by Pete Thorsen
The big thing of course that would have killed most was lack of clean water. Even though most big cities are located next to permanent water, to use it you would have to have a way to boil it first (and the smarts to figure that out). The electric stoves would be of no use and usable wood would soon be hard to find.
Plus you would still need food and in big urban areas I don’t think very many people had much food in their homes or apartments. I’m sure many did not even know how to cook at all and especially cook over an open fire outside. So everyone would have been very desperate for food and water and that would have led directly to death in many cases or then to death by violence.
Chapter Twelve
The winter seemed long here at the ranch. There just was not that much for us to do in the winter time. Most days the two boys would ride out on horseback in the mornings and return in the afternoons. They almost always returned with some kind of fresh meat. Over winter we made quite a lot of venison jerky. The plan was to make enough jerky in the winter to hold us over the summer.
Having the oven on to make the jerky warmed up the house nice on those cold days. So we got a double benefit from that propane we used for the jerky cooking.
The ladies seemed to have no problem using the vegetables that we had dehydrated during the summer. They continued to experiment using the mesquite flour knowing that the wheat flour we had now was likely all we would ever have. At some point we would only have the natural mesquite flour.
With the long winter we used a lot of the board games we had found and salvaged. The kids really enjoyed the games and I have to admit the adults liked them also. Of course the kid’s schooling continued and intensified throughout the winter months. We were all doing a lot of reading and had open discussions on many different subjects where often we all would learn things.
We thought of several simple changes we could make around the ranch to make things easier for all of us. Each of us found little projects to work on from time to time.
I admit we had to guess and just pick a day that we called Christmas. We all sang Christmas songs and the ladies cooked us up a feast for the special day. Simple hand made gifts were exchanged between many of us and no one was left out. It was a great day and I really think it was best Christmas I have ever had. We were all very thankful to all be together and be healthy.
We were getting much better at tanning the hides on all the animals that we butchered, from rabbits to cows. Some of the tanned hides were used in the manufacture of Christmas presents but most of the hides were just set aside for later use. The two boys did make themselves some deer leather pants. I think they did quite a good job making them and it made me wonder just how much help Meg was with that project.
We had salvaged many oil lamps and lanterns that we used in the winter. They provided a little heat besides the light and reduced our electric usage. We had an almost unlimited fuel supply for the oil lamps because we drained some diesel fuel from a truck and a gallon of fuel lasted a very long time in the lamps.
As winter started to wind down we took stock of our food supplies. We had quite a large supply of jerky and thought it would easily last through the summer and into fall if it did not get rancid. Our other food supplies were going down of course but we should have no problem if our garden produced for us this season.
During winter the boys one day returned with a bunch of honey combs full of honey they had found. The raw honey should last a long time and provide us with some treats in the months ahead after our current commercial honey supply runs out.
The ladies were anxious for spring so they could gather many of the native plant flowers to use for salads. I think we were all looking forward to that after using just dried and canned stuff all winter. Soon we could also gather fresh new-growth prickly pear pads to eat. Over winter with all our reading we had discovered many more natural plants that could be eaten.
As spring approached the boys would sometimes return from excursions with a couple head of cattle which they just put in the large fenced pasture areas on the ranch. They also brought back five more horses and a couple more saddles. They said they had looked hard but never could find any kind of harnesses to use on the horses though we thought through trial and error we could likely make something that would work.
When it got warm enough we worked up the garden for this season’s crop. We enlarged the garden even bigger this year. When two of the cows had calves we kept those cows penned and eventually they let us milk them. These were beef cows but they still provided us with a fair amount of milk.
Things were looking fine and the garden was totally planted and stuff already coming up. We had received a fair amount of rainfall and it looked to be a good year ahead.
I was not at all surprised when the two boys announced one evening at supper that they were leaving. I had seen the writing on the wall and guessed when the bulk of the spring work was done they would be taking off. When they announced they were leaving I only asked them to stay well away from the Phoenix area. When they asked why I said just west of Phoenix was the largest nuclear power plant in the United States and I would guess that it had suffered a melt-down by this time and would be spewing very toxic radiation.
While here we were likely safe due to the distance I would not want to get very close to that area. Meg had a tough time dealing with it and tried hard to convince them to stay. It was quite emotional for everyone on the morning they took off to seek their fame and fortune. They rode out on their two horses with another on a lead rope carrying a small pack.
