Clark Stories

[Lbox88]

5.

Frank said OK I’ll do it and the main reason is these men need the tax free money what little there is you are going to pay them and I like a challenge. I will take the same wage you are going to pay the men which I think is about 5 bucks an hour. Clark shook his head in the affirmative. Frank said bring your coffee out to the work shop. Clark watched him measure the rolled up plans and cut 3 ¼ inch pieces of plywood he stapled the plans to the plywood and pulled out a few large sheets of thin plexi-glass and razor cut the plexi-glass to fit, he then drilled 6 holes through the glass and used some small bolts and washers to lock the plexi glass over the plans. He then cut some plastic edging to fit and slid them over the edges making a water tight seal. Frank said keeps from ruining a good set of expensive plans and makes em last through the entire construction phase.

Frank said I am going to need some front money for a week or so and I will keep track of all expenditures. Clark handed him 10,000 dollars. Anything special I should know on this materials list. Clark scratched off the batteries. OK Mr. Clark come back in a week, I will probably need some more money. Oh before you leave we will need security starting around the 1st of September those kids are going to start school then. Clark said I will probably be available by then. Frank said OK because I am going to tow my construction trailer over there and you will have a place to stay.

Clark had thought long and hard on those illegal guns and finally came up with a solution. He went internet shopping for a 3 or 4000 pound combination style gun safe. The closest he could come was a used 21 gun safe that weighed 1600 lbs and cost him 1500 dollars. It was pick-up only and was right here in the city. He charged the battery up in his Dad’s truck after reading how to do it and cash in hand went to the residence. There were 6 men there and they slid it up into the back of the pickup and Clark was on his way home. He studied some more and read several exciting apocalyptic survival stories. He got an idea on how to secure the safe on the work site property when he saw his outside air conditioner unit sitting on cement pads. He called Frank and told him what he wanted and frank said he would have it ready tomorrow.

Clark arrived in his Dad’s pick-up and backed up to what looked like a large outhouse. The safe was slid down onto the cement pads inside the enclosure and cement was poured around the 2 sides and back up to 2 feet high. The sides of the shack were put back on and a pad lock attached to the plywood door. A big sign was placed on 3 sides of the shack that said OIL. Clark was given the pad lock keys and the men went back to work. Gerald told Clark those are my most trusted and honest men and they know not to talk about what is in the shack. Gerald said I betcha those are guns and some ammo you got in there and did not wanna leave em at your house while you were gone. Clark said yes.

Clark noticed several things. The shelter hole was finished and men were attaching rebar to the concrete forms and the bottom of the hole was covered with rebar over gravel. Clark asked Frank if he was going to put black plastic down to stop water absorption and Frank said that is old technology. There is a new product called crystalline waterproofing by a company named Kryton. They mix it in at the cement plant and presto your sides and floors are instantly waterproofed for at least a hundred years. Anyways that’s what the government and private research reviews are saying. All the new concrete septic systems are using that technology and that will clean up a lot of new septic system areas as the concrete ages. It is a little more expensive but well worth it. Wow Clark thought the information he had been reading was dated. But that’s the way it goes he thought. I bet my architect does not know this, I will tell him when I get his bill.

He walked over to his garden and saw about 50 chickens running around pecking at everything. Gerald told him we brought them over to fertilize the ground and they stay in the coop we brought over. Oh, Mr. Clark, don’t touch the fence after dark we have charged it to keep raccoons, skunks and weasels out. Clark noticed a shot gun leaning against a table close by the gate and he asked about it. Gerald said chicken hawks. Ah - Clark mentally said. He looked at a battery attached on a device to the fence and a small solar charger hooked to the battery. Gerald said the battery will last several days without a charge but so far the sun has been shining keeping it charged. We can also change the battery out with one of the automobiles and change it back the next day. We been throwing cracked corn in the garden and it has already been plowed once and you can see the grass is coming up everywhere. We also take the eggs out every morning or evening before we go home. Clark said I will buy a big bag of cracked corn next time I come and if it is not used the farmer can take it home with the chickens. Gerald said that be fine. Clark also noticed no one was idle. Gerald said Mr. Frank bought the one year Round-Up Brush Killer and has 2 men killing the re-growing poison Ivy/oak and the rest of the re-growing underbrush in your patch of forest.

The next day Clark met the real estate agent – she was an elderly lady that had the little drunk bump bags under her eyes but looked good for a fiftyish lady. She followed Clark and made notes and finally started talking into her micro cassette he guessed that’s what it was. All she said was I can sell your house tomorrow for what it is appraised at without even putting it on the market. Clark said that is nice but I have no place to live and store my stuff for at least 75 days. She said that is OK. I can sell it with a move out date for you 90 days from tomorrow. Clark said OK.

The next afternoon Frank called and said bring me some money about 20,000 dollars.

Clark handed Frank the cash and said we are really moving along. The shelter floor, the barn floor and the generator room floor have been poured. I bought a 120 volt well pump and a spare. We need the water and I did something I always wanted to do I put a flush toilet in to save money from renting a construction toilet. The drain pipes for the barn, shelter and house are in the ground but have not been covered up. We want to check for leaks before burying them. I will have the plumber pressurize them in the next few days so we can cover the trenches up. The shelter floor I want to set up at least 5 days before I drop the walls onto it so things will slow way down except for a skeleton crew doing tedious things. Clark said I was reading about pouring a footer before pouring the floor. Frank said no it is faster if we do it the way I explained and they are really tied in together with the rebar. Gerald told Clark to come to his house the day after tomorrow if he wanted to learn how to can some meat and vegetables. Clark thought to himself O Boy would I. He told Gerald he would be there at 10 am. Gerald said we start at 6 am. Clark said OK he would spend the night in a motel 35 miles away. Clark followed Gerald home so he would know where he lived and headed to a motel.

Clark arrived at 601am and saw Gerald driving in behind him with 3 boys that had spent the night as guards at the farm. Gerald said he had to wait till one of the workers showed up before he left. There were 4 propane burners lined up beside a long 2x4 table that was covered with vegetables and mason jars. One end of the table had a hose hung on a hook and a large white slab of what Clark thought was what went on meat blocks in the butcher shops he had been in and he noticed that end of the table was gently sloped towards a large trash can. Gerald took him around to the trash can and Clark noticed the trash can had a window screen in the bottom covering a bunch of holes. The trash can was sitting on gravel. Gerald said the gravel went down about 4 feet and under the gravel was another 2 or so feet of sand. Clark thought ah ha a drain to get rid of the water to keep people from walking around in the mud out here in the yard.

Gerald asked Clark if he ever heard of the Ball Blue Book – Clark said yes but I have never read it. OK Mr. Clark go over there on that bench and read about peppers because today we do peppers and after that we do 2 deer I shot last night. Clark knew it was not hunting season but did not say anything. About 2 hours later the peppers were done and 3 of the pressure cookers had that little rattle thing on top talking away. Gerald said take a 5 minute break and come on over to the garage. Clark moseyed over and Gerald handed him a 6 inch sharp bladed knife. Gerald said that is a boning knife but works extremely well on skinning deer. Now come over here and make this cut with one hand and pull on the skin with the other hand. It was a learning experience for Clark because his meat always came in a nice package. Gerald showed him where he had removed the scent glands and washed the knife he had removed them with in scalding soapy water. OK Mr. Clark now we gonna cut this thing in quarters after we take the fillet mignon off and he showed Clark how to gently slide the boning knife along the bone until he lifted the nice looking tenderloin off. 2 hind quarters were taken to the table and the silvery skin that gives a deer its gamey taste was 99% removed. The butchering began. Clark was shown how to cut a roast out and where it was on the rump and how to gently remove the bone because these hind quarters were all going in the pressure cookers. The boys came over to help on the front quarters but these were all cut into strips and thrown into a brine that Gerald told Clark he would give him the secret too after he killed and cut his own deer up. Clark smelled what he thought was hickory smoke and sure enough a large refrigerator had a small chimney pipe coming out of the top. The boys took the soaked or brined meat and placed it in the smoker.

6.

Clark had taken a 10 minute break and when he got up Gerald showed him how to sharpen his knife with a 10 or 12 inch long diamond coated steel and then to use the ceramic steel to put the razor edge back on it. Gerald said here let me show you again how to make your knife sharp and he showed Clark the angle to hold it at as he slid it up and down the diamond steel, he did it again on the ceramic steel and Gerald cut a piece of paper which showed it was razor sharp. 30 minutes later 4 deboned roasts were taken into the house to chill down and age a day or more before either cooking or freezing it. The rest of the meat was cut into chunks and put into Mason jars and then into 2 emptied pressure cookers. Gerald said I will bring you some jerky next time you come and I will have the wife make you a couple of deer roast sandwiches on some home made bread. Clark washed up and headed home. He would remember to bring some extra work clothes with him always.

The next day he cleaned his Mom’s car out and found what he thought was a get home bag in the trunk. He studied it closely because he knew his Dad had been involved with it. The pistol he knew she would carry in her purse with the 2 speed loaders that were in the safe. A web belt with a GI canteen and stainless steel cup, revolver holster, small hatchet all on web belt – a small bottle with powder in it that said sugared Gatorade, a Leatherman, Swiss Army Knife, 6 inch hunting knife in a scabbard that fit on the web belt with a sharpener, water purification pills, Katydin water filter, 2 wound dressings, tube Neosporin, needle and thread, curved needle in plastic bag with suture thread,small bottle dawn dish liquid with screw on lid, roll toilet paper with the carboard removed, flint and steel, magnesium bar, 2 Bic cigarette lighters with a rubber band under the push down lever, 2 pair of socks, 2 wash rags, one pair of cotton panties, 24 500 milligram Amoxicillin capsules, 20 one dollar bills, 4 fives, 2 tens, 5 twenty’s, and a roll of silver dimes, baggie of assorted fishing hooks, swivels, small lures and 50 foot roll of 60 pound test steel fishing line, 50 or so feet of black 550 para cord, four 3600 calorie candy bars, 2 green space blankets, winter gloves, rubber gloves, film canister with greasy cotton balls, a small East Coast edible tree, plant and bush ID book, small 8 power spyglass, 2 solar powered keychain LED lights, 8 tea bags, 8 chicken boullion cubes, 8 packs creamer, 8 packs sugar, Huntsman Silva Compass, long green rain coat with hood, and there was still plenty of room in the small over the shoulders back pack, lying by the bag was a pair of used female hunting boots, a pair of dark pants, dark green fatigue type shirt and a greenish winter parka. The only other thing in the trunk was a 6 pack of water of which one was empty and had leaked out.

He went to his Dad’s truck and raised the back seat and there was a twin of his Mom’s with some minor differences.

Finished checking out his Mom’s car he checked the for sale ads to see how much his Mom’s car was worth and found out it was worth quite a bit more because of the 4 cylinder engine as was his car. Her car had 20000 more miles then his 8000 miles so he would keep his new car and his Dad’s truck.

Next stop was Walmart to pick up a for sale sign. He parked the car on the street with the for sale sign prominent. He sold the car the next day. As he was driving back from Walmart he saw several on the street signs advertising yard sales. He now knew what he was going to do with his Mom’s and dad’s clothes and a few other items he did not want; back to Walmart for 3 yard sale signs. The next day he lugged everything out and hung the clothes on a metal clothes line he had strung between 2 trees. He had thought about giving the clothes away but long term money was on his mind and he figured every little bit helped. Again he figured if he made 50 dollars that would pay one mans wages for 1 day. His Mom and Dad wore quality clothes and he decided to place a 1 dollar price on all except the winter jackets which he put 4 dollars on. There were over 400 items hanging on that line. At the end of the day there were 3 items and a pair of rubber boots left. He removed his 3 signs and placed the remaining items in the trash bin. It had been a profitable day. There was 770 dollars in his pocket and the closets were empty.

His Mom’s safe was bolted into the wall and he would probably have to tear the wall out to remove it so he took everything out and took it with him on the next trip. He wrote the combination down and left it in the open safe.

When he got to the farm he placed everything in the safe and locked it back. The little piece of lint he had placed on the combination dial was still there so no one had been inside the shack. He put the lint back and locked the place back up. The shelter walls were up and the escape door and hatch looked stupid hanging on that concrete wall. The generator room was 8 courses high and nearing completion. Clark watched them move the string to keep the block level and walked to the barn, it was 4 courses high and people were knocking off for the evening. Clark asked Frank and Gerald for a good location to put a pole barn to cover his vehicles during the cold snowy winters. They talked about it for a while and Frank said you need a 5 or 6 vehicle pole barn covered on 3 sides.. Clark said OK put that on the work list. One more thing Clark said I want a cinderblock building and sloped pad for easy cleanup for chickens – They talked that over for a good long while and said we know you do not want 50 chickens but we will build it for that size just in case and we will put it over there so the wind does not blow towards the house. Clark thought ah ha the smell. Two more things while we doing this Gerald said. About a hundred and 50 yards over there we should build you a pig pen and shelter for 10 pigs and a cinderblock smoke house right here by the garden. Frank said let’s do it right and build a concrete table that you can put a plastic cutting board on and have it drain towards the corner of the garden. Gerald said it is one of those might as well do it while the labor crew is here. We can put a metal roof over the table with a hanging rack for cow, deer, or pig butchering and put a drain like I have. Clark said OK you 2 design it so it is easy labor for me. They just grinned at him. Clark handed Frank 20,000 dollars and started to leave. Frank said come back in 10 days. Gerald handed Clark a big bag full of deer jerky and told him not to eat it all at once. Clark left chewing on some real tasty peppery deer jerky that hit the palate nicely.

Clark had no idea what he would do except study a new book he had found called the beginning small farmer and do some research on the internet.

There was an ad on TV that had a sign saying – Do you want to learn how to shoot firearms. He wrote the number down and called the next day. The man told him straight out it is 200 dollars a day for 5 days and all of our instructors are former Army Rangers and at the end of 5 days we guarantee you will be a shooter unless you are blind or have palsy. Clark laughed and asked when the next class started. The man said it is one – on - one - training and we have an opening tomorrow for wed to Sunday. Clark said I will be there with my weapons. He took his Dad’s 45, his 30-06, the pump shotgun and the 10-22 rifle.

The instructor smiled once at Clark before he paid for the training. The man whose name was Chadwick told Clark we are not here to talk about my military service. You will learn how the Army Rangers, the Navy Seals and the FBI shoot at bad people and the secondary training will be for hunting game. Clark had to raise his hand before Chadwick would stop and answer the questions Clark had. That night he told himself so that is how you line up the front and rear sight to aim. That picture on the wall made it extremely clear. Since he was an adept student Chadwick gave him some special training on rifle and pistol shooting behind cover with his left hand and how to crawl and shoot at the same time. Chadwick told him you may never use this technique but I will train you and let you practice it with a rifle and a pistol. Clark lay flat on his back and shot at moving targets direcly over his head and on roof tops. At the end of 50 hours training – it was 10 hours a day Clark was familiarized and knew how to take several rifles and pistols apart and clean them. He also could hit a target out to 300 yards with his 30-06 and knew more then he wanted to know about sectional density and ballistic coefficient. The instructor told him when the training was over – Do not think that you are a Carlos Hathcock (the marine sniper with 93 kills). This training just familiarized you with the basics. Now with someone shooting at you, you will get really good quickly. That was the 2nd smile he gave Clark and training was over.

Seven days have went by and Clark was tired of doing research on things he wanted a hands on project to learn some new things. He went back over his list of things to learn and kept stumbling over automobile engine and repair. He did not want to spend 6 months or a year in a technical school So he decided he would go to a one owner automobile engine shop and volunteer his services for free and if the man offered to pay him he would take the wage. But that would have to wait until he got back from the farm. But he decided to go through town and ask nicely at several one person mechanic shops. He struck paydirt on the 2nd shop he stopped at. The man was elderly and said he would train him while he helped him out doing the odd jobs that a single mechanic could not do while he was underneath an auto. He told the man he was available that day but would not be back for 2 or 3 days after today. He helped the man do a brake job and got the great pleasure of pumping the brakes while the man bled them. The man did show him how to loosen the tiny bolt that had a hole in it and watched the brake fluid bubble out while he tightened and loosed the bolt until the brake fluid had no bubbles in it. The next thing was changing oil and the filters and different locations they were located on the autos. After 6 hours he swept up the shop, cleaned and put the tools away and said he would be back in a few days. The man handed him 5 dollars and that really made his day.

Leaving early the next morning he got there about 930 AM and saw the barn was almost done and some cinder blocks were being laid on his house. Frank told him to come to the completed generator and battery room to watch as the small engine repair man had torn apart his Lister engine and was checking it to see if there was any sand in the cylinder from where it had been cast. There was so the man used his portable air hose and blew it out and then soaked everything in a clean gallon of kerosene. Gerald said that is on the fuel bill. Clark nodded OK. Seeing that the rebuilding of the engine was in good hands Frank led Clark to the 3 humongous holes for the tanks. Clark said where you going to put all that dirt. Frank said there are several low spots on the place and a gulley or 2 that will take most of the soil. Anything left over will be tilled in the 2 cow lot areas. Frank continued when we do that we going to plant some clover in one field and some hay in the other so you will be ready for next year.

[Lbox88]

7.

The pad for the pole barn garage was completed and some gravel had been laid down leading up to it. Frank said I buried that gravel about 3 inches so an asphalt driveway can be poured on it. When I am through bringing those heavy cement trucks in here I will call an asphalt paver friend I know and put you a nice driveway in all the way to the gate. Clark asked how he as holding up on funds and Frank said I got to pay the tank people cash when they deliver tomorrow so You need to give me some money. Clark asked him how the budget was going and Frank said you are way under budget on the house and should hit 20 or so thousand dollars below it on his estimate. Now the other things have put you up to about 120,000 with about 40 or 50,000 more to go. Clark said that is great, figure out a small bonus for everyone and I’ll factor that in. Frank grinned at him.

Clark noticed the shack containing the safe was missing and said don’t tell me some one stole it.

Gerald grinned and said no it is in the shelter. And we did not cement it to the floor because the only way anyone will ever get it out is to take the house off the slab that is under 4 feet of dirt and then tear the house down. How did you get it down there. Gerald said I called the wrecker that hauls semi;s and had him lift it up and drive over here and lower it in. Frank said that was a cheap operation only 125 dollars. I am glad the architect gave you a 4 foot door way going down because now you can put a couple of large freezers and fridges down there. Clark handed Frank another 20,000 dollars and Frank told him to come back in 10 days.

Under the tutelage of the mechanic Clark learned more in the next 8 working days then he would have learned if he had went to a technical school.

On his next visit the house had a metal roof on it and the humongous holes were filled in and seeded with grass and covered with straw that would eventually have to be cut. Frank asked Clark if he wanted to paint the concrete and Clark turned around to Gerald and asked him what he thought. He just said I wouldn’t wanna live in a white house if Zombies were running around in the countryside. Frank and Clark both laughed at that. Frank said OK we will just put a clear 50 year sealant on it and let it go. The place should blend in well with the countryside since all the metal roofs are an off color pale brown.

Frank said come on over to the bench Gerald and you too Mr. Clark. OK on the guard at night 2 of the carpenters and dry wall men have said that one will work from 3 to 11pm and the other from 11pm to 7am. The work will slow way down now that the detail work is in play and in about 2 weeks there will be just some specialists like the
electrician, finish carpenters and floor tile men working. You did want lifetime tile didn’t you Mr. Clark. Clark said yes if I need a rug I can buy a large round one or whatever. Gerald said I have found you a tractor with all the attachments for 3,000 dollars. It was just overhauled and new tires put on it. The man is leaving and nobody around here has the money to pay what it really is worth about 12,000. Clark gave him 4,000 dollars and said give him my blessings. Frank said Emory has just took in trade a brand new 12 ton log splitter and he wants 500 dollars for it. Emory thinks it was stolen from a logging operation 300 miles from here. Clark said to Frank is it a good buy and will I get in trouble. Frank said it is a steal because that model sells for about 3200 dollars. And as for getting in trouble the possibility is so remote I would not even think about it. Frank said I wanted to tell you about another steal you purchased. The 2 tanks were removed from a 1 year old gas station that went bankrupt. I bid 1500 dollars on the tanks and paid 500 to have them brought here. You saved in excess of 15000 or more dollars there. Whoever installed the tank knew exactly what they were doing it was on a 2 foot bed of sand and the outer Teflon coat does not have a scratch on it. Me and the boys scrubbed it down and went over it with a fine tooth comb. The propane tank is also less then a year old. I bought it from a man whose trailer burned down and he had no insurance. The only thing left was his half way scorched truck and the tank. He wanted money to relocate. I gave him 600 dollars for it. In about 2 weeks you can move into one of the bedrooms because they are working on completing one of those and the bathroom. You can store anything you want right now in the center of the barn.

