Viral Survival

by Pete Thorsen

  We stopped occasionally at stores and such and we did take things now and again. Any food that was still good was sure to go bad in the future and we did take some but storage space in the motorhome was limited. We even stored some stuff in our new boat for the trip home so as little food as possible was left behind to go to waste. I also found a couple of big plastic storage bins designed for the tops of RV’s and cars. I put those on the roof and we filled those also.

  We made a big loop and came back down south going past the large Mille Lacs Lake. The whole trip was fun and relaxing. But, like most vacations, it was also nice to be back home again. We had never seen any actual people but did have two vehicles drive past us on two occasions though none of us stopped to try and talk with the others. There was also evidence that others had stopped recently at several of the places we stopped at on our trip. So others were still here. Obviously anyone still here would be at a house in the country like us so the odds of seeing them were small.

  While it was still warm enough Bea and I spent some time trying out our sailboat. I admit that our first attempts were hilarious to us and I’m sure to anyone who would have been watching. After many attempts we did gradually start getting the hang of it and after some time we were actually sailing around our lake. Once figured out it really was fun sailing. It was so quiet and peaceful and sometimes very fast moving.

  I spent some time finding, moving, and setting up some solar panels along with a considerable number of the heavy golf cart batteries. The logical place for the solar panels was on the roof of our house but the house was turned wrong for a south-facing exposure for the panels. Plus they would have been covered in snow all winter anyway and that was the time when we would really be needing them.

  So I built a very large rack on the ground to hold them tipped at what I thought was a good angle. I had them tipped up at a sharper angle then they probably should have been but that was for the snow—so it would mostly slide off. And being near the ground I could easily use a common broom to sweep the snow off them in the winter.

  I knew nothing about the solar stuff but had found and read quite a bit until I was an armchair expert I guess you could say. And some of the parts for the system were hard to find but after considerable work everything seemed to function fine. We had the diesel generator, actually a pair that were used one at a time so both were used fairly often to keep them in top shape and so one was instantly available for back up use.

  And we now had the very large solar system. I made the solar system much larger than I think I needed to, just so we had plenty of power. The sun does not shine all that much here and the battery bank was way oversized also. So we were set up very well in the electric power department. It was nice now with the solar so we could have power all the time instead of occasionally, like we did when we only had the generator. Plus, the big benefit of not running the fairly loud and stinky generators was great indeed.

  With the new solar system we could now have a refrigerator and a freezer that ran all the time. So I immediately started hunting and fishing to fill the freezer up with meat. I am not into ice fishing and I spent a fair amount of time catching fish for us for over the winter months.

  The deer and rabbits and such I can hunt in the winter without any trouble. The deer are actually easier to bring home with snow on the ground because I can use one a plastic sled to pull it home on.

  Now for this coming winter we are sitting much, much better than last year. We have a TV with a DVD player and hundreds of movies to watch. We have (I think) a literal ton of books to read. We have many jars of our home canned vegetables, plenty of meat in the freezer, and still a lot of packaged store-bought food of many kinds. And most important, we still have each other.

  After returning from our trip there was still plenty of work to do. We went out together and found, loaded, and brought back six more covered trailers full of firewood. This seems like a whole lot and while it is a lot it did not take us very long to do. After all, someone else had done all the hard work of cutting and trimming the trees along with cutting it to stove length and then splitting the wood. All we had to do was drive around. When we saw some firewood stacked up we just backed up to the pile and loaded it up. We also had to keep an eye out for more of the covered trailers because by now we had used so many of them for storage of all our supplies.

  For us the work of hauling home firewood was not tiring and was considerably safer than cutting our own trees and doing all the work that entailed and the big chance of an accidental chain saw cut. We knew that any accident now could be deadly because of no hospitals.

  The chance of an accident caused us to be very careful with everything we did. We had amassed a fair amount of drugs and medical supplies along with drug books and many medical books. We knew that was not the same as having a doctor and hospital nearby though. If there was an accident we would do what we could but neither of us was a doctor.

  Chapter 19

  This winter is a pleasure compared to the one last year thanks to all our preparations. So far the solar system is working out fabulous for us. It is just like having regular electric power from a distant power plant.

  Thanks to the steady power available we can now watch movies whenever we want and we often have movie nights which even include popcorn! The near countless books allow us to read as much as we wish and we even brought more games with so we have a lot of variety. We have a couple laptop computers with many programs (most of which are not installed) that we can use for entertainment or additional learning.

