Premonitions (Book 1): The Farm

by Anderson, Diana E.

  Stacy was sitting in the living room darning socks and watching TV. She reported that it was not just one refinery that was attacked, but several in close proximity. The fires had spread to many of the petroleum storage tanks, and then into the communities that surrounded them. The death toll was placed in the tens of thousands, and anticipated to be much higher. A spokesman for the President spoke this morning to say that this was a national crisis, as much of our national gas reserves were located in this area. Until they were able to get an official tally of just how much fuel was destroyed, all gas stations were closed to everyone except military, law enforcement, fire, and EMS personnel. I sat down hard, my mind reeling. Banks closed, gas stations closed, what would be next?

  Stacy interrupted my thoughts to tell me the second big story of the day was that credit cards were not working in stores. Several days ago, I remembered there were issues with some credit cards. Now, apparently, there was a problem with all credit cards. That meant no food stamp EBT cards as well. There were riots all across the country as people who did not have any cash tried to use plastic and learned the plastic was worthless. Of course, the government said that FEMA would be setting up soup kitchens and places where people could get food. I thought back to the month my unit spent running a medical clinic in Waveland, Mississippi, after hurricane Katrina, where FEMA couldn’t seem to find its way out of a paper bag with a map and a second lieutenant to lead the way. I was frustrated with the inefficiencies from that organization, and they have not done a thing to improve in my opinion in the years since. I thanked Stacy for doing such a great job monitoring and told her I was going to walk over to the pasture to check out the pole barn. While I did want to see the new barn, I really just wanted to take a walk and try to wrap my head around what was going on.

  If the banks were closed and credit cards, debit cards, and EBT cards were not working, that meant a lot of people were going to be pretty hungry pretty soon. Hungry people are dangerous people. If the cities weren’t bad before, they would certainly be hell by now. I wondered how long the power would last, and how long it would be before we lost television and radio. I needed to talk to everyone to be sure there was absolutely nothing we needed from outside the farm. We still had cash, and if we had to go get anything, we would need to go in the next day or so.

  Dinner that night was a solemn affair. Up until today, I think things seemed as though it was some sort of emergency drill combined with a bizarre vacation. Today, though, hearing about bank closures and the loss of our system of credit, on top of the terrorism, started to make it feel real. We decided there was nothing we needed badly enough to risk going into town, and that it was time to start fortifying the farm.

  Chapter 12

  It has been just over a week since we got the news about the banks being closed and plastic no longer working, and we’ve fallen into a routine of sorts. We decided that same day to do what we needed to do to secure the farm. The security team established an inner perimeter surrounding the house, animal areas, pole barn, the garden, and the conex berms. This inner perimeter was mostly stock fence topped with barbed wire, with a number of our rat-traps traps set up on the outside of that perimeter. Around the outer perimeter, the security team placed a few surprise traps. Bill and Frank made a bunch of “toe-poppers.” These are little traps that are essentially a shotgun shell sitting on top of a nail. When you step on the popper, it pushes the shell into the nail and sets it off. We found out through trial and error that we had to add a metal pipe to hold most of the shell. This gave enough support to the shell that when it exploded, everything went up instead of dissipating out the burst sides of the shell. The poppers were made of metal, painted with camouflage paint, and placed in and under leaves on likely trails from potential access points. We did go ahead and create some crazy claymore type bombs – sort of like the improvised explosive devices we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thank heavens Grandpa saved every nut, bolt, and ball bearing he ever owned because we needed (and used) a lot of them. We took old steel paint cans, filled the bottoms with tannerite, some gun powder, and then a lot of old rusty nuts, bolts, nails, and any other kinds of shrapnel we could find. The paint cans were then covered with heavy plastic, duct-taped in place to keep everything nice and tight inside the can. The bottoms of the cans were covered with pieces of tannerite targets, with a small spot of neon paint on the bottom. The cans were then set on their sides on the berms with the neon dot facing towards the house, staked in place with metal bent to look like a croquet hoop, covered with more plastic to protect them from rain, and hidden with leaves and old dead branches. If we wanted to set one off, all we needed to do was shoot the neon spot of paint on the bottom. That would cause the tannerite to explode, setting off the gun powder in the bottom of the bucket. The gun powder explosion would then propel all of the shrapnel in the can out towards the enemy. We only tried one, and were quite surprised that it worked! We have enough excellent shooters around here that we shouldn’t have any trouble if we need to set them off.

  On the outermost areas of the farm, we dug a few tiger traps near places where people were likely to try to come in. These are deep pits with wooden stakes pointing up from the bottom of the pit. The pit is then covered with burlap which has been lightly secured in place. Then, leaves and light branches and twigs are strewn over the burlap. When a person steps on the trap, the burlap gives way and the person falls into the trap and lands on the sharpened stakes at the bottom. Not necessarily lethal, but I guarantee it will stop someone pretty quickly!