My recommendation to you is you take 2 or 3 of our trusted men and rent one of those huge Ryder trucks and have them load it up for you. One of them can drive the truck the other the car and you can follow in the pick-up. We checked the electrical system it works and we are going to turn it on when the 4 solar panels are up. I only bought 4 325 watt ones because they were expensive. You need 6 more to keep those fancy batteries you have fully charged. Call Emory in about 10 days and tell him when you will be here. When you rent the Ryder truck make sure you buy the boxes and wrap paper and 6 or so magic markers to mark what is in each box. There is a lot more to moving then you think there is. I will have 3 or maybe even 4 men go back with you to do that job. They can start packing stuff that evening and finish up the next day- Just make sure you feed them good. McDonalds breakfast, Pizza at night, steak sandwiches for lunch and some Chinese Beef Fried rice for an in between snack. They all will drink Tea in a can and Coca Cola with ice. Clark wrote it down when Frank stopped talking. Frank said I need a little money to partially fill those tanks and stabilize the gasoline and diesel. Clark gave him 10,000 dollars.

Clark worked with the mechanic for the next 8 days tearing an engine down and replacing rings and a bad oil pump. He now knew where the electronic and non electronic ignition system was located and its function. He helped track down a wiring short in a truck wiring harness and learned how to use a volt meter. This information would be priceless in a post apocalyptic world. The most technical thing he did (well he thought it was technical) was to change out 2 faulty timing chains and get the engine back in time. He called Emory on the 9th day and asked him to tell Frank or Gerald he would be there about 11am tomorrow. Emory said stop here at the store.

There were 4 men at the store and Clark headed back to his house. The Ryder truck with 200 folded up empty boxes, reams of wrapping paper and two large dollies was parked in his driveway. Clark ordered 5 large pizzas with what each man wanted plus himself as soon as he walked in the door. The real estate agent had told him to not bother cleaning the house because she had a professional crew lined up for that job.

After eating the pizza the men started on the ammunition and the long term food in the storage room. They each made about 10 trips up the steps and then put the buckets and ammo cans on a dolly to unload in the truck. They quit work at 10pm and 2 of them slept in the 2 guest rooms, one took the couch and the other rolled out a huge queen size rubber mattress and used a CO2 cartridge to almost fill it. He finished filling it with the foot pump. Clark gave him some sheets and a blanket. The lights were out by 1015 pm. They took turns showering and using the facilities and started again. Clark went and got 5 double orders of biscuit and gravy and 5 ham egg, cheese and potato biscuit sandwiches. He had stopped at Kroger’s last night and bought six 2 liters of coke and 2 cases of sweetened tea for all of them and that was now in the fridge.

The last item which was the full fridge went on the truck at 6pm. The truck driver said they would put the fridge in the kitchen and plug it in when they got there. They would also off load the truck taking his bed into his bedroom and the next day he could follow one of them and drop it off at the Ryder’s in that area. Clark drove to the post office and filled out about 10 change of address cards. He returned home and called the utility companies and told them to cut the utilities off in 3 days. He would not be responsible for any utility use after that period he also informed them of his address change. Next he asked the real estate lady if she could meet him somewhere so he could give her the keys, a copy of the safe combination which he had locked and the alarm codes. He had turned the alarm off. She showed up in 10 minutes and said you are leaving early. He just said my house is done. He signed the deed over to her and she gave him a receipt and a bank cashier’s check for 425,000 dollars. She told him the buyers would probably sell the house in a year and make 80 or 90 thousand, Clark just thought good luck with that the way the economy is going into the toilet. She said nice doing business with you Mr. Clark. He said like wise and walked through the house where he was born saying good bye to each room. 5 minutes later all misty eyed he was driving north to his new home.

It was 11pm when he got there and four 100 watt fluorescent bulbs were burning – one in the kitchen, one in the spare bedroom, one in the bathroom and one in his bedroom where he noticed some of his clothes hanging in the triple wide closet. He guessed he would get his dresser and night stands tomorrow. There was a man laying tile in the spare bedroom and he told Clark not to go in there till tomorrow evening when he would put the grout down. After all that driving Clark shut the door and went to bed.

Clark ate a piece of jerky for breakfast as he did not feel like cooking anything. He checked and saw he could fix some sandwiches for lunch. Clark watched 4 men lay cinderblock on his new chicken coop for a few minutes. He noticed his truck was parked in the pole barn next to a tractor and a log splitter.

Fred hollered at him from the other end of the house. Clark moseyed on down. Fred said the man that is going to drive the Ryder truck will be here in about 45 minutes, no sense in going there till it opens. Clark said I have to go to the bank while I am there. Fred said I have to go to town also to pick up the pipe for your stove; they did not have it when the stove came in. I’ll pick him up and you can finish up your business. A few men will bring down some items for your bedroom today but the rest will just have to wait. Clark said that’s OK as long as I have a bed and a bathroom. Clark handed Fred a hundred and said that’s for the Ryder tuck fuel. Fred gave him a small salute and walked over to the chicken coop and started talking to one of the cinder block layers. Gerald was headed to the barn so he went back and sat down killing some time till the bank opened. He left a few minutes later deciding to have a McDonald’s breakfast and a biscuit and gravy.

He went inside and ate his breakfast and figured the bank should be in full operation by now since it was 930AM. He opened a savings and a checking account and asked them to send him a debit card. He split the money with 70,000 in his checking and the remainder in a 1.2% savings account. He thought 1.2% is better then nothing. He listened to the lady tell him it would take 10 days before the check would clear. He just looked at her and said lady the check is from your own bank. She left and came back with the manager. He listened to the manager say we can process this check by tomorrow and thank your for your business. He stopped at the Direct TV place and signed up for computer and TV service. They said they could install it in 7 days. Clark said that would be fine. He went to Starbucks, bought a cup of coffee and plugged his laptop computer in. He wanted a small amount of gold in ½ ounce and lower denominations and a few hundred silver eagles. He had heard good things about APMEX so he spent 10,000 dollars on his AMEX card. He immediately opened his checking account at the other bank and paid that bill. Checking his bank balance he decided to bite the bullet and buy the other six 325 watt solar panels. He asked for the contractors discount and gave them Frank’s number. Next stop was Sears where he bought a new full size fridge, super large freezer and a washing machine all the items were energy star rated. The delivery time was one week and it cost him 65 dollars. He thought it cost 30 dollars just to drive here to pick it up so a 35 dollar loss was not that great. In addition they would uncrate them, carry the empty boxes off and plug them in for you. He next called the diesel and gas delivery and ordered what it would take to fill the tanks up. The propane company was contacted and a tanker would be dispatched tomorrow morning as would the petrol products. Next stop was at the Chevrolet Dealer. He went to the parts department and bought the 100,000 mile anti freeze that was put in all new automobiles. That was for his 2 water cooled Lister generators. Feeling as if he had lost a fortune at a gambling table in Las Vegas he went home.

Arriving at the farm he told Frank and Gerald what he had done. Frank said you must have made a pretty penny when you sold your house. Clark just said enough to finish all these projects before I have to get a job. The next 3 days were just sort of dull as everyone was waiting for cement or floor tiles to dry. On the 4th morning he noticed all the chickens and the chicken coop was missing from his garden but there was a huge dump truck that dropped a few tons of wet cow manure right in the middle of the garden, 2 men with rubber boots and large tools that had a big flat bottom on it spread the manure over the entire garden. Gerald said next week we plow it in and next spring we plow it one more time and it be ready for some fine vegetables. Clark wondered about a huge pile of rocks in his front yard. Frank said I have an out of work stone man that will make you a fine rock enclosure for strawberries and some of that top soil we have piled up over there with a hundred or so pounds of cow manure will fill it up. Clark loved strawberries. Clark said what is on the agenda for today. Frank pulled out his notebook and said 2 men are setting the gate poles for your entry gate, One man is hanging the outside 55 gallon black barrel for the summertime barn shower, the 150 watt black heat lamps are being installed over 4 of the cow barn stalls, the chicken black heat lamp will go in as soon as the place is roofed. One plumber is plumbing the barn and tomorrow he will plumb the chicken coop. The barn black water barrel can be filled by rain water or well water during the summer. I believe after we seal the concrete and put the insulation in the roof in the chicken coop it will stay above freezing in there. We will find out in another month or so. Ah while I am thinking about it you need a riding lawn mower for your 1 or 2 acre yard. I heard George wants to sell his Gravely Pro-Master 26 HP for about half price or less, he has only had it 2 years. He has cancer and his wife died 2 months ago and he has no kids or kin-folk that I know of. Clark said OK.

The next day he watched Frank pour in the Pri-D and Pri-G before the tanks were filled. He said I put in a bottle of that fungus killer Pri-Ocide or whatever just for safety.

Direct TV installers and Frank got into an argument and Frank won. He U bolted a 4 foot pipe to the cinderblock wall and told them to mount the dish on that. There was no way he was going to let them on the new metal solar panel covered roof. The TV wire had been installed when the electric wiring was so all the Direct TV man had to do was align the dish and screw his end into the female receptacle in an outdoor style utility box mounted on the wall under the eave. Clark had ordered 3 boxes and he had the men install them in the living room and the 2 bedrooms. As soon as they left he took one to the shelter and plugged it in. It worked fine. He plugged his desk top in and the thing actually worked, it was not as fast as the cities broadband but it would do for him. His laptop also worked off the modem.

8.

Sears showed up about an hour after the TV installers had left. The freezer box just fit through the basement door he would not let them take it out of the box until it was in the basement. The new fridge went right beside of it. They both worked. They put the washer in the laundry room where the plumbing was already installed the old washer was in the shelter. It was a shame he could not have a 220 volt electric dryer because he was off grid. But Gerald and Frank had assured him the clothes line in the laundry room which was on the south side of the house would get enough sunshine through the big window that he would have no problem drying his clothes. The propane hot water tank was also in the laundry and Frank had made sure the exhaust pipe went up 4 feet before making a U turn out the wall that threw a lot of heat into the laundry room when the propane hot water tank was turned on. He was talked out of installing a 110 volt propane dryer because of the massive amount of propane it used. He did plan on buying one in the coming months anyway. He did not see why not because the propane pipes had been piped into the room for that purpose also.

Gerald asked Clark one day why there was a Hepa filter and exhaust system in the generator room. Clark had read about that and he said the generator room is air tight in case of volcanic ash fall the ash won’t ruin the Lister engines.

Frank told Clark 2 weeks later after the pig pen and housing for 10 pigs had been built that he should consider putting a 5 or so kilowatt wind system right over there on a 50 foot tower. He said I have been researching these totally self contained systems for 2 months and they are good for 50 years. The sealed brushless system cannot be harmed by EMP or volcanic ash. We have a neoprene plug type flap opening pipe about a foot underground that was put in just for wind system wiring. Clark said how much? Frank countered with you are 25000 under budget right now. Clark said I am waiting on the sticker price. Frank said 9200 and that’s installed by us. So Clark was going to have some wind power. Gerald said sure would be nice to have a few cameras up there on that soon to be wind system. Clark walked off but when he turned around he could see they were in a huddle and talking quietly. He thought TV type surveillance cameras were a great idea if they did not cost too much.

The next day Gerald brought Clark 2 deer roast sandwiches on home made bread with lettuce and mayonnaise. Clark said to himself this does not taste like the gamey deer meat I have eaten. He told Gerald that was the best roast sandwich he had ever eaten. That was a little fib the Philly roast beef sandwiches were. Clark and Gerald researched cameras for about an hour and found out the quality ones were reasonable and within Clarks finances. He said the wire from the tower will cost almost as much as the cameras. Frank said no the wiring is already in the generator room all you have to do is plug it in and turn the TV monitor on in the shelter or in the living room.

Finally everything was done and instructions had been given to Clark on every conceivable thing that could go wrong. The electrician had printed out a small booklet for Clark and left one at the power control system in the kitchen and basement. The small engine repairman had done the same thing covering the Lister engines. There was not too much to go wrong with quality equipment. Gerald told Clark he had one more thing to do before it got much colder. He was bringing a crew of 4 men over in a day or 2 to cut 4 dead oaks out of the tree plot which should give Clark about 20 cords of wood. Clark thought 250 dollars was cheap for that much wood cut and stacked under the 8 foot eave that was designed just for that. And what was even nicer it was by the door beside the stove. It took all 5 of them 2 days to do that much wood but Clark paid them extra. The place was empty now and there was no activity going on anywhere. The place looked kind of desolate now because the 3 mid size dozers, the large backhoe, the medium size backhoe and all the equipment was gone. The place did look kind of spruced up with the blacktop road, the ruts from the heavy vehicles smoothed over and grass planted everywhere. He got an email from the nickel iron battery company. They were discontinuing the 325 amp hour batteries and would sell 10 of them to him for less than half price of the original ones he had bought. He ordered and paid for them with his AMEX card. This would give him a total of 22 one hundred year life 325 amp hour batteries since he had originally bought 12 of which 2 were to be spares. This would in the future prove to be a most prudent purchase.

It was still warm enough on some evenings that he could sit on the back porch. He could see deer out near the hardwood plot, turkey and rabbits running in the fields and foxes or coyotes close to the fence line watching the rabbits. He called Emory the next morning and asked him when hunting season was. Emory said bow season is in now come on down to the store and I will sell you a hunting and fishing license. Clark asked why he needed a fishing license and Emory said Gerald said those holes they dug out in the creek across from your gate is full of fish.

He arrived at the store an hour or so later and Emory handed him the hunting and fishing regulations. He said I could get you a farm kill permit for 10 deer because of the farm, but since you ain’t got anything planted I might get in trouble. The game warden stops in here just about every other day. Clark gave him the 25.00 for the trout stamp and extra doe permits.

Clark got home and read the regulations and saw he could kill 6 deer, one with a bow, one with a black powder rifle, one buck during the regular season and 3 doe during the doe season. All Clark said to himself there must be a lot of deer out here. He had no idea of the vast herds that stayed near the farm plots out here in the country.

He drove to the city and outfitted himself with a 50 caliber black powder rifle and all the accessories; he did the same with a compound bow. He would practice on a bale of hay he bought at a feed store on the way home.

It was a good thing he bought 24 target arrows. It took him 4 days to get strong enough to practice more then 15 minutes and he was constantly going out in the field looking for the arrows that missed the bale of hay. About 12 days later he was fairly proficient with the bow. Now it was time for the black powder rifle. The man told him one pound of powder and 50 bullets would be enough but Clark just said I want 10 pounds of powder and 1000 bullets. There were a1000 firing caps in a box so he figured he was set for a month of Sundays or so. He surprised himself the black powder rifle was really fun to shoot but dang it was slow. After 50 rounds he had the thing zeroed in and felt that he could easily kill a deer within about 75 to a hundred yards distance.

He drove over to Gerald’s house and talked about his recipe for making jerky and how on earth his wife got that deer to taste just like a cow roast. She laughed and said I will write the recipe down and I will also give you the marinade recipe for the jerky since I am the one who always makes it. Gerald said you come get me when you kill your first deer I don’t want you to ruin it. I will help ya clean it up but its cool enough now you can let it hang on that rack we made for ya for 3 or so days before you skin it. You do know that the deer has to be gutted and the scent glands removed before you hang it up to age. Clark said yes sir I got that much knowledge.

Clark made another trip to town and bought a lightweight camouflaged ladder and a camo tree stand. He left it there for 3 days and he noticed the deer came back but watched the ladder for a while before browsing. He had used his range finder and found the deer would be about 25 to 30 yards away from his tree stand so he set his sights for that range and practiced with it the day before he went hunting.

Around 1pm Clark climbed into the tree stand after spraying himself with what the salesman had sold him. He noticed the breeze was in his face so he was fairly certain they would not smell him. At exactly 445pm the deer magically appeared. He was standing facing that direction and spotted one with little bitty horns that might weigh 125 pounds on the hoof. He waited till the deer were looking behind them away from him when he shot the deer. The bullet went exactly where it was supposed to go. The deer jumped about 3 feet high and ran into the hardwood forest. Clark sat down and waited the 30 minutes. He had his flashlight just in case it got too dark to follow a blood trail, He walked 10 feet into the forest and there it laid facing back toward him with that glazed over eye death look. He dragged it out in the field and got his truck. He threw the deer in the back and drove to Gerald’s. Gerald said ya got one eh. Clark was as proud as a strutting rooster over his first anything kill. Gerald told the 2 boys to get the gut bucket. He and Clark hung it where the last 2 deer he had seen were hung up. OK Mr. Clark I gonna let you use my knife and show you exactly where to cut them scent glands off. Clark did as he was told and he could smell the rank smell of the scent glands on his hands. The boys had bought a mop bucket out with hot soapy water. Gerald said throw the knife in the bucket and scrub your hands with that Dawn dish soap real good. The boys will bring another bucket out in a minute to finish scrubbing and rinsing them. Clark could just barely smell the scent on his hands after the 2nd scrubbing. Gerald said that’s OK you got the part that ruins meat off ya. OK here ya go, I want you to slide the tip of that knife right here and ease it up but don’t go in no more then a quarter inch; I will show you why after we get it emptied out. Gerald showed him how to reach around and cut the stringy stuff holding the stomach in and it plopped into the bucket. Gerald showed him the bladder that was full of pee and the guts that had other messy things inside them. OK now we gotta reach way up there an cut that windpipe out. He said I will show you how to do that, this time. He took the hatchet and chopped through the tail bone and then said OK Mr. Clark clean that little mess up. Clark did. The boys brought the hose over and rinsed the inside of the deer out getting all the blood from the heart wound. OK Mr. Clark we done here you make sure you get it hung high enough can’t no fox or coon get a good hold and chew its leg off. Clark did as he was told. The next day he took a hand saw and went to a tree that Frank had said was a hickory and climbing on his ladder he cut a bunch of branches off the lower limbs. He was ready to do some smoking in his smoker.

The weather had hung in the mid 30’s for the past 3 days so Clark decided to skin the animal. That was the easy job the next easy job was getting the back straps out. He really did not have enough practice cutting those roasts and they sure did not look like they did when Gerald was coaching him. He decided to keep 3 roasts and turn the rest of the deer into jerky. He cut silver skin off that deer until he was blue in the face. Finally the 3 roasts were in the fridge and he had a humongous pile of deer strips to soak in that special marinade for a few hours before he draped everything over those wire racks in the smoker. He was told by several reliable men that the ingredients in that special marinade would kill any micro organisms known to man and it was not necessary to heat the meat up to that magic germ killing 160 degrees. He decided if he got sick he would immediately know what caused it because he was a clean nut when it came to handling raw meat. He needed more information on processing wild rabbits, squirrels and turkeys. He knew he could buy videos showing that process, but why buy when You Tube had them plastered all over the internet. That night he watched some cleaning and butchering processes of wild animals he was interested in. He made a few notes and went to bed. Tomorrow was food shopping day.

[Lbox88]

9.

The next morning he went to a place that sold tow along trailers and bought a 12 foot one. Gerald’s wife had been in the feed store and told Emory to call Clark about the sale Big Lot’s was having on mason jars. 5.79 a case. That was his first stop. He bought a gross and a half of wide mouth quart jars and a quarter gross of pint jars and 500 extra lids for the quarts and 200 for the pints. Later on he would find out about the reusable Tattler canning lids and would purchase a significant amount of them. He knew he was supposed to vacuum pack the lids to get a longer storage life. The next stop was staples to mostly fill his empty pantry. There was enough long term food in the shelter to feed an army for a year or more but he did not want to get into them.

