by Ron Foster
Don planned on using green briar to divert folks off the trails leading close to his house and towards even more bracken to discourage chance or unwanted encounters. He could put on a pair of heavy gloves and basically barbwire a few areas with these ‘wait a minute vines’ to improve his security in those waiting weeks. He had also planted some very wicked looking Spanish bayonet plants in a couple areas in front of his home where he thought was a likely place someone might want to hide or take cover in. A rose bush here and there also upgraded his security along with some edible prickly pear cactus assured some lanes of travel would not be easy to negotiate.
The fruit orchard was shaping up well. He had fourteen trees in the ground now and he had started looking at those “$100” free offers if you buy $100 worth of merchandise the seed companies put out. He was pretty much decided that now might just be the time to get some insecticidal spray for his trees with one of those coupons and maybe some fruit tree fertilizer spikes for his preps. Won’t be able to find that stuff if the poo hits the fan and he would eventually need to use it anyway he figured.
Dang, too much damn money going out! Always a do something now or pay for it later decision he had to make. He had wanted to go to Florida for one last fun binge this spring. It was only 3 hours away and seemed to be calling his name. If he didn’t go this month, the summer rates would kick in and possibly he would never have the chance again. Best that he give that some clear thoughts, he could afford it, but his preps would suffer a lot if he spent the money on a mini vacation, Don mused.
4
Getting the Itch to Travel
“Good morning!” Don called as he let himself in Janice’s front door. Don had a key to her place and she his and when he was in town it was their custom to have morning coffee together and plan their days.
“Hi! You’re sounding all chipper up for the day this morning. You must have gotten some rest last night.” Janice said, pouring him a cup of coffee.
“No, actually I was up late shooting the breeze with LowBuckPrepper on Skype and had me a few beers. We were discussing how to make alcohol to run cars and such.” Don said as he settled down in a kitchen chair.
“Knowing ya’ll, you talked more about moonshine than you did running engines.” Janice joked at him. “Actually we didn’t much, did you know you can get a free Federal license to make ethanol for fuel? I am going to look into that deeper. It was a pretty eye opening conversation.” Don advised her.
“I want to see his video of that, if he is going to make one. Didn’t you tell me the other day that any car made after 1983 could be run on a 50/50 mixture of gas and alcohol with no engine conversions?” Janice said, knowing Don appreciated her remembering that tid bit of information.
“I sure did. With gas prices going up and possible shortages on the horizon that is a proposition I want to maybe get into.” Don said adjusting himself for the cat that had just snuck over and decided it wanted to sit on his lap.
“You going to Sam’s Club anytime soon for cat food?” Don asked.
“Maybe Friday, you need anything?” Janice inquired. “Yea, couple cases of cream of chicken soup to go with those 25 lb. boxes of Rice I bought there last month.” Don said stroking the cat.
“I am glad you turned me onto that so called “comfort food “ of yours. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to eat and combined a boiling bag of rice and a can of that cream of chicken soup and it really hit the spot the other night. I found some with mushrooms in it, by the way.” Janice told him as she settled down in the chair across from him.
“It’s good as a meal or a side dish. Hey, you want me to fertilize those trees for you next time I am up? It’s that time of year again.” Don said, looking out the window at her garden at a pair of Filbert trees.
Filbert orchard nut production increases dramatically after the size of the tree increases, especially when heavily fertilized. The nut from the Filbert (Hazelnut) Tree provided a unique nut food source. There are many brands of nuts available in the supermarket, and the Filbert is very expensive at the grocery store, but can be grown inexpensively with very little maintenance in your garden. The Filbert (Hazelnut) Tree is also called hazelnut in European communities and is one of the popular nuts found under the Christmas tree.
“Yes, I wish you would. I also wish you would have gotten around to pruning those other fruit trees, but yea, I know you were too busy writing books to get around to it.” Janice said, not too kindly.
“Not enough hours in the day. Sorry about that. They’ll be ok though.” Don replied and shooed the cat off his lap so he could wander over to the backdoor to survey the garden better.
“I just don’t have time to help you much this year with your garden and put in mine, too. I am going to grow more than we need anyway, maybe you should just cover most of your beds with plastic and solarize them this year and let the soil rest and get sterilized.” Don said, dreading his ever-growing pile of things on his to do list.
“You got to dig up and transfer that big asparagus bed next to the house to your farm. If I decide to paint the house, I am scared the workers will ruin it, besides you bought all those plants years ago, and last year you put in those asparagus beds out back and they are looking good and healthy.” Janice said bringing back the memories of their joint prepping efforts.
“Those roots gotta be 5 or 6 yrs. old now; most of them were three yrs old when I put them in. I haven’t looked, but I think most survived fine, gotta be over a hundred in there.” Don said thinking it was probably going to take him at least half a day to dig them up.
“I lost track of what all you did, I know you got the all male purple and green hybrids as well as the Martha Washington Asparagus that produces seeds so you might have a bunch of young ones, too.” Janice said pouring Don another cup of coffee.
