by Ron Foster
Empty Aisles & Hardened Hearts
Empty Aisles
Midpoint
Empty Aisles and Hardened Hearts
Ron Foster
Alabama, USA
© 2013 by Ron Foster
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13:
978-1482669367
ISBN-10:
1482669366b
Printed in the United States of America.
Acknowledgements
SunRocket Kettles
Heliatos Solar Water Heaters
SUNRNR Solar Generators
Crank –A-Watt by Practical Preppers
Taylor Brand Knives
LowBuckPrepper
The Real Day Prepper Show
Canned Chaos
Dennis sat on his wooden backyard deck starring intently at his woods and thinking about all the things he had to do or should be doing today. His friend Charles had gone inside to check on how his mom and Monica were getting along with arranging his kitchen cabinets and to utilize the bathroom.
It had been seven days since an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) caused by a nuclear explosion high over the United States took out the electrical grid. Dennis reminded himself at this point that they were very lucky indeed that they still had running county water in the pipes. A lot of the big cities up north already had huge water shortages occurring and in many places people had no running water at all because of pump system failures. His little town had boil water warnings and be conservative usage advisories broadcast on the emergency channels, but as of yet no dire warnings were being issued by the water authority of when they had to quit pumping water because they lacked emergency power backup or fuel for the generators.
Dennis had started his day off with big plans for what he was going to do today, but he soon got sidetracked and overwhelmed mentally reviewing all the tasks at hand. He had decided on talking out all the possible projects which needed to be done and which one should get done first with Charles. He and Charles had managed to get a few chores done earlier, but after several beers worth of discussion, treating their situation as sort of a hurricane party for the rest of today started to seem logical to them in a fuzzy sort of way.
“Partying with so much to be done is not going to go over well with his mom but she needed to somehow realize that’s the way he and Charles got things done at times correctly. Play hard and talk all about it, get up the next day and do it with or without a hangover regardless and until it was fully completed. They didn’t have that much beer to consume anyway.” Dennis mused to himself.
Charles came out the backdoor of the house leading to the deck and Dennis turned towards him.
“Are the ladies having themselves some fun and playing nice in there?” Dennis asked speculatively.
“They are pretty much done organizing all that canned food and seem to be getting along great. I told them they really should take themselves a break and come outside and have a beer with us when they had a chance.” Charles said as he was picking up his half empty beer can he had left on the table.
“How did my mom act? She seems ok with it?” Dennis asked arching one eyebrow.
“That’s what I have been doing the last 5 minutes was standing around talking to her. She was telling me she would drink ONE beer and hadn’t drank one in a long time and wasn’t sure if she wanted a whole one. Then I heard about your grandmother when she was alive drinking ONE beer occasionally and saying she could feel the effects of it etc. and got a buzz” Charles told him with a slight grin that the conversation had pretty much gone as Dennis had suspected it would.
“Well eventually I will get her on the subject of some of my old relatives being bootleggers during prohibition of one of the funny stories about my grandfather getting a buzz and falling into the Christmas tree.” Dennis said hoping he could influence the conversations.
“You must take after your grandpa” Charles said chuckling as he bedeviled Dennis.
“And my father and his. There are a lot of hard drinkers on both sides of the family, men and women as well as a few hypocrites and abstinence followers. Mom knows I drink to excess and gives me hell about it when she decides it disrespects her or hurts me, so we in for interesting times in the future. She has got a lot of preconceived notions regarding the effects of alcohol on me as well as the mother’s trump card of a guilt trip so it won’t be no picnic.” Dennis said having second thoughts of having his mom hanging out around his “hurricane party”.
“Well me and Monica will play nice and I think if we watch the language and keep the brakes on the drinking a bit, I think your mom will be ok with it.” Charles said going off his first impressions of meeting Dennis’s mom. But moms were usually moms regardless he thought to himself and she wouldn’t approve.
“Well I will run the Crank-A-Watt and charge some batteries while sipping a beer and then you can spell me some on it as I get tired. That way it at least looks like we are doing something constructive while having a beer. That broadcast today of a summit at the UN and an emergency meeting of the US president and the Russian ambassador has really got me speculating on whats going on. I mean they didn’t say shit about what was up with the Chinese, Japanese, Iran, North Korea, and India, the UK or anybody else. They made a point to say we were talking to the Russians though and I don’t think I like that particularly much. you are I both cold war era boys Charles so you probably feel the same as me abut the communists.” Dennis said speculating and then sucked down his beer so he could get as close to needing another one as he could before his mom and Monica joined the little party on the back deck.