Putting the groceries in the pantry and fridge he backed the tow along with the Mason jars into the pole barn and left it there out of the weather.

Clark was reading another post apocalyptic story and saw where this survivor had a large root cellar where he stored numerous items including medicines in metal or plastic trash cans. Further on in the story he read about 9 tray Excalibur dehydrators that he used to dry up potatoes from his garden and fruit from his small orchard. He wrote that down on his things to do and acquire list. He got side tracked then and researched root cellars. After that he read about dehydrating. He fixed himself a ham sandwich and thought about what kinds of fruits he would like and drew up a small plot for his orchard. Next he drew up plans for a root cellar. He told himself I am definitely going to need a job when I get through spending. Going through his assets he figured after taxes he should have a little more than 450,000 dollars left from the original almost 800,000 to fall back on. He then figured if the economy collapsed that 450,000 dollars would not be worth a hill of mud so he earmarked a 100,000 of that for American silver coins and small denomination gold, ammunition, and firearms. He had the cash on hand to pay labor costs for about 9 months and buy the recommended animals like cows, chickens, pigs, feed and seed. He went to bed.

The next morning he went to Frank’s house and showed him the root cellar he had designed. Frank said you don’t want a concrete slab for a floor I have built 20 or so of these and we just put the cinder blocks on a 18 inch footer and lay a roll of fine stainless steel mesh on the floor under some chain link that is tied into the footer. Clark asked what the purpose of that was. Frank said well 2 reasons mostly, one is to keep the ground animals like mice and bugs from digging up into the stored vegetables and the primary reason is the ground humidity which you would not have if you had a slab floor. 3 or 4 inches of sand covered with gravel and oak planks and you will have a hundred year root cellar that will be rodent proof and bug free. If you put it here by the barn we can run power in to have some of those fluorescent screw in light bulbs and maybe even a closed in stall that you may want to run a real small dehumidifier for certain items. Clark asked him if he would do it the coming spring. Frank said sure and I’ll draw up a better set of plans and make it exactly 24x24 feet with a lot of shelves that should give you room to store tons of stuff in the coming years. Clark asked if he had a ball park figure. Frank said if the men are not back to work and using your earth moving equipment about 7500 dollars. Frank said if I was you I would tell me to buy the cinder blocks, mortar, cement, sand, steel door and frame, galvanized water proofed roofing and if they got the roof steel beams from that small cement factory that is going out of business next week and have em delivered out by the barn away from where we will dig the root cellar hole. We can put the mortar and a small amount of extra cement in the barn. But the construction will go really fast if we call another cement company to pour the footer and walk down steps. Clark handed him 6000 dollars. Frank said you need one or 2 more buildings for tools, lawn mowers and chain saws. What do you recommend Clark asked. Frank said a 16 X 16 would be plenty large enough starting out. Clark said what do you mean large enough starting out. Frank said you will find out in the years coming that there is never enough storage space. I know a start up place that has a computer controlled aluminum cutting machine that does that size building; the side aluminum and roof is 400 dollars. All you have to buy is some wall 2X4’s, roof 2X6’s and ¾ inch treated plywood for a smooth floor. Gerald and a crew of 2 or 3 can lay a 4 inch footer and some sand and gravel for the base floor. I would recommend you buy 2 for future storage. I will come over and show them how to slap the things up in one day. Clark handed him another 1500 dollars and said OK.

Next Clark went to Gerald’s and talked about the orchard he wanted to plant in the coming months. Gerald asked him if he had any intentions of selling any thing grown in the orchard. Clark said I never thought of that. Gerald said let’s go over to my neighbor who has a commercial orchard and talk to him. Gerald said I am glad you got the truck because the car would not have made it; my neighbor tears the road up in 2 places to keep sight seers out during the off months because he likes his privacy. Let me borrow your telephone. He went back in the house and looked up the telephone number and called him to see if he and Clark could visit. On the trip to the orchard Gerald said you know you have hickory trees on your property and across the creek there is a slew of hazel nuts growing and one of the men told me there are 4 or 5 large walnut trees about a 150 yards from the creek so you are set for nuts for many years to come. If I am not mistaken I think in that plot of trees you have there may be some English walnut trees. The road was really bad in 2 places just like Gerald had said and as Clark slowly drove down into a 3 foot wide and deep ditch he could see that a back hoe had dug it out. The man made the same kind of coffee that Frank did and it too was really good. They talked for about 2 hours and Clark learned a bunch of things and he made notes so he would not forget them. He learned what types of fruit would grow at this elevation, what sold, what tasted the best and to plant only natural full size trees that were not grafted onto root stock. It would take a couple of years longer to start producing but his children’s children would have them to do with as they pleased. He also gave him a fruit tree price list of what he would have for sale in a few months. He drew out a small orchard for Clark and the spacing between the trees and told him to call him the 1st week in January for a working learning pruning visit and he would show him how to prune different types of trees. Gerald was looking at the orchard his friend had drawn out and asked Clark if that was what he had in mind. Clark said yes but he wanted to add a few peach and pear trees for his personal use. Gerald said me and my boys could come over this weekend and prep the ground and dig those holes for you. Clark said OK. Gerald said make sure you stop and get that white plastic springy stuff that goes around trees at the tree farm to keep the animals especially deer from eating the bark and killing them this spring. Clark told Gerald that he would like for him and a few friends of his to buy about 5 rifles, 5 pistols and ammunition for him because he did not want to come under suspicion buying that many guns. Gerald said sure we can do that.

Friday saw Clark in town buying 3 nine tray Excalibur dehydrators. There was a country mill grain grinder in the shelter and a manual hamburger grinder. He stopped at a commercial butchering supply place and saw exactly what he wanted it was pricey but he bought a 220 volt meat grinder he knew he would have to run the generator and plug it in directly to run it. A meat grinding table had been built outside the generator room just for that purpose with a weatherproof 220 and 110 volt plug up above the grinder table. The man recommended stainless steel extra plates, knives, sausage tube, and a larger size cutting plate for sausage. He bought 3 of each and a heavy plastic meat stuffer. He also bought a nice commercial grade 10 inch slicer and a steak cuber. He looked at a commercial grade electric meat band saw but decided the 26 inch hand meat saw and the 2 electric tree pruning saws would do for the amount of meat bone sawing he would butcher in the coming years. He was looking at the fancy plastic handled stainless butcher knives when a bib overalls farmer with a Gravely hat on pulled him off to the side and said for home butchering you need to go to the Old hickory site and buy some 6 inch boning knives, an 8 or 12 inch butcher knife and their 7 inch meat cleaver. You can get the butcher steels cheaper on the internet but they have the medium and fine grit 12 inch diamond butcher steels here at a reasonable price and buy the ceramic butcher steel here also. Clark thanked him and made a note of what the man had said. The store men loaded his purchases in the truck and he was on his way home. After the man had mentioned Old Hickory he remembered reading a blurb on one site about those knives.

The meat grinder went into the generator building on a side table. The slicer and cuber fit perfectly on his kitchen counter alongside one dehydrator. Since the other 2 dehydrators were so light he carried them to the shelter and put them on a shelf. He settled down and read the instructions that came with all the equipment he had just bought. Later that evening he went to the Old Hickory site and ordered just what the man had said. He looked for that blurb about Old Hickory Knives he had read before, found it and saw he would need a bottle of mineral oil to oil the knives up for storage. Things were coming together and just about complete he thought as he drifted off to sleep.

After breakfast Clark was going through on line vegetable catalogs and drawing out his garden on a large 24 by 24 inch sheet of drafting paper. He did not want to go insane on his 1st garden because the work would probably leave him with no time for anything else. He was going to put off buying the cow till later in the coming year. He decided 10 chickens would be a good start he did not need a rooster until the following spring when he had a handle on taking care of what he had. Someone was knocking on his door he looked out the window and saw a green vehicle with the State of WV white emblem on the door. Opening the door a man in a suit said hello I am the state property and building appraiser. Clark thought a dirty 4 letter word. Clark could not remember whether he had slid the wall back covering the shelter door. He said why hello let me fix you a cup of fresh coffee and then I have to make a bathroom trip and we can talk, please sit here. The wall was open so he quickly shut it to conceal the entry way to the shelter. The man had a notebook and pencil out and started down a list of questions when he got to is there a basement, Clark lied and said no I could not afford it. He said did you get any permits to build this house out here and Clark said the contractor was supposed to take care of that. Would you mind telling me how much you spent – Clark said 85,000 dollars for 4 cinder block structures on the place. He said labor was cheap because the contractor used out of work farmers. Can I look around in here and at the other buildings? Clark said wait till I get the keys and I’ll show you around. After the man looked inside of each building and looked the land over he said you have no farm produce or animals. Clark said no I have just about run out of money and am looking for a job to buy some seed and animals hopefully this spring. The man said OK I am going to appraise your property and buildings at 150,000 dollars and since you have no livestock or farm produce the other inspectors will not be out to visit you till next year. Your annual property taxes will be about 850 dollars. It is a shame you don’t have someone over 65 living here that owns the property because the property tax would only be 300 dollars a year for them. The reason I appraised your home and property low is cinder block buildings are not brick mansions. He said have a nice day as he left. Clark called Frank immediately after the man left and told him what had transpired. Frank said I have it covered don’t worry about anything except keep the shelter a secret and I will tell the workers to keep quiet about it also. Clark told himself to keep gate locked and made a note to put one of those ding dong battery electronic alarms at the entryway. He did not have the cameras turned on that day.

Saturday morning Emory and his 2 boys showed up to dig the holes for the orchard. They used Clark’s tractor and put the 20 inch auger on it. They filled each hole with damp cow manure and when they left Emory told Clark the cow manure will break down in plenty of time before we stick a tree in the hole. We will come back and fill the holes in, wrap them and stake them when we plant the trees.

Clark went to the gun store and bought 2 boxes of lead round nose 220 grain bullets for his 30-06 He zeroed it in for 25 yards and it was back on zero at 160 yards. He had decided he was not going to waste any front quarter meat with blood shock trauma on deer he shot on his property. He would either shoot it in the head or in the neck by the spine. At 25 yards it would be a chip shot from his tree stand. There was about 2 inches of snow on the ground when he shot the heavy 220 pound 9 point buck. He had told Emory he was going to shoot one the next day. Emory said good, gut it and me and the boys will bring 3 more over and use the tables you have set up. We would also like to use your new grinder if you don’t mind after we age the meat a little while. Clark said the more the merrier. He wanted to test the grinder out himself. After dark that evening Gerald and his boys brought over 3 gutted deer and hung them high on the hanging rack they had built for Clark. Gerald said weather supposed the be in the high 30’s and low 40’s for the coming week so we should have some good aged farm deer meat in about 4 or 5 days. Clark asked Gerald about turkey and Gerald said those wild ones are purty dry if you don’t fix em right. Let me know when you shoot a couple and we show you how to de feather, brine and smoke em. You can freeze em after you brine or smoke em and cook em whenever you want. Next time you go to town stop at this country store and buy a big load of Morton tender quick, plain sugar cure, coarse kosher, canning and pickling salt some of it does good for the meats when ya brine with it. You gonna need the rest of those salts this summer and next winter so you may as well beat the summer crowd that usually buys it all out.

10.

This meat grinder is too heavy to be hauling around manually like this Emory said if you buy 4 big soft rubber dolly tires and a section of ½ inch steel rod I will make a rolling shelf to roll it out here and slide it over on the meat grinder bench. Clark had been told to buy some pork fat to mix in with the hamburger to make it like an 80/20 blend regular store bought. He was given the below recipe of the ingredients for 15 pounds of deer meat and pork to make hot sweet Italian sausage. Gerald said some people add wine but we don’t and we always add 2 or 3 teaspoons or more of ground red pepper to make it hotter. To make mild sausage just leave out the ground red pepper. The 2nd recipe is for breakfast sausage. Just mix everything together and run it through a 3/8 inch grinder plate the hot sausage of course is put into natural or synthetic hog casings. The breakfast sausage is made into patties. Clark thought he knew the answer but asked Gerald anyway. What is the water for? Gerald said to meld the spices together but the main reason is to liquefy the salt. Gerald continued and said some of those Italian butchers in town leave it in the bucket to meld over night and some of them said that was not necessary. They said it would meld together real good in the casing if you mixed it up real good before grinding it into the casing. We don't let it meld over night we mix it good and grind it right into the the natural casing and leave it in the fridge over night before we freeze it and that works fine for us.

Hot Italian sausage

1 cup of water
• 7 tablespoons fennel seeds
• 6 tablespoons ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon ground coriander
• 3 teaspoons red pepper flakes
• 2 teaspoons oregano
• 1½ teaspoons garlic powder
• 1½ teaspoons sugar
• 1½ teaspoons caraway seed
• 7 tablespoons kosher salt

• Breakfast sausage

• 8 tablespoons kosher salt
• 5 teaspoons ground white pepper
• 3 tablespoons of rubbed sage
• 1½ teaspoons ginger
• 5 teaspoons nutmeg
• 5 teaspoons thyme
• 4 teaspoons cayenne pepper
• 1 cup of water

After the meat was cut up, hamburger and sausage made Clark froze just about everything he had except for the jerky in the smoker. The meat scale came in handy for weighing out the pork and deer meat before mixing it and the spices together for the sausage. Well he thought it is a start on becoming self sufficient. He grinned and said out loud I have my own food I obtained and fixed myself.

Clark fixed himself some breakfast sausage the next morning with some eggs Gerald had left him the night before. He smacked his lips and said fresh eggs are really tasty and the sausage was also pretty good. He would put one of those deer roasts in his slow cooker in a few days and test that out.

He called Frank before he went to town to buy some type of alarm for the gate. Frank said you must not have looked at your electrical instructions or one of us forgot to put it in the instruction manual. You have a power connection at the gate and at 4 points out in the field to electrify your fence if your battery solar powered fence system fails and in case you need 110 volt electricity out around the property. There is even a plug in by your garden gate beside the solar powered battery electrification fence system. Stop in at this alarm place and have them demonstrate what they have available; their entry gate alarm systems are reasonable and can be easily installed by yourself.

After Clark installed the electronic alarm system at the gate he continued looking at online seed and vegetable sites. He remembered when he was a kid his Mom always put fresh blueberries on his oats or cream of wheat (anyways he thought they were fresh). He did some research on blueberries and found that birds ate most of the berries before the owner got to pick them. More looking around showed him several ways to protect those juicy tidbits. He ordered 10 Hotel jumbo size blueberry plants. Next he called Gerald and said he had another small job when the weather warmed up enough. He drew out the cage like system and made a list of the materials he would need for an 8 foot wide 20 foot long cage. He would use plasticized 3/8 inch rabbit wire for the cage and 8 two inch steel poles to attach the wire to it. He thought a minute and said I will need some top cross members like 4x4’s or something similar. I will ask Frank in a few days to make sure I don’t screw it up. He thought a while and said to himself I hope I am not over-stepping the boundaries of my friendship with my friendly neighbors. He brushed that thinking off and said they will tell me if I am. Continuing to read in the berry section he found red, black and yellow raspberries and saw that a 30 or so foot straight line with a 4 foot high chain link or even a 3 high strand stretch of wire would do for that. He also put that on his list to have Gerald do. He liked raspberries more than blackberries because of the extremely small seeds they had. He was sure the advertised vanilla tasting yellow raspberries would make an outstanding preserves.

After reading another story on how to survive in a post apocalyptic world he kept noticing the man had many note book binders he kept referring to for pertinent information. He wondered why the man did not read it off his computer until he thought about it for a while. The man had no electricity to run a computer. Well he would not have that problem. He made a note to buy four 500 gig hard drives and a new desktop computer and after he had downloaded all the information like the fox fire books and what was on the sites he visited he would put everything in a small faraday cage in the shelter and have it ready if it was ever needed. He really did not think he would need a faraday cage in the shelter because of the rebar in the top and sides of the concrete, but since he was not a nuclear physicist he would go along with the knowledge he had read about. Since it was winter and he had not much else to do he made a note to cull information from the internet to his computer at least 3 evenings a week.

The more he read the more he found out what he did not know. Another note to take a first aid class and order the anti-biotic from a place he did not need a prescription. He thought if his Mom had not told him to visit those sites he would still be walking around not so fat but dumb and happy. And if he had not fell into a few hundred thousand dollars he would be trying to build a log cabin over a rock shelter where he now stood. Well he had fallen into quite a bit of money and he was going to use and had used it prudently. There were so many things he did not yet know but he would stumble onwards as best he could to get ready for something bad he thought was coming.

The middle of December brought 5 days of 50 degree weather and he got the blueberry cage and the raspberry fences built. He also had filled his 3 doe permits. Gerald had brought 3 men with him after he had done the blueberry, raspberry projects, fenced in and gated the 2 future cow browsing fields. Clark did a little indoor canning practice with some frozen deer meat and he had the Ball Blue book wide open so he could follow every step of the process. After the 7 quart jars had cooled down and pinged he left them on the kitchen table upside down for 3 days with no rings on them to see if they would leak. They didn’t so he labeled and dated them before he put them in his well stocked pantry.

[Lbox88]

11.

January found him in first aid class with several good looking women, one sitting directly beside him. Her name was Miss Sally McCune and was she ever cute. Light brown short hair, old fashioned bangs with an outdoors healthy complexion and light brown eyes. Her hands had no jewelry and were work hardened. Of course Clark introduced himself. In less then 3 minutes he was head over heels in love. She had that country hillbilly twang that WV hill country girls had but she talked educated. He found out she had a liberal arts degree and could not find work and had moved back to the farm with her parents. She was taking this required class to get on the list to take care of disabled elderly people that the state or federal government funded. This was her plan to save some money till fall when she planned to enroll in nursing school. Clark just told her he lived on a farm and was looking for a job here in the city. He told her he was taking this class because it was free and would fill in some sorely lacking knowledge he had always wanted to learn. He decided to wait 2 more classes before he asked her out on a date but hinted very subtly he would like to see more of her. During the break he found out her dad was one of the trusted fellows that had worked for him, he did not know whether that was good or bad so he did not comment on it. He did find out she did not have a current boy friend. He wondered about that on his drive home because she should have male gorillas knocking down her door chasing her as pretty as she was. Hopefully he would find out more the next class.

He could not help himself so in the morning he called Frank and asked him if he knew her. He got an ear full. Yes she would be a jewel for whoever snagged her. Yes she was a good girl with good parents. Yes she was smart and thought out what she wanted. Yes she made a mistake on her college career path. Yes I know her and her parents, have known them for the past 20 years when they bought the old Parker farm. Her Dad worked for the long line telephone company as a repairman and has been laid off for 9 or 10 months. And finally yes you should make every attempt to marry that girl. Her last boy friend got drunk at a graduation fraternity party and fell out of a 4th story window while he was sprinkling yellow water on the people below. He fell straight down on his head like he was diving off a cliff into the ocean. He was a nice boy but I think he would have turned into a drunk. So work into your conversation that you don’t drink alcoholic beverages except maybe a glass of wine on New Years Eve. Is there anything else I can help you with? Clark said you have been very helpful and I do not know how to thank you. Frank said find a little more work for me and the out of work men this spring. Clark said he would plan on that.

