Premonitions (Book 1): The Farm

by Anderson, Diana E.

  “Tom and I started to make some preliminary assignments for people. First of all, Frank and Bill – we would like the two of you to be in charge of security. That means coming up with a plan to keep the farm and all of its occupants- people and animals – safe. We’ll need perimeter security, watch schedules, and anything else you think will be necessary, based on your experience. Start thinking who you want to be on the security team to help you, although I think all adults and older teens ought to be able to stand security watches with some training. Oh, yeah, the training will also fall into your responsibility. I think the security teams will probably also wind up being part of the hunting teams later on.” Frank and Bill both nodded and agreed to their responsibility.

  “I’d like to meet with you both to talk about some trespassing that I found, and also to give you some maps of the property. Let’s do that in the next day or so. Also, I want you to make a list of any tools and equipment, not including firearms, that you will need to make our security here top notch”

  “Clark, you are already an animal expert, but we would like you to be our animal expert. We’ll need teams trained to provide care to all of our animals. You will direct whatever is needed for the care of our animals and to keep all of them healthy. How many people do you need to help with that?”

  “Actually, Denise, I was thinking of bringing our RV over so the girls could take turns staying here and start teaching folks to take care of the animals for now. I think that the four of us – five if Maureen wants to help – can handle managing the animal health aspect if we can train teams to do the milking, egg-snatching, and area cleaning – stall mucking, that is! We can be responsible for making a duty roster of the things that need to be done with the animals and who is scheduled to do them.”

  “Perfect, Clark! Let Tom know where you want to park your RV and he will get water and power taken care of. Next, we need to take care of people. James and Samantha, would you be willing to put together an infirmary for people?” Both professionals were smiling and nodding agreement. “I thought that the empty area next to the workshop would be good, as there is already running water and a bathroom there. You should have room for a few beds and anything else you need. If you could look at it and let me know if it will work, we can start getting it emptied out and cleaned. Make a list of what you’ll need, and we’ll try to get it Tuesday. Also, as you have time, it might be a good idea to interview everyone for their health history, medications, blood types, and all that stuff. That way, you have the information ahead of time. That will also help you stock up on medications you may think you’ll need.” Both James and Samantha agreed that would be a helpful thing to do. “You might also want get with Maureen to start some obstetric charts on all the little mamas around here now. I won’t steal any thunder and make any announcements because you’ll be able to figure it out soon enough, but I hope y’all like babies!” Everyone started looking at each other with happy, but confused faces.

  “You two will also need to be in charge of our trauma services. We need a quick reaction force in the event there is any serious trauma – God forbid, gun shots or anything like that. You’ll need to train the rest of us on how to provide field first aid. Anything that happens here on the farm can go to James and Samantha at the infirmary, but on foraging trips, security patrols or anything like that, we’ll need some serious medical ability.”

  “Next, we need to talk about our firearms. As you can see by the concrete monstrosity next to the barn, we are in the process of setting up an armory. Chuck, can you take charge of getting the armory fixed up? Some of the guys went this morning to the lumberyard and just about bought them out on supplies to build shelves, racks, workbenches and whatever you need to store and maintain our weapons and ammo. I know you reload, so you can feel free to set up reloading stations, too. Tom will be adding his reloading supplies. Does anyone else here reload?”

  Frank and James put their hands up. I knew James had prepper tendencies!

  “You can put your reloading materials in the armory as well. We’ll also need you to teach some others how to reload. Chuck, can you also help teach firearm safety? I am afraid almost all of us will need practice and training on firearms use. And – I know this will surprise you, but can you make a list of what you think we need? You will have to find out what kinds of firearms each person has in order to know what ammo we’ll need. We can probably buy most of what we need from your store and from Chris’ store, but please get me a list.

  “Next up, Father Dan, will you be our communications team leader? We need to get a HAM radio set up here as soon as we can. We also need to be sure we have enough walkie-talkies and radios for security groups to be able to communicate and to have communications in all of the outbuildings. Can we go to town after this meeting and get those radios and whatever else you think we need?”

  “Denise, no need for you to go; I will go and get what we need. I will also start taking down my set and moving it here. We’ll need to figure out where to put the main antenna and, ideally, set up a radio room somewhere. I’ll talk to Tom and see what we come up with and let you know.”

  “Thank you, Father Dan. I have one more request for you. I know that we are not all of the same faith, but I believe we will need to pay close attention to our spiritual needs as the situation deteriorates. Will you be our spiritual adviser, regardless of religion, to help keep us all on the good side of the Man upstairs?”

  Father Dan’s face split into a huge smile. “It would be my honor to do that. I know people believe only Catholics are allowed into heaven, but shockingly, that is just not true– just don’t tell the Catholics!” He paused for a second, as there were a lot of chuckles from the crowd. “I think I can be less Catholic and more Christian as the need presents itself!” I smiled at Father Dan. Tom was right, I really liked him.

  “Judy, would you be willing to be our Logistics Officer, responsible for inventorying what we have and coordinating what we use and what we need? Knowing what we have on hand in terms of beans, band aides, and bullets will make the difference between surviving and thriving. I have an extra laptop you can use, and we can set up an office in my basement for you, if that’s OK.” Judy beamed and agreed to her special role.

