by Pete Thorsen
Two months later with my potatoes up and growing, I decided to try another trip into town. I assumed the bank was still open because I still got statements every month. I had planned on not taking any more money out of the bank. But now that the balance was lower, and I was getting no direct deposits they had increased their monthly fees they were charging me. I had planned on leaving the rest so there would be some to auto pay the electric bill for a few more months. But now I would at least attempt to take all the money out.
I counted all the cash I had left at home. I figured I had enough to last me for quite awhile yet even with no more cash coming in because I wasn't working. When fall came, I planned on shooting a couple more deer. And more deer or elk over winter as needed to make sure I had something to eat. If necessary, I thought I could live on just venison and potatoes for awhile, though I hoped it would not come to that.
So the next morning I drove to town. I took some of my cash along with the pistol in my pocket and the rifle behind the truck seat like on my last few trips.
I stopped at the bank, and it was open. I told them I wanted to close the account because the money would not last long with the fees they were now charging me. There was just over three hundred dollars left in the account. And the withdrawal limit was still at two hundred. The banker and I went around for some time about this, and the two armed guards walked closer to where I was arguing with the banker. I was not intimidated and continued to hurrah the man about them trying to keep my money so that they could take it all with bogus fees.
Finally, we came to an agreement. I would only get the two hundred cash now, but he would put a hold on the account, and no fees would be removed from the account. I could not write checks or make deposits or use the auto pay feature, but my money would still be in there with no fees. I could come in next month and close the account then and get the remainder of my money if I wished. It was not a perfect arrangement for me, but it was acceptable. I left the bank with the two hundred more dollars in my pockets.
My next stop, of course, was at Walmart. I was not the only vehicle in the parking lot but there sure wasn’t many. I didn’t bother counting them, and I wondered if some of them weren’t just out of gas or broken down and just sitting there. I locked my truck and went inside. Walking in I noticed that two of the front doors had been completely smashed. Obviously, someone had broken in at some point.
Walking in a little further I noticed many bullet holes and I guessed that those that broke in found something other than what they were after. The store likely had armed guards inside overnight when they were closed. I did not realize that, and those that broke in likely did not know that either. And they found out the hard way. There were now at least a couple armed guards on duty during the day that I could see.
I took a cart and headed for the grocery section. The shelves had about the same reduced amount of food as they had the last time I shopped here. Obviously, Walmart was still getting more or less regular shipments of at least common food items.
I was in no particular hurry, and I just took my time shopping. Before coming to town, I had looked over what I had left at home for food items. Not like a complete inventory but I did look it all over. Now I was able to fill in some of the blank spots and bolster some of my other food supply items. I made sure to completely fill the cart with stuff I would eat, and that would keep awhile.
On the way back to the checkout I detoured over to the garden supply area and checked to see if they had gotten in a late order of garden seeds. I could find none and had not expected any. It was too late to plant anything, but I was already thinking ahead to next spring’s possible garden.
I checked out and paid the bill. Next, I drove to the small electric company office. I was somewhat surprised to see them open. I went in and up to the counter. I was current on my bill, but I explained to the girl about closing my checking account and no longer having the auto-pay option. She changed my account over to regular pay.
Next, I asked if I could pay ahead because it likely was not very wise to send cash through the mail. She made a note on my account, and I paid two hundred in advance for which she gave me a receipt. I thanked her and left.
When I drove away, I saw military vehicles traveling through town (the highway went through the center of town). They never stopped while they were within my sight. I do not remember ever seeing any travel through here before. Seeing them now might mean something was up, and it might mean nothing at all. I did not even bother filling the truck’s gas tank today on the way out of town. I did see that gas was the same price as last time I was in town, so maybe it had indeed reached its peak price.
Again I stopped on the way home to see if anyone had followed me. And again no one had, and I continued home and unloaded.
Chapter 15
Mail is down to once every two or three weeks now. I feel it’s likely to slow even more. The power went off and remained off for three and a half days. I ran the generator a few times during that outage. Fearing more outages I have been using up stuff in the freezer. As I empty the food out of the freezer, I fill it with filled water containers. Once frozen solid these water containers will be used to keep things cool in the refrigerator if the power goes out again for a long period.
I have also filled a few other containers with water so that I do not have to run the generator for water so much. The water containers for drinking water I keep exchanging with fresh water in to keep it fresh. The water I dump is used to water my garden plants which would have to be watered anyway. Nothing goes to waste. All containers I have water in are covered, so none evaporates. Some of these I save for watering the garden or to use for flushing the toilet if and when the power goes out again.
