|
Post by bretf on Jul 4, 2016 14:04:31 GMT
Chapter 16
Jenny got out of bed stretching and looked out the window. It was nice to get a full night’s sleep after the early start and hard work of the day before. She could see that the cows were eating already; someone had fed them and she was pretty sure who it was. While she watched, Paul came out of the barn with his milk bucket and walked towards the chicken pen.
Steve reached for her missing form and raised enough to see her standing at the window. “Hey Baby, what are you doing up already. Crawl back in here with me for a while.”
“No, Paul is already out doing the morning chores so we should get out there and see what needs done.” She continued to look out the window while Steve buried his face in his pillow. “I had the most vivid dream last night about my grandparents. You never met them, but they were the sweetest people. My Mom didn’t let me go to their place much because she was ashamed of where she came from. When I was little, I could never understand it. I loved to go out to their farm.” Her eyes began to mist over. “I fell into Mom’s ways after I got a little older and started to think I was better than them too. I could see how it hurt them but I didn’t care because I was so full of myself, just like Mom.” Tears were running down her face. “Mom was so horrible to them and I turned out just as horrible. Staying here is making me remember them a lot.”
“Forget about that, come back to bed with me.”
“No, I’m going to go help. I won’t treat Paul and Ruth that same way. I can’t ever make up for the way I acted, I mean, I did it. But I can keep from repeating the same mistakes. It’s about time I grew up.” She watched Paul leave chicken house and walk to the shop.
“Wasn’t that an amazing day yesterday Steve? I mean, it was hard work, but wow. To be there and see that calf born, well, I guess you got to do more than see it. And then the sheep. It’s incredible how much work goes into getting a wool sweater. Janet said I could come and learn how to make the wool into yarn. Did you hear what she told me about the grease on the wool? It’s actually lanolin, you know like they use in makeup and lotion. It was just so much stuff yesterday. I wonder what we’ll do today?”
“I don’t know; get up too stinking early and bust my back all day, I’d guess. I could think of a lot of things that would be more incredible though. Like flicking a switch and a light coming on. Or opening the fridge and getting out a cold beer, then watching a game. Now that would be incredible. But yesterday; that’s about as far from incredible as I can imagine.”
“Steve, don’t be that way. We got to see and do some neat stuff, so what if it was hard.”
He raised his head from his pillow to look straight at her. “I can see you aren’t coming back to bed, so I better tell you something. That stuff would all be neat if you were barefoot in some grass hut somewhere. But our country was part of something called the industrial revolution, a very major player in it. You ever hear of it? It made it so we shouldn’t have to manhandle sheep and get up in the middle of the night. Now I’m planning on getting a little more sleep. You go back in time all you want, but you’re doing it by yourself.” He rolled with his back to her and wrapped an arm over his head.
Jenny looked at him aghast. “Oh Steve, haven’t you learned a single thing?” she said in a whisper.
He ignored her as she gathered up her clothes for the day and left to change in the bathroom. After dressing, she opened the bedroom door enough to toss her nightclothes on the bed and shoot a disappointed look at Steve.
“Good morning Ruth,” she said as she entered the kitchen. Ruth was cracking eggs into a bowl. “Sorry I slept late, but I’m here now and ready to do whatever you need help with. Are you making scrambled eggs for breakfast?”
“Good morning, Dear. I hope you slept well. You had a busy day yesterday and needed the rest.” She looked at the bowl in front of her, “Now this is going to be noodles. Paul asked if we couldn’t have chicken and noodles today so he will butcher a chicken later and I’m making the noodles.”
“You can make noodles? I didn’t know that. Well, there’s so much I don’t know about cooking, but I never really gave it a thought about making noodles. Would you teach me?”
“Of course I can teach you dear. This is a very simple recipe Paul’s mother gave me. They were very poor like most people during the depression so this recipe is pretty basic. I crack eggs into the bowl and for each egg, I put in one half of an egg shell of water.” She held the open end of the shell under the faucet, filled it and dumped the water into the bowl. “The more eggs you use the more batter you get. Then some salt; I never measure it.” She reached into the salt container and pinched it between her thumb and forefinger and sprinkled it into the egg and water mixture and repeated that two more times. “Now mix this all together well.”
She wiped her hands on the bottom of her apron and went to the pantry cabinet and returned with a can of flour. “Now we mix in flour until the dough is quite thick. I have heard of people putting other things into the mix, but this is so simple and I always loved it when Paul’s mother served it.” She poured some flour into the bowl and began to mix everything together with her hands. “When I have it the consistency I want, I’ll roll it out flat with the rolling pin and let it dry out a bit. When it’s dry enough, I’ll cut it into noodles and let it dry further. Sometimes I might roll the flattened dough and cut the noodles off as coils, then roll them out again to dry. Either way, by afternoon they will be all set up and ready to drop in the pot with the chicken.