  We each have cross country skis and snowshoes and we have tried both out this winter. We have even sledded down the bank behind our house to the lake using sleds brought for just that purpose. The winter is still very long but at least now we have many things to take our minds off the long winter.

  We do not squander our solar power and we have energy-saving items where possible. Our refrigerator and freezer were both very energy efficient models (according to the labels). We replaced every lightbulb inside and outside the house with energy stingy LED ones.

  Even with the solar I still run each of our generators at least once every month just to make sure they keep working, just in case. The generators can be used to charge the big battery bank but so far that has not been required. I would expect that to change as the battery bank and solar panels age. We do have a large number of solar panels in storage for possible later use, or in the distant future for maybe one of our children to possibly set up at their own home.

  We had briefly talked about getting one or two snowmobiles to use but decided against them and any other gas powered toys of any kind. Everything was available to us but we just were not interested in any of them. That is why we never even brought any gas powered boats out here. I had removed the runabout that was in the boathouse below our house when we moved here. That made room for the sailboat and the row boats. I also hung the two canoes and the two kayaks on the inside walls of the boathouse.

  I had actually thought about whether I could make a rack that sat up high on one of the boats that would hold several solar panels. They would provide shade inside the boat and could maybe provide enough power to run a small electric trolling motor. It could be used for fishing or just if you wanted to enjoy a relaxing quiet cruise on the lake. That plan is on the back burner right now though. I did make sure I had the trolling motor stored nearby just in case though.

  Like last winter I have started the diesel pickup and the diesel powered motorhome on some of the warmer winter days. I let them run long enough to warm up well and hopefully keep the batteries fully charged. We left our gasoline powered pickup and our car at our old place with the keys in the ignitions. I’m sure the gas will have gone bad by now or it will very soon, so there was little sense in keeping any gas vehicles around here. Even if they still ran their days would certainly be numbered.

  I do hope the tiller works this spring though we do have an old style hand push cultivator that we found in an
antique store when we went through it. Any antique stores we found we always stopped at because items inside could be invaluable in the non-electric, non-gas world we now find ourselves in.

  We brought home a hand corn sheller, two styles of hand grinders, a hand mill, a hand post drill, and several other hand operated items. When Bea looked at a fancy rickshaw I just said no.

  Though we had electric in the house we planned for a time when that might not be the case and had backups for several household items. We had a couple of hand can openers but those might never be used once we exhausted the few canned items of food that we had left now. It would be a long time or maybe never that more food was commercially canned in a factory.

  Epilogue

  It has been seven years now since the Fever changed the world and brought us back almost a hundred years in technology. Our two kids Josh and Jennifer (who are five and two years old) are doing great, and Bea and I are still trying to decide just how we will school them.

  We had planned ahead and we have copies of many different school books for all age groups after a thorough search of area schools. Plus, all the knowledge we have between us. Plus the almost countless non-fiction books that we have stockpiled here including two complete sets of encyclopedias from different companies. We also have DVD’s of many documentaries and learning videos.

  But we wonder if we should spend the bulk of the schooling time teaching the older subjects and mostly skip the newer technological stuff. We do have two old laptops that will still work if you have them plugged in with the charger. They don’t take much power and our now old battery bank can still handle them just fine.

  I guess we will just play it by ear. We will teach them everything we possibly can and I’m sure each of them will find an area that interests them more than others once they get older. If they decide on something that we just do not have written materials for I’m sure we will be able to still find something if we search.

  Our diesel pickup is still in running condition and even has the same functional battery still in it. Other than starting it up occasionally to keep it in running condition we almost never drive it anymore.

  I was thankful that I had the diesel pickup when the gasoline all turned sour and gas engines would no longer work. I missed the tiller for the garden but then I had an idea and I drove into town and went to a tractor dealer and got a small diesel powered garden tractor with several attachments, including a tiller. I don’t know why I never thought of that sooner but it works great for tilling and a host of other projects around here.

  Our stored, treated diesel fuel seems to be as good as fresh so far even after all this time. I have even driven the propane delivery truck back into town for two trips so all our propane tanks are all full along with the delivery truck itself. The many tanks should keep us in propane for a very long time to come.

  Bea and I used the motorhome for two more vacations after the one we took along the North Shore of Lake Superior that first year. One of the other trips was south down along the Mississippi River to southern Minnesota. The other was a big loop that went well into Wisconsin.

  The trips were fun but I’m not sure we will take any more with everything deteriorating. The roads are showing the time past with no maintenance and electric poles and trees have since fallen in some spots blocking the roads. The roads themselves often have grass, weeds, and even small trees starting to grow up in them or along the edges. Plus, I wonder just how long these vehicles will keep working.

