So, You Want to Live Past Next Tuesday

by Billy Bob Richardson

  “I hope I am, but I suppose that would depend on how you figure good, sir.”

  “Yes it does. Let’s step out on the back porch, sip some tea while the girls get dinner ready.”

  With effort the old gentleman extracted himself from the arm chair and stood. Madd was there instantly, offering his arm for support.

  “Thank you son, but I can make it, I am not that far gone yet. Soon enough I will need help. The spirit is still strong and willing, but the flesh is weak,” Popa told them.

  With that, he led them to the back porch and took a seat in a big rocking chair. Looking at this man, Al could see what he must have been like when he was younger. He must have been a bear of a man, and looked like someone you would step back from when he was young and limber.

  For just a second Al felt this man reminded him of something. He had it. Once, he was up in California where the redwoods grew. There was a giant one that leaned out over a lake; most of it was white and dead looking, but up toward the top were a few branches still covered in needles, green and shiny. When he looked at the old gentleman, he got a vision of that tree. Seeing him walk beside Madd, he suddenly knew what Madd would look like in his later years.

  “You have been here a couple of weeks and I hear you lend a hand to anything you are asked to do. They say for a city boy you ride well and work hard. That you are learning and asking questions about how a thing is done. How are you liking it by now?”

  “I like it very much, sir. If I could manage it I would stay here as long as I was allowed to. I am a city boy as you say. I have knocked around the world in more foreign, out-of-the-way places than I like to think of. I learned to ride horses and camels because my work called for it. I enjoyed the wind in my face and the feeling of a strong mount carrying me along. Riding here, in this beautiful country, is even better.

  “I enjoyed the excitement of strange places when I was younger and since I had no real roots anywhere I was satisfied with my life. I had no idea about this kind of life so I was satisfied with what I had. Being here makes me feel like I wasted a lot of time,” Al told him.

  As Al was talking, other men joined them on the porch until it was full of young men. All of them rough and rugged looking, hard men with hard eyes. None older than their mid-twenties. The family resemblance between all of them was almost spooky. They could have been brothers.

  “Al, you know Ivan and some of the others. Some you don’t,” said Popa. “Look around at them. They are the future and my legacy.”

  There had to be twenty-five to thirty men under twenty-five on that porch. Looking at them there was no mistaking they were related. Comfortable looking jeans, cowboy boots and a Stetson hat in various styles were universal for all of them. It was like some dress code for cowboys. When he would see modern cowboys or those pretending to be cowboys in movies Al always smiled at the Stetsons. In the movies it seemed like affectation. With these men the hats seemed to be a part of them, not something you just wore to keep the sun and rain off your head.

  To a man they were all armed. No single action cowboy guns though. Each man was packing a deadly looking modern automatic in a well broken-in holster balanced by a pouch for extra magazines. That was something that had taken a few days to get used to. You almost never saw anyone over the age of about seventeen unarmed in the family.

  There was something else about them. Something hard to define. Something passed between them, like a gentle breeze. You can’t see a breeze, but you can see its effect on things. There was a force at work here that he couldn’t name, but he could certainly feel it.

  Miss Charlotte came to the porch and stood there silently.

  “Time for dinner boys, let’s head in,” Popa told them, then led the way to the dining room. The room came close to being huge. Still, it had a homey feeling to it. There was a table that looked to be cut from a single tree; it must have been able to seat fifty people.

  “Al, sit to my left if you will,” said Popa.

  After they were seated dinner was brought out; there were huge bowls and platters. Miss Charlotte and a smallish army of girls kept bringing dishes out and setting them all around the table. The old gentleman cleared his throat and all conversation died.

  “I want to welcome our guest and thank all of you for coming to sit with an old man. Looking at all of you here together does my heart good. Now let’s eat.”

  “Dig in Al, with this many starving men you’ll have to be fast before everything is gone.”

  Madd seemed in good spirits, and Al could feel the warmth these men felt for each other. The table got to laughing at that one.

  “Tell me Al, you giving them hell over there where the fighting is?” asked Popa.

  “I am doing my best, sir.”

  “How about my boys, they doing their part?”

  “Yes sir, they are some of the finest fighting men I have ever met.”

  This brought a smile to the old gentleman’s face. Dinner was delicious and the conversation interesting. The old gentleman was good; before he knew it Al had said a lot more than he ever intended to about a large range of subjects. The old gentleman would ask what appeared to be a simple question then listen without interrupting, and if Al slowed down, he would prompt him to continue without seeming to be directing the conversation. It turned out to be one of the most enjoyable evenings Al remembered having in a long time.

  After saying their good nights and receiving a handshake from the old gentleman that almost crippled him, Madd pulled him aside and asked, “Al, you feel like taking an overnight camping trip up into the mountains?”

  “I would like that Madd. The country here is wonderful. I can only imagine what it’s like in the back country.”

  “Good. First thing in the morning we will load up a pack horse and some saddle horses in the horse trailer and head up to the high country. Get some sleep because we need to be on the road by 5:30am. I’ll lend you some saddlebags for your personal stuff.”