Gerald stopped by Tuesday afternoon and dropped Clark’s mail off and there was a huge pile of it. He had forgotten all about the mail for a few weeks because he had been so busy researching things. He said Gerald I am in a quandary here on the 308 rifle and the 30-06 rifle. The M1A is a nice rifle but so expensive. I have found a 30-06 made by Saiga for 375 dollars. It will neatly fill the bill as a combat weapon because it is based on the AK-47. The gun shop in town said he had 8 on order and they would arrive in the next 2 weeks. I was at the Saiga forum and found a dealer that specially makes and guarantees 20 round magazines and if I buy 100 he will sell them to me for 20 bucks each. Wait a second let me finish telling you what I found out. The CMP has just received 4 million rounds of Greek 150 grain 30-06 brass jacketed reloadable bullets and I can get 10000 rounds for 39cents a round. AR15’s are plentiful right now as are the 20 round magazines. 223 caliber bullets are in stock everywhere and the price is coming down rapidly since the economy is going down hill and the dealers cannot sell bullets that are high priced. Gerald said it is really simple; buy the Saiga because I also know they make a 223 in what you call a combat weapon. Most of us around here all have bolt action 30-06’s and reload. I’ll say one more thing before we get back to weapons. All of us that I know and you know have spent a tour or 2 in Uncle Sam’s military. We just don’t talk about it much unless a few of us tell a funny tale or 2. I’ll give you an example - Miss Sally’s Dad got in a heapa trouble when he handcuffed his bunkmates ankle and hand to his bunk causing him to miss a formation. The handcuffed dude was not the one to get in trouble. Clark laughed at that. Anyways the Saiga’s have a good reputation and cost a whole lot less than a local AR-15. Give me the money and 5 of us will head into town and pre-pay for them Russian rifles. You order the ammunition and magazines and have them delivered to the feed store. We will get these five 30-06 Saigas and place an order for five Saiga 223’s. That’s exactly what Clark did.

At the 3rd first aid class Clark asked Miss Sally for a date. She thought about it for a while and said come see me Saturday at about 1pm we can go for a ride and talk some.
Miss Sally told her mom she had a day time date Saturday with a fellow named Clark. Her Dad said you have a what with who. She told him and he looked hard at her for a few seconds and said let me give you some advice. I know Mr. Clark and he is one of the finest men in this community and one more thing – Hang onto him if you can that young man is going to make it in this world. She asked him how he knew Clark and a small family meeting went on for about 30 minutes. After her Dad was through talking she just said I see.

Meanwhile Clark was going over the 5 Saiga 06 rifles with Gerald. Gerald asked if he had ordered the magazines because these two 4 round magazines that came with the rifles would not be much good in a fire fight. Clark said the last email he had from the man who made the magazines said they would be here in about 2 weeks as soon as he made the last 50 because he only had 50 on hand. He had no idea when CMP would send him the bullets. The correspondence he had with them said they would be sent soon. Gerald asked him about pistols and Clark told him he had decided on five 1911 45 pistols and five 357 4 or 6 inch barreled revolvers. Clark continued and said I want 4 magazines or clips for the 45’s and 2 speed loaders for the 357’s. My reasoning for the 357 is women can handle them if I buy or load a light 38 load. The 45 is a standard people killing gun known world wide. Gerald said why only 2 speed loads for the 357’s. Clark just said I read a story saying if you have to shoot 18 rounds from a revolver in a firefight the odds that you will be killed are about 99%. I want new revolvers the same brand and new 1911’s the same brand Clark told Gerald. Gerald said OK we will go next week and buy them or order them.

Saturday Clark went into Miss Sally’s house at 1pm Saturday to pick her up. Sally’s Dad answered the door and just said hello Mr. Clark she will be here in a minute or so, her and her Mom are doing something in the kitchen. She came out carrying a Kroger plastic bag and said let’s go. It was about 15 degrees F and she was dressed for the weather. She said to him after they were buckled in the truck – I want to see your house and then I want to go for a ride. My Dad said you have a nice cinder block home, barn and chicken coop. That is all the details he would give me even after I threatened him he still just said you have a nice home. Clark laughed and said I will give you the tour.

They talked about inconsequential things the 20 some miles to his home. He saw there was still smoke coming from the stainless steel wood stove pipe so it should be fairly warm inside. He had loaded the stove up about 10am and it was still cozy when he left.

She touched everything in every room and asked at least a hundred questions. She said the house is warm for such a small stove how much insulation is in the walls. He said 6 inches in the walls and 36 inches in the ceiling. That explains it she said because I have been in cinder block buildings with just a wood stove and the only warm place in the building was by the stove. She said why is that fan blowing cold air over the top of the exiting stove pipe? He said the house is just about air tight and the stove uses outside air or I would suffocate in here. The fan blows just enough filtered air in to open the exhaust port over there on the other side of the house creating a kind of overpressure in the house and eliminates inside odors. She said nice. How big is the house he said after they installed the 6 inches of insulation the place measures about 38 and a half by 54 and half feet. Do you have a basement? He thought about it for a few seconds and said yes but it is cold down there. Can I see it? He said OK wait here a second. He opened the wall and hollered for her to come in. The 800 pound steel vault door was open. He flipped the switch when he was half way down and the six 100 watt fluorescent screw in bulbs lit the solid white place up. She said well this is good I had hoped you were into preparedness. She walked around touching and reading the labels on each 5 gallon bucket on the steel shelves just nodding her head up and down. She said I don’t see any buckets of durum wheat berries or a hand crank spaghetti making machine for pasta. She next said you can can tomatoes to make spaghetti sauce and buy some tomato powder for a backup. He put it on his order list while he was thinking I bet she loves pasta. What’s in the safe? He said my guns, money and some trinkets. What kinds of guns do you have? He said the shooting kind. She laughed and said OK I will quit being nosey and I won’t tell anyone you have a bomb shelter.

12.

She said I brought some ham sandwiches and crunchy peanut butter and strawberry preserves sandwiches. Let’s have a snack and then go for a ride. My Dad and I cured that ham and my Mom and I made the strawberry preserves. The bread is my Mom’s secret recipe and I have not figured out how she gets it to taste like store bought bread. She told me when I got married she would show me. Clark had not got a word in for the last 30 minutes he was thinking this ham was as good or better then the Tavern hams he had eaten and the strawberry preserves were to die for even better then Smuckers he thought. She said I want to see the barn and chicken coop before we go for a ride. Walking to the barn she looked back at the house and said I bet those solar panels cost a big pretty penny. He said yes they did. Is this the power room? Clark opened the place up and she walked around touching the generators. She said this is really nice I heard Mr. Thomas talk about these kinds of machine generators when I was about 15 and a tom-boy. He was everybody’s farm mechanic especially generators, he died 2 years ago but his boy carried on with his little business. I bet he was the one who installed these. Clark said yes he was the one. She said he is 12 years older then me or I would have chased after him because he is cute as a button.

She said somebody knew what they were doing when they designed this chicken coop. He said yes 7 or 8 people who worked here all had an input. Walking through the barn she said I guess the 7 or 8 people had an input here also because it is perfect and covers all the shortcomings of every barn I have been in around here.

They went for a ride around his property and she commented on everything especially the soon to be orchard. She loved the blueberry cage and said I have never eaten a yellow raspberry but I will this coming fall or next summer. One thing I did not see she said. What is that Clark said? She said an asparagus bed. She said about 10 feet on the other side of the blueberry cage you can make a 8 foot wide and 24 or 32 foot long one and mark it with landscape timber. He wrote that down in his things to do notebook. She said plant 3 different kinds of asparagus and in about 3 years you will have asparagus for the rest of your life. Where are you going to put the greenhouse? He said Frank and I have designed one 16 X24 with a back wall of black painted cinderblock, 2 foot thick gravel floor with the top 3 or 4 inches dark gravel and roof sloping from 12 feet in the front down to 8 feet onto the black painted cinderblock back wall. It will be oriented the same way my house is to get the east west sun and it is going to be right off to the front of the house about 30 yards out. How you going to heat it during these zero degree nights up here in the mountains? Frank thinks a small coal stove burning a few chunks of coal each evening with some small DC circulating fans and the day time sun heated thermal mass with the coal burning stove will hopefully keep the interior in the upper 60’s at night.

She said OK I have talked enough when we get to the highway I want you to tell me all about yourself and I will not say a word. She was true to her word; she said nothing as Clark gave a short synopsis of his life from his teen years onward.

When they got to her house she said come pick me up tomorrow at 11am and we will do something different. Clark just said OK. He went home in a daze. This girl was just what he was looking for in life and he hoped she felt the same way. He had never met such a bubbly person that knew a little bit about everything. Time would tell if they were compatible.

The next day she went through his pantry and cooked quick cook canned ham flavored pintos and corn bread. She made one of those quick microwave chocolate cakes in a cup and drizzled some lemon flavored icing on it. Clark liked it because it was totally different from anything he had ever eaten. Even if it had been nasty he would have said it tasted something like a 5 star chef had made. They talked about the first aid class and their future goals and how they were bonding. Lots of talk about the coming summer and his plans; after he had taken her home late that evening he was 100% positive they were compatible.

Miss Sally told her Mom that night that she thought she would hang onto this Clark fellow. Not because he had a nice house but because she really liked him and they had a bunch of things in common.

From that day on they saw each other at least 4 times a week. She told him when it warmed up she could visit him on her Vespa motor scooter which got more then 90 mpg. That got him to thinking about whether he should own a small bike to travel around and save a bunch of gas money. He called Thomas the small engine repair man and talked to him. Thomas told him I have just what you are looking for. He had two 175cc Honda bikes that he had overhauled and the family he had fixed them for could not pay for his work so they told him to keep them. One had street tires and one had knobby off road tires. He said both of them were street legal road bikes but he said he could stiffen the suspension up on the street tired one and make it a good paved road riding bike. Thomas said he could have the pair for 1800 dollars. And he would guarantee his work. Clark said fine I will pick them up in a few days. Thomas said Mr. Clark you have to get a WV motorcycle license if you intend to drive either of them on the public roadways. Clark said he would take care of that.

Clark called the department of motor vehicles the next morning and was told he would have to take a safety class that was not free and demonstrate to a WV Dept of Driving test evaluator he could handle the bike. He was given a number to check on the next available class. After calling that number he was told the next class would be held in 25 days and would cost 53 dollars. He put his name on the list and was given the address to send either a certified check or a money order to insure a spot in the class.

After the first aid class Miss Sally got a 12 hour a day job 4 days a week taking care of an elderly lady. She said the pay was 9.25 an hour but it was better then nothing. She told him she would give a little to her parents and save the rest.

Clark had been to the orchard farm and worked like a dog pruning trees for 3 days under the tutelage of the farmer. But he now had a good idea on what to do about pruning fruit trees.

Late march the ground thawed and the 36 trees he had bought from the orchard farm arrived. Gerald and his boys planted them and wrapped the deer guard plastic around each tree. That was an all day job. He had carefully watched the entire operation and now knew how to plant the 4 trees he had paid for at a local tree nursery. He had bought 2 Bartlett pear and 2 Elberta Peaches and on Gerald and the orchard farmer’s recommendation 2 mulberry trees. Clark was told the birds would eat the mulberries before decimating the cherries giving him time to pick several bushels of cherries before the birds turned their attention on the in the future 70 or 80 foot tall cherry trees. The trees from Gerald’s friend’s orchard were all about 8 feet tall and were marked with a long lasting loose permanently impregnated plastic card hooked to a very large 36 inch around plastic coated steel wire. The card gave information on what type of tree it was and whether it was an early, mid, or a late season type, when it should ripen and its uses. Clark thought that was nice since he was only 35 or so miles from the orchard and they were both at the same height above sea level they should ripen when the card said. There were 30 apple and 6 cherry trees. The man said these were all cold hardy trees and this was the 4th generation of this stock and all the weak lines had been bred out years ago. Clark knew the 1200 dollars he had paid for the 8 foot trees was about 8 times less than he would have paid if he had ordered from a national nursery. Gerald said did ya get the 2 types of oil. Gerald had been to the meeting with the orchard farmer and knew about the oils. They were tree trunk oil and Neem oil and were natural bug and germ repellants. Clark said yes they are in the pole barn, we can move them to the barn whenever because they are not in the way. The orchard man had said they had an indefinite shelf life so Clark had bought a 20 or so year supply which also was a reasonable price.

He checked his finances and found he had 20,000 in the safe for any odd jobs that may crop up in the next year and purchase animals, seed and feed. He estimated he had spent 350.000 dollars. He would have to check his bank account to get a total figure he had left. He had spent money on precious metals, guns and ammunition. He could count the precious metals as actual money on hand when he checked his account balances. He should have close to 400,000 dollars counting the precious metals. It was time to get a job and start living off his salary. He would do the garden but hold off on the animals till fall and see how things were working out. Again something good could happen sooner then later between him and Miss Sally.

He knew he had forgotten something because the next afternoon Miss Sally asked him why he did not have a CB radio or shortwave in his auto or house. If he did they could talk to each other when she was home because her Dad had a ham set up. Her Dad had let his telephone go when he got laid off. She said turn your computer on. She went directly to a site called ham outlet. She was rubbing her hands together when she asked him if he had around 2500 dollars to spend. He said yes. She spent 10 minutes punching add to cart, she stopped and went outside and said this is my weak part on Ham radio. We need to talk to she snapped her fingers and said Ant Man. We have to go to my house. No we don’t. Give me your cell phone. She got into a long technical discussion with someone about wave lengths and terms Clark was not familiar with because the ham and electronic books still lay unopened on his desk. She said let me see your wiring book. She said this is good you have an RG8U cable connection here and one in the shelter. OK before we buy any radios let’s get George and a few men to put up a 200 and some foot long receiving/transmitting Balum wire antenna out of sight behind the barn. It says here there is a 2 inch schedule 40 pipe that only has three 10 gauge electrical wires in it. We can snake the co ax cable through that pipe into the generator shed and hook it into the house Co Ax cable. After she finished ordering the antenna and components she said this antenna covers 160 down to 2 meter bands. He gave her a blank look. When you take me home tonight I will give you the book, ham radio for dummies and the book to test for your basic ham license. You can take the test in a few weeks in the city and hopefully by then we will have ordered your radios. He said radios with a questioning look. Yep she said when it is some one else’s money order 2. She batted her eyelashes at him, flashed a seductive smile and said on the way home I will try to explain the two is one and one is none concept.

About 4 weeks later he had passed the ham test and was the proud owner of two 1100 dollar ICOM 7000 base station radios, an antenna tuner, some parts he did not yet know what they were for and a 233 foot long world wide receiving and broadcasting antenna. He also had a 2 meter hand held radio and a CB with single sideband installed in his truck. One more ham test to take he thought. She just told him when you drive the car carry the hand held 2 meter radio with you. There are solar powered repeaters everywhere out here and at least 6 in the city.

[Lbox88]

13.

2 weeks later she started staying at his house in the spare bedroom on her 3 days off which was M, T and W. She said she wanted to play with the radio and she did way up into the night talking to people all over the world. The next day she said I finally got to talk to those people in China I could always hear them but Dad’s radio system did not have the antenna or the oomph to reach them. He noticed she always used a quick disconnect to remove the radio from the antenna coaxial cable and always unplugged it. The only thing he could think of that he had read about was EMP or a lightening strike. He never did ask her why she did it but later on was glad both radios were unplugged and disconnected from the antenna system.

He still had not found a job and was living off the small amount of interest the bank was paying him on his savings account. He was very frugal and only spent money on items he really liked; oranges were a prime example of that. If he used something from his fully stocked pantry he would replace it on one of his infrequent trips to town. He was dying to test out some of the firearms but had not got around to it. The 175cc street tired Honda bike was used almost all the time now and they would ride their motor bikes everywhere together.

The plants he had ordered finally came in and he thought he had ordered too many when he had to plant all of them by himself. The hay and the clover that was planted last fall were growing rapidly in the 2 cow plots. On one of his trips around the fence he noticed about 99% of the small blackberry plants had leaves on them. He called Thomas the small engine repairman and asked him if it would be OK to use the Gravely to cut the entire farm before the weeds took over again. Thomas said it will be fine just check the oil every 4 or 5 hours. He said it should not use any oil since the engine is only 2 years old. Clark knew there were no tree stubs or surface rocks on the farm due to the scraping and leveling by 2 bull dozers . The men had made sure the entire farm was policed up before they quit their work. 3 days later he finished the job; the Gravely lawn mower had not used a drop of oil and he had not hit a rock or tree stub to dull the sharp blades and he had enjoyed the riding on the mower.

The next Monday when Sally was off she asked Clark if he was going to get a cow or two; he said not this year why are you asking. Dad asked me if he could bring a few of his cows over to eat up that clover and hay because it will just die out if something does not eat it and that would be a big waste. He also said he would give you a hind quarter of one of those steers he is going to butcher this fall. This would also give you a chance to check your cow tank watering system and see if the electric fence works. He said sure I have the money to plow and reseed those plots this fall. I will tell him tomorrow when we ride over to the house. He said who is going to milk the cows. She hit him on the arm and said he is bringing 2 steers and before you ask they will be OK out there under the pole shelters the men built. He wants to rotate them every 3 days and he will bring some extra feed for them since you haven’t bought any yet. To keep him from wasting any gas driving here and back I told him we would rotate and feed them. You need to learn how to do this stuff anyways. He said OK. He assumed she was going to stay here permanently and that made him happy. They had settled into an idyllic lifestyle of an old married couple. He said to himself I will give her the engagement ring Monday and ask her to marry me.

The following Monday she jumped up and down saying yes. She said I thought you were going to wait till we were 60 before you would ask. If you had not asked me by the first of June I was going to ask you. He invisibly glowed all over inside and out. She said is the 1st of May OK. He said why I thought we would do it tomorrow. She just looked at him. He said yes the 1st is a great day to give up my freedom to a beautiful sparkly girl. She said can I look in the safe now. He lay back on the couch and laughed for 2 minutes. He said you just wanted to marry me to see what was in that safe. She laughed and said yep.

The big plan was to get married at the small church they sometimes attended, but had not been there since she started working on Sunday. They were both penny pinchers and decided a dinner at IHop and a ride down to where his old house was would do for a honeymoon until the economy turned around which he had a feeling never would.

At the wedding shower he did not expect much from these people who had not worked in over a year. They got 3 pigs of choice from 3 different farms, 2 not yet not bred milk cows, 12 fryers, 12 egg layers, 2 roosters, her mothers secret recipe on how to make store bought bread, one hand made milking stool, 4 nice gray floor porch color painted hardwood hand made stools for the outside butcher table, many home made dolls, a voucher for 8 free hours of mechanic work, a dump truck load of compost for next years garden, enough clover and hay seed to do 2 years cow plots, a letter of credit for 100 dollars at the feed store and numerous odds and ends. Miss Sally was proud of every item because she knew how tough times were. Most of the items and animals could be picked up whenever Sally or Clark called for them.

They drove to where Clark had lived before and Clark’s jaw dropped open. His old house had all the windows knocked out, trash was everywhere, drunks and gang members were on every corner in that section of town. Whenever he saw a police car there were 4 patrolmen in it. Sally said I recommend you get us out of this area quickly. As they drove through his old town he noticed most of the businesses were boarded up and a previous clean all American Town looked like a crumbling Detroit City. They headed home. She looked over at Clark and could not define the look on his face. About half way home he said it is happening way faster than I thought it would. We have to stock up and get ready for really bad things. After looking at that town she agreed with him 100%. He told her what the real estate agent had said about the new owners making a profit on his old house. She said the new owners were dead wrong on that. She also said you are not going to get out of your commitment to feed me at IHop. He almost wrecked the small car he laughed so much. He said I needed that laugh and yes we will eat until it comes out of your nose. She said yuck that even sounds bad.

3 weeks later she said you don’t have enough spices in those 5 pound jars Kroger’s sales. He said make a list. He saw she had punched into the spread sheet everything in the shelter. You need another freezer down there and a bigger used one in the barn. Put it on the list. Since we are buying freezers go to that web site ONuts and order me 80 pounds of unsalted hulled sunflower and pumpkin seeds. He had his laptop out and was looking for the name of the pumpkins that grew hulless seeds. He found it and wrote it on the list. Put that biodiesel kit and a ton of the supplies on the list. How much are we going to spend? He said about 60 to 80,000. I don’t think our money will be good for much longer. Gold and silver are creeping up a few dollars every day and that tells me the big buyers are slowly and slyly increasing their personal home portfolio. He called APMEX and ordered a 1000 dollar face bag of junk silver quarters and a 1000 dollar face bag of mercury dimes. Use pay pal when you can and if you can’t use the bank debit master card. She said what about bullets and he replied not unless you can shoot 50000 rounds up. Reloading powder? I have 50 pounds for the rifles and 20 pounds for the pistols; how about bullets for the reloads - No I have enough bullets and primers to completely reload all our bullets 3 times.