  Our bikes work well though and we often ride bike together. We have a child carrier trailer for Jennifer and also one for Josh though he insists on riding his own small bike most of the time now if we just go a short way.

  One year we had a major problem with the upper garden. We did everything the same as always but something like a blight or something attacked the upper garden. Thankfully, for whatever reason, the lower garden produced the same as always that season so we still got enough food for the season.

  We were both worried about the following season and did not know what to do to prevent the same attack happening again. In the fall I gathered countless leaves and small branches that I placed on that upper garden. Then I thoroughly burned it all down to just ash. I thought maybe the heat of fire would destroy the blight or whatever it was that ruined that season’s produce. Plus the resulting ash would be good for the soil and I tilled it in well. Either it worked or maybe it was just a one year thing because both the upper and lower gardens again produced well the next season and are still doing so.

  We are still using both of our garden spots and will likely continue to do so. The year of the blight taught us to not put all our eggs into one basket. The lower garden always is a better producer and I think it is because we use the lake water to water it.

  Speaking of the lake, I built a roof out of solar panels for one of the row boats. The roof is just a little bigger than the boat both in length and width and it produces a fair amount of power to help charge the battery for the trolling motor. The roof makes it a little difficult to cast your fishing pole but I got used to it in short order and the shade it provides is nice. I have even used it on days it was lightly raining and it kept me dry, though the solar power did not work in the rain.

  The lake has been and looks like it will continue to be an excellent supplier of fresh fish. It was a very good idea moving next to a lake if I do say so myself. The kids (and Bea) all like going out with the sailboat and in the summer we often use the sailboat on the lake.

  Josh is like an otter in the water and is often in the lake with one of us watching him and he is already a good swimmer. We have to keep a close eye on both him and little Jennifer around the lake. Now that Jennifer can walk she tries to follow her brother everywhere and the lake is always close by. Especially when we are all down working in the lower garden.

  The winters are still long and sometimes both Bea and I think about what our lives might now be like if we had moved further south to a much warmer state. But we are safe and healthy up here and we have always lived around here so we are not sorry we stayed. But we can still dream about those warmer areas, especially during those long cold winters.

  The winters seem to go a little faster now that we have the kids here. They always keep us very busy. The hill going down to the lake is perfect for sledding and Josh just loves taking the sled down the hill again and again during some of the warmer winter days.

  One thing that we had forgotten was a swing set for the kids but after Josh was born I took the truck into town and found a nice one that I brought home and assembled here. There are swing sets at a couple of the nearby houses and sometimes when we are out for a walk or riding bikes we stop so the kids can play on those also.

  All the surrounding homes look quite different now. Everything has grown up so much that it is often hard to see the houses anymore. Some houses have had trees blow down on them and one house here on our lake has had the roof cave in due to a very heavy wet snow we had one winter. I’m quite sure many other buildings in the area had roofs cave in that winter too.

  I had thoughtfully included a snow roof rake to help remove excess snow from our roof each winter. I also use it on many of the surrounding buildings near here that we use for storage too.

  I have learned how to tan the hides from the deer I kill each year. The leather will be used at some point to replace things that we will gradually wear out and run out of extras. Things like shoes, boots, and jackets come to mind and I have already made a few things just for practice. Plus it gives me something worthwhile to do during the winter months.

  We have not decided if we will have any more children now that we have these two wonderful kids. Bea had been taking birth control pills but after this long a time even if we had more we both doubt that they would still be potent. I guess we will just have to see if God blesses us with another child in the future.

  We have not talked to another person since we have moved to our current home. We have seen a f
ew when we have been traveling but never tried to stop and to talk to anyone. Now that we stay home almost all the time we would have no way to see anyone unless they came to us in our now rather secluded home.

  On one of the last trips into town I did see tracks of someone else. I did not see the people and I have no way to know if they live near here or were just passing through the area. For us it really does not matter. We are happy and healthy here together and both Bea and I know in our hearts that others are either living nearby or will move into the area in the future. In the meantime there is just the four of us and that is enough. For now.

  The End

  Thank you for reading this short story of mine and I hope you found it enjoyable. If it was something you liked please watch for more of my stories to follow. Below are some of my already published stories that you might also enjoy. So far I have well over 40 stories published on Kindle with many also in print. My success is totally the result of you, my readers, and you have my most deep felt Thank You!

  Pete Thorsen

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