“I hadn’t thought about volunteer asparagus. How are your other beds doing?” Don replied. “Oh, they are doing well, you know we didn’t add manure or fertilizer like we said we were going to after the foliage died back this winter.” Janice said reminding him of one more duty they had shirked.
Janice had back problems if she overexerted and Don usually did most of the manual labor, but had just found too many other distractions in the last year and basically left the perennials like asparagus and strawberries to fend for themselves.
“You need to recruit your sister and one of your girlfriends to pitch in if they want some free veggies this year.” Don suggested.
“Well, they mean well, but you know how that goes, it’s never convenient for them when it needs doing now.” Janice said evaluating the possibilities to get some garden help from someone other than Don.
“I got more plants coming in the mail, by the way, for my spread and I got my regular start from seed planting to do for squash and okra, etc.” Don said hinting that he couldn’t be counted on either this year.
“Well, you could just till me up two beds and I can handle the rest. The other beds can just lay fallow, be solarized or planted with some kind of cover crop, but you could take a day here and there and try to help weed the perennials if you would.” Janice said glumly.
“Will do.” Don replied and then hurriedly changed the subject. “We need to talk about what, if any, preps you want moved up to my place and figure out strategy.” Don said broaching a subject neither of them liked to consider, but one that had to be reckoned with.
“Well, you moved my boxes of holiday food there already.” Janice said referring to her special, more expensive preps like dehydrated canned Turkey and special treats, including a whole canned chicken.
“I left it all in the boxes in case you had a change of plans and wanted to carry it back, which I don’t think you want to do, but it’s packed and ready if you ever decide you need it back here. What do you have excess of or taking up too much space? How about taking those big heavy buckets of wheat?” Don said, mentally trying to envision all the past orders they had received and divided up over the years.
“Yea, take them. I need the space and since I plan on bugging out in your direction I couldn’t carry them anyway. You need to maybe take some of that field gear I got, it’s not too practical for the city and I need to do a rethink on how I will get to you if cars don’t actually work after a solar storm.” Janice said pondering.
“I don’t know, a web belt, canteen etc. is about the only way I see you carrying much extra other than a very light backpack. You could ride your bike in a few days to my place, but you’re leaving a shitload of preps behind. I know the idea is to leave a bunch with your sister in town, but you got logistic problems you haven’t thought out far enough.” Don said, knowing Janice didn’t like to consider some harsh realities. Janice’s mother lived in the same town, but a pretty good distance away and Janice said she wouldn’t bug out and besides there was no room at my place, so her sister would stay and take care of her.
Don could depend on Janice checking on his Mom and sharing supplies if need be because they lived in close proximity, but that just delayed the inevitable of needing to get to the bug out location before it got too wild out there on the road and in Don’s opinion he thought they would wait too long and jeopardize all his plans by making him undertake the journey to come in town to get them and then leave his home unguarded for a period of time.
Now having preps in two locations had a lot of merit. He was constantly in between the country and his Mom’s place and there was no guessing about the odds of being in either place at an opportune moment unless he got a space weather report in time to take proper actions. Two to three hours is the most heads-up time he would have. If he was in the country, it was an hour in and an hour back. That was cutting it too close and he had never seen a woman in the world who could leave a house on 5 minutes notice once someone arrived to leave for somewhere.
Janice had a bug out bag packed as well as had a very useful portion of her preps ready to go in 3 duffel bags. She had a car-top carrier that could be rigged to take even more preps, but just loading stuff would take over an hour, even if Don was there to push it.
His Mom had a stocked pantry full of stuff that he could load in her car if he was given enough time, but he had more than just a niggling feeling most of the available time would be convincing her she had to leave and leave now! Unless of course the yahoos at the emergency broadcast network actually gave useful advice like store water now, etc. and the chances of that happening, his experience and education said was not going to happen.
Hell, during the Civil Defense era everyone was primed and ready to head for a shelter or take precautions. Now, the liberals don’t want to panic anyone by giving them unadulterated truth. Civil defense was dissolved as being unsustainable and un-survivable and people just had apathy about any kind of government warnings to prepare. No, it was up to old Prepper Don to gather his flock and head for the hills based on his own. AND, the big ” IF”, was could he pull it off without his significant others getting him killed trying to help them or forcing him to give up any bug out notions and survive in the city away from his carefully prepared refuge from the apocalypse. He had at best a year to convince them and plan for contingencies. Where to start planning when something had no particular end or beginning was driving him nuts.
Word gets out quick when a shortage or an impending disaster threatens and then many people’s imaginations take over. Watch a gas shortage become worse as people race around town to fill up after being warned not to do that so they don’t cause a crisis by depleting demographic reserves. The cell phone and telephone lines will get overloaded quickly and he had no idea how early the system might actually start getting technical difficulties before the full fledged geomagnetic storm hit. Might be quite before the fact as satellite operators tried to turn them away from the solar flares or change orbits. He ruled out the possibility of being able to talk to his Mom and Janice on the way in from the country to tell them to get ready to come with him and get packed. It’s going to be a three ring circus on the highways as people rush to get home and of course use those damn cell phones while driving anyway to call their loved ones. Ok, so dangerous drivers, possible car failures after the solar storm hits, humm.
