Premonitions (Book 1): The Farm

by Anderson, Diana E.

  "OK, that passes. Final vote is on expanding the animal areas." Again, every hand was raised. "Now, we need to figure out what kind of garden arpartments we are going to build. We need to get an idea of who wants to live there. If you have a room in the house, you are welcome to stay there, but there are no hard feelings if you choose to have a family apartment, either. Let's put together a committee to design these. Tom, will you be over that committee?" Tom smiled and nodded.

  "Nate, you draw so well, would you also be part of the committee to help draw the plans?" Nate beamed, and agreed. "OK, so that is settled. Clark, would you please put together some plans for what you will need for expanding the animals' areas? I'm sure you have some willing helpers to come up with what would be best for our animals!" Sarah, Phoebe, and Zoe nodded vigorously, and started whispering back and forth.

  I continued with our meeting. "Now, we have supplies everywhere, so let's get some more conexes and start moving our berm out. Mark, do you think it would be okay to build the berm the same way we did this one, with access to the conexes for storage?" Mark nodded and said that first thing in the morning, we could go out and start bringing conexes back. He asked if we could decide on a perimeter for the inner berm, and so we all looked at the map. After discussion, we settled on an area that was over 400 acres for the inner area and marked the map with a line where the berm should go. I told Mark that we would leave it up to him and his troops to decide on the outer berm.

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  Early the next morning, Mark reported he was able to contact COL Murphy and four other groups of Rangers. All would start moving towards the farm, but it would probably take a couple of weeks to get everyone here. At dawn, the Rangers and several of the men took off for town to start bringing conexes back. They went first to the conex company and managed to get all of the conexes still on the lot. After they cleaned out the lot, they went to the railyard, and started taking conexes from there. To our pleasant surprise, some of the conexes they got at the rail yard still had merchandise in them, including food, construction materials, and household supplies. I was amazed there were still so many conexes around.

  As the men brought the conexes to the location of the new berm, Tom, Marty, Tim, Jose, Jeff, Jer, and Red built enclosures around the door ends so that the doors would still be accessible once the dirt was piled up. Conexes with merchandise were left full for the moment - there would be plenty of time to empty them once the berms were all built. As empty conexes were placed, the conexes closest to the house were emptied and the contents placed in new conexes. The shelving built when we first moved in was removed and put into the new conexes, too. It took almost two weeks of constant work, but we did get the inner berm built, covered with dirt, and a new ditch dug around the outside of the inner berm. We left three openings in the berm – one on the main driveway, one over towards the burned farm on the east, and one near the farm on the west. All of the openings had heavy steel gates covered in razor wire.We were also able to get all of the supplies we scavanged into conexes, at least temporarily.

  Once the inner berm was finished, sixteen new foxholes were built. Each foxhole still had the required steps into it, but in addition to fortifying the walls with logs, each foxhole had a sturdy roof to keep out the rain and snow, a gravel base covered with wood planks, and a metal locker to hold extra ammo and other supplies. In addition, the Rangers hauled prefabricated sheds over to go inside the berm next to each foxhole. This would allow for dry storage of items that may be needed in the foxhole.

  Once all of the original ten conexes were hauled off to the new inner berm, Tom's crew leveled the ground and set forms to pour concrete pads for our new dormitory and garden apartments. The new buildings would be build on the west side of the main driveway a short ways from the house. The youth dorm would also be on the west side of the driveway and would be closest to the house. We decided the apartments would each have a central living room with two or three bedrooms and a bathroom. Each building would have four apartments, and we planned to build four buildings. Tom and Tim engineered the septic systems for each building, and Tim was able to do the plumbing He plumbed for water, but we realized that we would need to dig a new well, as the wells we currently had were not enough for all the new additions. At the moment, that was a problem because we did not have the knowledge, experience, or equipment to dig wells. However, we did have books, so Tim started researching through all of our books for information on well digging. Kiara was a godsend. As an electrical engineer, she was able to work out the wiring plans for all of our new structures. She and Tim installed the wiring in all of our new structures to allow for lights and some small appliances like laptops or DVD players.