The over three days of the power being down was a long stretch. Way longer than ever before. It makes me wonder just how bad things will get. They never mentioned any power outage on the radio, and it is a local station so it certainly should have made the news.
The radio does still talk about the rebuilding and relocation efforts from each coast. The radio makes it sound like everything is going along just fine with those two endeavors. I rather doubt that is totally the case though. And I wonder how it is in the other major cities. What are all the people doing about food? All those people that were on the food stamp program that now have no support since credit and debit cards quit working. And who really knows just how many people are still working at jobs anymore. With the unemployment being cut-off and the food stamps being cut-off, how do people get any food?
I guess I will find out soon enough when what money I have runs out. I wonder if the power company will shut off my electric power when I am no longer able to pay the monthly charge? I could go for awhile using my generator and just running it for twenty minutes or so at a time just to fill every container up with water again. Maybe once or twice a week would be enough. Still, at some point, I would run out of fuel for the generator. Then what would I do?
I could catch and save rainwater, but I live in the desert, so that is not a very viable plan. But it still would help and today using whatever scrap pieces that would work that I had around the place I set up catchments to catch and save as much rainwater as possible by just using materials that I had here. When done it wasn’t pretty, and I wondered just how much rain it would catch, but it cost me nothing except a little of my time. And time was something I had plenty of so no problem there.
Thinking about water and what I would do made me think of what everyone else in this area would do for water. At least I had a well and a generator while most people did not have either of those things. Many years ago there was a big project in this area called Rural Water if I remembered correctly.
Where I live wells are a viable option, and I am thankful that this place has its own well. As you travel north and east from here the elevation changes (and maybe other changes underground) that make private wells much more problematic. The wells have to be much deeper, and there is no guarantee that yo
u will even get water at all. Many wells that do get water have only a very limited supply and have to rely on cisterns. A cistern is often used with a slow or poorly producing well. The cistern is just a holding tank for water. This tank allows the pump to slowly fill the tank at times when the owner is not using water, like in the middle of the night.
With a big tank the owner has water when he needs it and during times when the well owner uses a lot of water the tank gives him a cushion, and then the slow well can slowly refill the tank again.
With many such private water problems, water companies were born. They found spots to drill good producing wells and then ran underground pipes all over to supply water to everyone in that area, often running pipes great distances. Rural Water was the result. With good steady water supplies at reasonable prices available, most homeowners hooked up to this public water system instead of their own.
With more and more people moving into some areas where there was little or no chance of drilling a water well and in spots not serviced by the Rural Water system, these new homeowners had no choice but to haul water. Some hauled their own water to fill their water tanks, and many just hired local water hauling companies to haul the water for them.
Now with the screwed-up situation in the whole nation, it made me wonder what was happening to everyone and their water supply. I doubted the water hauling companies were even still open and doing business. What were the people doing that used those companies for water? The power was off here for three and half days. What did everyone else do for water during that time period? Was the Rural Water companies’ still pumping water to everyone? What was the water situation in other parts of the nation like now? At least I currently had water, and I had some plans to continue having water. Thinking about everyone else, made me thankful for the situation I had here at my place.
My limited garden grew much better than I ever expected. Of course, it only had potatoes, and I have to assume from my success that growing potatoes is an easy thing to do. I haven’t dug any up yet, but the plants are big and healthy looking, so I know there are potatoes under them. I could be eating these fresh small potatoes now, but I will just leave them in the ground. I figure they are getting bigger every day and I still have enough other food left here.
While I do still have food, the variety is getting smaller all the time. What I do have is a whole lot of rice. Rice was always cheap and available along with being easy for me to cook. So I have always bought and eaten rice. It was natural when times got harder, and I started to bolster my food supply that I would buy additional rice, and that is just what I had done. Later when the store had less variety, they always seemed to have a big supply of rice. So I had bought even more of it.
Rice with jerky added to it was a mainstay last winter and would be again this winter if I could shoot some more deer or elk. Many times I had fried rabbit and added that meat to rice to get two meals out of just one cottontail rabbit. This year it looked like I would have a bunch of potatoes from my garden to eat also. I would get by I was sure. But again I wondered about how everyone else would get by over winter.
Some people would have grown gardens. Much better and much more elaborate gardens than the one I have with just potatoes in it. I plan on hunting for meat, and I expect many other people are planning on hunting also to supplement their food supply. But many people are not hunters, and many people will have no garden. What will they do for food?
