by Ron Foster
“Hey I got an idea since we have some many napkins and toilet paper and such. How about if we stick a roll of toilet paper or some napkins in the mail boxes around here and leave them a note saying “Going to town for other needful things. Want to trade?”. We can put the mail box flag up and then check the ones that are down on our way back in a couple days and see if anyone leaves us a return note.” Tina said pondering the business concept of their so-called delivery service.
“That’s a good idea, brilliant really but we are back to the same old authorship question of who to sign as and our return address.” Slim said starting the banter on who to represent themselves as once again.
“I think it’s a great idea for us to try but just not for right now. We still need to take a trip back up here a time or two maybe and you are forgetting how loaded down we look.” Travis said considering if everyone started watching the highway and mailboxes daily they would be telegraphing how much stuff they actually had access to.
“We could store more of it at the beach house but we don’t know enough about that area yet I don’t think. I wish we could have spent more than one night around there. I guess we will know more about our actual situation when we come back. Seems like we will be ok staying there and our goods will be safe.” Slim said wondering if maybe they should all move there permanently after all.
“I like that house but I don’t like feeling like I am on the edge all the time. I swear feel like I run a marathon already today my hearts beating so fast. I am looking forward to the seclusion and safety of the fish camp for right now.” Tina said excited to be almost home but feeling lost and apprehensive in many ways.
Carl, Wilma, Beth and Steve all came out to the camps gravel parking lot from wherever they were to greet the surprise returning travelers.
“I see you that were successful but I am surprised you’re back so soon.” Carl said as Travis exited the vehicle.
“Did you run into any trouble? You are back so soon.” Wilma said worriedly.
“No everything went very well as you can see. We got enough toilet paper and such to last us 99 forevers and then some.” Travis said as everyone eyed the vans full load.
“We got some food stuffs also but there are more paper goods and junk we need to get back to. We came back to get you all to come help move it all. We got lucky and found ourselves a big old restaurant supply truck trailer that no one had raided yet and this is just the tip of the iceberg.” Tina said gleefully.
“We actually don’t know what’s all on that trailer without unloading and dragging it all out but it is mostly paper goods. It is a huge score no matter how you look at it though.” Slim said opening the van doors and preparing to unload their stash.
“Food wise what we have got is kind of weird but the toilet paper and coffee shortage is finally officially over for a long while.” Travis said with a smile as they showed off their bounty and tried to find a place for it all in the small cabin.
“Damn we are pretty much about full up in here already with no room left and you are saying that there is a lot more we need to get and find a place for?” Steve said looking at the boxes of napkins, toilet paper, paper towels, paper plates you name it.
“Look on the bright side Steve! We won’t have any dishes to wash for quite a while.” Tina exclaimed to which everyone laughed.
“WE are going to have to sleep on top of it if you drag anymore in here. Ok those items are officially off the want list for a long while to come. Wilma said overwhelmed with it all.
“We ain’t getting any more of it but there is food mixed in with that cargo so we are going to have to unload the whole darn thing which is floor to ceiling packed boxes and shrink-wrapped pallets.” Slim said sitting next to his bunk which had its share of paper goods, disposable eating utensils etc. now shoved underneath it.
“I kind of like using the campfire for our dishwasher and burning paper plates up but like you said enough is enough. Oh, yea we got us one very cool and awesome beach house full of this stuff too.” And Tina then began to relate all they had seen and heard from their trip. It was a lot of news to cover and it took much longer than she thought; add the questions and the unloading the van and they were still discussing the project come midnight.
It was ultimately decided that everyone would go to the trailer together and load all the vehicles with whatever they could get off the trailer and from there go to the beach house and see what living in town felt like. The RV would stay at the fish camp until they could find more gas for it. There was enough in it now to probably make it to the beach and back but that would be cutting it close.
Leaving the fish camp was an awful big thing but the tantalizing promise of better food and a community of sorts to interact with inspired them to take the plunge and go all in. They would try a few of the toilet paper mailbox message things on the way to the way to town and see if they could get any of these rural people talking to them. There really wasn’t any other safe way they could think of to approach them and see if any farm products were for trade. They would sign the notes as the “Fish Camp” and Steve and Carl would come back this way in a week and do a water run as well as spend a day or two of starting to build a shed if we could find any lumber in town. Fish camp would remain their home and hold the bulk of what few possessions they had for now.
The beach house was awfully enticing but moving into an area with known risks of roving looters and likely to become one yourself didn’t sit well. It was agreed that no house hunting breaking and entering be done and they would try to confine their pilfering to commercial type businesses but those would most likely be already long picked over. The train yard was a primary target for them to explore but they knew to be aware that the hobos and homeless that often times frequented those areas would be likely possibly present to contest ownership of those freight cars. Steve at first said he thought that it was unlikely those type of people would have any guns until Travis pointed out that if they had all those goods they could most likely easily trade someone for whatever it is they wanted.