Call Gerald and ask if he knows where I can buy a really good cheap small bull dozer. Put on list good used 4 cylinder diesel small car or pickup for us. After we get everything on our list you can tell your Dad, Frank and Gerald what we are doing. She said that is not necessary. He said why not? They all have 12X24 foot root cellar shelters that are packed full of supplies. They don’t have the fancy big filters you have but they have tripled up Hepa furnace filters, propane fuel and kerosene light. Everyone out here is a prepper and has been for years. You could have knocked Clark over with a feather. Yes she said everyone that worked for you knew what you were doing but they are pretty closed mouth when it comes to things like that. He said you mean they let me think I was doing something nobody else in the world knew about. She giggled. He said well good for them. In a minute they both started laughing.

14.

3 weeks later they had done all they could and had everything on their list. He noticed on the nightly news that the decay of the large American cities was starting to creep into the main stream news. He said let’s go make two 9000 dollar withdrawals today and 2 tomorrow. She said if they let us. He said yes that is a point. The next day they could only with draw 4000 dollars separately. He said well if we lose it we just lose it I am not
going into the bank robbing business. They were extremely well off as far as the rest of America went.

Clark and Sally went to the county personal property tax division. He explained to the supervisor he had the money now and would like to pay for 3 years. If his crops failed he would be broke and in a pile of trouble. She said why yes you can pay for 5 years if you want. He counted out 4250 dollars and got a receipt. He said I bet you they raise the taxes and send us a bill for the remainder. She said I can believe that. He said our weak link is the road and the chain link gate. The trees outside around the property have grown up so much a person would need a bulldozer to get in from any other direction. She said why don’t you do what the coal mines around here do when they want to keep vehicle traffic out. He said what is it they do? She said load up the cutting torch, 2 come a longs, some bumper jacks and hook the tow along trailer to the truck.

They drove to a long abandoned coal mine and saw the 6 inch iron pipe gates were in the open position and were rusted up pretty much. She said cut the top hinge off and we will see if we can lift it off the bottom. The gate must have weighed 400 pounds. He had to use the bumper jack to get it off the bottom hinge. She had unhooked the tow a long and positioned it so one end of the gate would fall onto it. The gate fell pretty straight into the bed. She hooked the come a long to the iron frame at the back of the bed and said come on Hercules jack it on up in here. They liked to have never got the 2nd gate on top of the 1st one but they did. She said home James. He chuckled and headed home. We need a big padlock to go up in this covered over section. He looked and saw the only thing visible after the gate was locked was the pad lock key hole. We need some help now. We need two 6 inch pipes about 6 or so feet long in some cemented holes and then we need to weld a top hinge on after we get the gates up on the bottom hinges that you have to go back and torch off. We also need to stop at Lowe’s and get a couple of wire brushes and a couple of gallons of yellow paint to clean our brand new gate up. You can drive our back hoe down here after we get the gate up and pile up some dirt about 4 feet high all the way to those big trees about 8 feet on each side of the gate. Then you have to put a 3 foot deep trench in front of it to keep those big tired 4 wheel drive trucks from driving up across the pile of dirt. He thought back to where they had taken the gate down and that is exactly how it was there. She said we could have probably found some 6 or 8 inch pipe lying around those old abandoned mines but they went ahead and paid the 160 dollars for two 8 foot pieces with a top cap at the pipe company. Gerald and his boys used the auger to dig the holes 2 feet out from the posts for the chain link gate, gathered several buckets of gravel from the creek and cemented them in the 4 foot deep holes in the ground. Gerald said he would be back in about 3 days to make sure the cement had set up before they hung the gates.

Gerald went with Clark to cut the bottom 2 hinges off the mine gate poles. Clark had cut the top ones too short to use again. Gerald took those 2 somewhere and had somebody make 2 more top hinges to hang the gates. 4 days later Clark had the trenches dug and the dirt piled up. While he was doing that Miss Sally had been wire brushing the rust off the gates; that was a 2 day job. She said gimme that paint brush. He stopped a minute and said I read somewhere you were supposed to put some type of primer on the iron before painting it so the top coat would stick and last longer. She said sometimes my husband has a eureka idea. OK who is going to take the putt putt and drive to Lowe’s? Both of them stood looking at the trees before he said I will go. 2 hours later he returned on his motor bike with a gallon can that just said yellow base iron coat. While he was gone Sally had gotten some rags and a gallon of creek water and thoroughly wiped clean every spot on the hanging gates. 2 days later they both patted themselves on the back after painting the gates for a well done job.

Thomas called and said I found you a 90 some model 4 cylinder short bed standard transmission diesel pick-up. It’s in pretty good shape but the young boy blew the engine up I think he put gasoline in the tank. I can fix everything on the truck for about 700 or so but I recommend you run down to Advance Auto and buy that factory rebuilt 4 cylinder diesel engine they got out front on display. I can get it in the engine compartment and I double checked that year engine will bolt up to the transmission. I think they got it marked down to 2500 dollars and that is a steal. Clark asked how much for the truck. I got it for 800 because the old man will never be able to afford to fix it. And it was just taking up room in his barn/garage. Thomas did a little used car salesmanship. He said you will never be able to buy an almost new diesel truck for 4 grand plus some labor charges again. Clark said OK I am on my way to Advance Auto to buy me an engine. Clark dropped the engine off and paid him half for the truck and the work he was going to do. Thomas said come back in about 6 weeks. I have to order some of these brake springs and broken cables so it will be a while. I hate to say this but I found out you will need 2 front rotors and they cost about 60 bucks each. I didn’t see it till I got the wheels off. Clark remembered back to his brake job and asked can they be turned (milled back to where the worn scratches are smooth again so the brake pads when pushed against them will stop the automobile). Thomas walked over and handed one to Clark and it looked and felt like some one with giant steel diamond tipped fingernails had scratched them deeply in a circle. He just said I don’t figure they can be turned. He told Sally about it and said I guess we will sell the car and try to get some of our diesel purchase truck money back. She said the 4 cylinder gasoline car should sell easy in the city. The price of regular gasoline is 4.79 a gallon today at the discount gas station.


15.

It was late August and things were approaching critical mass in the cities. Food stamp cards were late being credited, Social Security deposits or checks were late, most doctors after the health care bill had passed had stopped seeing patients using Medicare and Medicaid, only the emergency rooms were seeing patients and the wait sometimes was 14 or 15 hours People were actually dying in the wait rooms. Violence loomed everywhere, the ER nurses just up and quit because of the violent threats they were getting. The doctors had to have an armed guard nearby when the patient was told there is no medicine or drugs left in the hospital pharmacy.

Shoplifters were storming the food stores and at the big box stores there was not enough security to stop the brazen theft. One WalMart used armed guards to remove everyone from the store and loaded all the merchandise onto waiting semi’s. When the merchandise was gone the building power was turned off and everyone loaded into the back of a semi and rode off.

War talk was on the headlines, the only way the US could hold the country together was to have a big war. The US was not the only country about to implode, Canada, Mexico most of the European bloc was just a burning short fuse away.

Russia had tried to clamp down on the masses but the soldiers walked off the job. Massive rebellions were going on in China and the Korea’s. The 3rd world country populations that depended on those floundering super power countries were quickly starving to death. The Africans had fled the cities and tried to live off the wild but they found out the local natives would not condone having all their wildlife stripped away and blood baths occurred mostly eliminating the city people.

It was hard to tell when the switch was turned on most people thought it was Hugo Chavez when he nuked Florida, others thought it was the Muslims that went on massive murdering Jihad sprees throughout the US. It made no difference; nuclear weapons were flying across oceans aimed at anyone who the attacker thought had wronged them. China and Russia targeted the US mid west, western cities, DC and each other. Iran, India and insane Chavez targeted the rest of the US eastern cities. While the nuclear weapons were flying, small teams of Muslims that had previously illegally entered the US released some type of active virus that no one but the making virologist knew what it was. This virus was extremely lethal and the US was not the only country that was targeted with this virulent strain. It made no difference because there was no vaccine for it. It was airborne and had a life of 90 plus days it also self replicated rapidly in human cells and if it was ejected from the body during a sneeze or a cough the newly replicated virus floated up and away. Animals were somewhat immune for about 90 days until the animal body auto immune system destroyed the virus but they also carried it wherever they went causing a long chain of lethal infections.

Things were not looking good for the US or the world. Radiation levels were so high in certain places it penetrated the ground for 8 feet. The air burst nuclear weapons electro magnetic pulse that flashed gamma rays out had destroyed every thing attached to a long line, if a computer chip was not extremely well protected in good faraday cages or many feet underground it ceased to function. The North American power grid had been totally destroyed. Some standing buildings had the imprint of humans permanently nuclear air burst blast flashed into the brick grain. Millions of people who had not been killed instantly died in a few minutes, hours or days later. This virus was not harmed by nuclear radiation it was susceptible to UV radiation if it was not shielded from it.

Clark heard Miss Sally screaming but it was not a scream it was her yelling at him to turn the automatic feeders on in the barn, take the chickens to the barn cage and secure the doors. She had been talking to her Mom on the shortwave when the radio alarm loud speaker announced to everyone listening to take shelter that nuclear tipped missiles were heading towards the US. The announcer said you have 45 minutes. She told him to lock the yellow gate and get back as fast as humanly possible and put the automobiles and cycles under the pole barn. She was taking the food from the fridge and pantry to the shelter.

He had a good idea of what had happened but he was working in the blind. He came back and pulled the quick long line electrical and cable disconnects from the cameras mounted on the wind turbine doubled back to the barn and checked to make sure the pigs feed and water system was on. The pig waste system was simple the surrounding concrete was sloped down to a grate and the floor was periodically sprayed washing the waste into the grate where it flowed out with the cow manure. He hoped the manure remover for the 2 pregnant cows in the cow bins worked as advertised. The 26 chickens were on their own but cracked corn mixed with chicken feed would periodically be dumped onto the floor of the barn corner where they were caged from the automatic feed system. He opened the generator room door and took a quick look everything appeared in order. Running into the house he locked the doors. He noticed everything was unplugged and the ICOM 7000 radio was missing as was his hand carry 2 meter radio, laptop and desktop computer. He shut the steel window shutters checked everything out and pulled the wall closed behind him before he secured the vault door. The last thing he did and really did not want to do in the shelter was pull the main breaker opening all the long line electrical wiring leading to the batteries except for the buried wires that ran everything in the shelter. The instructions said to wait 6 to 24 hours after a nuclear attack before reengaging the breaker. This supposedly eliminated any chance of EMP travelling along the long lines damaging anything connected to any machinery. She had turned a battery radio on and had it plugged into the small outdoor antenna that Frank had Gerald install under the eave. The announcer was screaming that over 150 nuclear multiple tipped war head missiles would impact in less then 2 minutes all across the USA.

Clark had completed everything in that 35 minutes and had just sat down in the shelter when he heard the impact time was 2 minutes. Clark said nothing - this is what he had prepared for. Miss Sally said do you think my parents will be OK. He said I don’t see why not we are not near any targeted city and all we should get is some light fallout several hours from now. Boy was he ever wrong. At 20 seconds before impact she disconnected the radio from the antenna.

10 minutes later the ground moved ever so slightly. He just said one of those missiles must have been way off target. He plugged in the outside and inside radiation meters. She was sitting at the table nervously tapping her finger against it. The meter showed no change. 2 hours later the meter bounced and started moving upward. It only stopped when it reached the top. He looked at the instructions and twisted a dial the meter fell about halfway and started back up again. He had a worried look on his face. He just said this is not right. He looked at the documentation inside the box and it showed it had been calibrated 11 months ago. The meter stopped just before it topped out again. The meter was an older model and read the radiation in roentgens. What the machine said was beyond his scope of comprehension. He knew that 4 or 500 roentgens would kill a person in a few hours or days. His exterior meter read 2000 R. Not to much I can do about that he thought just have to wait till it comes down. He did not want to see how long he would have to shelter in according to that 7/10 rule he had read about and he really did not want to look at it and get all upset because he figured it would be a really long, long time before he could set foot on good old outside terra firma again. 18 hours later he closed the master breaker switch hoping that everything would be hooked back up. He checked all the circuits and found the outside fuel pumps switch which had been disconnected when the master breaker was switched to the off position was in the on position. He turned off the outside fuel pump switch. He thought now why did I do that the only person that could walk around out there in that radiation safely is the red caped dude that crashed onto earth from the Planet Krypton. He chuckled at that thought.

The End Part 1

[Lbox88]

Clark Story #16A – Part 2 - The Liberal Arts Clark
________________________________________
Please read part 1 first

1.

A week later the exterior radiation was down to a balmy 100 roentgens. And it was just as he thought; he would be in this shelter for a year or more. He turned the radiation meter off and would turn it on once a month. There was nothing on the shortwave but static. He would also turn it on once a month, no sense in using electricity. The 6/12 slope of the house, barn and generator roof would keep any ash or snow from accumulating on the solar panels so he would have solar power if the sun could get through the overcast. He would not know for several months that the Yellowstone super volcano had been targeted by a 1 kiloton bunker buster bomb from a Russian submarine. It worked and caused a massive eruption. The same was done in Alaska to the Wrangell, Spurr and Redoubt volcanoes. There were 2 violent eruptions within 100 miles of Anchorage. The eruptions caused seismic activity resulting in Richter scale 9 rated earth quakes in several locations causing great damage to coastal cities including Anchorage, Fairbanks, southwest on the peninsula to Cold Bay and southeast on the mainland to White Horse in the Yukon Territory. The ash from these eruptions would darken the world for at least a year causing more ecological damage.

A month later he turned the exterior radiation meter on and it was 30 R. He said to himself Ah it is rapidly dropping. He and sally played many board games and watched a movie every day. They tried many different recipes using the long term food supplies using recipes he had culled from the preparedness sites. Some of them were excellent. Romance was rampant.

The 3rd month the fluorescent lights dimmed considerably. He said I guess it is time for a trip to the generator room for a fuel filter change. The outside reading was 5 R. The specially made mechanics creeper was put together and he put on his lead impregnated Tyvek suit with a bottle of oxygen giving him 60 minutes of breathing time. He mistakenly thought he would not need oxygen in the generator room. Sliding the 3 pound hammer from the breaker bar that was attached to the 1 inch solid steel that sandwiched a ½ inch thick lead manhole cover he wrapped sharply in the direction indicated on the break open bar. A sharp hit with the hammer broke the bead that was holding the 3 inches of light weight concrete on top of the steel lead cover and a 1/8th turn more unlocked it. He pushed the heavy cement covered lid upwards and heard the small cardboard boxes that had been placed over the lid hit the floor. Reaching on his belt he pulled the portable radiation meter out and turned it on. The needle showed just a little bit more then a half R inside the generator room. He grabbed a filter off the shelf and quickly changed the large fuel filter Thomas had placed in front of the small one that came with the Lister engine. He looked around and saw the intake fan was not spinning and the exit exhaust door had dropped down. Uh Oh it looks like the air filter is clogged. Hurriedly he slid a new one in and pushed the old one out where it fell to the ground in a foot of ash. He did not yet know there was ash outside. The Lister engine quickly kicked back on as oxygen allowed combustion and the exhaust door slowly rose back up as fresh filtered air came in.

He put the lid back over the hole and barely locked it down with a 16th of a turn which created an air tight seal. He knew there were no humans running around in that outside environment and he again humorously thought of the man of steel in the mostly blue suit with the red cape. Might as well go on to the barn; he called Sally on the FRS he knew she was standing by the partially opened shelter door and the signal would reach her radio. He told her he was going to the barn and there was no detectable radiation in the tunnel system. Since there was fresh air in the tunnel from the over pressure from the shelter he would not need his oxygen until he opened the steel barn lid. Pulling himself along on the hand holds the installers had so conveniently installed for just this purpose he quickly rolled to the barn entrance.

2.

The barn had about 3/4 R of radiation in it. The chickens in the 20 X 20 caged area that had 50 laying boxes in it looked sickly and 3 pigs were dead. The cows were chewing their cud and looked reasonably healthy with just a few open sores on their backs which he washed off and put some bag balm on the sores. He put the small pigs in heavy duty trash bags and slid them through the one way exit door at the side of the barn. That is when he noticed the ash he had to push the pigs outside through. He quickly sprayed the chicken manure into the drain and since it was warm he sprayed them off and let them feed on the fresh cracked corn he had sprinkled on a sprayed off cleaned section of floor. He sprayed the 6 feet wide ¾ inch thick rubber mine belt off that the cows stood on and then sprayed the 4 inch tall rubber plate on the electric powered cow manure remover and the grate it fell through before it was washed out into a drainage pit. He rinsed himself off on a clean washed off floor spot by the tunnel lid. The hose faucet was by the tunnel entrance and he turned it off. Putting the lid back on he sealed the barn lid. He had no idea why he locked it.

The barn was as technologically new as the input from 7 or 8 long time farmers could make it and Frank added the features that would make it as state of the art as possible. There was a cow spray bay that was used every 2 or 3 weeks to clean and debug (chiggers and ticks) the cows with Permethrin mixed in the spray water. The hen boxes, (A removable plastic bowl with rubberized strips making them look like Easter egg baskets had a hole in the bottom), were designed to either deposit the eggs in a padded drop box for easy pick up or drop the eggs on the concrete to break for the chickens to feed on. Since the barn was insect proof and air tight except for the 6 inch wide 4 inch thick Hepa filter around the soffit a light Permethrin spray could be misted over the entire barn including the hay every 3 days for 9 days to kill any emerging flies or newly hatching bugs. There was diatomaceous earth in the feed that took care of internal parasites. Sally would take a sock and dust the 2 cows every 2 or three weeks after they were walked through the spray room and had dried off. She swore it took care of ticks and chiggers they picked up in the tall grass. The manure removal system was first class and all the farmers would like to have had one. The idea to place the 5/8 inch thick rubber mine belt in each cow bay came from one farmer that said it eliminated any hoof problems because to the cow it would be like standing on natural earth that always had a little give. The electronics that controlled everything in the barn was in a large faraday cage. The electricity it took to run the cow manure remover came from a direct plug into the generator and the generator had to be running for it to work because of the large electrical current needed to run the machinery and it was on a separate circuit from the rest of the low current electrical usage items in the barn. The interior and exterior of the cinder block barn had been sprayed with a clear sealant that contained lead for a small amount of radiation protection. The chicken coop, generator room and Clark’s house had also been sprayed with the clear lead sealant. The sealant soaked into the pores of the cinderblocks and would never flake off.

He called Sally on the FRS radio and told her to close the shelter door until he had decontaminated himself. He stopped at the hatchway by the generator room and stood up. He had brought 2 spray bottles of half strength bleach with him and he first sprayed the mechanics creeper and then did himself from the top of his hood cover downwards to the bottom of his shoes. He then sprayed one hand and the bleach bottle and changed hands and did the other bleach bottle and the other hand. He had about 5 minutes of air left. He thought that was plenty of time for him to drip dry. The positive air pressure coming from the shelter eliminated any air borne virus from entering it.

Clark had no idea how lucky he was. The falling ash had clogged the generator room Hepa filter up and the virus could not get into the room where he had turned his oxygen off for a short while until he could hardly breathe. Virus would eventually come through the new Hepa filter and die off in the next month. There was active virus in the barn and it had fallen onto his suit and was on his shoes. The decontamination and the 3 or 4 minute wait to air dry off eliminated any virus before he went back to the shelter. The shelters 24 inch UV tube lights had killed any virus that made it through the 60 feet long pipe with 2 U bends to the air intake Hepa filters. The 60 feet long 8 inch curved pipe under the ground was designed by the architect with input from radiation specialists. The theory was heavy outside contaminated radioactive air particles would slowly be drawn through the pipe where most of the contaminated particles would hopefully fall out to the bottom of the pipe before reaching the shelter removable Hepa filter. Even the architect knew that the more distance you put between you and radiation the better off you were. The virus had a life span of 90 days while it was in an animal and if it was passed on to another animal it still had the original 90 day life span before it died off. An animal could not be re infected once the virus was in its system. Some how anti bodies in animals destroyed that particular strain of virus. The Clark luck was holding.