  Chapter 5

  Southwestern Colorado, current main family ranch/farm.

  5am the next day and they almost had the truck and trailer loaded.

  “Itsy packed us a bunch of sandwiches and cold drinks in the cooler. We are about done here. Head to the house, breakfast should be about ready by the time we get washed up.” Inside the kitchen was warm and cozy with Itsy, Rose and the girls cooking and setting the table and getting an early start on the day’s chores.

  “Wow, that smells gooodddd!” Al was really enjoying the unusual meal. “I never ate like this before, usually it’s instant oatmeal and juice for me.”

  With one raised eyebrow, Rose looked at him and said, “That’s because you never had a real woman in your life and you never worked a ranch. Takes food to keep you going on a ranch. Especially when it’s 20 degrees outside. But if you don’t want eggs, fried potatoes, hot cakes and coffee, I can see if there is any instant oatmeal.”

  “No ma’am, I wouldn’t want to insult anyone, I will force down what is served,” said Al.

  “Hmm…right.” Rose was unconvinced about the forcing part.

  Breakfast done, they headed out the door.

  “I can see how come you guys are all so tall and husky, eating like that has to grow you some.”

  Laughing, Madd just pointed, “Jump in the truck Al, we have a ways to go and we are burning daylight. This is Ted; he is going to ride up with us and bring the truck and trailer back. We will be coming back a different way.”

  Ted shook his hand then leaned in and said, “Rose Marie is my first cousin. She thinks you’re OK, that makes you OK in my mind too, but don’t disappoint her.” Then he turned around and headed toward the truck.

  Ted made it sound all warm and fuzzy, not like a threat, more like a promise. Al just shook his head.

  “Just a small point Madd, it’s still pitch black night, going to be hard to burn any daylight for about another hour and a half.”

  “Keep it up Al, and I’ll have a word with your ho
rse, see if he can manage to step on your foot.”

  “OK, I think I’ll just keep quiet now.” They were both enjoying the back and forth banter. Friends joking with friends was part of what Al liked about the family.

  “Al, you seem to be making some progress with Rose.”

  “How so? I can’t really tell if I am saying or doing the right things when I am with her.”

  “Well, she never came over to the house before 5am to cook anyone else breakfast, doofus.”

  “That was nice of her,” Al told Madd with a big cat ate the canary smile.

  “True it was nice, but I think you are missing something. There were three healthy, able-bodied girls who can cook up a storm in their kitchen. They needed help like I need more pressure. She came to cook for you. Not just to help out.”

  “That makes me feel good, Madd, it really does, like maybe I am finally making a good impression.”

  “It should, she is an excellent catch, and one that won’t wait forever.”

  After crossing over the mountains on a switchback road Al felt something that he was a stranger to: awe.

  “Madd, you are a lucky man. Every time we come around a switchback headed down hill I see something new, a beauty that I can feel down to my toes.”

  “Believe me, I know exactly what you mean. For me it’s a feeling of reverential respect, mixed with fear or wonder when I take time to really look at the land. My ancestors had good sense or good luck when they settled here. If only I can hold on to it for those who come after me, I’ll die a happy man.”

  Al suddenly felt concern for his new friend. “Why wouldn’t you be able to hold onto it?”

  “Trouble is coming, I can feel it just over the horizon. It’s like electricity in the air when a storm is coming. I have been doing my best to prepare; everyone has, for that matter. But it isn’t enough. We just don’t have the resources we need to prepare as well as we need to.”

  “You have family, the farms and ranches, and you can grow your own food, Madd. Surely you can weather any problems. Fight your way through if you have to.”

  “We’re almost to the place where we will unload the truck, let’s talk about this later.”

  After unloading and riding for four hours Madd headed into a clearing and waved Al to a stop.

  “This is where we will set up camp for tonight.”

  “I see why we had to ride here, I am not sure a 4 wheel drive could get here.”

  Al was impressed by the wildness of the place.

  “Full-sized vehicle probably not, but an ATV could make it with some effort. Let’s get the saddles and packs off the horses and let them cool off. Grab that rope off the pack horse, will ya?”

  “Got it, what now?”

  Al was way out of his element but eager to learn new ways.

  “Those trees just over there, where the ground looks sort of bare, take the rope over there and I will show you how to set up a temporary rope corral.” With two of them working it was quickly done.

  “Soon as the horses have cooled out we need to take them over to the lake for some water. Have to keep them on that hard ground to the left and not let them get too far into the meadow. A horse can really tear up the ground when it’s soft and I don’t want to make a mess. Let’s get the tents set up here where it’s nice and flat so we can see if the fish are biting.”

  “This is what I call living, Madd. Two hours of warm sun and hungry fish, and a lazy day. I can’t imagine it getting much better than this.”

  “Yep, won’t take us much longer to get more than enough for dinner. They are biting on anything we throw in.”

  “Dinner is a long way away Madd, how about one of those sandwiches Itsy packed?”

  “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  Before Madd could get one, his stomach gave out with a loud rumble. That occasioned some serious laughing and joking.