“Monica and your mom have finally got most of the food in the cabinets sorted out; I must say they were grumbling a bit though about your choices of menus.” Charles said sniggering somewhat which usually indicated he was going to kid Dennis about something.
“Hey, there is my suggested serving menus and me telling them to make up their own menus if they didn’t like mine.” Dennis began protesting to indicate his suggestions were not written in stone.
“I believe it had more to do with what they had to work with and the way you seem to have your food stores seem to bet set up based on your own personal tastes. What the hell do tamales in a can taste like anyway?” Charles asked innocently enough but kind of miffing Dennis that anyone even thought about turning their noses up at the selection of food he had managed to have stored up.
“Hey now Charles, buddy I will have you know those damn tamale things are good! Well, I mean they are nothing to write home about but they are a quick convenient meal and I at least get something approximating meat to eat. My mom and well I guess most women in general I know can make themselves a meal off just vegetables but me, I have got to have some meat in my meals! Ha! You know there is a whole yummy case of Sweet Sue’s Canned Whole Chickens, in there?
That might sound like hell now, but come one Sunday dinner I know who is going to be eating a drum stick and who might be lucky to share the other one. I don’t know, maybe I might not want to share a leg with anyone; those are awfully small chickens they fit into them cans. “Dennis said grinning as he teased Charles a bit.
“It wasn’t me that was the complaining one buddy.” Charles quickly assured him.
“Dennis you have got food stuff stored that I never heard of before, well none of us have before except you and we are just curious what its going to taste like. Of course I think that chicken will taste better than a possum, but I haven’t ever tried one of those either!” Dennis said joking around with Dennis who had been known to collect possum recipes for just such a SHTF situati
on like this.
“I don’t know about that, but at least you don’t have to skin that can in order to eat it!” Dennis quipped back regarding the possum comment.
“Seriously though Charles, that chicken is a high priced luxury now. Why it is worth its weight in more than just silver now, not that I would ever sell any of it. We need to be seriously thinking on how we can get us some real yard bird type chickens and feed for them ASAP! Then we need to think about how much it’s going too cost us in trade for them.” Dennis said thinking about how quick 12 cans of whole chicken could go to his hungry household and him being forced to barter them for more of a lesser valued food.
“I wonder how many pounds of rice or beans a can of chicken should bring?” Dennis began musing
“I been thinking on that chicken purchase subject, I don’t know anyone close by Dennis that has any and I don’t know where the folks live that I know do got them and might be willing to sell.” Charles said remembering folks we knew from the local country bar but not that close personally.
“Charles I am up for us taking my truck and cruising the back roads around here and asking whoever we see if they will sell some chickens to us before this shit gets really bad. Folks are not crazy scared out here on these back roads yet. I got a good bit of green cash, some silver, a lot of ammo but I ain`t trading any ammo just yet. I don’t have any booze stored but I do have an ace up my sleeve on that particular highly favored barter item. I have been ready for this day awhile.” Dennis began before a chuckling Charles reminded him that he knew that fact too well because of all of Dennis prepping talk over the years and had showed him a table top style alcohol still.
“Well before I was so rudely interrupted Charles, I was going to tell you how we are going to cook off a batch of hooch in about a day and a half.” Dennis said smiling.
“Oh, yea you got that turbo yeast you been keeping refrigerated. You bought some off that expensive 24 hour and some of that cheaper but still quick 72 hour yeast etc. You are going to have to brew and distill it here though, I don’t have anything to power that electric still except my truck and an inverter. I am kind of light on gasoline Charles also and that is even if we can mix the ethanol we making with gas to run it.” Charles said getting excited about the project and its tasty prospects.
“I could lend you a couple of 12v marine batteries to go with that one you already got. On a sunny day with solar panels you could get a couple hours run at 600 watts that alcohol still pulls. We need to put up that marine alternator with those homemade pvc blades we created also. That thing supposedly will put out 1500 watts of power in a good strong breeze. We never did get around to buying a piece of pipe for a pole fpr it, but we can mount our wind turbine on a fresh cut oak or pine pole temporarily until we find something more suitable to use.” Dennis advised.
“Why don’t you just tell your mom we making gasohol and we clue her in on it being drinkable later?” Charles asked regarding the best place to run the still.
