Viral Survival

by Pete Thorsen

  When I had hooked a covered trailer to a truck one day (so I could haul more stuff home on one trip) I realized it would also make a great portable storage shed. We now had three of those covered trailers parked for storage near our house and I would very likely bring back a few more at some point.

  For one thing those trailers would be great to load, haul, and store firewood in. It would stay nice and dry and could be parked anywhere. And we would need a substantial amount of firewood throughout the years.

  We tried to always think long term with everything we did. Many people burned firewood for heat in Minnesota so there was plenty of firewood around that was already cut and split and ready for us to haul home. Hauling it would be easier, faster, and far less dangerous than cutting our own firewood to use.

  But as the days passed we were very busy in the gardens. If it was raining we would spend time either doing needed chores at home or driving out and searching homes and businesses for food and other supplies that we could use either now or in the future.

  Luckily we had found some very poor looking potatoes in a couple of basements. We planted them in our two gardens. We had actually planted a lot of those potatoes that we found because we knew we would be very lucky if we got an eighth of them to grow, if even that many. We were very surprised with the results of that potato experiment when we ended up with many healthy plants now growing. The potatoes would be a very big part of our gardens in the future. Minnesota grew many potatoes commercially because the area was great for that particular crop.

  In our travels to different houses we tried to keep track of those with apple trees. We would be sure to go back in the late summer or early fall to pick apples. For right now we had plenty to keep us busy though.

  With all of our scavenging and salvaging we would often find things that might be useful at some point in the future that just were not useful enough to warrant taking them home for storage yet. So we kept notebooks with addresses and exact descriptions of what useful items could be found in certain locations in the surrounding area. Stuff found in homes, in businesses, and even in warehouses and semi trailers parked here and there. All were written down with exact addresses and or directions to the location with a complete list of what could be found at that location.

  Chapter 16

  To say the gardens were weed infested would be a gross understatement. We both spent a considerable amount of our time weeding, either hoeing weeds or crawling around pulling weeds by hand. I think new gardens always faced this problem. But it had to be done and there was no one else around to do it for us so that just left Bea and I.

  But there was free time also. I fished on occasion and sometimes we would go swimming. We had quite a large swimming pool with the lake right there. Our own private lake was stocked with many varieties of fish. With only me fishing in there the number and size of the fish were bound to get bigger as time went on. It could be a very viable food source for us.

  We would often see deer coming down to the lake to drink and once we saw two of them swimming in the lake. That was something neither of us had ever seen before. So far the deer have left our gardens alone but I wonder just how long that will last. I added fencing to the list of things we should bring home.

  As the gardens started producing I helped with the picking, washing, and cutting up of the produce. Bea mostly let me off from the canning, which she did mostly on her own. Not that I didn’t volunteer though. During some of the afternoons that Bea was canning (we had brought many cases of canning jars home) I used a special trailer and brought home and hooked up five additional large propane tanks.

  All the six tanks we now had in place were five hundred gallon models. I thought I would quit after bringing those five additional tanks home but seeing there was room for two more I did bring home two more to fill out that area. I also filled all the tanks full with the propane delivery truck that I had been using. When done I refilled that truck so it was also full of propane so I could use it to refill the tanks as we used them.

  I planned on moving an above-ground fuel tank to our place to use for diesel fuel but instead I filled two smaller style fuel trucks and parked them near one of the neighboring houses. Together they contained quite a large supply of diesel fuel and one compartment in one of the trucks I filled with standard gasoline. I added fuel stabilizer to all the fuel in the tanks and in the vehicles. I thought the diesel would last a long time but was unsure just how long the gasoline would last even with the addition of the stabilizer.

  When that was done I started hauling firewood back to the house in covered trailers. I knew there was basically an almost endless supply of firewood in the countryside sitting at other houses depending on just how far away I wanted to haul wood from. I would keep an eye out looking for the piles of firewood or looking for chimneys on houses and would then check to see if there was firewood there. I took my time carefully loading each trailer and stacking the wood inside to get as much loaded in each trailer as possible.

  When we moved into our house it had a chimney but no woodstove and during the summer I found a nice, heavy simple one that would last for many years which I installed in our house. Though I used new heavyweight stovepipe for the installation I brought extra of that pipe home and put it into storage so I would have replacement pipe for when it eventually burned out. I also brought home the correct size chimney brush to keep the chimney clean.

  By this time I had brought home two aluminum canoes, two kayaks, and two flat bottomed row boats. I had looked and looked but so far had not found a small sailboat. Bea and I both decided there was little sense in having a boat with a gas motor on it on our lake.

  We enjoyed the quiet peacefulness of our lake too much to spoil it with a gas motor. And we had no need to go tearing around the lake anyway. I caught just as many fish off our dock as I did when I took the canoe way off in the lake anyway.