Tina pointed out on the other hand something to consider was that there was no water down that way so although a freight car might be guarded she couldn’t see many folks trying to live down that way. The big commercial port over in Panama City proper was another interesting concept because of its cargo ships but most likely any big grain shipments or such would have been confiscated by the government. Where the hell did they ship all that stuff to anyway? No one knew but no one realistically had expected to get any of it anyway. Going 18-wheeler trailer hunting seemed the most logical choice for uncontested apocalyptic booty and it seemed to be for the moment much less risky than trying to prowl around in broken in darkened stores and looted shops.
If they could somehow get the farmers who were still farming to trade with them a whole new world would open up. Chickens could be raised at the beach house the same as at the fish camp, however it was noted having a rooster go off every morning at the beach house is ringing the dinner bell for some starving soul to think about taking a risk. If folks are just trying to amicably get along, like Sam said it would be ok to keep some chickens, if not having yard birds was the only option it would seem to be just asking for it and the safety of the group came into question, it seemed. Then there was the matter of even getting any poultry at all but with access to town something to trade was easier to get there than them finding a willing farmer who would take something for a live chicken.
How much was a danged walking around kind of a chicken worth anyway these days? That would all depend on how many somebody has got that they think they can spare and what they might actually need or would take in the way of money or trade goods. The thought of ever having beef, pork, chicken or whatever in their diet again made it a priority to find such again any way they could.
Eggs were probably the easiest thing to trade for if you could get close enough to a farm house to not get yourself run off. People’s brains weren’t working
right these days: everyone looked at the disaster like it was a zombie apocalypse or something and forgot folks ain’t zombies and they need community to survive. Fingers off the triggers, guns pointed at the ground and open ears and eyes was what was needed instead of Rambo like fantasies of wars with marauders. It was going to take good old hard work and folks all working together to see this thing through. Panama City beach would probably become a fishing village once more; the farmers needed each other’s help to seed and plow, cut hay and harvest. Depending on how many folks were left now, people by necessity had to go back to being more agricultural which was hard as hell to do because the knowledge, seeds, fertilizer etc. was beyond scarce.
Money, as in folding money or for that matter even spare change, was in short supply and who could even attest to the true value of any of it anymore? The whole world seemed to be in a big topsy-turvy monetary reset with debts repudiated by nations and valueless promises by government’s printing press made fiat money and aid script even more suspect. That there was so much left in the modern world in worthless goods and inflated values made things worse. Already there was not enough farm land, no jobs or manufacturing and no hopes of finding enough food every day before you starved unless you stole it, these things along with infrastructure breakdown had brought about what was not only a societal collapse but a civilization dropped into temporary and extended anarchy warring with itself. People had forgotten how to work with each other towards basic survival. Looking out for number one and not engaging others positively was suicide.
Tina and Travis took comfort in the cut and dried wisdom of some old sayings about survival mindset and what to do in such situations and that basically boiled down to expressions like the time worn one “root, hog or die”. They had asked their friends to consider that this saying doesn’t leave anyone much room for you to wiggle around with at all does it? You either work hard as you can to make it or you don’t make it. That simple- Root, hog, or die = to survive; to fend for yourself; to make it through tough circumstances by working very hard. This author seldom hears anyone using this old saying much of advising someone to root, hog, or die today, but to most folks it’s in the same vein of sayings like: you’ve got to stand on your own 2 feet and sink or swim.
I believe the saying came from the days of raising what was called free range hogs. In other words, the hogs were turned out on their own and they could root up enough food to make it or they died. There have been many songs written since before the Civil war as well as after with that saying in it.
A folk song collected in 1911 tells of the hard life of the cowboy. The last verse is:
Sometimes it's dreadful stormy and sometimes it's pretty clear
You may work a month and you might work a year
But you can make a winning if you'll come alive and try
For the whole world over, boys, it's root hog or die.
That saying about summed up everyone’s existence today but unfortunately most folks didn’t have the survival sense a hog had of feeding and protecting itself nor did they have a farmer to Sheppard them around and look out for them. The only way to get people to cooperate these days was leadership or greed. It wasn’t greedy to want more food or comfort, but it was the offer of such that helped create leadership opportunities. That is what they hoped their so-called beach goods delivery service could do. It might afford them a leadership role in controlling the access to trade items so they could eat better.
“We need to make us a concerted effort to go all in and find us an electric bike or a golf cart as alternative transportation. The range on them electric cycle things usually isn’t very far but we could maybe get to 15 miles or so of outlying countryside for a delivery route. Finding us some solar panels to recharge batteries shouldn’t be too problematic but it will take us some time and searching as well as some experimenting to do. We could go do with an electric bike and a trailer of some sort, say schedule egg pickups if we camped somewhere a day to recharge or maybe we could if we could find any drop off some fresh batteries up the road on a charger for return trips.” Travis said adding to his wants and hunt for list.