“That is a damn good idea! Simple enough reasoning and it’s not a lie actually. This first run though I want to do it using straight table sugar. You can keep that bread mash of yours going at home and I will do the insta booze vodka here. I got enough battery juice in that SUNRNR solar generator to maybe make 6 gallons if we don’t get any sun to help the solar panels out charging. Let’s see, my math tells me that will give me something like a case of quart jars (4 quarts to a gallon, 12 jars) so that is three gallons, then we got two pints to a gallon so I can get 6 pints out of the remaining three gallons. That is if my calculations are right, that tabletop still pulls a lot of power and has a very small capacity. Its fine for home use, but it is not for any kind of manufacturing or big distilling jobs. If we plan to use it as fuel we must further purify it running through the still a second time. We should now have ethanol near 98% pure. By soaking it in or filtering it through 'Zeolite' you can have pure alcohol. This product will absorb the water out of the alcohol leaving you with 100%, 200 proof Ethanol. I say we leave that stage out and just make sipping whisky or vodka. I can trade that shit for chickens if we can locate any of the bar buddies who have some for trade.” Dennis stated.
“Let me do that, no sense you getting around them and they start remembering you are a prepper.” Charles said in slight admonishment to Dennis for him talking prepping at the bar so much.
“Hey that was part of my marketing plan. I had to make a living and prep you know by being a talkative prepper. Well it’s all hind sight now and we normally just talked in terms of homesteading with a prepper label put on it. You are right though; no sense me getting around anyone. I got plenty to do around here and you know more folks than I do anyway. I think I will get busy guerilla gardening once we finish our distilling of some barter and pleasure goods.’ Dennis said flinching as the back door opened and Monica and his mom came out to join the party.
“Hey Mom! Would you like a cold beer?” Dennis said with fake happiness and enthusiasm.
After a bit of back and forth about her saying we should save it for ourselves, Dennis and Monica finally got her to drink a few and loosen up, but she soon left them to their own devices and went back in the house.
“Well that wasn’t so bad.” Dennis said smiling a moment or two after his mother had closed the backdoor.
“I told you it would be alright, course she hasn’t seen you howling at the moon when you get on one of your whiskey trips yet.” Charles said reminding Dennis that whiskey was known to have some strange effects on him when consumed it in mass quantities.
“Ain`t none of us any kind of angels when it comes to the effects of that firewater.” Dennis retorted but he did hang his head and reminded himself to watch his imbibing limitations.
Got to be a morning after
“How you feeling today Charles?” Dennis said in greeting to his friend early the next morning.
“I am fine, how about you? “ Charles asked as he came around the wooden back deck and had a seat.
“Your out and about pretty early today Charles. I was just about to make some coffee, do you want some?” Dennis said pointing at an odd gadget he had on setup on the picnic table.
“What in the world is that?” Charles said standing up and going over to the decks railing for a closer look.
“Isn’t that cool as hell? It’s a SunRocket Solar Kettle. You seen it before but probably didn’t know exactly what it was when it was closed up. I had it hanging off a backpack when I went to the beach last summer.” Dennis said pointing at the unique device.
“Come on and I will show you how it works. That is one useful gadget let me tell you if you have some strong sun to work with. Check this out; it’s a solar thermos and kettle in one! It is really pretty ingenious. The SunRocket is an amazing way to heat and boil water by simply using sunlight. Depending on the weather conditions, The SunRocket can heat water in as little as 60 minutes and this thing will work anywhere the sun shines! You see they use a shock resistant evacuated tube just like the ones on expensive roof mount solar hot water systems, boosted by reflective panels to absorb solar heat. I like it because its so portable. When opened it can heat water in as little as 30 minutes the company says and then when closed it can keep hot for hours. The contents only come in contact with pure clean glass making it safe and healthy to use. It holds 17 ounces of water and weighs about 2 pounds.” Dennis said explaining some of the wonderful features the device had.
“That’s pretty neat. Who makes did you say makes that?” Charles said examining the solar kettle closer.
“It is made by a company called Sun Cooking who is Australia’s largest retailer of solar cooking products and accessories. They make all kinds of things using the latest in solar thermal technology. Remind me to show you a solar oven later. Let’s go get you a cup and get ready for some coffee, I need it this morning. “Dennis declared and started heading towards the backdoor.
“Before you do that, I wanted to tell you that Monica’s brother Flo
yd came in last night from Birmingham.” Charles said watching Dennis stop in his tracks and give him an inquiring look.
Floyd had recently got a job about 85 miles away from Dennis working in the big city doing IT work after a long spell of unemployment. The reason for Dennis’s questioning look Charles was sure was one of a bit of trepidation. Dennis and he had not planned on having a extra mouth to feed and Dennis’s preps were going to be stretched thin as it was.