  We had several bikes now with spare tires and tubes on hand. We were still young and so we had brought home bikes in smaller sizes just in case we had kids. The same with clothes—we planned ahead for kids and had a huge supply of kids clothes in different sizes for both a girl and a boy stored nearby. Also a considerable amount of the many things babies needed.

  Most stuff was stored at neighboring places. In houses, in garages, in sheds, or in those covered trailers that worked so well. Heavy items or things we would be using on a regular basis were stored at our house or at least nearby. And yes, I had brought a medium sized motorhome and it was stored in the nearby large garage that could accommodate it. We had not used it yet but we did plan on it after the gardens were done for the year, we hoped.

  In the gardens we had allowed some plants of each variety to go to seed so we could harvest those seeds to use in the coming years for planting. We were unsure if those harvested seeds would work for planting but that did not stop us from keeping them.

  We had little choice in the matter even though we had quite a large supply of garden seeds we had gathered from our scavenging, both in the number of seeds and in the number of varieties of seeds. No matter how many seeds we had now they would run out at some point. Again, we planned for way into the future by harvesting seeds from the current crop.

  When the garden finally petered out we welcomed the chance to relax. The lower garden was a better producer than the upper one. Next year we decided to again plant them both so we could get another season of testing before deciding to go with using just the lower. And no matter how next season worked out we would likely plant both areas each year just so we would not have all our eggs in one basket. At least we had the option of one or two separate gardens.

  Speaking of eggs, we had none. And not really surprisingly we had never found any chickens that had survived on their own after the Fever had wiped out most everyone. But I did have a plan of sorts.

  Next spring I thought I would try and capture some baby ducks from two or three different batches of the mallard ducks that nested at our lake. Or maybe ste
al their eggs and put them in an incubator to hatch.

  We could hopefully raise those baby ducks and start our own duck egg business. I knew that duck eggs were just as good to eat as chicken eggs and some varieties of ducks were actually better egg producers than chickens.

  Neither of us knew if that plan was practical or feasible but we thought it was something we could try anyway. It would obviously not produce any eggs until the spring after next so it was another long term project. And we would have to feed and keep the ducks alive over the long winter months also. We had countless books on farming and I hoped one of them would have some information concerning raising ducks.

  Last summer there were some vicious dog packs in town (and logically out of town also) but the hard winter must have killed them off because we have seen no dogs of any kind this spring or summer. With all of our scavenging surely we would have run across dogs if any were still around. We had also never seen any cats but they are much smaller and more nocturnal, along with being much sneakier so they could have easily been missed by us. Both cats and dogs are not natural and if allowed to reproduce and thrive they could end up depleting certain wild game populations.

  Unfortunately we have not seen or found any kind of livestock at all. We have to assume that maybe on farms somewhere in this general area there might be a few farmers that have survived and still have some livestock, but as of yet we have not found any. Though most of our travel and scavenging has been in towns and nearby homes.

  We have actually seen no other people at all this summer. Maybe they did all drive away looking for greener pastures last fall and winter. I guess that is something we will never find out I’m sure. Of course, that does not mean that people from other areas won’t move here in the future. Humans have always been nomadic so even if we are alone up here (which is highly unlikely) others will move up here or pass through here at some point in the future almost for sure.

  Bea thinks other people are around so she won’t even go skinny dipping in our lake!

  Chapter 17

  Right now we have a good supply of food between what we grew and what we have scavenged. Bea had canned a large amount of our garden produce and though it looked like a huge amount we both wondered if it would be enough to keep us fed until the next growing season. By spring we would know, and then we could expand our gardens if necessary.

  The large amount of venison jerky that we had made last winter was a blessing for us through the spring and much of the summer. The jerky was included in just about every meal. At this point it was almost all gone with just a little bit remaining along with some packaged jerky we had found in town and brought home. The packaged stuff was not nearly as inviting to add to our cooked foods because it was always so heavily seasoned. It tasted fine for just eating as-is though.

  But I was able to catch fish pretty regularly just off our dock, which added meat to our diet.

  Now that we had time on our hands we decided to take the motorhome and do a little traveling for maybe a week or so. We spent some time making sure it was ready and loaded some of our stuff inside and then one morning we left with me driving and Bea riding shotgun.

  We expected no trouble of any kind and, though I had brought our two AR rifles, neither of us expected to use them. The freshwater tank was full and we had some other drinking water with also but neither of us were sure where we would be able to get additional drinking water on our trip so that might be a deciding factor on just how long we would be gone.

  Neither of us wanted to go south into the huge Minneapolis/ St Paul area so we went north instead. To make it easy we drove up interstate thirty-five. It was pleasant driving because we had the entire highway completely to ourselves.