  “Tim, if you are willing, you are going to be our Mr. Fix-it. You are the closest thing we have to a mechanic or an electrician. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, will be to keep everything in superb running order and to teach the rest of us what we need to do to maintain everything.” I paused to get a sip of water, and half the crowd shouted out “And Tim, make a list.” We are planning for the end of our whole world, and these folks could still smile and tease. How blessed we are to have each other!

  “Marty and Jose, I’d like you to be our carpentry team. Before this is over, I'm sure we’ll be doing lots of building and remodeling. I’d like you both to not only direct the work, but also keep track of the materials we have on hand and what we need for each project. You can coordinate that with Judy. Plus, we’d like you both to teach others how to help with carpentry projects. The first project, after the armory, will be to get shelving installed into the conexes. We will use the six conexes out front as storage for everyone’s personal belongings that don’t fit in whatever area they are living in. Judy will not be inventorying your personal belongings. The other four conexes near the barn will be used to store supplies, materials, clothes, and such. Those areas will be inventoried and Judy will maintain the lists. Supplies that are to be used by the group will be added to these areas. We already have food storage established, and Judy will make sure any food that is brought is put there with the rest. Marcie, your secret stash of Snickers bars can remain secret in your storage area.” Everyone who knew Marcie laughed, as she was notoriously addicted to the sweet treat.

  “I’m not sure how to break up this next group, so I’ll look for volunteers. We need to have a crew to handle food preparations and meal planning. Everyone will have chores related to mea
ls and clean up, but it only makes sense to invite our best cooks to prepare the food. Any takers?” Janet shyly raised her hand.

  “I love to cook, and I am pretty expert at feeding a crowd on next to nothing. I coordinate and cook a lot of the meals we do at church. I would love it if Gabby and Maria would be willing to be on my team, since they are also fantastic cooks.” Gabby and Maria smiled and happily agreed.

  “Thanks Janet! I think it will be good for you to do interviews too to find out about any food allergies or intolerances so we can take that into consideration with meal planning, and it will help me planning the garden, too. We will also need to have a clothing team who will oversee (not necessarily do) all the laundry, clothing repairs, and tracking the spare outgrown clothing for recycling.”

  Stacy jumped up and raised her hand. “Me, me, pick me!” she giggled.

  “OK, Stacy, you are now queen of the clothes!” Have I mentioned how much I love my daughters-in-law?

  “We’ve not yet worked out what we have and what we need for food, but I would ask that when you are ready to start staying here, you bring everything you’ve got in the way of food. In fact, if you know you are coming soon and want to do some extra shopping, please feel free! Oh, and in addition to food, bring paper products – especially toilet paper! We will never have enough toilet paper!” There were a lot of giggles, but I also saw some shocked faces, probably thinking of how to live without toilet paper!

  “I will be taking charge of the gardening and will be asking for help keeping the gardens weeded and growing. If you have any special requests of things to grow, please let me know, If we have the seeds for it, we will be happy to try to grow it! If you have seeds at home, please bring them, and any gardening supplies you might have.”

  I continued on with the meeting. “The next order of business is firewood. I have ordered more firewood, but I think we need to get what we can now so we are not trying to chop down trees for heat in the middle of the winter. If any of you have firewood at home, and want to bring some of it here now, we can keep it separated and covered in case nothing happens and you need to take it back home. This morning, the guys put up an additional lean-to next to the firewood shed so we’d have a dry place to store more wood.

  “How many of you have RVs at home?” Several hands went up. “I would like to ask that if you have an RV, that you bring it over and park it here. I think we need to remember that privacy will be an issue if we try cramming everyone into the house, but with the RVs, we have more room to spread out. It will also give us more room if we decide to accept others to join us later on.” I could see heads nodding in the crowd. “If you are going to bring an RV, please coordinate with Tom to choose a place to park it.

  “We are also lucky to have a number of young people. Each of you will have chores, but I would like to see you guys also be on some of the teams. I think that anybody over the age of thirteen ought to be allowed to vote on decisions made by this group. What does everyone think?” I saw Nate and Jer give each other high fives, and Sam and Mike were grinning. A number of people shouted out that they agreed, and we moved on.

  “We are planning a trip to Asheville on Tuesday to fulfill all of the things on y’all’s lists. We’ll be taking Tom’s big box truck and my Jeep and trailer. I think we’ll need at least one more vehicle and trailer, and several people to ride shotgun in case we run into trouble.”

  James stood up. “I’ve got a sturdy pick-up truck and a twenty foot enclosed trailer. I would be very happy to go along since I have no surgeries scheduled for Monday. I think I can convince Samantha to come with us, although I’m not sure how much shotgun she can ride. She can drive and I’ll provide the shotgun!” That brought a round of laughter from the group. Yep, he’s got to be a prepper! I wondered what Samantha thought about his interest in firearms. Several other people volunteered to ride along with us to Asheville, and we concluded the meeting.