  Since the kids were still sleeping in the basement, we decided to complete the dormitory first. One end was for the boys and the other for the girls. Each end had eight rooms, with a large central room and two bathrooms. Each room had a decent-sized closet, and was outfitted with two beds, two dressers, and two chairs. The central room had a couple of couches, several desks, a few chairs, and several tables. There were also a few bookcases on one wall. Remembering what Sammy said after the battle with the gang, the windows of the dorm were fitted with shutters on the inside that they could close.

  The kids were very excited to move in! With their parents' permission, Sam and Nate moved into one room, and Mike and Drake into another. Jer and Jeff each had a room to themselves. On the girl's side, Susan and Zoe each had their own room, Mariah and Elaina shared a room, and Sarah and Phoebe shared a room. Jer was appointed dorm master for the boys' side and Susan for the girls. The Dorm Master was responsible for making sure the kids kept their rooms, the common living area and the bathrooms clean. We let the kids choose the colors for their rooms and do the decorating. It made a huge difference to all of us to finally have a place for the kids to stay instead of cooped up in the basement!

  The first set of garden apartments had two two-bedroom and two three-bedroom apartments. The first one went to Amy and her kids. We suspected it would not be long before Jimbo Wyatt moved in, too. Marcie and Frank took the second, and LT Billy and Allie Roland took the third. Tommy and Billy Peters chose to move in with Billy and Allie. The fourth apartment went to Lionel and Kiara. Anaya and Freddy chose to live with them, so they got the second three bedroom apartment. The second apartment building was claimed even before it was finished! The first apartment went to Tim and Judy. The second was claimed by Lynn and Top. Jose and Maria got the third apartment, and the fourth went to Grace, Scooter, and Mandy.

  Before we started on the third building, we decided to build three barracks over near the West Gate (towards the burned out farm). Each barracks was big enough to hold about sixty people. Instead of rooms, there were divider walls in between every two beds. The Rangers had raided the local high school and brought back many sports lockers, so each bed had two lockers. At one end of the barracks was a common area and a large bathroom with eight toilet stalls, eight sinks, and eight showers. Tom did the septic tanks for each of these, but just like the apartments, we still did not have the capacity to dig wells.

  By the end of March, we had all of the living quarters built, the inner berm completed, and the outer berm in place, although it still lacked the fence on top. James and Samantha moved into one of the garden apartments, as did Clark and Maureen. The RVs were then moved away from the residential area for now. The place where the RVs had been located was taken over by a new barn and a dedicated pig building. We also invited the Cullen family, from the farm next to us to the east, to move in. There were eight of them – Andrew and Martha were the parents, and they had six children: Stephanie, 15; Lorna, 13; Andy Jr, 12; Lois, 10; Sylvia, 8; and Tobias, 6. Stephanie and Lorna moved into the girls' dorm, and Andrew, Martha, and the other four kids took one of the three-bedroom apartments. The Cullens brought all of their animals, animal feed, and farming implements with them, which was a big help. Andrew also had seed to plant several of the large fields in corn, wh
eat, and hay. With all of the extra animals and people, we really needed to get those fields planted.

  Andrew was a huge help planting the corn, wheat and hay. He recruited six people and taught them how to use the equipment. Then the seven of them plowed the fields, added fertilizer wherever Andrew thought it was needed, and then planted the seeds. Since Andrew was our only professional farmer, he was appointed in charge of the fields. He used one of the windmill wells to run irrigation lines to the fields, and within a few weeks, we could see green lines growing in the newly prepared fields.

  While all of the construction was going on, we set up the two greenhouses we got from our trip to Asheville. They were not very large, but they were big enough to get our seedlings going. Our garden was now three times as big as it was last year, and Andrew tilled the garden for us to get it ready. We worked the compost into the soil, watered it, and then worked the soil again. We couldn't plant anything for another couple of weeks, but we wanted to be ready.