  We just drove north on the interstate without making any stops and when we got to Duluth we just drove straight through. The interstate turned into a state highway that closely followed the shore of the giant Lake Superior. Now we stopped often at the many pullouts so we could walk down by the rocky shore.

  We had been here before but never tired of looking at the big lake. Like always there was quite a cool breeze coming off the lake but we had brought proper clothes with us so it was no bother at all.

  Once we sat close together on a semi comfortable big rock and watched the waves hit the shore. It was very nice with just the two of us and not a care in the world for the moment. Just me and Bea and the giant lake in front of us. We did not speak for some time, just enjoying the silence and the serene lapping of the water. Then Bea turned to me.

  “Did we do the right thing by staying here?”

  “I don’t know. Is there really a right thing or a wrong thing? Right this minute it sure feels right.”

  “I know that you had wanted to go south somewhere. Do you still feel that way?”

  “Right now I am happy here and I know I would be happy anywhere as long as you were with me. But if you ask me in the middle of January with the below zero wind blowing outside our house and the snow trapping us inside, I might feel a little different.”

  “The winters are so long here. And now in the short summers we have to work so hard in order to grow enough food for both of us. Maybe someplace else would be better.”

  “The grass always looks greener someplace else but that does not mean it is. We worked harder I think this spring and summer because we just had so much one-time work to do with it being our first time in the new home.

  “The moving and gathering of countless supplies. Making those two gardens and both of us learning what to do and how to do it. Next summer it should be less work and more relaxing for both of us.”

  “Yes, I guess that’s true enough. It will still be work but that would be true any place we were I guess. We are just so alone here.”

  “That could be a good thing. I’m sure without a doubt that many places in the nation have groups of people banded together by this time or at least soon will be banded together. It has always been a human trait to come together and live as a group.”

  “You said it could be a good thing that we are alone, why would that be?”

  “Think about it for awhile. You would have groups of people from every conceivable walk of life suddenly pushed together. Someone or some faction of those groups will take charge and rule the others. That is the way it always has been done throughout history. And usually those rulers were not very nice to their subjects. So I would rather not take the chance and I will just stay here and be ruled by you.”

  “People know more now than in the past. They would form a democracy and everyone would vote on what to do and such.”

  “That is a great plan in theory but would never work out in practice. The best possible plan would be a strong dictatorship ruled by one strong intelligent man.”

  “A dictatorship! You are joking right?”

  “No, that would be most practical and the best system. Especially now with everything all jumbled and people not knowing what to do. A strong, wise dictator could draw in and band everyone together to get things done that smaller groups or individuals could not. People could enjoy a higher standard of living than they would on an individual basis.

  “But the only problem would be finding the right person for that job. Someone who had the foresight to see exactly what needed to be done in both the short term and the long term to keep everyone safe and comfortable. Someone who would rule selflessly for the betterment of all for now and for the future generations.

  “That person would be very hard to find. And likely many would only assume the role of leader to better themselves. I think we are maybe better off just living here mostly alone. At least for now.”

  “Well we have certainly seen bad leaders in all forms of government in the past that seemingly only took those jobs for their own greedy reasons. Maybe you are right and we are better off here alone.”

  “We are not really alone here. There are certainly others just like us that have chosen to stay and continue to make their homes here. And more will
come here in the future I’m sure.”

  “I admit I often wonder about if we should stay here or go elsewhere. It is just impossible to know what is best for us. And then I think about us being alone and if something were to happen to one or the other of us. No doctors and no hospitals. Things are just so different now. The only thing that’s the same is being here with you. I am so thankful for that.”

  “After the Fever and all the turmoil and hardships people are like us and do not know what to do and where to go. But Americans settled all these lands once before and they will again. The nation will again grow and prosper.”

  “And will we be part of that?”

  “Of course. Let’s go back into the camper and I’ll show you how we can work together.”

  Chapter 18

  We continued our road trip vacation and kept on the highway going north along the Lake Superior. In Silver Bay we happened to see a small sailboat already on a trailer and we stopped and, after looking it over, we hooked it to the back of the motorhome to bring home. Shortly after getting the boat we turned west to make a big loop before eventually turning back south and back towards home again.

  Water was an issue but when we stopped at a camping area there was an old fashioned hand pump installed there for the use of the campers. The sign next to the pump said the water was potable and was regularly tested. Though the pump looked old and quite well used it did pump and, after pumping out a few gallons to clear the water, we filled the fresh water tank on the motorhome which was quite a tedious job by hand using only a clean bucket and a small funnel.

  Our waste water we dumped in camper dump stations that we found in a couple campgrounds. It was not as handy driving in some areas now that we were pulling that boat trailer but we just avoided areas that might cause us trouble in that department.