I wondered if we would ever see the boys again but never voiced that thought to Meg. I always reassured her that the boys would be back but I could see in her eyes that she had the same doubts as I did. We both knew the boys were strong, smart, resourceful, and fiercely loyal to each other but anything could happen in the new world we now lived in.
There was sadness at the ranch for sometime after the two boys left but there was also plenty of work to be done. The garden did much better this year with the knowledge we had gained from growing the one last year and we had also learned more from all our reading during the long winter months.
Gathering edible wild plants went smoother this year also. With the departure of the two boys, Bill really stepped up to be their replacement. Though he worked hard around the place and in the garden he also became quite a horseman and was often out on patrol around the place. Seldom did he return without bringing back something with him.
He gathered many of both edible and medicinal wild plants. With the coffee supply very limited now many of us started drinking tea and Bill gathered many different wild plants that we had read about that could be used for tea. It seemed each of us had our own favorite mixture of plants that we liked to drink.
When fall arrived, Bill and sometimes accompanied by Debbie would ride out everyday and return with ripe fruit from the trees that we had located last year. It was a good year for the fruit and for our garden and our natural dehydrators were constantly in use. I even built two additional ones to up our capacity.
In the evenings I would often find Meg just watching out across the open ground. She missed the boys greatly but never said much about it. Sometimes I would just stand next to her with my arm around her and neither of us would have to say anything.
It had been well over a year now since the event. Our way of life we lived seemed totally natural to us now. We were all healthy, actually better than we had been before the event. We had plenty of food in our pantry and makeshift root cellar and feared not the approach of winter.
We would survive and thrive here. We had learned the skills needed and had all adapted to this new way of life. Some days it even seemed to be a better way of life in many aspects. Oh we talked about the way things used to be sometimes but it was not with regrets of its loss anymore.
With the event, fate had dealt us a crushing blow but we had rose to that challenge and over came the perils and hardships. Well at least so far!
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The End
Thank you for reading this compilation of some of my short stories and I hope you found them enjoyable. If they were something you liked please watch for more of my stories to follow. Below are some of my already published stories that you might also enjoy. So far I have over 40 stories published on Kindle with many in print also. My success is totally the result of you, my devoted readers, and you have my most deep felt Thank You!
Pete Thorsen
America on Fire
Four complete stories of apocalyptic disasters that befall the citizens of the United States by one of America’s popular apocalyptic fiction writers. Read how some Americans rise up to meet the challenges and fight to survive when disaster strikes the whole country.
In Finding Hope a deadly pandemic sweeps the globe resulting in the deaths of a large amount of the world population. One man finds a purpose to his life when he finds and befriends a little girl.
In Three Strikes And You’re Out America three nuclear EMP missiles explode high above the United States it causes extreme devastation by taking out the whole electric grid and all electronics.
In An Economic Firestorm the economic collapse of the US Dollar and the economy of the USA are lived through by a family in rural Arizona.
In Thar She Blows see what happens to a few groups of people when the Yellowstone Caldera erupts and devastates a huge portion of the United States.
Disaster in America
Four complete stories of apocalyptic disasters that befall the citizens of the United States by one of America’s most popular apocalyptic fiction writers. Read how some Americans rise up to meet the challenges and fight to survive when disaster strikes.
In What? The sun did all this! a massively strong CME that strikes the earth destroying the electric grid and most electric devices. One man attempts to reunite with his scattered family.
In Surviving in Trying Times one middle aged couple try to cope with what becomes something like the second great depression.
In Relax It’s Just the Flu a massive pandemic of a deadly strain of the flu wreaks havoc to the USA. This story follows a few of the survivors.
In Global Warming (It’s real this time) a young man struggles to survive twenty years after a man made accident actually does cause massive global warming.
Survival in America
Four complete early stories from one of America’s most popular apocalyptic writers.
No Electric Survival is a story of the aftermath of a severe EMP that shuts down the nation’s electric power grid and makes most vehicles unusable.
Rural Dollar Collapse when there is a complete collapse of the US economy this story shows how members of one family cope with what happens in their areas of the once great United States.
Pandemic to a New Beginning is a story that follows the lives of two young people before and after a deadly flu pandemic sweeps around the globe causing a severe drop in the world population.
No Economic Collapse in the Woods centers on three people that are strangers to each other but find strength when circumstances throw them together and they try to live their lives in the bleak new world after the US Dollar collapses.
Trouble in America
Five complete early stories from one of America’s most popular apocalyptic writers.