  We had another pleasant surprise the end of March. At 3:37 in the morning on March 31, Maria gave birth to Savannah Alvessa Contreras, a beautiful seven-pound eight-ounce baby girl. Maureen again supervised the birth while James and Lionel stood by. Mom and baby did so well that after less than 24 hours Maria and Savannah were able to go back to their apartment. Jose was really proud of his new daughter, whom he nicknamed "Chica." Father Dan conducted a beautiful Catholic baptismal ceremony, followed by a huge celebration. We had far more people here now than we did when John was baptised, which just made for a bigger celebration and more happy people! Before Chica was born, Stacy made a baptismal gown for her, hand embroidered with delicate lace around the hem and bodice. She also made a matching hat and booties. Maria was speechless when Stacy gave it to her, but at the ceremony, she made sure to tell everyone about Stacy's handiwork.

  About the same time as Chica was born, two additional military groups arrived. There were a total of twenty-two people between the two groups, and we got them set up in one of the new barracks buildings. With so many hands now available, the military took over security for the outer berm while Frank and Bill continued to manage security for the compound area.

  Our next building project was a large kitchen attached to the pole barn. We were able to hook the kitchen into the main well, so it did have running water The Rangers went out scavanging again and found enough additional solar panels, inverters, and batteries to power the industrial stoves, fryers, refrigeraters, and ovens they salvaged from abandoned restaurants. The kitchen was large enough to have a storage area, a dishwashing area, and a large prep area. No more squeezing into my kitchen to try to make meals for so many people! Two very large propane tanks were set next to the new kitchen and filled from our new fleet of propane trucks. Our main food storage would still be in the locked storeroom in my basement, but we could keep enough staples in the storage area in the new kitchen for convenience.

  Janet, Maria, and Gabby were in heaven to finally have such a large and wonderful kitchen to work in. The Rangers also went to one of the local party rental places and got a truckload of folding tables and chairs so we could move the patio furniture out of the pole barn and create a real mess hall. In addition to the furniture, they also brought back cases of dishes, glasses, serving dishes, and silverware. Our dining hall was moving up in the world, and we now could serve several hundred people at a time with matching dishes! It took some getting used to, but the ladies adapted well to using industrial sized pots and pans to prepare meals.

  The cooking crew decided that when Colonel Murphy's troops arrived, they would continue to feed everyone in our dining hall rather than have a separate one for the troops. If COL Murphy had cooks with him, they could come over and work with Janet's team. Her team had been doing an amazing job keeping everyone fed. I have to admit that food was always on my mind. Even though we had a lot of supplies stocked up, our population kept growing, and I worried that we would eventually run out or have to start reducing meals. Janet and Judy, though, kept such a close eye on what was used, and our three chefs were incredibly inventive with finding ways to help us all feel like we were getting enough to eat. Janet calculated out exactly how much food needed to be prepared every meal, and even though she was rationing food through carefully controlled portion sizes, we never felt like it was being rationed. I know that was a very difficult task, and I was really happy that our three chefs now had a much improved place to work.

  When the kitchen was finished, Tom asked me if we needed any other buildings done, and I surpised him by answering "yes". After Chica's baptism, I realized that we needed one more building. We needed a church. We were having all of our celebrations and Sunday morning worship in the pole barn, but it was fast outgrowing our needs. I knew that there were more weddings and baptisms to come, and we really needed a place to do it right. Tom and I talked about it, and decided we would talk to Mark to see if the Rangers could find a metal building in town that we could disassemble and reassemble here. If they could do that, then we could scavage the things to go inside the church. We decided to keep it a secret and would tell everyone the building was for the military to use for mission planning and that it was off limits to everyone else.