He told her what he had done and said he would go back in 45 days to check on the barn animals again. She sprayed the suit again and hung it by the exit tunnel door. The creeper was left in the tunnel.

They talked about the ash that he had to push the pigs through. She asked why it had not gotten into the barn. Clark said the barn is an almost air tight structure and when Frank changed the architects design a little he put a 2 X 6 inch strip of Hepa filter around the top of the soffit under the eaves. So I imagine the filter is keeping the ash out. That reminds me I need to go up upstairs to our house and clean our filter. She said are you going to decontaminate yourself before you come back. He said you know I think I will just leave the house alone for several more months. Who knows what kind of virus or germs the enemy has turned loose on our country - Another lucky move by Clark.

Clark waited 60 days before he made another trip to the generator room and the barn. He changed the filter in the generator room and cleaned the barn animals up and sprayed the floor again. The sores on the cows were healed up and the chickens were healthy again. He assumed the chickens were healthy because of the regular chicken feed containing some diatomaceous earth he had added to it was being dropped onto the floor from the automatic feeder with the cracked corn and chicken feed for them to eat.

3.

Clark did not know that 5 of the farm workers had incorporated the same type of Hepa and UV light system he had used. Frank had helped the men do this by designing it for each root cellar shelter and the men had just bought the 20 dollar UV lights, DC fans and 30 or so feet of schedule 40 eight inch pipe with the money they made working for Clark. Their system was a little different from Clark’s in that when their filter needed changed they reversed the DC fan and pushed a new home made round 8 inch Hepa filter up to replace the one that had been pushed out. By reversing the fan no virus or radiation had entered their shelters and the UV light and DC fan which ran off deep cycle trolling batteries worked fine. The generators they had in the shelters that exhausted outside through a flap top pipe were only turned on for a couple of hours once or twice a week to recharge the batteries that ran the DC equipment and to pump in well water. These men had bought radiation detectors when they were working and making good money and their root cellar shelters were stocked well enough to make any Amish family smile. Their generators had been plumbed into their ¾ or full 500 gallon diesel tanks and a small propane stove was used for cooking and heating wash water. 3 of them had flush toilets and 2 had deep composting toilets. The 2 who had composting toilets had to use a small DC boat bilge pump to pump the waste water out through an over head drain pipe. That idea came from Frank.

Clark and Sally had a small argument. She wanted a baby and Clark said not yet because we don’t have enough supplies to take care of one. He said as soon as the radiation goes down to ¼ or ½ R you can plan on it. The rains that swept through the mountains kept Clark’s solar panels clean but there was not enough sunlight for the solar panels to generate much power. The wind turbine and the Lister generator kept Clark’s battery system topped off.

The seventh month both cows dropped 2 calves each, 2 males and 2 females. Clark did not think any of the 4 would live but he left them alone to drink the milk the cows were now producing. He figured they would drink milk for 3 or more months before they would start eating food. He did not know about that and would have to ask Sally or look it up on his stored information on one of the hard drives.

The 10th month Sally heard Frank on the shortwave. The ionization interference was still so bad that normal conversation was not possible. They finally decided to wait and contact each other in 30 days on the same frequency at 6pm. Sally knew about the ionization after a nuclear attack and hoped it would dissipate sooner then 10 months. Clark thought maybe the falling ash in the air had something to do with upper atmosphere electrical activity but that was just a wild guess.

There were 3 more Hepa filters left in the generator room and 16 in the shelter, they were the same size so he had at least another year supply of Hepa filters; hopefully he would not need them. He quit replacing the burning out UV lights on the 9th month. The virus had died out long before that time and the atoms bonding the virus structure together broke down into sub-atomic particles. But Clark did not and probably would never know that

4.

The barn was stuffy and Clark thought the Hepa filter around the top was probably clogged up. He thought about how to fix it without removing the filter material. He saw the portable air tank and just said that’s it. Turning the compressor on he waited 15 minutes for the compressor tank to fill and he then filled the portable tank up. Climbing up into the hay loft he walked around the inner outside edge and used the air hose to blow outwards through the filter. He had to fill the portable tank up 7 times before he completed the circuit blowing outwards through more then 90% of the filter. About an hour after he was done the air quality improved 100%.

The 11th month communications between Clark and Frank were just about back to normal. They decided to wait another month and see how it was then. The outside radiation was 1.2 R and Clark was hoping in another month or so it would drop below that magic 1 R number. There was no radiation detectable inside the generator room or the barn so Sally had put the other mechanic creeper together and went with Clark on their daily or every other day trip to the barn just to get out of the shelter. They did work with the animals and kept the place super clean. Sally found the vaccinations for the cows and was glad to see he had a large supply of Ivomec for when the cows were put back in the pasture. Clark said I think all the bacteria that were passed on from cow to cow have been killed under all that ash. She said we will have to learn to test for germs when the cows are out and about. And that means going to the vet’s office for some specific information and to use the equipment there. Hopefully Gerald or my Dad will know. Late during the 10th month communications was established with the 5 surviving farmers. There was some distant chat talk on the short wave bands but Clark advised Sally not to talk to them until they were able to travel.

The calves had survived and Sally had given them a name and made pets out of them. He had read about Freemartin (infertile female cows) and hoped that did not happen to his calves (the Clark luck held again). She walked the mothers and all 4 calves around the barn an hour or so every day. Clark laughed and said you clean that manure up because I sure don’t want too. Using the hose she sprayed the manure into the disposal grate that ran the entire length of the barn. Clark asked her about castrating the 2 males because he had read about it. She hit him on the arm and said these may be the only cows alive in the world and we will need to mate this one with the other mother and female and this one well you know opposite. That will give us a small herd before we have to start inbreeding them or let them die out 15 to 25 years from now.

By the 12th month they had become 3 star chefs using the long term storage items. Clark had a million recipes for the dried foods on his hard drive and they each searched daily for the odd meal that would surprise their palates. The meter read ¼ R outside. They had been looking out the windows of the house of which there was no inside detectable radiation. The wind had blown the ash into piles everywhere but the green grass was showing through the nasty grey looking mess outside. They had started some lettuce in the south facing window because the sun was peeping through the dull colored sky off and on for at least 6 hours a day. They had no intentions of going outside until the rains had washed the ash down some more and was absorbed by the earth. The farm had an ever so slight slope to the east maybe 2 degrees and the ash had piled up against the fence and blackberry plants on that side. But the ash there was being beat down and slowly absorbed into the ground.

[Lbox88]

5.

Sally asked when they were going outside. Clark said another month and maybe there won’t be so much ash in the air. We will probably have to wear those N-95 or 100 masks and wrap around eye safety glasses for several months to protect our lungs and eyes. They could see the garage pole barn from a back window and the ash had been blown into it covering everything with a lot of ash. He told her I will use the air hose to blow all that ash out into the yard where it can dissipate. She said I bet it is all up in the engine. He said no it isn’t. I will only have to change out the air filters. He had learned something while he was working in that repair shop and he kept trying to remember how small the micron size the paper air filters absorbed. It didn’t matter he was going to blow every speck of gritty ash off of and away from any engine and change the filter before he started them.

That night he took out the last 500 gig hard drive and installed it in the desktop. She asked what are we going to watch tonight. He said it is a secret. The TV series was Smallville. She tickled him and said I think Super Boy is so cute. He said I like the girls on the show. She started hitting him with a pillow. He said I downloaded 66 gigabytes the first 9 seasons from Pirate Bay so we can watch an hour or 2 everyday for a month or more. She leaned back on the couch and said I am so glad we can stay up here in our house. He grunted a response and fell asleep as the DC fan above the wood stove pulling in filtered air whirred in the background.

Sally had read the same SHTF fiction he had and her first question on the 14th month was when are we going to strategically reallocate some goods like those dudes in the post-apocalyptic stories did. He said we should be OK for another 3 years except for baby clothes and supplies that we may need in the next 10 or 11 months also I have read that the hay will go bad or just become non nutritional at around the 24th month – She grinned at that response. Seriously though I have been thinking about it and the 1st things I want to insure is our long term survival and to maintain a modicum of civilization is fuel. Even though we can make diesel I think we should have at least 3 tankers of diesel, 1 of gasoline and 3 of propane. She looked at him and said well I can say one thing about my husband he thinks big. He continued on and we definitely need some seed to grow alfalfa, hay, clover and mineral blocks for the cows. She said don’t forget chicken feed. He said I am thinking long term again and would like to grow some worms as protein for the chickens. Sally said I am going to make a list - He said I will help. Together they cobbled a list up and saw it was going to take them a week or more to get everything on it. Sally said I am going to contact Gerald, Frank and my Dad and see when we can go. Safety in lots of armed gatherers she said.

6.

Since no one had travelled anywhere they had no idea of the road conditions. Frank said Gerald had a snow plow that fit on the front of his 4 wheel drive pick up. The over the radio planning began for the scavenge trip to the city. They thought about operational security but a listener would have to be within 20 miles to pick up the signal and anyone within that range that heard it they would know. They somehow knew there were not many local people alive. It took 2 days to iron all the differences out. The other survivors had different priority need items than Clark did. So everyone had to compromise and many trips were planned based on needs. All Clark ever learned about the other survivors living in a small shelter was it was brutal and many arguments had to be worked through. Clark and Sally’s needs were on the bottom of the list. Clark just said we have to do it this way to maintain a community. Sally agreed with him.

Gerald had to use the snow plow to remove some ash drifts from the road and 2 or 3 vehicles but other than that there were no problems. Everyone rode Thomas the engine repairman hard. He was the only one that could not get any of his vehicles started. Clark let him borrow his diesel pickup until he could get a new vehicle running from one of the car lots. Thomas told everyone he would get everyone that needed or wanted one a new vehicle in the coming weeks or months as soon as he had time to replace the computers and chips on the engines. Clark wanted to go off on his own but was voted down by the ex military members. 3 weeks later Clark’s list was filled and things slowed down. Meetings were held on planting schedules and fuel conservation. Everyone knew that Clark’s chickens and cows were a precious community commodity and plans were made to hatch out the eggs and keep track of the lineage from the 2 roosters. As far as they currently knew the cows and chickens were probably the most important and maybe the only livestock in the state besides the farmers.

Clark had checked his garden and the fields with his radiation detector and only found a small amount of low level radioactivity on the eastern fence line where the rains had washed the ash down to. He decided to do nothing about the fence area that had a little radiation showing on the detector. He would keep the grass and brush cut low there. He had decided to make a cut in the direction where the grass was flung out across the fence and blackberries. This would leave nothing for any cattle to browse in those locations if they got out of the pastures. Hopefully in a few years the radiation would be washed further away from his property, decay, or be absorbed into the ground where it was no longer detectable or a danger. He told Sally not to gather any blackberries on the eastern fence for several years.

Sally came into the houseafter she had been riding her motor scooter. She told Clark we should go catch some of those fish in those fishing holes in the creek. He said not for a while yet. I have been thinking about those holes and I want to do something to them to maybe eliminate any radiation residue in the bottom. She said what do you have planned? He said it will be easier to show you than explain it. He put the air compressor generator in the back of the pick up and a 50 foot roll of air hose. Driving up to the upper creek fish/swim hole he started up the generator and attached the 50 foot hose. Wading out in the creek above the hole he slid the air hose down into the muddy bottom where it raised old fallen ash and mud from the bottom. He used the air hose like a wand all through the hole until there was no more disturbed muddy water flowing from the hole and the water ran clear. He did the lower hole the same way. He said I will do this one or 2 more times to make sure there is no radioactive mud or ash accumulated on the bottom of these creek holes and in a few months or maybe next summer we should be able to catch and eat the fish that come live in the holes. The shallow parts of the creek will clean itself from the constant creek flow. She just said neat.

Sally was hauling the used pushed out house and generator room Hepa filters out to be buried in a large hole Clark had dug out with the back hoe just outside their property when she noticed all the small 1/16 inch small flies, gnats or whatever they were on the last house Hepa filter. She told Clark about it and he said we will have to put some insecticide on that slow release system around the bottom of the air intake pipe. Sally went with him to the 10 foot tall 8 inch steel pipe that had the half closed umbrella looking metal top that the shelter air was drawn into. Clark put about 2 ounces of insecticide into the filler tube that slowly leaked into the special material around the pipe. He looked up to see if any bees or hornets had started building nests up near the 3/16th inch screened intake and did not see any. The slowly leaking insecticide would repel or kill any insects away from the pipe for about 6 or 8 months before it had to be refilled. He told Sally what he had done and she stuck her head up under the 3 foot downward umbrella cover and screamed I am monster and the metallic echo reverberated downward slightly hurting her ears. He laughed and they went in to cook something.

Clark and Sally did some of their own strategic reallocation after their immediate needs were met. He had one spare generator head for his large Lister engine, one spare head for the small one and one spare wind turbine. He had to talk to Thomas about what kind of generator head he should look for as a 3rd and 4th spare. Thomas knew exactly what he needed and told him where to get it. They went to the solar house in the city and picked up 24 more 325 watt panels for future spares. The 2 Lister engines had complete rebuild kits if they were ever needed but Clark knew those type engines had run for 50 plus years without a rebuild so he was confident in his to last a long time. He had the components to make bio diesel if it was ever needed but that also would be a long time in the future. He handed Sally 15000 dollars that was in the safe and told her to make mini paper airplanes with the 100 dollar bills because that was all they would ever be worth again. Barter would be king for many years to come and after that gold and silver would probably be used for currency but then again who knew what would happen in the future.

Sally talked to many military people on ham radio that had been out to sea in nuclear submarines and battle ships that had survived. They were now moving into non radioactive coastal areas to start the rebuilding process.

The farm community elected Frank as their spokesman and he led the committee that made the decision that allowed new people to farm on the abandoned farms in the area. They had been lucky so far. Out of the 27 new families allowed to farm in the area only one was a troublemaker and he quickly disappeared.

Over the next 15 years Clark and Sally had 7 children who would actually ride bicycles and in snow weather they would ski to the centrally located school.

Clark remembered back to those last 3 words the preacher had said at his Mom’s funeral so long ago.

LIFE GOES ON.


The End

[Lbox88]

Clark Story #17 - Don’t Steal from Clark
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Here is a little short fun story

1.

Clark lived 7 miles from the nearest small town up a long winding gravelly road. He had to go through 4 creeks to get to his place. It was fun crossing the not so deep one in the dead of winter after the 3 or so inch deep creek had frozen solid and was covered with 4 or 6 inches of snow. Sometimes in the winter he had to leave his old standard shift diesel 4 wheel drive pickup at the bottom of the hill and ride his snow machine home. One winter he rode home from work and his snow machine which was parked under a pole barn close to the main road leading to his place was missing – it had been stolen. He walked off into the woods and took the SD card from his solar powered day night deer cam out. He replaced the 1 gigabyte SD card with the spare in the unit and rode back into town. Lucky it was a week day and the library was open he nodded at the elderly lady that ran the library and signed in to use the computer. He asked the lady for an SD reader, she handed him the small unit and he had to sign another sheet of paper indicating he had the reader.

Slowly going through the pictures he found the one he wanted; the faces were not clear enough to identify anyone but he recognized the pickup truck. It belonged to a mean red neck dude who lived several miles from Clark up another hollow. His name was Billy Oiler and he would bet all his money the other dude was Harold Grimes another mean dope dealing redneck who ran around with Oiler. He cleared the computer and disconnected the SD reader. Turning in the SD reader to the librarian, he thanked the woman, smiled at her and left.

He did not think he could get up to his place without the snow machine and he definitely did not want to hike the 7 miles through 6 or so inches of snow. I guess I am going to do what somebody should have done a long time ago. He was off from his job for the next 5 days. The tunneling miner had broken down, parts had to be ordered and a special mechanic had to be brought in to fix the machine electronics so the coal mine was shut down.

Clark drove through the McDonalds drive through window and ordered 2 biscuit and gravy breakfasts, 2 plain double cheeseburgers, a chocolate shake, large coke and a cup of coffee. He parked in the McD’s lot and ate the 2 biscuit and gravy meals while sipping on the hot coffee. He knew the cheeseburgers would be good on the far floorboard away from the heater for several hours; he would warm them up on the windshield defroster later on. He put the milkshake and the coke in a milk crate in the bed of the truck; they stood up straight in the 6 inches of snow in the crate.

Looking at the digital thermometer on the outside mirror he saw it was a crisp 21 degree F with lazy snowflakes falling from an overcast sky that indicated more snow and lots of it to come in the next 24 hours. He took advantage of the plowed lot he was sitting on and put a set of chains on the front 2 tires. There were studs on the rear tires but he wanted to make sure he could pull his way through a little bit of snow. Washing his hands off in the McDs restroom he grabbed another cup of coffee and left. His truck had real 4 wheel drive in that he could lock the front axles in with the Detroit locker system and the rear wheels were full time posi traction. He backed way off into an unused portion of the parking lot and decided to sleep for several hours or at least until the cold woke him. He was dressed for the weather when he left the mines. He took a shower in the mine clean up area where he had put on long johns, wool pants, T-Shirt, lightweight cotton long sleeve pull over shirt over his long johns, a hooded lined Army Field jacket and he carried his Wool Rich heavy wool coat with him to the pickup. His 8 inch boots were water proof 600 gram thinsulate and he had on heavy wool socks.

He slept for 5 hours before the cold started to get to him. Removing the big thick wool coat he went back inside used the restroom, brushed/flossed his teeth and bought another cup of coffee. Leaving the parking lot he threw the 2 cheeseburgers on the window defroster to warm up and set the almost frozen solid coke in the cup holder and diverted one of the vehicle heater ducts to blow on it. Passing no one on the snow covered road he noted the snow was really starting to fall, thinking this was good he pulled off onto Billy Oiler’s half paved half gravel road and followed in the tire tracks of another vehicle that had just come in or just left, hoping it was Grimes coming in would make it easier on Clark. Clark was going to do something he did not want to do. But letting people steal from you was one of the things that made Clark extremely mad and he saw red when it happened to him. Of course Clark was no saint when it came to midnight requisitions. But he never stole from individuals just company property as if that made a difference, but in Clark’s mind it was a world of difference.

He stopped just as Oilers cabin came into view through the thick falling snow. He took the unregistered 32 bought with cash on a street corner in a city far away he always carried in his lunch pail and walked up to the cabin. He could hear that awful guttural screaming/moaning of heavy metal music and knew Oiler was into some of his own drugs. There was another 4 wheel drive Chevy pickup parked beside the red 4 wheel drive Ford and he had a pretty good idea it was Grimes.

He opened the door and a haze of acrid drug smoke hit him. Looking quickly around the small cabin his mind just said lookee here both men were passed out naked and in a compromising situation. He just continued thinking who would have ever thought these 2 tough rednecks would swing that way. Walking quickly to the bed he shot Grimes in the side of his head from about 2 inches and backed off and shot Oiler from about 5 feet right between the eyes. Grabbing Grimes hand and placing the gun in it he shot another round through the open doorway out into the forest. Picking the 3rd casing up and storing it in his pocket he checked the place out. He found a small safe with at least 40000 dollars in it. He took 35000 dollars and closed the safe back and locked it. Continuing his search he found drugs of all kinds but he left them where they were. He found three old but functional 32 pistols and took one of them. He thought he could always lie to the police if he ever got caught with it and say he bought it from Oiler a while back if it was even registered. There were 3 different brands of full boxes of 32 and he placed his box in the place of one of Oilers. Next he laid both of them on the bed with the gun near Grimes hand. He went outside to the barn like garage and found the door was locked so he went back in and searched for the padlock key. Finding it on a large key ring on the table he opened the garage and found his snow machine. He drove his truck to the garage and put his snow machine on his truck. Looking the garage place over he decided not to burn it because the floor was concrete and there would be no evidence of his snow machine ever being there.

