed the four cops they had stood up against in town and wondered if their feelings towards guns encompassed the common folk in the city or if it was simply an attempt by the police to gain an upper hand. Randy was still spitting fire over the cops’ attempts to gather the personal information about lawful gun owners who had visited the gun shop in the last year. The police had no right to that information and they knew it before they ever entered the front door of the gun shop. Randy figured someone higher up gave the orders to make the raid and Randy wanted to know whom that somebody was.
When the guys had the animals moved into their new homes, fed and content for the night, they headed back into the mineshaft to get some much-needed sleep. As Rodney crawled into bed, Bonnie got up and moved into her husband’s bed with him. She cuddled with him and then quietly moved on top of him. As the others snored and slept peacefully, Bonnie allowed a child to begin its life within her. When she moved back to her own bed, she smiled and rubbed her belly, speaking comforting words to the now fertilized egg within her; at least she hoped her lovemaking had been successful.
When the clan woke in the morning, Britney poured her father a cup of coffee and then leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. She said, “I am sorry to have stomped off in anger over your actions yesterday. I should have remained in the living area and discussed the matter with you as an adult. I thought a lot about what you said while I laid in my bed and I mostly agree with you. I just sometimes fear the loss of another man I so dearly love. I hope Mother’s visit to your bed last night has settled your anger.”
As Britney returned to her task of cooking for the clan, Rodney looked into his wife’s eyes, wondering how Britney knew of their late night rendezvous. Bonnie held her arms in the air and giggled over her daughter’s discovery. When Britney sat down at the table beside Timothy and began helping Jenna feed the boys, she looked at her mother and said, “It would be nice to have another child in this home to love.” Britney did not break the eye contact with her mother for what seemed like a full minute. Then she returned her attention to the feeding of the boys. Bonnie just stared at her daughter, wondering if she somehow had figured out that she had timed the sexual encounter with her husband just as she ovulated. Bonnie was certain Britney could not possibly have known, yet she certainly acted as if she did.
When breakfast was over and the men headed out to work on the tractor, Bonnie stepped up beside Britney as she washed up the boys and said, “Daughter, you seem to have something to say, but I am not certain I understand your meaning.” Britney giggled and said, “I just know that your period was over ten days ago and you had the thermometer out on the counter yesterday. That tells me you knew you were ovulating, yet you made love to Father last night. I know that because I could not sleep and was awake. I am simply stating that you obviously want another child and I would be very pleased if that happened.” Bonnie hugged Britney but said nothing. She simply headed to the sleeping area and began making beds.
As they guys walked outside, they stopped and looked around the mountains. The sun was bright and warm and they decided to take the truck and head down to Robert’s garage to take down the fluorescent light fixtures and pick up the wire and other supplies they needed to rehang the lights in the Mountain House. They had planned to begin building planter boxes, but decided they could begin that project on a rainy day.
As they headed down the road towards Robert’s garage, they discussed how to build the planter boxes in the loft and what to use for soil. As they discussed the project further, Rodney said, “When we get back to the garage, I am going to try to rig up a method to grow wheat hydroponically. I think we could do it with very little equipment and it would reduce the weight of the heavy planter boxes and soil the loft would have to support.” Randy said, “You have obviously thought about this before now, fill me in on how you would build the nutrition tanks and how you would support the wheat stalks so they do not fall over as the heavy grains form at the top of the stalk. How would you pump the water based nutrients up to the loft?” Rodney began his explanation and soon Robert and Randy were quite excited over the idea.
Once the guys had the lights down and loaded into the pickup truck, they began loading up the wire and supplies. As Rodney and Randy finished putting the last load into the truck, they realized that Robert had wondered off. The back door was open so they stepped out back to see what he was doing. They soon discovered him in the hayloft of the barn sorting through some old equipment. As they climbed up to see what he was doing, Randy said, “I think you have it, Robert. Rodney had no idea what Robert had discovered, but obviously Randy was on the same page with him.
As the guys all stood looking at what Robert had discovered, Rodney laughed and said, “Sorry for being the stupid one, but I have no idea what you guys are planning to do with these chicken feeders.” Randy chuckled and said, “We are considering using them on the loft at the Mountain House for growing hydroponic wheat and oats. We will circulate the liquid nutrients in the bottom trough and place the sprouted seeds on the screen so they can remain wet in the liquid. Then we can string chicken wire fencing above the plants so they can grow up between the wires to prevent the plants from tipping over. I think this will work nicely. The only way to be certain is to try one and see if we can work out the details. We already have oats planted in the garden and we can carefully dig some up and try planting them in our new system.” Within an hour, they guys had all of the chicken feeders down from the loft and loaded into the truck.