Even those that do hunt does not mean that they will shoot anything. Hunter success most places have historically been roughly about twenty percent for success. So even giving a step up to thirty-three percent success rate leaves sixty-six out of every one hundred hunters empty-handed. So two-thirds of the hunters get nothing. Of course basically there are no rules or regulations anymore so success rates could be higher. On the downside, more people than ever are likely to go hunting for food now so that would be a negative factor, especially after all the dumb animals are killed, and only the smart ones are left alive. Also, the would-be hunters would have to have transportation to the hunting areas. No matter how you slice it, many hunters will hunt but get nothing except exercise.
Gardens will be the same. Some gardeners will have good luck and get a good harvest, and some gardeners will get very little or maybe even nothing at all from their garden.
Many people will have a tough time this winter, and that is a fact.
Chapter 16
Fall is coming, and I am trying to decide if I should make another trip into town and see if I can buy additional supplies. I do have a little money left, and I do supposedly still have that just over a hundred dollars still in the bank that I could now draw out. So, in theory, I could buy some more groceries.
The downside is the physical risk of going back into town. Plus I really don’t even know if there is food to buy in town. And I admit that I would be surprised if the bank was still open and I could even get my money. Also, I would be using valuable fuel that I might not be able to replace, and I might need for the generator later. So there seems to be way more downsides to going into town than there are benefits.
But there are intangibles involved too. I admit that I am very curious about what is happening in town. And there is the chance of gathering additional information by going in again. Plus there is the possibility that if there is food to buy in town, this might be my last chance to get additional food before the supply totally dries up. I was surprised each time that I went shopping that they were still receiving additional shipments.
I decided to go. It was really no decision because I had planned on going no matter whatever the risks I might face by going anyway. I took the same guns as always, and I did put one of my empty gas cans in the back of the truck just in case I could get additional fuel for the generator.
The drive in was normal, at least the new normal where I saw not another person the whole trip in on the road or the houses I passed. On my way to Walmart, I passed a gas station that had some activity around it so I guessed that fuel might still be available. When I pulled into the Walmart parking lot things were different.
There were several military vehicles clustered in one corner of the parking lot. There were a lot of people in that area. Civilian people mostly and not many troopers were visible. Though I did notice that the troopers I did see were armed and appeared watchful. I parked and locked the truck and walked over to intersect the path of someone coming from the military area on their way toward the nearby store.
“Can I ask you a couple of questions?”
“Sure. All I have is time.”
“What’s the deal with the military?”
“You can get your ration stamps or vouchers there.”
“Vouchers?”
“What, you been living in a cave?”
“Yes, I guess you could almost say that I have been. So what’s been happening?”
“The military is giving everyone vouchers for food. Just like food stamps. You get the food free. At least for right now. There is talk that soon you will have to work for the vouchers if you are able-bodied, but for now, that is just rumors.
“Almost no one has any money anymore, some have died of starvation, and many have barely been getting enough food to survive. Walmart gets the food from the government, or I think they do anyway. You get the food stamps from the Army guys and then turn them in at Walmart for food.
“I think you can get fuel vouchers too if you live out in the country so you can get back and forth to get your monthly food supplies. I live only a mile, or so away, so I did not get any fuel stamps.”
“Hard to believe they are just giving the food away.”
“As they say “Don’t look a gift-horse in the mouth.” Just get your food vouchers and be happy about it. I admit I wonder just how long this can go on. And don’t worry about getting fat on the rations they supply. It is ‘subsistence rations.' Just enough per person per month to stay alive, and that’s if you are not active.”
“Doe
s Walmart still sell food too?”
“Oh yes. The rations stamps are only good for certain items. And it is a very short list. You can get many other things if you have money.”
“Thanks a lot for your time.”
“Like I said nothing else to do anyway.”
I walked over to the military area to see what was what. There were a couple of signs I noticed as I got closer. I went where it said “new applicants.”
The signs led me to stand in front of a table with a man in uniform sitting behind it. He seemed busy but stopped when I stopped in front of him.
“New applicant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I need a driver’s license (he looked at me again) or a military ID. And your Social Security number.”
I gave him my driver’s license and recited my Social Security number.
“This your current address?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How many miles from here is that?”
“About eleven or twelve miles, each way.”
“Besides the food ration stamps, you will also receive fuel stamps for two gallons of gas or diesel fuel.”
“Thank you.”
“This will take a couple of minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
I waited. The man had a computer terminal and typed everything in from my driver’s license. Then he waited a moment and must have read some results from what he typed in. I waited for several minutes. He added some additional typing and then handed me some things that did indeed look similar to stamps. They had complicated printing (obviously to foil attempts at counterfeiting them). There were several primarily green ones that said for Food, and two blue ones marked Fuel. There were also a couple of sheets of paper with instructions for the stamps.