  We built an observation post in the big oak tree near where my grandparents are buried. This was one of their favorite places because they could see so much of the farm from the top of that hill. From the platform fifteen feet above in the tree, we could see just about all of the farm except for the wooded areas on the extreme north side. The OP was built from scrap lumber, and was reinforced with pieces of steel. It provided fairly good cover, and the outside was well camouflaged to provide excellent concealment. There was room for two people to sit comfortably, and with both binoculars and night vision glasses, it made a great place to monitor the whole farm. We used the ladder from one of Grandpa’s deer stands so we had a safe way in and out of the OP.

  We started calling the areas inside the berms “the compound”, and people were under strict orders not to go outside the compound unless they were accompanied by one of the security team. We also kept the animals in the pasture inside the berms to cut down on the chances of our cattle and goats being rustled. The pigs were inside an electric fence, and the chickens no longer free-ranged, but had lots of space in their runs.

  We also did more camouflage of the main gate and driveway. The gate was still there, but was so well hidden you’d have to really look closely to see it. We decided we would make an additional hidden emergency gate in case someone needed to leave the farm for some reason. We picked a section of fence that was close to the road and easy to get to, but where it was not easily seen from the road. Using an old rusty gate we had in the barn, we set the gate into the fence, and then wove branches, vines and small trees into the gate to look like they were growing there. We then hid the gate from the road with more trees and branches.

  Another security measure we completed over the last week was to add several foxholes around the inner perimeter of the compound just beyond the ends of the berms. I’m so glad the backhoe never got returned to the rental place! The foxholes were dug deep enough for two people to be able to stand inside and to have a couple of stools to keep people from getting tired of standing. There was a bunch of gravel at the bottom, covered by wood slats to make a stable standing platform. We also used logs upright inside the foxholes for structure and for protection from anyone shooting at us. Loose shrubs around the front side of the foxholes gave additional concealment for the people inside.

  It really made me sad that we had to be thinking this way about protecting ourselves, but we knew society had to be falling apart by now. We s
till had power, although we were starting to see some significant outages here and there. Some TV and radio stations were still on the air. I thought it was interesting, though, that certain channels (especially conservative news channels) were no longer broadcasting. If you wanted to see old movies, kid shows, game shows, or even reality shows, there were plenty of choices. There was hardly any news, and what was being broadcast was superficial. There was talk about rioting in the big cities, but very little discussion of our financial problems or events happening in the world. They did mention the stock market has still not reopened since trading was shut down a few days ago. There was a lot of talk about how FEMA was providing services at emergency stations in the cities, but no real discussion about what these services included. I thought it was really interesting that the President had not been on TV to address the severe problems in the nation. He hadn’t even tweeted anything, and that struck me as really strange.

  Fortunately for us, Father Dan was spending a lot of time listening to the radio and getting reports from around the country, and even from people around Riverdale. The news was not good. It’s been just over a week since plastic stopped working, and people are starting to run out of food and supplies. The folks who rely on EBT cards are probably already out of food. Stores no longer accept plastic or checks, and if people can’t buy the food they need, they then take it – and taking it means violence. According to Father Dan, the grocery stores in Riverdale are, for the most part, closed. There were major riots there over the last couple of days – violent riots where people were killed – and the looting that followed emptied the shelves of anything that was left. Of course, there was still no official word from the government on what was happening.

  Land line telephones were no longer working, but we did have sporadic cell coverage. At Frank’s suggestion, everyone had turned off their cell phones and removed the batteries. That way, people would not be able to give away their location unwittingly through tracking programs. Nobody had any issues with this except Patty. She was worried about her military son. Frank had her call him and set up a time that she could reach him on a fairly regular basis, and she also gave him Father Dan’s call sign. The rest of the time, the phone was off.

  Our internet services were also fading. Some days we would be able to get online, but be unable to reach most sites because it was so slow. Since all of the alternative news sites were no longer accessible on the net, after a while we just stopped logging on.

  Our mornings usually began around 5:30 or so for everyone except the night security team. The day people would get up, get dressed, and then head out to the barn. Mandy, Sam, and Mike did a great job taking care of the chickens and goats (who now all had names). The rest of us took turns feeding the pigs, horses and cattle, and milking the cows. While the breakfast crew headed to the kitchen with the milk and eggs, the rest of us did barn chores – mucking out the stalls, putting all of the manure into the compost piles for the garden in the spring, pulling down fresh hay for the animals, refilling water troughs, and checking fences around the animals for problems. After washing up and eating breakfast, the day security team relieved the night team; the night team got breakfast and went to bed. Once breakfast was out of the way, the different teams would get busy with the day’s tasks. The food crew made bread every other day. On days they weren’t making bread, they were learning to make cheese and butter from the milk we got from the cows or else were making things to go with meals. (They made some wonderful pastries and cookies.) Lunch was usually sandwiches which the food team made and left piled on the counter at lunchtime for people to help themselves.