  Sure enough, within a week, Mark was letting Tom know how big of a foundation he needed poured for the new building. It did not take long for the troops to reassemble the building, and then there were several mysterious trips to town to get items to go inside. Meanwhile, Tim (who was sworn to secrecy) made a sign for the front that said "Church of the Good Shepherd, Father Dan, Rector." The sign was mounted on the front of the building next to the double doors and for now was covered with a sheet. I got a sneak peek at the inside before we announced it to the community, and was amazed at what the soldiers had accomplished. There were pews lined up on either side of the center aisle. At the front, there was an alter rail surrounding an altar. On the wall behind the altar was a beautiful carved wooden cross that Mark said they found in the rubble of a church in Riverdale. Behind that wall was a place for Father Dan to store his vestments and other supplies. Each pew had hymnals, prayer books for several denominations, and bibles. Off to the side of the altar stood a small piano and several benches for a choir. There was also a small pulpit and a lectern holding a large bible. The altar was dressed with a frontal and candles, and there was even a baptismal font in the front near the altar rail. I was absolutely flabbergasted that the men were able to accomplish so much in such a short time!

  We decided to ask Father Dan to bless the building in the morning and asked if he could do Sunday service there since it was so nice outside. He looked a little puzzled to be asked to bless a military building, but agreed. We put the word out that Sunday services would be held at the building in the morning instead of at the pole barn. Sunday morning, bright and early, the whole community headed over to the church. When everyone was assembled, Mark stepped up and asked Father Dan to join him in front of the crowd. Mark smiled at Father Dan, and began speaking.

  "When we first arrived, I think my men were very glad to see we landed somewhere that upheld the values we all believed in. We were especially happy to find out there was a man of the cloth among us. In the time we have been here, Father Dan, you have taken time to listen to us, to minister to us, and to care for all of our hearts and souls. You have baptised us and married us, and you have done so under the most primitive of conditions. You have been such a good shepherd, taking care of us like your flock, that we wanted to dedicate this building to you." He pulled the sheet off the sign at the same time Tom and Frank opened the double front doors. Father Dan began to cry as soon as he realized this was no secret military building, but rather a church for his family. As the community figured out what was going on, they began to applaud and cheer. As Father Dan got himself together and turned to the crowd, it got very quiet.

  "I honestly do not know what to say. Thank you is not enough, and does not convey what is in my heart. Can we go in? Can I really hold ser
vices here?"

  Mark handed him the keys to the building and said, "This is our community church, Father Dan, and you are its Rector. Shall we go in?"

  Father Dan led the parade of happy community members into the new church. As he knelt in front of the altar, you could tell he was overcome with emotion. Finally, he stood and turned to the crowd and invited everyone to find a seat while he prepared for the service. Gabby came forward and sat at the piano bench and began to play. While the piano probably needed some tuning, I doubt anyone really noticed. The music filled the little church, and for a few minutes, at least, we forgot all of the work we've been doing, forgot the sad state of our country and all of the losses everyone experienced. Looking around, I could see joy on everyones' faces. Patty, Marcie, Gloria, and Stacy quietly walked up to the piano holding hymnals and asked Gabby if she could play the hymn they selected. She smiled and began playing as the girls sang "Amazing Grace." Soon, the entire congregation was singing. At the end of the hymn, Father Dan stood and began the service. It was a short service because Father Dan chose not to deliver the sermon he had prepared. Instead, he just talked to the congregation about how we had opened our home to him, and to so many others, and how blessed we all were to have each other and a safe place. He told us he prayed daily for our success as a community, and that we would be able to bring this country back to the way our founding fathers intended it to be. "In the last years of our country, before the Apocalypse happened, we saw every kind of abomination becoming common behavior. Instead of following the Ten Commandments, we saw people going out of their way to break as many commandments as they could and then were praised for that behavior. Our leaders lied, cheated, stole, and did everything they could to remove religion from our lives. Family values were denigrated, and people who practiced their Christian religion were belittled. We were mocked for clinging to our guns and religion. Well, folks, I'm glad we clung to both. I am so proud of what we are doing here, living together in a loving and charitable ennvironment. I am so happy to see children being raised in a loving community and being taught the values that America once stood for. This church is testament to that. With everything else that is needed, you all still took time to build a church and find those things we needed for worship."