Don shuddered as his imagination showed him miles of interstate covered with broken down cars and burning wrecks within hours of notification that this was it, the big Carrington effect NASA had predicted was about to happen.
Well, they say timing is everything and this was one piece of the puzzle that was not going to get revealed until an event actually happened. Don drew a mental circle around the two towns and tried to figure out best case and worst-case scenarios where he would be when the lights went out. Really best case would be sitting at his Mom’s house. That meant he didn’t have to get back up to the city and he had what? At least two weeks to get her moving in the right direction. Humm, what are the conditions third week after a disaster on the road? Well, that could be framed as a research question so what was his hypothesis? What variables were present or not present that he needed to contend with?
First off, you need to consider the state of the subject you are considering, what is the environment, what is their state of mind?
Well, Mom was a product of the depression era, the greatest generation that pitched in collectively during WW II and had been through a few power outages from hurricanes, etc., so mentally and physically meeting her needs were covered for a while.
Janice? How was Janice going to deal with this? Her sister lived within walking distance so they would be at her house. Her other sister, I think, was closer to her Mom so maybe they buddied up. If Janice knew Don was in town, she would be sitting tight waiting on him to come by with a plan. What if he was out of town? Might take her a week? 3 days, maybe, to check on his Mom. Janice’s neighborhood would be having a hen party of
conversations about the disaster and it would be only days the low life’s or homeless that lived in the area would start looking for food and water so folks would be on their guard. I have seen people using the faucet at the gas station on the corner to fill milk jugs when they didn’t pay their water bills or be loitering to bum money. Well, Janice has protection in the form of firearms, but it’s still a couple miles to Mom’s place. The thing we don’t talk about much is the number of gunshots you hear in the adjoining neighborhoods all too frequently anyway. Those angry folks will be settling vendettas amongst themselves for a while depending on how hot or cold it is outside when the geomagnetic storm or EMP takes the grid out.
It appears, if we are all separated, then early movements are better than later ones to get together. The option of waiting things out to move from a “Bug In” situation to a “Bug out” situation is moot if it jeopardizes forming your survival group’s continuity. A force field per se of shared preps, protection and mutual support is needed immediately. The closer you are at the beginning of the event, the stronger you will be when the threat level escalates. How long everyone should act or react is a decision that must be addressed and discussed before hand and a dependable time frame of receiving support or assistance must be arrived at before the fact.
“Don, what are you making faces about? You seem lost in thought and disturbed by something.” Janice said breaking the trance that he had seemed to have gone into.
“The usual Prepper shit, worrying about something I just realized I need an answer to and don’t have yet. Sorry, I think too much about too many things sometimes.” Don said, drinking the dregs of his cold coffee.
“What’s got you worried now?” curious about what weird prepperdom solution or scenario had Don so distracted today.
“Well, I see a bad moon rising in regards to all this traveling around in what will be possibly badlands for us to be able to bunch up and assemble if a solar storm did hit. I just can’t seem to get a handle on my objectives and timing on our movements.” Don said and went back to staring out the window at the bedraggled raised bed garden which he also couldn’t figure out when he would have time
to attend to.
“I will see to your Mom’s welfare, don’t you worry. We can get down to you one way or another.” Janice said trying to console him.
“Well, we’ll chat about that subject later. I need to think about a few changes I need to make and some other pressing things to get my mind off it and back to the here and now. I am seriously considering going to Florida, by the way, for a few days, although I know I shouldn’t really be doing it with all the work around these three places to do, let alone the expense.” Don said tentatively and side glancing in her direction.
Janice knew if Don had gone beyond just entertaining the fleeting thought of a trip, to now talking about actually considering it, he most likely was going to go ahead and do it.
“Think it through, there’s a lot going on with you, but maybe you need some away time for yourself.” She offered noncommittally.
“I can think of a hundred reasons for or against me going but I feel like I am overwhelmed and a little vacation might be in order. I know it’s stupid, but hey, I like a road trip once in a while to appreciate what I got when I get back.” Don said grinning.
“That’s one way to look at it, no place like home, huh?” Janice said grinning back. “More like the lyrics to that old country western song “Where am I going to live at when I get home?” Don quipped.
Don and Janice made small talk after that and said their farewells as he went back to his Mom’s house to make lunch.
5
Getting Ready For A Break
Don had made a mental list of all the things modern and country living required him to do but today he wasn’t as motivated as usual to get things done. He was thinking more about what had to get done to free him up if he was going to actually leave for a few days. NUMBER ONE ON THE LIST WAS SIT DOWN AND WRITE HIS BILLS. Got to get those out of the way first and count his pennies left for his next actions or preps he needed.