“If we got a lot of cooperation and I am not saying that is even going to be possible with folks the way they are now, but we could get clientele to donate gas to keep the service running, if they were profiting from it. They say the Federal Government got the oil refineries running again somewhat but of course they never said when people around here could ever hope to see a gas truck in this neck of the woods. I suppose if we were awfully lucky, there is a slim chance we might see some in maybe in a year or so.” Slim said speculating.
“If they can get the trains moving down the tracks again, the Nation can come back and rebuild much quicker but I don’t know how all that stuff works and survivors have been their own worst enemies when it comes to allowing enough people to get back to work and get commerce going again.” Carl said sagely.
“Well, that’s one reason that we need to strongly consider us being in a village or something when it does finally start getting some government help someday way off in the future. Living way out here in the sticks the way we are, why time could just about pass us by entirely and we wouldn’t even know it.” Wilma said thinking that she had about enough of fish camp living and welcomed a change.
“Don’t forget we got early frost coming and a hard winter ahead. Wintering in at the beach is going to have both its pluses and minuses when it comes to where it will be easier to live at. For example, I don’t relish the thought of surf fishing in the wind over creek bank fishing here if a cold snap decides to stay. The beach house has a fireplace but it’s in a living room with a high ceiling and is the old-fashioned inefficient open kind. What are we going to burn for fuel in it? At least around here with that little cast iron wood stove we can stay warm and find wood in all that forest.” Travis said contemplating where they would over winter the best. Fuel needed to be gathered and food needed to be somehow saved for the colder months.
“We could pull the wood heater out of here and tote it down there but that wouldn’t correct the fuel problem none. Cutting wood by hand takes a whole lot of energy. Takes even more work to split it and stack it by hand if you have to. I take it you didn’t get a chance to look for kayaks, chain saws, sledge hammers, wedges and such that was on your list.” Steve replied thinking that they would need probably twice as much of the same hard to find things if they were trying to run two households a distance apart.
“We don’t have a long time to prepare for winter. I heard on the radio that they are already getting heavy snow in the mountains up north. A lot of people will be migrating further south if they can, I am thinking and there is no telling what kind of death toll all over the nation this cold will cause this winter.” Wilma said in anticipation of freezing to death every time you needed to go use the outhouse or tried to go outside in the frigid air for any length of time to catch dinner.
“Well, if we find any lumber we can scavenge, we will study on it. We could maybe use old pallets for building the storage shed here, that kind of lumber might be easier to find, but you don’t want to be burning those things indoors: too many preservative chemicals in the wood. The landfill might have some precut wood scraps lying about that we could scavenge. I knew a guy down here once that made his living busting up old wooden oak crates from the seaport for firewood also.” Travis said thinking about fireplace fodder as well as fuel for the outside kitchen they were going to have to set up at the beach house.
“You know those newspaper log rollers you used to see that people made do it yourself fire logs out of? I am thinking maybe there is something similar we could do to use up some of these napkins and such.” Tina said and Travis immediately grabbed the idea and tried to remember some of his prepper research.
“I have seen those things before, I saw a press for making bricks once also. It shouldn’t be too difficult to make something like that. I could probably use an ammo can or something to make so
mething similar.” Travis thought relating the information contained in an article he had once read.
Burning wood for heat has several advantages: it's cheap, it burns hot and it's relatively better suited to places that are off-the-grid and rurally located. But some rightly argue that wood-burning is sustainable only if some -- not everyone -- are cutting trees down as firewood, so we were pleasantly surprised to come across this idea for making your own burnable firebricks -- out of recycled newspaper!
Seen over at Survivopedia, a "prepper" site, paper log bricks could be a major help during a major disaster, when firewood may be scarce. Here's the basic run-down: recycled paper is either shredded or kept whole and then moistened and mixed into a pulp, and either rolled or molded into forms using simple things like a cake pan punctured with holes to let the water out. After properly drying them, the paper bricks are ready to use; they are dense like regular firewood and require kindling to set them alight.
The ability to make long burning fire logs or fire bricks could be a life saver during and after a major crisis. The time to learn how to make, use, and store them is now, before any major crisis starts.
Right now, devices used to make fire bricks and logs are as close as your favorite hardware store; but in a time after a major crisis there will be no place to buy them.
Fortunately, you can use simple materials from around the house, the yard, or even a junk pile to make a fire log or fire brick maker.
How to Make Fire Logs
Materials needed
3/4” to 1” diameter dowel rod about 24” long
Newspapers
5 gal bucket and water to soak the paper in.
How to make fire logs
For soaking the paper, place the newspaper in the buckets still folded into sections.