  After everyone left, I went down to the basement to my storage room. The pile of stuff I bought at Costco and the grocery store this past week was still sitting on the floor. I opened my laptop and started entering the items I purchased into my spreadsheet. While it looked like a lot, if everyone decided to come stay here, would it be enough?

  I think I must be obsessive compulsive, because I see a certain beauty in my neatly organized shelves. Everything is dated, with older stuff on the front of the shelves to be sure it gets used first. I love seeing the rows and rows of five-gallon buckets lined up on the lower shelves, with smaller two-gallon buckets on the next levels, and cans on the top shelves. I had bins to hold bottles and bags of spices and plastic totes full of cake mixes, muffin mixes, puddings, and jello. Baking supplies were in one section, vegetables in another, soup bases in a third. I had one whole wall of shelves that held nothing but home canned foods. In one corner sat two large freezers. In the middle of the room were movable shelves that held other supplies – first-aid stuff, paper goods, medications, the all-important toilet paper, and my big plastic tub of seeds.

  I’m glad I was able to get more buckets, because I used many of them packaging the flour, sugar, salt, rice, and beans that I bought. It took a while, as I really did buy a lot of stuff. I wondered how much food and other stuff people had to bring with them, and, if they had a lot, would it all fit? That led me to open the door to the root cellar. This room was not as finished as my storage room. The walls were cinder block, and the floor was concrete, but all of that helped keep the room chilly. Even in the summer, it did not get much warmer than 55 or 60 degrees in here. One wall of the root cellar was filled with wooden crates that I used to store my root vegetables. I had just replaced the sawdust I used to pack the vegetables, and my garden was prolific this year. The crates were full of potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, apples, pears, broccoli, leeks, onions, turnips, and garlic. I also had several wheels of cheese and some cured meats stored on shelves in the cellar. I thought about moving some of the canned goods into the root cellar, but then decided people might be bringing things that needed to be in there instead of in the regular storage room, so I just left things the way they were.

  By lunchtime on Sunday, I finally had everything put up and logged into my inventory spreadsheet to see where holes in our prep supplies were. I started making a list of things we needed to get on Tuesday when we went to Asheville. I was really guessing, because I had no idea how many people we would wind up with, and how long supplies would last. I decided to double whatever my initial estimates were (except in the case of toilet paper, which I tripled – twice!) I hoped that we would be able to get a lot in Asheville, but I also hoped my friends had been listening when I suggested they buy extra to have on hand for emergencies. I do believe this situation was turning into an emergency, for sure!

  Chapter 7

  We left the farm just after sun-up on Tuesday, headed to Asheville. Usually, it is about a two-and-a-half-hour ride, but we wanted to allow extra time for “just in case.” I was in the lead vehicle with my sons both riding with me. Tom was following in his box truck, with Tim as his riding partner. James and Samantha followed Tom, and Frank and Bill brought up the rear.

  We planned out our route last night, and what stores we would visit. The first place James was going to visit was a medical supply store. There was a Costco right across the street and Chris, Jon, and I headed there. We focused on staples like flour, sugar, salt, yeast, rice, vinegar, beans, spices, cooking oil, and canned goods to begin with. After filling several carts, we checked out, stashed our purchases in the trailer, and went back for more. We then started filling a flat with cases of baby food and diapers. We also filled two flats with toilet paper and other paper products. We got two carts filled up with socks, underwear, and work gloves in various sizes; a cart full of cleaning products, and cart full of blankets, jeans, and jackets. Another cart was filled with coffee and tea. We loaded up another flat with dog and cat food. Finally, we filled a cart with various candy, chocolate chips, gums, and nuts. I k
new Marcie would like the super-sized bags of Snickers! After we paid and loaded the rest of our items into the trailer, we decided to go back across the street to where James and Samantha were shopping. I was getting a bit nervous, as while we were still in the store, and again in the Costco parking lot, there were several people talking and pointing to us. I guess the spectacle of the three of us buying so much got people’s attention – not what we wanted.

  Pulling into the medical supply store lot, we saw James loading his trailer with many boxes and bags. He’d already loaded two examination tables and was fitting boxes and bags in around the tables. In the back of the trailer I saw several wheelchairs and a big box of crutches. There were a couple of metal cabinets and shelving units, too, and Samantha had stuffed items into any available space on the shelving. Samantha had two shopping carts full of boxes of medications. Sitting on top was a cooler that held refrigerated medications. It was obvious that James was able to get just about everything he needed to start his “new practice”! I was surprised to find out that James was also able to get almost everything Clark requested for his animal hospital, including several large stainless steel tables. I guess people medicine and animal medicine are not really all that different!

  I noticed a drug store next to the medical supply store, so while the guys finished loading James’ trailer, Samantha and I went to the drug store. We were able to get a lot of over-the-counter medications, personal hygiene items, and first-aid supplies. I think we got almost all the vitamins on the shelf! We also made a serious dent in the baby aisle. We went through the toy aisle, picking out a lot of cards, games, and other toys. Again, though, people started whispering about the volume of our shopping, so Samantha and I checked out and dragged our four carts over to James’ trailer.