  “Yum, she makes a good sandwich my friend. You lucked out with Itsy.”

  “She does, and she is good to look at too. You probably never noticed since your eyes can’t seem to look anywhere but at Rose.”

  To Madd’s amazement he thought he saw some color come into Al’s cheeks.

  “So give, Madd, what is it that bothers you about being prepared enough for trouble if it comes? This isn’t causal conversation. I can see you are seriously worried and I want to understand what can worry men like you and the cousins.”

  “OK, here goes, Al. This is going to be the simple version. There are things that we would have a hard time protecting ourselves from, so let’s talk about the simple ones. First thing you thought of and mentioned was our being able to raise our own food. We don’t currently provide all the food even ź of the family needs from farming. Those not directly employed on the land have jobs in town of some type. Even those who help out in the spring and fall have town jobs at the other times of year. Some have to work in Denver at least part of the year. When we say we farm, we are talking about growing the hay and grains etc., we use to feed the cattle and horses. Also some specialty grains we grow for a brewery up in Denver.

  “You have worked in the big garden the girls plant every year, but that only gives those directly involved most of the vegetables they need even though it is almost large enough to be what a lot of folks call a truck garden. True, we could plant a much larger garden, and we are going to start next year, by quadrupling the one we now have. What is canned and isn’t needed goes to other family but it is only a part of what it takes per year to feed them.”

  Al thought that he had the beginnings of an idea about the food issues faced by the family.

  “How much land does it take to feed somebody for a year, Madd?”

  “I can only give you an approximate answer. Basically it is about one acre per person when referring to the U.S. today. That doesn’t really tell the whole story of course. To figure it out we need to know the diet being considered. But we are trying to get an average and understandable answer. The average American consumes about 2000 lbs. of food per year, which works out to about 5.5 lbs. and 2700 calories per day or nearly your entire body weight in food per month. Divide those daily 2700 calories by 5.5 lbs. and you get 490 calories per pound of food, on average. There are differences in the quality of various parts of the diet, including caloric density. For men that are doing a lot of constant heavy work it is going to take more than 2700 calories a day, though.

  “Fruits and vegetables in the diet give us flavors, fiber, vitamins and minerals we crave, but only typically provide 50-150 calories per pound. By contrast, a single slice of common wheat bread has 110 calories and only weighs a tenth of a pound. Oils and fats are about three to four times denser, calorie-wise, than bread.

  “Meat tends to have slightly fewer calories per pound than high starch foods. For example, boneless lamb chops without the edge fat are around 976 calories per pound, according to the USDA. Low-fat milk, which is mostly water, still has about 200 calories per pound, about a pint. The USDA reported recently that the average corn harvest was 147 bushels per acre, or about 8250 lbs. But that doesn’t really help that much because corn is normally eaten in highly processed and modified forms so it is hard to get a direct correlation between production and how much product is actually consumed per person. 10% or less of corn produced is used for food directly.

  “Adding some meat and dairy to the diet, while increasing the area of land used for production, actually feeds more people. A lot of land is not suited to annual crops but can be sown with various perennials to create pasture for cattle, so no food-producing land is taken out of production. Adding cattle to the diet actually feeds more people than a vegetarian diet per acre used.

  “There have been people who developed intensive farming methods that claim to be able to support approximately four people per acre, but those methods are done in beds, etc. That calls for doing most things by hand. Basically you plant a 4’ wide strip in a raised bed and cultivate it and harvest it by hand. Then you have a 4’ w
ide walk space then another cultivated strip until you get enough land under cultivation to feed you. It also calls for being able to plant in all 4 seasons, and never allows for a failed crop. That would work fine for a family living in a very temperate climate that wanted to or could spend all day, every day working in the garden.

  “If the number of people you need to feed is fifty to one hundred plus, that method obviously isn’t going to work. Even if you take the most optimistic estimate of four people per acre you would be looking at 25 to 35 acres of land. Here we are lucky to plant by April and have to harvest most years no later than September. That means we would be looking at something like one hundred to one hundred fifty acres for one hundred people. Doing that much by hand is unrealistic. Not everyone is going to be capable of stoop labor. Someone is going to have to take care of all the chores that one hundred people working every day in the garden need done. So they are not going to be available to work the land by hand.

  “For that many people you need machinery. Using modern machinery designed specifically to be pulled with horses would greatly improve your growing power over doing everything by hand. If there is a SHTF event and we moved all the family who would come to the farms we would have to be really prepared. Just off the top of my head we would need enough land that could be cultivated, and the equipment to farm people food on hundreds of acres.

  “We would need food enough to keep everyone alive until the first harvest. Seeds, plants and fruit trees. Fruit trees take years to start producing any significant amount so those would need to be planted three or more years before you needed their fruit. Thankfully we have over 250 fruit trees at various stages of maturity planted on the old home place. Itsy and some of the others have been planting fruit trees there for several years.

  “From all that you can see that your question ‘How much land does it take to feed somebody for a year?’ is a valid and insightful question. Unfortunately, it’s hard to pin down exactly. The one acre per person figure is a good place to start, though.