by Randy Dyess
As Kelly went through recipe after recipe, she started to wonder about the spices the recipes were using. Exactly what was Cumin or Allspice and would she be able to grow them or find them if the global food distribution system was to shut down. This led Kelly to realize her research needed to take a detour. She needed to understand more about which spices and herbs she could grow in her garden and which ones she would have to store up through bulk purchases. She didn’t want to entirely count something out because it was exotic. She remembered from history books the spice trade was once the engine of commerce around the world. Spices were once very costly as they had to be shipped on slow boats half way around the world. Today, anyone could buy all the spices they wanted to for a few bucks at just about anywhere. A few hundred years ago exotic spices made many families very rich when they imported them. Kelly knew she needed to do something as spices could make or break her family’s new diet. She wanted them to get use to spices and herbs grown locally or stored in bulk. She knew it would be hard to make the transition from their current diet to one they could continue after the meltdown. She didn’t want to cook one bland meal after another and hear everyone whine about missing their favorite fast food or junk food because of the taste. Kelly also made a mental note to add exotic spices on her stock and barter list.
Kelly had her head down and didn’t even hear Mark come home later that afternoon. He startled her when he came up behind her and kissed her neck. “Sorry about that,” he said.
“That’s ok,” she smiled. “I was zoned out there. What time is it?”
“About 5pm.”
“Damn, I need to start dinner,” she said as she got up and started downstairs. She looked over her shoulder and called out, “Let’s go over everything after dinner. We can put a movie in for the kids.”
“Fine with me. I’m going to take a shower. I have been crawling around dusty old barns most of the day. What’s all this?” he looked at his new clothes.
“Stuff for you to wear as you crawl around all those dusty old barns all day. Try them on after your shower, so I can wash them before you use them. Do you realized that the shoes you have on cost $200 and they are just about ruined?”
“I guess designer tennis shoes and farm life don’t go hand in hand,” he grinned as he headed for the bathroom.
After dinner was finished and the kids settled in front of a movie, both Mark and Kelly went outside to talk over their day. “You go first,” Mark smiled.
“Ok. I had a little trouble finding decent clothes at first, but a sales clerk told me about how she shops for her own family. I bought a few things at a western wear place and I found a large outdoors store in Grapevine and was able to get some of the items there. I liked a lot of their clothing. Some of it was expensive so I only bought what I thought we needed which would last a long time. I ended up buying almost everything at Tex-Mart. Mary told me it would be easier to repair most items or buy them as cheaply as possible because they were going to fall apart anyway. She had the same opinion as I do about the quality of stuff we buy today. It is made for show and not to last.”
“Mary?”
“The sales person at the western wear store. She was very helpful and we talked for quite a while.”
“I saw the stuff in the kitchen. Looks like you went wild in the kitchen aisles.”
“I did buy quite a bit, but I think all of it will be handy in the future. We don’t have a lot of cookware around here since we haven’t done a lot of cooking in the past. I want to start learning new recipes, so I figured I need the stuff to cook with. I also figured I needed to start practicing storing all those vegetables and fruits which ripen all at once. I ended up buying basic canning supplies at Tex-Mart, but still need to get a pressure canner and some more cases of jars. Tex-Mart had a few jars, but not enough to store the massive amounts of food you would need from harvest to harvest. I may have to go around to a bunch of them and buy all the cases they have in order to get enough jars for a year’s supply of food.”
“Do you need that many cases?” asked Mark.
“After looking on the internet and reading a few blogs, we are talking about hundreds and hundreds of jars not a few dozen. Some of those new-age homesteaders put away over a thousand jars a year. That sounded like a lot, but when I started doing the math, it wasn’t very much for a family. It will take a few dozen jars just to put away enough jelly and jam for you guys if I can only make jam or jelly once a year. The big part of my day, was not the shopping. It was my internal discovery I needed to create a couple of lists of supplies and barter items. I also found out I need to learn a few things. I started several lists today of items that may be critical to us since in the future. Items we may not be able to find them once the fuel starts running out. Things like shoes for the girls, canning salt, canning jars, etc. The more I thought about it, the more I became concerned. When the depression hits, I won’t be able to find shoes or clothes for the girls. Just keeping the girls in shoes is hard enough now. I can’t image what people will do when buying shoes becomes almost impossible after the meltdown. I guess most kids will run around barefoot like you read about in the history books.”
“I haven’t thought about that,” Mark said. “I think I need to start doing the same thing. I have started creating lists of everything I need to build up the farm. I didn’t look at the items from the standpoint they may be useful for bartering or if they would be hard to replace if broken. I don’t want to buy multiples of everything, but I should buy extra of the items we can trade or I can’t repair. I also need to start learning how to repair the things we are going to buy and if I can stock up on repair kits while they are available. Looks like my list of things to learn has just gotten a little longer.”