  The medical folks were busy doing physicals and gathering information to prepare for any emergencies that might arise. So far, we had not had any major injuries, and I hope it stayed that way for a long time. The medical infirmary was now set up and looking really professional, although James and Samantha spent time there every day making improvements. They figured out a way of using old pipes mounted on the ceiling to hold shower curtains as privacy dividers. There were four beds in there now. Two were the examination tables that James got at the medical supply store, and the other two were camping cots. The areas with the exam tables were set up so that treatments including surgery could be done there. The cots were set up as a place for patients to recover from illness or surgery. One thing I thought was really cool was that when James emptied his office, he was able to get a used incubator from one of the obstetric doctors in his building. That was now set up and ready for business. James and especially Samantha also spent time every day learning about plant alternatives for medicines. They found a number of wild medicinal plants such as comfrey, echinacea, ginseng, and goldenseal, which they were now trying to cultivate in pots in the infirmary. They planned to build some dryer trays to dry the herbs once they could get them to grow. Samantha explained that while we still had regular medications, it would be wise for us to start developing alternatives, as we did not know how long the medications we had would last. I was impressed that Samantha had the foresight to download several books on medicinal herbs on her Kindle to supplement the books she got at Barnes and Noble. I asked her if she and James could do some teaching about medicinal plants at one of our community meetings. She thought that was a great idea. I was really impressed with the organization of the infirmary. Our medics did a great job sorting and stocking the equipment and supplies. Medications were locked in the steel cabinet we brought over a few days ago, trauma supplies were easily accessible and neatly stacked on shelves, and electronics such as blood pressure machines were all lines up neatly plugged in and charging.

  In the house, Stacy was working away on her clothing responsibilities. She finished mending all of the jeans, and they were now bundled by size and stored out in the conexes. She made sure laundry was done every day and folded most of it as it dried. Of course, she was now within days of her due date, so folding laundry and mending clothes was about all she could do. Fortunately, Grace and Stacy had become friends, and Grace took care of hanging the laundry out on lines to dry, and brought the dry clothing in for folding. She also helped Stacy fold clothes so Stacy was not completely on her own with laundry.

  After lunch most days we had training times. Those of us who are expert with firearms spent time with people who were not as comfortable. A lot of the firearms training wound up being done by Lisa, Chuck, and me. Every person who lived on the farm, right down to 4 ½ year old Mandy, learned to use firearms. While Mandy was still too young to carry a weapon, she learned to shoot an old 22 Cricket rifle that belonged to Chris when he was young. I hope she never had to fire it at anything other than a target, though. Our four young boys took their firearms training very seriously, and were excited to be allowed to carry rifles when they were outside on the property. All four boys had been exposed to firearms in Scouts, and Lisa’s sons also spent a lot of time at the range with their parents. A few people were a little surprised that we would allow kids to carry rifles, but the boys demonstrated a lot of maturity, and we trusted them to be responsible.

  During training times every day, Frank had been working with the dogs. I was quite surprised to see that my three dogs were actually following his commands. Emmaline seemed much more attentive than Frick and Frack, but all three were doing well with the security tasks they were being taught. Frank thought they were almost ready to start taking them on security rounds around the compound. Frank also had some of the other members of the security team working with the dogs, so that they all learned to be consistent with commands, and to get the dogs used to a variety of handlers.

  I should say something about our security team. They decided to split security into twelve-hour shifts, and the folks on each shift then rotated duties through out the shift. We had constant patrols checking for intruders. The foxholes were checked on each shift to be sure there were no issues in case they needed to be used. Two people were always in the OP on the hill, and two people were always in the basement watching the se
curity cameras. All of us took turns on the security team except Stacy. Because of their pregnancies, Maria and Gabby were not permitted to do outdoor security, so in addition to their food preparation responsibilities, they took shifts watching the security cameras. I worried about the roving patrols because of the traps we put out, but Frank and Bill put their heads together and came up with a way to mark the traps in such a way that we could tell they were there, but that others who were not familiar with the markers would not know what they meant. I was really impressed that the security rotations were set up so that couples had time off at the same time. I thought that was a very thoughtful thing for Frank and Bill to do, and I wonder if Marcie and Patty had anything to do with that idea.

  I still felt like we were waiting for the other shoe to drop, but at least for now we were reasonably comfortable. I was really grateful that everyone was getting along and that our routines were working out. I gave the giant whiteboard a lot of credit for that. Everyone is now in the habit of checking it several times a day, and so far there has not been a single task posted that did not have a volunteer signed up for it. The latest addition to the whiteboard was the joke corner. I am sure that was Lisa’s doing, and it sure did create a lot of laughs! People were checking the board more frequently just to see what funny thing was posted there.

  Even our meals were now settling into a routine, with stews and soups playing a heavy role when trying to feed so many. Tonight, though, we smelled something different. Spaghetti and meat sauce, with garlic bread! Even more exciting, we had homemade mozzarella cheese over the top of the spaghetti! The smells coming from the kitchen were unbelievable, and we did not have any trouble getting people to the table for dinner tonight!

  After asking a blessing over the food, Father Dan reminded us all that tomorrow was Sunday, and that he would be having a brief morning worship service at 10:00 in the pole barn for anyone who was interested in attending. I thought this was a great idea and hoped people would take advantage of it. I worried about how people would deal with the isolation of living on the farm, but so far, people seem to be holding up well.