Just as the guys had climbed into the truck, Robert asked, “What piping do we ne
ed to get the liquid nutrients to flow through the troughs? I have a lot of piping and fittings that may help with that part of the project. Should we take a few more minutes and see what we can find?” Randy said, “Now is the time to do it. The weatherman says we will have rainy weather for the next four or five days. If we get the girls to help, we can get the loft ready and the oats planted within a couple of days.” It only took the guys about another hour to pick out what they needed. When they were again loaded into the truck, Randy laughed and said, “Is there anything else we might need while we are here?” Robert said, “Now that you mentioned it,” and then began to laugh. Randy started the truck and got underway before Robert actually did want him to stop again.
When they finished unloading the lights, chicken feeders, fencing and electrical supplies, the clouds rolled in over the mountains. Within the hour, an intense thunderstorm rocked the Mountain House with cloud to ground lightning and claps of thunder that shook dust loose from the ceiling of the mineshaft. When everyone heard a sizzle and saw a tiny streak of blue electricity shimmer and jump around the metal woodstove, the men got to hear what the sound of four women and two children all screaming at the same time sounded like. Within seconds, the sound of a loud thunderclap rumbled across the mountains for what seemed like five minutes.
As the girls all talked at the same time and discussed moving to the sleeping area of the mine for safety, Randy said, “I suggest we all sit down at the kitchen table for a few minutes and calm down. The storm will soon pass and we will all be okay.” After everyone was calm Robert said, “How about if we all begin working on the new growing system we have worked out for growing oats and wheat.” Everyone quickly agreed and headed out to begin work.
The guys carried up two rolls of black plastic to cover the wood floor and quickly stapled it down. Then the girls carried up the chicken feeders, all the time questioning the wisdom of the design and Robert’s sanity. They spent the next hour lining up the feeders and hanging the chicken wire fencing. Then they ran the plastic tubing to each feeder. Randy drilled a hole at each end of the feeders and installed a watertight brass fitting in the holes to connect the tubing. They ran all of the tubing down to a plastic 55-gallon barrel. They connected the tubing so that one end of each feeder was a drain line and the other end was a supply line. The drain lines simply emptied into the drum, but the supply lines connected to individual brass gate valves and then to a manifold that they connected to a pump. The idea was to turn on the pump, open the supply valve and wait until water ran out the drain line. If the system worked as planned, they could easily fill each feeder to keep the water levels above the roots of each plant.
Once they finished connecting the water lines to all of the feeders, they realized it was suppertime. They had smelled the aroma of roasting meat for the last hour and everyone was quite hungry when they entered the kitchen. Rodney had taken on the task of preparing the evening meal. He had roasted a large goose and baked some large red potatoes. For dessert, he had baked apples with a little cinnamon sprinkled on top of them. As the clan helped set the table and dish up the food, Timothy walked into the kitchen with little Donald toddling along beside him. Donald headed straight for the table and climbed up on the seat, then said, “Meat, please.” The entire clan began to laugh over the ravenous appetite of their young clan members.
The clan settled down early that night. They were in bed by nine o’clock or so. They planned to begin planting oats and wheat seed in the hydroponic planters in the morning. The girls had reminded Randy that oats would not make good bread because it had little gluten content. They would need to plant wheat for making bread and oats for cereal. The girls were certainly correct and the planting would contain both grains. Once the hydroponic project was complete, they would begin hanging and wiring the fluorescent fixtures. The sooner they had the grow lights operating, the sooner their crops would begin to prosper in the indoor planters.
Winter was fast approaching and the sooner they could finalize their indoor planters, the sooner they could begin canning and storing away their winter food supply. They already had a good start on canning and smoking meat. A couple of weeks earlier, they butchered a cow moose and its unborn calf. The cow hemorrhaged and bled out attempting to push out a huge calf. The clan had harvested over three hundred pounds of meat from those two animals. If Jenna had not heard the commotion in the thick forest to the south of the barn, the meat would have been lost, either to predators or to spoilage. Jenna had done well to put the cow out of her misery with a single bullet. The other girls helped Jenna haul the animal to the barn with the tractor and begin the gory process of cleaning the two animals. When the guys returned later that day, the girls had begun skinning the cow and the calf.