“Sorry, I thought of that as well. I am adding sewing to my list. Also, I’ve created a second list of things I need to learn and prepare for – like sewing, cooking, and canning. I’ve never sewed before, but I should be able to teach myself enough to repair some of our clothing. I may not be able to make a shirt from scratch, but I should be able to sew on a button or two. I may see if there is a sewing class somewhere teaching basic sewing techniques. I’m sure the places that sell sewing machines have classes.”
Mark looked at her, “What else did you figure out today?”
“I started a third list of useful items I think we can stock up on and use for bartering. Cheap things, but things everyone uses and will forget to stock up on before it is too late.”
“Like what?” Mark asked.
“Like cheap t-shirts, socks, underwear, sewing needles and thread, canning jars, and even shoe laces. I thought I would buy a couple pairs of cheap tennis shoes for the girls from Tex-Mart in every size I can find all the way up to my size. This will give us something to use for the girls and if we don’t need a size – trade it for something we do need. I also remembered spices and salt were items hard to get in the past. I want to learn how to grow and make what spices I can and stock up on the others. I’ve also decided I would start canning stuff now so I can work out the kinks of the process. I don’t know how to do it, but canning can’t be hard to learn and there were plenty of recipes and tips on the internet. I’ve given myself the next twelve months to learn what I can. Next year I will have the goal of storing all the food we need to eat for a whole year. I will need to be able to plant a garden by next spring, so I can work that into my learning process as well.“
“That shouldn’t be too hard,” Mark replied, “I will put creating the garden on my priority list.”
“I’ve also started a recipe book which uses only the food items we can grow or create from scratch. No ingredients which are imported and we may not be able to get in the future. I want us to start getting used to the foods we will have to eat after a meltdown. I don’t want the new diet to come as a shock to our systems and make us sick. This will give me time to adjust the recipes and work on how to plan out a year’s supply of food at a time. I need time to make mistakes w
hile there are still grocery stores and restaurants available for those days my experimenting goes wrong. Looks like salad with tomatoes and cucumbers in January will be a thing of the past. Those items do not all ripen at the same time around here and you can’t store them very well unless you want to cook them later.”
“I saw a book on extending harvests past the usual seasons. I’ll see if I can find the book. I’ll help you prepare the garden so we can grow fresh foods as long as possible each year,” Mark said. “This might give us something to eat other than canned corn during the winter months.”
“That might work. We also may be learning to eat sprouts during the winter as a form of salad. It seems to be one of the few items people talk about growing during winter to add a little green to their meals. Sprouts seem to be healthy, too.”
“I don’t know. I was never a fan of sprouts but we’ll take it one step at a time,” Mark laughed. “Come February, I might be craving anything fresh. Even sprouts.”
Kelly just laughed with him and then added, “How was your day?”
“Not bad. Like I had assumed, most of the buildings including the house are a total loss. I was able to get into the house and there is still some hay in it but not much else. Not even windows. Everything has been removed except the basic floor, wall, and roof. The main barn looks like it is still useable with a little work. One part of the barn is filled with junk I will have to get rid of, but at least it will give me somewhere to put my equipment. The doors are solid and they even had locks on them so no one should be able to steal anything I leave between visits. I don’t know if I trust it 100%, but for the bigger stuff I think it is safe enough. I did meet the owner of the local tractor store. He seemed to be a wonderful guy and talked me out of the large tractor I was looking at. He told me to buy something smaller and rent a large one for the initial clean up. He also told me to rent the heavier equipment I would need to start the cleanup and I could buy lighter equipment for the long run. I went ahead and bought a smaller used tractor and trailer. I made arrangements for the rental of the larger one and arranged with his son to bulldoze the old house and buildings. He is going to push everything into a large pile that I can either haul off or burn over time.”
“You had quite a day,” Kelly exclaimed.
“I also took GPS coordinates of most of the major buildings, etc. on the farm to start making a map of the place. I didn’t get as far as you did, but I guess I need to start thinking about things a little deeper as well. I’ll start making lists of things I need to stock up on and skills I need to learn.”
“Looks like both of us are going to be busy for the next few years,” Kelly grinned.
“Yeah, hopefully the economy will cooperate with us and give us the time we need to finish getting ready.”
Chapter 16
As Sunday evening rolled around, Mark and Kelly both started to dread telling their parents what they had been going through. They did not believe what they were doing was wrong, but people the age of their parents have certain beliefs about the infallible nature of America. Beliefs that were valid a decade ago, but were not true anymore due to changes in the way the government runs its business. Mark did not want the evening to turn into arguments with his dad or Kelly’s dad about how he thought America and the world were about to crash. He thought they would be so set on the way life was when they were younger, neither one of them would listen to a thing he had to say. He felt they would accuse him of throwing away everything he and Kelly had earned over the years. Mark was so sure his parents’ generation believed the American government and lifestyle would be able to overcome anything thrown at it. They would not even want to listen to anyone say differently and might even walk out of his house angry at him.