Going back in the cabin with a 5 gallon can of gasoline he covered every thing with gas except for Grimes body. He did sprinkle the side of the bed that Oilers body was laying on. He decided that was not enough and poured 3 gallons of diesel on top of the gasoline. Throwing a burning rag inside he quickly pulled the door shut and ran to his truck. He watched the place burn until the cartridges started exploding. The snow was really coming down now and dropping several inches or so an hour down; he was glad he had put the chains on or he did not think he would have made it to the high way. Visibility was down to about 25 feet now but he had no trouble getting to his pole barn where he parked his truck under it. Driving the snow machine off his truck he made it home in about 25 minutes.

He brought the frozen solid milkshake inside and sat it on the kitchen table. Pulling his to do list out he wrote on it - build log enclosure with big lock to store truck, motor bike or snow machine. The place the pole barn now was, was not visible from the high way – there were a bunch of trees and brush concealing it so people would have to drive on his roadway to know the place was there. Not to much he could do about that right now – He leaned back in his swivel chair and thought about it for a few minutes and came up with another solution. He would move his new enclosure back up the hill and put a mine type 4 inch steel pipe gate up and if anyone wanted to steal any thing else of his they would have to make a determined effort to do it. This spring he would notify the power company that he was going to lock the road and would give out keys for the meter reader. The only reason he had grid power was the main power line tower ran 40 yards below his cabin. It cost him a good bit of money to have a transformer installed on a power pole. The power company workers even helped him out by hanging a street light up with an on off switch on the pole in addition to the day night sensor on top of the light that they did not report to the power company. The regular meter man never drove up to Clark’s cabin because Clark left the meter numbers hanging on a hook outside on the pole barn that his snow machine was parked under.

A few weeks later he read in the local paper of a murder suicide not far from where he lived. When any of the miners brought it up, Clark would say wasn’t that that drug dealer who drove that red truck and that would be the end of the conversation.

Clark had killed before a few years ago in a hot dry place so the taking of those 2 thieving scum of the earth lives did not bother him. He considered it a help in cleaning the gene pool.

The End

[Lbox88]

Clark Story #18 - The Carnival/Circus Man
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This is a 30 some thousand word story - it is a standard SHTF story and I did not do any research I just wrote it during some bad weather here – Hope you enjoy it.

The Carnival/Circus Man

If the smell did not identify where you were then the music sure would. Clark was sweating and straining pulling on the 2 inch rope that held up the corner of the big top tent. This was the last night the carnival would be in this out of the way WV country place the annual fair was located. He had noticed the corner was sagging a little bit and he wanted to pull it back up to its original position. The night was warm since it was mid summer he could hear the crickets off in the field next to a really nice smelling pine forest and frogs croaking on the banks of the large creek nearby. The bug spray they had put down in the early morning before the customers arrived had lost much of its effectiveness and was not doing much to hold the mosquitoes, lightning bugs and night flying insects at bay.

Clark had been with this medium size carnival for 4 years and learned all the mysteries a non carnie would not know. Since he was a likeable person he had made friends with all the carnies who had shows and learned a good bit about some neat things. Knife throwing, trapeze, swallowing fire and spitting flames out, magician tricks, pick pocketing, rope and handcuff escape artist, beyond expert on shooting moving targets with the short 22 rifle, the 22 pistol, sawing a woman in 2 pieces, brick breaking karate, trick horsemanship, leather whip popping, lariat throwing, diesel generator repair and he could even get the elephant to do tricks. He also knew he could pick up the barbell with the weights that said 500 pounds when the buried magnet was turned down or off. He always laughed when he saw those big muscle bound dudes trying to lift those barbells in the weight competition. He remembered one time when he was learning knife throwing on the spinning wheel he hit the rubber dummy 4 out of 9 times all 4 knife sticks would have probably killed a real person. The lady performer instructor who would have been the person on the spinning wheel said to him when he was through – You got me. He did get better over the years.

Most but not all the knowledge and skills he had picked up would be worthless out in the normal people world. He had not decided yet whether he wanted to leave the carnival and seek his fortunes elsewhere. He could imagine the looks on the face of the reviewing person when his resume was read. The carnival life was good and sometimes hard work. He made a decent wage; room and board was free, since he had been with the outfit more than 2 years he even had his own heated and cooled cubicle with bed, shower, toilet and small cooking kitchen.

Remembering back to when he finished high school just a little over 4 years ago. The economy was bad and the small town he lived in had nothing to offer. College was just a dream because his parents were barely eking out a living in the small pottery sales shop they owned. He still cussed that one English/Literature teacher that gave him the D that killed his chances of ever getting a scholarship. But after he had analyzed it over the years he was beginning to believe it was mostly his fault for not doing more studying. When he started high school he had geared himself towards taking the college oriented science curriculum and he had done very well. It was just that English Literature was not his forte. He had had the normal lower middle class up bringing, girl friends, 4H Camp, hunting, fishing, sand lot sports, cub scouts, boy scouts, Eagle Scout, school sports but that ended when the bottom dropped out of the economy just as he was finishing high school.

He had actually flipped a coin on his future life. Heads he would go into the military, tails he would scramble around in his VW Beetle looking for a kind of secure job. Well he had ended up where he was now and was thinking about a change. He had saved enough money to do about 3 years of college at the local university if he lived at home which he knew his parents would welcome him. He currently decided against that because of the burden it would put on them for extra food purchases and utilities he would use. He really was in a quandary and decided to hold off on his decision till August of this year or next year when registration at the university started.

The end of August came and went – He had made his decision he would stay with the carnival 1 more year and save every dime. He would use that money to buy his own food, pay his parents a little rent money and the rest would get him through the 4th year of college.

During the next year a few things changed – The owner decided he would go to some states that gambling was legal in and he would have some games of chance. The black jack dealer was a professional gambler and that is where Clark really learned how to manipulate a deck of cards and gamble. The thought hit him he could always get in a small stakes poker game in the college dorm and have some spending money without looking for a part time job. A job would probably interfere with his study time. But a few hours on a Fri or Sat night gambling would not. Yes the black jack dealer sure was a helpful nice looking lady.

Late the following July when the carnival left the local fair grounds Clark’s dad was there in his pick up to bring Clark and his 5 years of accumulated belongings home.

2.

He looked at his old 1965 VW that was parked under the car port and decided to use it instead of spending money on a used auto. A new battery, 4 Po Boy 10 buck tires, an oil change and Clark had transportation. After checking the cost of liability insurance he said to himself there is more then 1 way to skin a cat. He spent the 10 bucks to have the title changed over to his dad’s name and had his dad put him on his insurance policy. He paid his dad the 190 bucks and patted himself on the back because the insurance company wanted 880 bucks for him to put liability insurance on the auto.

Next he transferred his considerable savings from the big bank he had been doing business with to the local credit union. The lady told him he would have free checking and a debit card as soon as he returned with his student ID card.

At the college after meeting his advisor, he pre enrolled, paid his fees, got his student ID card, bought some used English class books and called it a day. He would go to the credit union tomorrow and get student free checking and a debit card.

Making the rounds at home that night he went to the mom and pop soda fountain drug store that sold decent hot dogs and hamburgers. He reacquainted himself with the 300 year old looking man and 250 year old lady that ran the place ever since he could remember. He had a hot dog with chili, onions and slaw. Several local people that he knew came in and out while he was there and he spoke to them. Next he went to the one and only beer joint (Big Ed’s) in town that sold illegal booze under the counter, had a pool table, some illegal gambling machines, sport parley cards and a back room that had a dollar bet limit, 3 raise poker game going on a lot of the time. He drank a beer and shot the breeze with the bar tender who was the owner. Satisfied that word would get around he was back in town he went home to his 16 x 16 child hood bedroom.

The college was 3 miles down the 1 and sometimes 2 lane road between the mountains to the highway and then 17 miles on the high way. Clark had checked the gas mileage on the VW and saw he was not getting the gas mileage he was supposed to. He changed the plug wires, plugs and installed a new set of points, condenser, brushes in the generator, rotor, ignition coil and adjusted the carburetor; so, in other words he did a pretty good job of tuning up the vehicle. After spending that 75 bucks he greased it, repacked the wheel bearings serviced the standard transmission and gear box. He hoped after spending close to a hundred dollars that the engine would hold up for a few more years. He went and bought a 22 dollar quart bottle of Prolong oil additive for insurance to protect the rings and pistons in the engine; he knew it was good stuff because everyone at the carnival that had an automobile or truck used it and bragged about it. The major tune-up cured the bad low gas mileage problem. If he drove reasonably it would take him one gallon or a teeny bit more of gas to get to school and back home.

2 weeks before school started he ran into one of his high school chums that had graduated college last year. They got to talking and Clark learned something. He had a vague idea that he could test out on a lot of classes for the 1st 2 years but was not sure whether he wanted to do it or not. His chum convinced him easily by just saying if you get 90% or more on the test you were wasting your time taking the class because you already knew the material that was going to be taught.

Clark called the college office the next morning and found out that 4 days had been set aside for testing starting next week and a list of the available tests were in the registrar’s office. Clark drove to the college and checked the list out. There were 9 tests he was interested in. He talked to one of the young girls who looked to be 14 or 15 looking over the list. She informed him she was 18 and since he had asked so nice she would give him a hint where all the study guides for each test was located. She said follow me because I need to look at some material on 2 of he tests I am going to take. He chatted and flirted with her for 2 blocks till they entered the huge college library. She pointed him in the right direction and said have fun and winked at him. He thought I am going to have to get back into this young college girl chasing mode.

He pulled a stack of material down from the shelves and sat in a rather comfortable swivel padded chair at a large table where he began perusing the material. He lost track of time going over the stuff when he heard a rather loud announcement the library would close in 5 minutes. Looking at his watch he saw it was almost 11pm. He had put in an 11 hour study day and knew he was going to put in at least another 50 or 60 cram hours before he took the tests next week.

Driving home that night he decided he would take 4 or 5 sandwiches with him in a small cooler tomorrow and maybe a thermos of coffee because he was starving at the moment.
After a good night sleep he fixed his sandwiches and arrived at the library at 10am. This went on for the next 5 days and he thought or hoped he had re-familiarized himself with the material that he had studied in high school and picked up on the road of life. It made no difference to him the gamble he was taking was worth it. If he passed all 9 tests at 100 bucks each he would save about 6000 dollars – Each class cost over 750 bucks in tuition fees and books.

At the end of an arduous 4 days of testing he had passed all 9 classes but on one class he only made a 78% pass score. He knew it was enough but since it was a 2nd year sophomore class he had plenty of time to think on whether he wanted to take the class or retest.

He dreaded the coming year because he had the 2 classes he dreaded taking – college English and literature. At one point during his carnival travels he had made it a point to and forced himself to re read what he called just Captain Ahab the hook and a few other literature classics. He had taken his time and saw some of the things his teacher was trying to pound into his head he just hoped this college professor was a good instructor.

Between home work and helping his mom can everything up from the garden Clark’s life was so far extremely dull. The first time he went into the old full sized rock walled basement under the rock house he got a shock. The place was dry and had those curly cue fluorescent light bulbs in the ceiling that lit up everything. He asked his mom who fixed the place up because it used to be really damp. She said we did it slowly over the past 4 years. Your dad found this stuff that water proofs concrete and we just slapped a 1 inch coat of concrete over the walls and painted it white and put in those heavy 2 X 12 wooden shelves. The place was about 32 X 42 feet and when he had left 4 years ago the basement walls were just rock that had been roughly cobbled together with mortar 50 or more years ago. The floor was gravel over sand and covered with old timey 2 inch thick oak planks that were just as good today as they were when they were put down. He did notice the steps going down under the back porch to the basement were rotting out and he said to himself there is something I can fix for them really cheap and it will be 50 or more years before it rots out again.

He was definitely not a runner, high school football and basketball had cured that from him he had no desire again to run till he almost puked and could not breathe; he did those 15 or 20 minutes of fancy karate exercises he had learned many years ago and jogged a few hundred yards every other day and that was his exercise regimen. He was blessed with a decent metabolism that burned up any extra calorie intake and so far he had never been sick.

The next Saturday morning he tuned his dad’s 20 inch chain saw up, put his boots on and walked his solid 190 pound 5 foot 11 inch body up on the hill behind the house. He could see a 16 inch or so diameter 55 or more foot tall almost dead oak tree leaning down hill towards his mom’s garden. Cutting the tree into 2 seven foot 4 inch and 6 four foot 4 inch lengths he rolled them down hill and across the creek to the garden. This was going to have to be a quick job because he was going to use the wet uncured wood and he had to screw the treads onto the stringers before it had a chance to warp. During the week he had gathered up everything he would need to make it a quick job and all the tools were laying beside the 2 heavy duty wood 4 X 4 inch home made wood saw horses. He cut the 4 foot step treads first with the chain saw using the jig he had made for the 7 foot stringers. Next he cut the stringers and using his dad’s 7 inch circular saw cut the step angles into the stringers. Using an electric drill he drilled the pilot holes for the 4 four inch wood lag screws he was going to use on each side to attach the treads down onto the stringers. The steps were almost done. He would need some help to drop them down in the place where the old steps would soon be torn out. Since the steps were permanently screwed together they would not warp they will probably crack a little years from now but he could live with that.

He used a pair of rubber gloves and a sponge to put the creosote on the whole shebang. Watching the creosote sink into the wood he knew 4 or 5 more coats would be necessary he was glad he had creosoted the bottom of the tread and the stringer tops before screwing the treads onto the stringers.. The yard stunk to high heaven but the smell would eventually dissipate to where it would only be barely noticeable and in a few months it would be gone unless you put your nose directly on the wood. The treads were 3 inches by 12 inches by 4 feet as the stringers were 3 inches by 14 inches by 7 feet instead of the normal 2 X 12 lumber. His dad came out and said he would help him the following Saturday drop the steps in. Clark said good because that would give him time to put another 5 or 6 coats of creosote on the wood and cut that plastic 4 X 8 foot advertising sign up and put the plastic on the wood where the wood made contact with the dirt. He tallied the cost of the job and came up with 17 dollars and decided that was cheap enough. The creosote was 17 dollars and the lag screws came from a coffee can in the basement. Labor was free. He looked at the completed job and said to himself not bad for using a chain saw to make some fairly flat rough cut step lumber.

3.

The following Saturday afternoon Clark’s dad helped him slide the new steps down replacing the torn out rotted ones. His dad said I like the way you put that old sign plastic on the wood where it contacted the dirt, should add at least a hundred years to the life of the wood especially after you put all that creosote on the thing – How many coats did you put on it he asked. Clark said I used the 2 gallons in the pail. His dad said that will sure put a preserving on the wood.

They walked into the basement and Clark finally got around to asking about the basement. Clark’s dad said the old fellow I bought the place from was one of those 1950’s survivalists. But he never got around to making it a true bomb shelter because I guess he ran out of money. He told me how he and a few of his friends hauled all that rock in here after he had dug the hole. They did a pretty good job of putting the rock up and mortaring them together. I think they stole the 4 X12’s and the 6 X 6’s holding the shelter roof up from the mines since they were all miners. He said the roof was covered with galvanized tin that they tarred before they put 2 feet of dirt on it. If you noticed the basement is smaller then the house because they moved out 3 feet from the basement and built the rock house on a 2 X 2 foot concrete footer. They took their time building the rock house and kind of made it look fairly decent. About 25 years ago the tarred over galvanized tin they put on the roof started rusting out and the house started leaking. Since we were making good money then I had a 100 year dull green aluminum roof installed and I imagine even you will be long gone before it starts to leak. The treated 6 X 6’s holding the basement roof up was dipped in tar before they poured the concrete around them and the posts were sat on a flat rock that was not sandstone. He told me he squirted that now banned termite insecticide into the concrete right before it dried and he did the house footer the same way so if what I know about that stuff is true it will probably be 3 or 400 years before termites can get a mouth hold on the house wood. Clark grinned at that mouth hold terminology.

Clark’s dad said me and your mom thought about this survival stuff but never did too much about it except for the 8 or 900 mason jars full of meats and garden produce that we call our pantry. We have been snowed in up here for 7 and 8 days at a time and the power has been off for sometimes 10 and 12 days. So I got us that rebuilt Lister engine generator from the closing down coal mine about 20 some years ago with the 500 gallon tank of treated diesel. It has kept us lighted and powered up about 35 times. As you probably also noticed there is a 3000 gallon empty propane tank at the end of the cinder block building that houses the Lister engine. We almost went propane one time and bought a hot water tank and a stove that is stored in the garage. But we use natural gas because at that time it was way cheaper then propane. Ah yes before I forget There is a 4 inch iron capped off pipe about 2 feet from the creek leading right to that corner wall and another one leading out to the drainage ditch that is also capped off inside here and at the end. I believe the man said it was for emergency drinking water. Me and your mom mortared over the metal caps but if you look close you can see where they are. His dad laughed and said if you want we can put an elbow with a spigot on it and have creek water available in the basement. One more thing you will have to dig a trench about 3 feet from the end to the creek and put an extension on the pipe to the creek to get it flowing into the basement. Clark laughed with his dad and said I’ll keep it in mind.

Thanksgiving was in about 2 weeks and Clark’s mom told Clark I want you and your dad to shoot us 2 turkeys and 1 or 2 small doe this coming weekend. We can have turkey for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Clark’s dad laughed and told Clark don’t worry I know where we can do this within walking distance. Clark just looked at him. His dad said there are 2 boys that live in the last house on this road that take care of things like that for us and we pay them a little. Clark still just looked at his dad. His dad said there are 4 mountains on this side of the road and 4 on the other. About 9 weeks ago these 2 boys put out a few bushel of free picked orchard apples, cracked corn, deer feed and a salt mineral block on the back side of each mountain in 2 separate areas. They go every week and put out more feed till everyone is through hunting. We get 1st dibs on this mountain and so on and so on up the hollow. After we are through hunting our mountain if the boys have not killed enough meat for their families they hunt in our spot or the other spiked spots until they have enough till next hunting season. After the hunting is over they retrieve the salt mineral blocks till next year. Clark said what about the game warden. We have an understanding and call him if strange people come hunting up this hollow. Clark said isn’t that kind of illegal. His dad just looked at him and did not answer.

The next evening Clark was handed a scoped bolt action 30-06 and a scoped Ruger 10-22 with a suppressor on it. His dad told him to go up the hollow to that flat spot and zero the guns in. The 22 should be zeroed to 43 yards and the 06 should be 87 yards and here is a tape measure. Clark said why such odd distances? His dad said that is the exact distances we will be shooting. Clark shook his head but did what he was told. That night while he was cleaning the guns his dad came in and handed him a drawing of the 2 spots they would be hunting and showed him the distances marked off on the drawing. The reason I wanted the guns zeroed in that distance is I want head shots on the turkey and neck or eyeball shots on the deer. That insures we don’t waste anything except maybe a little neck meat on the deer for hamburger. I should not have to say anything about the head shot on the turkey. Clark saw the logic in those comments and did not say anything he did not like blood shot or BB shot in meat either.

We leave here next Sat at 450am so make sure you lay out your cold weather hunting gear the night before. Clark asked where can I buy my hunting license. His dad said we aren’t and the main reason is I don’t have 30 bucks to give the state to give to some body else and the 2nd reason is I never believed in paying to kill an animal the farmers around here call a pest. Don’t get me started on where the license money goes and how the animals were almost hunted out. Very few hunters around here buy hunting licenses, we just can’t afford it. One more thing hardly anybody hunts this section of woods except for the 7 or 8 of us who have the boys feed/spike the areas. The boys told me the deer are overgrazing this section of woods and have to be thinned out a lot more than we will do. We do buy fishing license because they do trout stock the mountain streams and that is where most of that fishing license money goes.

Clark was told not to shoot any 25 or so pound tom turkeys a 15 pounder would be just fine and if there were no toms a 7 or 8 pound Jake (juvenile tom turkey) will fill the bill for just the 3 of us. The same goes for the deer we want to eliminate the female breeders.