As Robert began helping the girls skin the animals, he realized that there was a bullet hole in the calf’s skull. He looked at Jenna and said, “You did not tell me you had to kill the calf.” Jenna turned away from him as she said, “The cow broke her calves back when she fell on it. I had no choice but to shoot the baby. It broke my heart to do the deed, but it had to be done.” Robert walked over to her and let her cry on his shoulder. As she cried, Robert saw Randy walk into the barn and lean against the doorframe. When Jenna stepped back and began drying her eyes with a clean towel, Randy stepped up to where she and Robert stood and said, “I am sorry Jenna that we were not here to help. I can only imagine how you felt when you realized the baby would not survive.”
The girls had spent that entire week preserving the meat and fleshing out the hides. Once the hides had dried, the girls’ brain tanned them and stored them for later use. They planned to make shoes and winter clothing from the hides during the cold snowy winter months.
Later that week, they all began the task of getting the new wooden planters built. They set the table saw in the driveway just outside of the front porch. While half the clan sawed the cedar and assembled the planters, the others began mixing manure from the barnyard into the blue fifty-five gallon drum at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the loft. The clan had carefully researched the correct mixture of nutrients that the wheat and oat plants would require. They had purchased bats of building insulation that they would cut into strips and place in the bottom of the chicken feeders to support the seeds until they sprouted. Once the seeds sprouted and the lightweight plants began growing up through the chicken wire, the roots would not need much support.
By suppertime, they had finished building the wooden boxes that they would use on the lower level. Randy and Rodney had hung the grow lights on the ceiling of the loft and wired them to a switch at the main electrical panel. They planned to hang the remaining fixtures under the loft so they would shine down on the planters, but that would have to wait until tomorrow. The guys discovered that they needed six additional fluorescent light fixtures to light the existing planters. Britney and Kathy planned to make a trip to Hillsburg in search of more canning supplies and they agreed to pick up the light fixtures. Once those fixtures were in place and working, they should have little trouble raising all of the vegetables they needed. The nice thing about the grow beds was that they were not weather dependent. The plants would receive proper light and nutrients year round. They had already discovered that they could grow carrots large enough for the table in seven weeks, but the girls tended to leave them until they were eight weeks old; the normal is ten weeks. The key to success was not to overplant the gardens, preventing too many vegetables to mature at the same time. Instead, the girls made small plantings a week or so apart.
With the electricity turned back on, life began to get a little easier for the clan, but some of the world’s population was on a slow decline. With the reduced amount of daylight each day and the very short growing seasons, many around the planet were unable to produce enough food to survive. Life in the large cities of the world was the worst, since they had little resources to produce enough food on their own, and the farmers were limited to the amount of food they could produce.
The clan had little difficulty with food production now that the indoor growing beds were productive. The animals seemed too manage quite nicely as they were used to finding food sources, but trying to grow a garden outdoors was next to impossible. Insects, lack of sufficient sunlight, excessive rains, heavy snow, and human thieves made planting a garden an effort in futility. Many people were building their own greenhouses, but the seed companies had genetically modified much of the world’s seed crop and the seeds would not produce a second crop. The seeds the clan was using had passed between the local farmers for many years. The seeds from the previous crop were often dried and stored for years before anyone planted them in a garden. Many farmers were now selling their high quality seeds to those who truly needed them. Many of the larger farmers tried to buy out the seeds from the smaller farms, but most were unsuccessful. The local farmers knew that the city dwellers were struggling and only sold their seeds to them, and then only for a few pennies for each package.
There were fewer products in the markets and stores for another reason. Since resized humans were much shorter than before the resizing, the simple fact that they could no longer reach the upper shelves as they shopped, forced the owners of the stores to place their wares only on the lower shelves, which simply reduced by a third the amount of product they could display in their stores.
By Friday night, the clan had the last of the seeds planted in their new planters. The girls watered the new seeds and existing plants and then checked to be certain the insulation where the seeds rested in the chicken feeders was wet. After the guys connected the last wire into the electrical panel, Randy turned on the breakers and then turned on the toggle switch that fed each row of grow lights.
Universal Mass Page 17