Once both sets of parents arrived and after reintroducing Mark’s parents, Bill and Sharon, to Kelly’s mom and dad, Helen and Ted, Mark started the conversation. “Kelly’s parents already know some of this, but I wanted you to know we have taken over Kelly’s grandmother’s farm. It is 287 acres near Madill, Oklahoma and we are going to rebuild the place and move out there in the next few years.”
Mark’s mom and dad stared at him for a bit before Sharon finally said, “What do you mean, ‘move out there’? Are you quitting your jobs?”
“That was one of the things we wanted to tell you tonight. A few months ago you might remember Plains Airlines started cancelling a large number of flights and blaming the cancellations on a computer bug,” Mark answered.
“Yes. I remember making a joke about your bug one night when you picked up the kids,” Bill, responded.
“Well, after they started blaming my department, we tore the software apart looking for a bug and couldn’t find anything that was causing a problem. We worked incredible hours trying to find the bug. We thought the bug was a onetime fluke until they cancelled another round of flights blaming those cancellations on the system again. We never could find anything that should cause flights to be cancelled. All of our emails asking for more information went unanswered by upper management.”
“So, what was the problem?” Bill asked.
“After they cancelled the flights, I had a meeting with the executives and they told me they were going to offshore the entire IT department. I mean, they want to move every server and application to another company. They made noise about trying to find most of my staff new jobs at the airline. I think they are going to let everyone go after the move is complete. They haven’t even discussed moving people to other jobs and have implemented a hiring freeze across the company and closed out whatever open jobs. Anyway, after the meeting, I was told by one of my supervisors the computer bug was a cover story to hide the real reason they had to cancel flights. The real reason was because they could not get enough fuel to handle all the scheduled flights. They made up the excuse of the computer bug because they were afraid a fuel shortage would cause panic with the investors. The company is moving us off-shore so they can buy a few more months of cancelled flights before they need to make up another cover story.”
“What fuel shortage?” Helen asked. “I’ve haven’t heard anything on the news or seen any gas stations closing down or running out of gas.”
“You’re right. Neither have I,” Mark replied. “I didn’t believe it at first either. It wasn’t until I started looking through Plains’ financial systems and found over a dozen months where Plains could not find enough fuel for all the scheduled flights. In some of those months, flights were cancelled with the blame put on something else and some of those months had actual cancellations due to weather or maintenance issues. I saw bids and invoices from multiple fuel suppliers, but they still fell short each month. I’ve also seen the trend of cancelled flights at other airlines. The numbers don’t look like much until you start tracking them and lining up the excuses given with actual weather patterns, maintenance logs, etc. We fly the same planes as everyone else, but ours are not in the shop when another airline announces an across-the-board maintenance problem. The plain fact is Plains Airlines and other airlines around the country cannot get enough fuel to fly their planes as much as they want to.”
“I’ve also done other research on the American and global economy. The research shows there is a definite fuel shortage out there and the shortage is starting to have a dramatic effect on the global economy,“ Mark continued. “Kelly and I have been looking at this for months and we’ve seen a whole bunch of economic indicators starting to show an economic depression forming. We, along with others, now believe the world’s economy is about to crash and this crash will be severe enough to cause our society to take a few steps back.”
Both sets of parents looked at Mark and Kelly like they were crazy. They kept their thoughts to themselves as Mark started working his way through the same speech he gave Kelly on economic indicators. After spending the rest of dinner and a few hours after dinner working his way through the presentation, Mark was ready to get their views. “Ok. You’ve heard it all. What do you think?�
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“I don’t know where to begin, son,” Bill commented. “You’ve just laid out information saying everything we know is about to end. It’s a bit overwhelming.”
“I know. It took both of us a long time before we finally accepted the truth. It goes against everything we have learned and believe, as well as everything the government and news reporters have been telling us for years. You not only have to believe a fuel shortage is about to wipe out our way of life. You also have to believe the news, companies, and government know about the problem, but are lying through their teeth. Or they are clueless about what is happening. Either way, it will make you question what you believe. All I know is Plains Airlines has been lying about a fuel shortage and Kelly’s company is starting to close down restaurants because of lack of business. I’m not asking you to believe right now or even ever. I’m just telling you what we believe and why we are making very dramatic changes over the next few years so you understand our reasons for the changes. You may not believe us, but you need to know why we think we have to make these changes.”
“I believe you,” Sharon said as everyone turned to her with disbelief written on their faces.