The morning of the hunt was about 30 degrees F, calm and spitting snow flakes. The 2 hunters went to the turkey hunt area first where Clark shot a 16 or so pound tom and his dad shot a matching one. Before they got up to retrieve the birds 7 or 8 jakes came into the area. Clarks dad said shoot one and I’ll shoot one so they ended up with 2 toms and two 7 or 8 pound jakes. They gathered the birds up and eased their way around the side of the mountain to where the deer were or hopefully would soon be. Clark ate a sandwich drank a cup of lukewarm coffee and fell asleep while sitting with his back against a tree. His dad touched him on the leg and pointed down hill to where 9 or 10 doe were into the apples and deer feed. Clark’s dad pointed to himself and pointed right and he pointed at Clark and pointed left. Then he whispered on the count of 5. Clark counted along with him a second or so later 2 simultaneous rifle cracks blasted the silence of the woods and two 80 or 90 pound doe fell down. They drug the deer about 150 yards where they were gutted and the guts were pushed off a small cliff to drop down a couple of hundred yards away from the killing area.

They hung the 2 deer in the shed by the creek. Clark’s mom told them the weather report would be snowy and in the mid 30’s for the next several days. Clark’s dad said we will let the deer age a few days. Clark went and got the 10 gallon pot and used the hose to fill it ¾ of the way and set it on the turkey propane stove. Clark’s dad said I hate the smell of wet feathers and his mom laughed and said I do too but it’s something we have to do. She looked at both of them and said you did not really have to shoot 4 turkeys. They hung their head as if in shame. Clark was told to empty and wash out the burn barrel because she was going to burn the feathers after they dried a little with a few pieces of wood and dump the ashes on the garden. The turkey guts, head and feet were dumped in a 10 foot deep hole close to where Clark had zeroed the guns in and several shovelfuls of dirt with a shovel of lime were thrown on top of them. Clark asked what was going to happen to the deer hide, legs and heads. He was told the boys would pick up the deer hides and there would be a huge bonfire again close to where he had zeroed the guns in and the deer remnants would be burned for a few days with some logs that were now being set up just for that purpose. After everyone’s deer remnants have burned for 2 days the remaining crumbly bones will be broomed over the cliff at the end of the firing range. His dad said we know it is a little extra work but it keeps us from packing everything in trash bags and having it hauled off to our small landfill.

The next week Clark learned a few things. 2 of the big turkeys were brined in his mom’s special brine and frozen – one would be for thanksgiving dinner and the other for Christmas. The small turkeys were frozen whole and would be mostly used for turkey salad sandwiches and snacks after they were baked in late February or March. The 2 deer were cut up using a large part of the hindquarters for roasts, some chunks for canning and the front quarters for jerky, hamburger and the fillet mignon sections were separately vac packed for each of them to have a whole one on their special day. The remaining fillet would be shared. The bones from that endeavor were bagged up and stored in a metal outdoor container to be burned during the next big bonfire at the firing range. Clark noticed that every piece of meat he trimmed was inspected for silver skin and he was handed a lot back and quietly asked to do better. He was told the silver skin left a sort of gamey flavor that his mom did not like. After eating some of his mom’s deer cooked meat he agreed with her it was 10 times better if it had no gamey flavor especially when it was mixed with vegetables in a stew. He also noticed it was a lot of work to get it right the first time.

[Lbox88]

5.

During the summer between poker games at the beer joint he had read post apocalyptic fiction and pored over the survival sites until he thought he was losing his vision and had to take a break. But he had his lists and he had showed them to his dad and mom. All his dad said was pretty expensive to get most of that stuff. Clark already knew that and told his parents he would work on it a little bit at a time.

Clark had the same problem every new prepper had; where to start. He started with food because he had access to an endless supply of fairly good water. Rice, dried potatoes and macaroni would be the main carbohydrates and he had the money to buy a 1000 pounds of rice and 500 pounds of various macaronis. He needed no help to fill the buckets and he used one of the old cheap tricks to make sure any bugs would be killed. He bought a big chunk of dry ice and put a 50 cent size piece in each dry wall bucket before he sealed the bucket. He knew the carbon dioxide would kill any hatching bug or any egg and no more bugs would be available to enter the bucket unless it was opened. That job took him 3 weekends. Next he went for 500 pounds of pintos and kidney beans. He had earlier decided not to buy Mylar bags he would line the inside of the non-food grade buckets with cheap rolls of Dollar General tin foil and place a piece on top of the bucketed items before putting the lid on.

Thanksgiving was soon approaching and the hunt went as it had the past 2 years with the exception 4 doe and 6 turkeys were harvested. During Christmas break Clark’s dad asked what was next on the survival agenda. Clark said dehydrating frozen green beans and mixed vegetables. Clark’s dad said we do not have a dehydrator. Clark just grinned. His dad thought a minute and remembered the big boxes under the Christmas tree. He grinned back at his boy.

Clark turned over the dehydrating to his mom and it was late January before a gross or more of quart dried vegetables were on the basement shelves labeled and stacked up in the original mason jar boxes.

Things for Clark slowed way down Feb thru Apr. He put all his attention into his class work and making gambling money for a big project he had planned for the summer. Clark’s dads business had picked up dramatically over the past year and his dad was flush with a little money. Clark had talked him into having classes in the pottery store after hours since the pottery furnaces were not being used. Clark had put up a few signs at the college that classes were available at 25 dollars a class with free use of the furnaces. Materials could be purchased at the pottery shop. There were 11 well off female students who wanted to learn this neat stuff. Most of the students attended the twice weekly classes and were getting pretty good at making some excellent items. Clark had removed the signs when his dad said 11 students were just the right amount and as they graduated or moved away he could put the signs back up.

The middle of May and 3rd year final exams were over and Clark was upset because he had made a B in his Organic chemistry class. After looking at his test he saw he had transposed some electron numbers on one of the questions - He put it down to being in a hurry and would not make that mistake ever again.

He was back at the beer joint on a Friday coal miner payday night and was going to try and win 500 dollars and start on his big job the following week. He won 615 dollars and told everyone that he could now get his engine overhauled which was a lie. He would not be back for a month. He had done extremely well gambling in the dorm over the past winter and could buy most of the items he had on his list. His dad had filled in some blank holes that Clark had not bought such as salt and sugar.

The item was in the basement waiting to be installed. It was an up flush toilet, shower and sink. When he got that installed he was going to bring the propane hot water tank and stove in and install them. That was going to be a big job because of the exhaust and entry fans he would have to put in and he was going to do it by himself with maybe some help from his dad and mom.

It took 10 days to get the toilet, shower and sink installed. The hardest part was digging the hole under the footer and then under the house to break through the stone wall to hit the continuous water flow pipe that would soon be hooked up to the creek. He knew the toilet would never be used unless they were buttoned up in the shelter but that is what it was for. The 4 inch exit air pipe was installed while he was doing the plumbing work. He had to rent a back hoe to dig the hole to the drop off ditch to get that done. He needed some engineering survey help done on the next job and he knew just where to get it.

He went to the engineering department class section and asked one of the professors if there was a senior taking one of his summer survey classes. There was and Clark approached him and asked him if he wanted a 100 dollar job that would take a few hours of his time. The boy said he sure would like to have the job. Clark knew the boy was graduating in August and was heading back to CA and would not be around to gossip about his job when school started in Sept.

Clark knew it was over a hundred yards to the corner of the property. He was using the information he got from one of the post apocalyptic stories about distance being your friend when radiation, virus and germs were involved. The way his situation was set up he could not do it exactly the way the rich guy did it so he was going to be extremely cheap on the way he did it. He had not yet bought all the 8 inch pipe and elbows for the air intake nor had he bought the big DC fan and spare he was going to use. He wanted a survey mark to keep his line straight and he needed a depth because the property sloped down from where he was going to install the outside air intake. He could have just dug the ditch with the bob cat but he wanted it done right. Clark had put an X on the corner of the house above where he wanted the pipe to enter and the engineer marked it out for him with some stakes and that was it. The ditch went from 3 feet deep to 6 and ½ feet deep where it would go under the corner of the house through the top of the basement wall. Clark could not do the entry air pipe job that summer because the ditch went straight through the middle of the growing garden.

He heard his mom and dad talking about the large amount of produce they were losing to the rabbits and deer that were raiding the garden at night. He added 8 foot used chain link fence, poles and electric fence charger to his things to buy and work list. That would come later because he had just about expended all his spare cash and would need to win at least 1200 more dollars to finish the job this coming fall. He did install the upright schedule 80 eight inch pipe and the Hepa filter at the corner of the lot. Fortunately he had enough cinder block and mortar to build the 4 X 4 X 10 foot tall building the pipe would be housed in. He bought two 10 foot sections of 8 inch pipe, one elbow and the holed plastic cap with the internal screen. He attached the 1 inch Hepa filter to the internal screen and put a small metal roof over the building. Air would come through the aluminum holed covered soffit with internal fiber glass into the pipe and then on into the shelter. He could not afford to buy the metal door yet so the building was left open but that was OK because there was nothing in the place but a concrete floor with a capped 8 inch pipe. He would check for bat, bees and bird nests when he put the door on and spray the place for bugs. The underground 10 foot section of pipe had a cap on it to keep the dirt and water out. Not much more he could do until he had more funds or hit the lottery.

The next 2 weekends he won 900 dollars and that was playing on Fri and Sat night. He bought the pipe, elbows, metal door and stacked them out of the way. He needed at least 4 or 500 dollars to finish the job and that included renting the backhoe one more time. He took a weekend off and piddled with his mom in the garden and stayed up late shooting rabbits. His dad told him not to shoot any deer till after the first frost so the warble fly eggs would hatch out and fall off the deer. Clark skinned one rabbit and saw the big worm under the skin. His dad said there is nothing wrong with the rabbit meat it just has a massive wound where the fly egg larvae had been eating. Clark cut out the wound sections on the rabbits and his mom canned them up in chicken broth. His mom told him this fall they were going to buy some chickens. She said I really don’t want to do the chicken thing again but the way things are going we need the eggs and chicken meat because of the prices at the grocery store. He said what do you mean the chicken thing again. She said your dad and I had a flock about the time you were born but the raccoons, chicken hawks, other animals and foxes decimated them. She said here is what I want you to do this fall when you put the fence up. She drew another 4 or 6 foot high fence on the inside of the outer fence and said we will use the inner section for a huge chicken run. Night time the outer electrified fence will keep them safe but we will have to keep an eye out in the daytime for chicken hawks unless we put up some removable type bird net over the run. Oh yes you will have to build a chicken coop or house at the inside end of the garden. You can download some plans off the internet. He measured the garden and saw after the planned expansion it would be 80 yards by 80 yards. He wrote down 320 yards 8 foot used chain link fence, 12 foot corner posts, 90 fence posts and some gate making material. He stopped and thought a little and said I am gonna need almost the same in cheap 4 or 6 foot 3 inch hole inner fence and 6 or 8 foot posts. Clark thought this survival stuff is getting expensive and labor intensive for an unemployed person.

Late July he went to gamble at the beer joint and saw there was only one table with 5 gamblers. He listened for a while before he sat down and found out the mines were cutting men off left and right because not many companies were buying coal due to a huge downturn in the economy. Making a quick decision he decided to win everything he could because he did not think there would be any more chances to play cards at the beer joint. He went home with about 1400 dollars and knew he was not going back there till Christmas break. He would hope the dorm card games would carry him through the coming semester for mad money.

Everything was pulled out of the garden by the end of August early September and either dried or canned. The next weekend he would rent the backhoe and dig the hole for the pipe and the following weekend he would put the pipe down and if he had time knock the hole in the basement wall. He remembered one story about the rich guy burying the chain link in 4 inches of cement they did not have the money to do that so he just dug a trench 6 or so inches deep all the way around the garden where the chain link would go. He figured it would have to be an awful persistent critter to dig down and under the 6 inches of dirt buried chain link. On the 4th weekend he was finished except for installing the DC fan to bring fresh air in and putting the as yet not bought UV germ and virus killing lights in. He still had to buy 2 solar panels and 4 golf cart batteries. He decided to use 6 homemade 1 inch thick Hepa filters to fit the 8 inch pipe. The solar panels would be strictly for DC lighting and the DC fan and he would see if there was enough juice left to run a small DC fridge or freezer, if not he would think about adding another solar panel and 2 more golf cart batteries. He and his dad decided the Lister engine would have to be run whenever the ½ horsepower pump was turned on to up flush the commode or shower water. Fortunately the Lister engine had a remote start installed.

He was lucky his dad found the old chain link that just needed to be taken down around an abandoned coal mine. That was a 3 weekend job because they had to use 2 bumper jacks to lift the posts out of the ground and knock the cement off with a sledge hammer. They next had to rent a fence post auger to dig the outer and inner fence post holes. That job took 6 days meaning they had to rent the auger three times for 45 dollars a weekend. His dad sprang for that money. They had the outer fence posts in the ground but had not yet bought the cement for the holes and had not found the inner posts or fencing. Anyway the holes were dug. They took a break most of Oct and Clark replenished a little of his mad money at the dorm poker games. Rich boy college students always had money to throw away.

Clark’s dad told Clark to drive over to an abandoned strip mines that had been closed for about a year and a half. One miner had told Clark’s dad that they had pulled the security workers off the job because the mine company could not afford to pay them anymore. But the mine company had pulled the big expensive equipment out. Clark asked his dad what he would be looking for. His dad said the snow fence running along the inner road against the mountains. Clark said you do not expect me to roll up 300 and some yards of fence. His dad laughed and said no the boys will go with you and they will work 8 hours for 25 dollars each. Clark said OK. The hardest part of course was jacking the poles up out of the ground most luckily had not been cemented in and the 3 took turns pulling them out using 2 bumper jacks and that was another 4 day job. After that job was done Clark told his dad I probably could have bought that much fencing and posts for what we paid the boys. Clark’s dad grinned and said yes you sure could have if you would have put a 1 in front of those 200 dollars we paid them. Clark called the cement company and asked the cheapest way it would be to cement about 200 fence poles in the ground. He held on for a minute while the man calculated it up and said it would cost you about 1/3rd if you buy the 1 ton sand gravel mix and 100 two dollar 80 pound cement bags instead of buying the 40 pound pre mixed bags at 6.85 each. The cost is 280 dollars plus the 30 dollar delivery charge. Clark said OK because he and his dad had excess cash this month. Clark’s dad told Clark you will definitely need the boys for this job and that will probably cost another 200 dollars. That is if you want the job done in the next year because that is probably how long it will take you if you try to do it yourself. Your mom is getting fidgety about buying those chickens and we have not started on the hen house. I have looked at the plans you downloaded for the chicken houses and I have done something to make it an easy clean up place. When we get ready to build it I will have to show you the materials I have accumulated. Go ahead and order 20 more bags of cement because we will want a washable cement floor for the place.

6.

Clark’s dating regimen had gone by the wayside for about 5 months and he was checking out the 2nd and 3rd year female students with a hungry eye. He did get a date with a pretty 3rd year mathematics student before Christmas but for some reason it did not work out for them at that time. They decided to try again in Feb or Mar. Clark talked to his advisor and decided to spend two more years at college and work towards his masters’ degree. He had saved enough money from his gambling to do at least another year and a half and hopefully he would win more money to accomplish his goal.

January began with a light dusting of snow. His dad said this was so far the mildest winter he could remember. That was fine with Clark he did not want to shovel his way 20 yards through 3 feet of driveway snow to the plowed road to get to school. During the month of January the chicken coop concrete floor was finished and the treated 4 X 4 corner posts were cemented into the corners. His dad had wrapped the corner posts with aluminum flashing up 24 inches. Clark did not ask him why he did that he figured he would get told when they started on some more of the modified plans his dad had made to them. He still had not figured out why the coop had to be built where it was. The next Saturday his dad told him the flashing was to keep the corner posts from getting wet when the floor was hosed off and the location was as close as he could get the structure to the house gas line coming in from the main line. He told Clark I am going to put a small electronic ignition thermostat controlled bathroom natural gas/propane stove on the wall to keep the chicken’s warm in the future cold winters. Clark did not say anything he could not figure out all the squiggly lines on the downloaded plans. 5 weekends later the place was finished. Clark was amazed at the place – it was 16 feet long 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide. There were 30 nest boxes with those plastic bowls that had rubberized straw colored bedding and a hole in the bottom that the eggs rolled out of onto a soft rubber lined 3 inch slanted pipe which could be accessed from outside or inside. The double end inside ¼ inch plywood walls were covered with white stick on floor tile that had also been stapled on and 3 inches of fiber glass insulation was put between the inner and outer plywood.

Both outer ends opened outwards, the front and back bottom 24 inches lifted up and outwards to be latched onto the outside wall. The roof top 8 inches of each outside end could be dropped down on hinges in the summer for cooling. An 8 inch piece of ½ inch rabbit wire covered with fly screen was stretched across the top of both ends to keep animals and mosquitoes out when the top ends were dropped down. The back wall that held the nest boxes was 3/4 inch plywood. There was a pull chain light on a timer with 2 sets of wires running to it and beside it was a 6 inch downward pointing DC fan and a small grid powered electric fan. The front wall that held the stove was ½ inch plywood and the stove was boxed in with a slanted piece of chain link to keep the chickens from getting on top of it. The nest boxes and the stove were mounted on treated 2 X 4’s which were screwed and glued to the back wall plywood. The slanted roof overhung the building all around by 4 feet was insulated and covered with aluminum roofing. Clark’s dad had researched some waterproof paints and found a place called top secret coatings. The man he talked to guaranteed the paint for 25 years or more plus the paint was guaranteed waterproof. He ordered 2 gallons of pale green to paint the outside of the coop; the cost per gallon on sale was 42 dollars.

Clark’s dad told him now we have rent the backhoe one more time to access the gas pipe, propane tank and run a 3 inch pipe for wiring to the generator and electric box. Then we have to run a 1/2 inch pipe up to the creek for the water. Clark said why didn’t you say something about this when I was digging the garden up for the big pipe. His dad said I just designed it last week.

The next weekend as Clark was digging the holes he mentally called his dad a few not so nice names. It was cold but not freezing and Clark was miserable on the open backhoe digging the trenches in the blustery weather. Finally 2 weekends later the chicken coop was ready for occupancy. Clark wondered if the pipe draining the water from the 4 foot long aluminum chicken water tray that had an overflow pipe running straight out the back of the coop to a gravel and deep sand filled trench that slanted to their roadway would freeze. The overflow pipe was ¾ inch and it went into a ½ inch pipe directly to the outside. He asked his dad about that and his dad said I had to go from ¾ inch to ½ inch pipe to keep it from freezing. The constant flow of running creek water that is necked down to ½ inch will stop the outside pipe from freezing because of the water speed and pressure buildup. Clark mentally told himself I knew that or thought I did. He looked and saw the aluminum chicken feeder was 6 feet long and had been placed directly across from the water tray. He also noticed it could be picked up carried out and washed - Neither the water or food tray could be jumped up on by the chickens because of a slanted downward and outwards piece of 4 inch wide stiff plastic directly over the trays

Clark asked his dad how much all this cost to build the coop. His dad said well I spent a little more then what I made off those students for 2 months. Clark thought geesh more than 2200 bucks for a chicken coop. He added his free labor cost into it and came up with about 6000 bucks. He thought about it some more why his dad spent so much money and he remembered his mom talking about the early chickens they had many years ago, predators and the trouble taking care of them. He now knew why they had a top of the line chicken coop and safe chicken run.

He had 2 more enjoyable dates with the pretty mathematician before summer break. She said I will see you in September; he smiled and had the big head driving home.

The economy improved in March and the miners went back to work. He knew where he would be spending a lot of weekends this coming summer.

Chickens were a dollar and fifty cents each in April and Clark’s dad bought 28 hens and 2 roosters. Clark was told to buy the chicken feed and six 30 gallon metal trash cans to store the feed in. Those 100 pound sacks were heavy he thought as he dumped them into the metal trash cans.