How I Survived WW3 is a story that follows a regular working man that happens to survive World War Three after making just a few preparations.
The Carrington Event Revisited is the story of a catastrophic solar coronal mass ejection event similar to the one that hit the Earth in 1859.
A Collapse to a Fresh Start is a story of two young people who make their way out of Chicago and run to a very rural area of Colorado when they feel the United States is about to suffer an economic collapse and possibly change forever.
A Midwest Homestead follows the lives of a young couple in Minnesota who through determination and hard work build their own little homestead that is their salvation in a time chaos.
An Oklahoma Retreat is the story of a widely scattered family that all return to the original family ranch in Oklahoma when the United States falls on very bad times.
The End of America
Five complete early stories from one of America’s most popular apocalyptic writers.
An Arizona Haven is a story of how a will to overcome obstacles and some common sense can mean all the difference in your very survival in this case after an EMP has shut down the whole power grid.
Dystopia USA is the tale of a possible very dark future in the great United States of America.
The Zombie Plague is a story of a plague that is affecting the whole world and changing people drastically into something that is not quite human.
Living Through the Collapse is about the economic collapse of the economy of the USA as lived through by a family in rural Minnesota.
Polar Shift is about two good friends and their lives before and after a major catastrophic event that changes the whole world and causes chaos.
America in Ruins
Four complete stories from one of America’s most popular apocalyptic writers.
The Cruel New World. When a magnetic storm destroys most all electrical equipment in the world it proves to be a severe catastrophic event. This story follows a gun as it changes owners in the violent new world.
Relax, It’s Just the Flu! When a deadly a strain of the flu devastates the population a small band of survivors struggles to survive.
Nice Day for Armageddon. When a foreign country hits the United States with multiple EMP’s the population of this once great nation fights to survive.
A Brutal Reset. When our nation’s economy crashes those people wishing for a re-set of our society get their wish. Now we have brutal violence and starvation where it is a struggle just to
Stormy Weather
Following the Great Recession of 2009 the United States enjoyed several years of economic ‘recovery’. At least that is what our government and the media kept telling the nation’s population. Chip, a construction worker in Nebraska was not too sure about the whole economic recovery thing. He never really saw too much improvement where he was living and working.
Then things really started to go down hill with the nation’s economy. It just kept getting worse and worse and soon even the media could no longer hide the truth that this time the fake recovery was turning into the Second Great Depression.
Chip still had the old farmstead that had been passed down through several generations in his family. Could he make a go of it on only the small piece of that land that was still left? He knew he would have to use all the old knowledge that his parents had passed to him just to keep his belly full in this new depression with even longer ‘soup lines’ than there was in the first Great Depression. Chip never said he was the brightest bulb but even he knew the nation was in for some stormy weather.
This is his story.
After The
Second Great Depression
The second Great Depression came about from many factors. The non-existence of a recovery from the recession of two thousand eight, the war with the Islamic State, the bungling actions of the Federal Reserve Bank, and when things got worse the last straw was the declaration of Martial Law here in the United States. This story is not about any of those events. This story is about one man who lived through those events and the many years following the Second Great Depression. Now eight years later the United States is a very different place. It is a harsh place where everyone must be strong to survive and everyone has to rely just on themselves for their survival.
A Girl’s Gotta
Survive
In a little different twist from my other books this story is about a young woman. Told in her own words it follows the trials and tribulations she has faced in her life from an early age. Just when it seems she has a handle on things and it looks like a brighter future may be in front of her the nation’s economy falls into serious decline. This of course
causes problems for our heroine but also for the whole nation. But she is a fighter with a serious will to survive. Will she succeed?
Dark Days
In this story a hacker group gives fair warning that they are about to shut down all computers in the USA. All scoff at the warning as being a totally impossible feat. When the grace period ends the hackers shut down America’s power grid and just using computers they are also able to cause severe physical damage to the entire grid system. This story tells of the aftermath of this very possible event on a small family owned ranch in southwestern Colorado.
When the family learns the electric power will not be coming back on anytime soon they think through the awful effects that will befall all the citizens of this nation. They are very grateful that at least they are together to face the disaster ahead.
A Bright
New Beginning
After surviving several deployments in the military and even more dangerous work after leaving the military a man wants nothing more than to live a life of peace and solitude. Moving to the Black Hills region of South Dakota he finds the life he desires until the nation suffers a bleak economic collapse and he again is thrust into yet more danger and a fight for survival.