“So that’s about it. Since my hands are covered with this, would you mind getting breakfast started? You can get a jar of bacon from the pantry, whip up some eggs to scramble and put the leftover biscuits in the oven. But don’t close the door all the way; we only want to warm them up.”
Jenny looked in the pantry and found a number of pint Mason jars with bacon inside them. She took one to the counter and removed the ring and popped the sealed lid free. She tipped the jar up over a plate expelling a roll of parchment paper, that when unrolled had slices of bacon arranged on it. After she had two frying pans out she noticed the large pot on the stove and raised the lid to peek inside. “Can I move this water to have the place on the stove for the eggs?”
“Of course Dear. Paul is just warming that to scald the chicken later.”
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” Jenny answered while she was moving the pot around.
“When we butcher chickens, we always dip them into very hot water; it makes the feathers come off easy.”
Jenny looked aghast. “You mean like a lobster, you throw a live chicken into a pot of hot water? And I thought butchering rabbits was bad.”
“No, no, not quite like that,” Ruth said, her mirth obvious at Jenny’s reaction. “They are dead when they go into the water.”
The frying pan was on the stove to heat and Jenny started to remove the first slice of bacon from the paper and it came off in pieces. “Well, that’s a relief. I can’t imagine putting a live chicken in hot water. But this bacon, is there a secret to this?” she asked, looking at the small pieces of bacon she was holding, knowing that when Ruth cooked it wasn’t bacon bits.
“I use a pancake turner to separate the slices from the paper. It’s still pretty fragile but you can get it loose in almost full pieces that way.” Jenny got everything started for the meal and began to set the table. She almost didn’t set a place for Steve. No, one of us acting like a baby is enough.
Jenny was just taking the eggs off the stove when Paul, Jake and Toni came into the house. Everyone cleaned up and sat down at the table. Paul glanced at the empty seat and Ruth gave him a shake of her head.
“We need to do something with some of the plants in the greenhouse,” Toni told her dad. “A lot of them need to be transplanted and we’re almost out of space.”
“I figured we were getting pretty close, but was hoping to put it off a little longer. I guess I know what we’re doing today.” Paul chewed and swallowed another bite of eggs before he continued. “Let’s get the compost and manure spread and till the garden. We can get the Wall O’ Waters set up and move a bunch of the plants to them.”
“Set up the what?” Jake asked. Jenny was glad her son asked, saving her from asking herself or remaining clueless.
“Wall O’ Waters. They’re a season extender that makes it so we can get things out in the garden before it’s warm enough for the plants to survive on their own. Basically they are a series of tubes joined in a circle that are filled with water. The plant goes in the middle. They are like a miniature greenhouse. The water absorbs solar heat during the day and releases it at night. They can protect tender plants down into the teens.”
When the meal was finished, Ruth shooed everyone out of the kitchen. “I’ll take care of this and wash the dishes and sweep. You have a lot to do outside. I’ll join you after I’ve got everything done and fed Nick.” Jenny noticed there was no mention of feeding Steve.
Outside, Paul directed Jake and Toni to the compost and manure piles. “That all needs spread out on the garden and then we’ll till it in. Let’s put the tiller on the tractor and I’ll show you how to run it Jake. I had the gas and diesel barrels both filled and stabilized just before the power went out. I don’t know how long it’ll be good, so we might as well use it for this. I’m going to get Ruth a couple of chickens for supper so I’ll have to let you guys do it without me for a while. What about you Jenny? Two wonderful choices, you can shovel manure or learn to butcher a chicken.”
“With the mental picture I have right now about chickens, I’d like to help you if that’s all right.”
“Of course it’s all right. Well, let’s get the tiller on the tractor first.”
After Jake and Toni were lined out and working, Paul led Jenny to the chicken house. There was a cage inside with two hens inside it. “I put these in before I let them all out this morning. It would have been hard to catch them once they were outside.”
“Did you just catch two random hens or did you pick these on purpose?” Jenny inquired.
“I pretty much chose these. They are both pretty old. A hen produces a set number of eggs in her life with most of them coming in the first year or two. Also, compare their combs to that hen on the nest. See how deep red hers is and these two are light pink? That is an indication they aren’t laying.” He reached into the door panel and pulled out the first struggling, squawking hen. When she was calmed he held her out to Jenny. “Wrap your hand tight around a leg and if she starts to struggle, don’t let go. You can rest her across your arm and she will be calm down.”
He removed the second hen and led Jenny to the wood shed. A large tree round of wood had an axe leaning against it. Small remnants of feathers and dark stains were on the top of the block where indented lines marked places the axe had struck.
Paul repositioned the hen; holding both legs and the tips of the wings in his left hand. “I try to control as much of their movements as I can like this. If a wing is free, sometimes they flap around making the next part tougher to do clean.” He thanked the Lord for His provisions and laid the hen’s neck and head across the block, pulling it slightly. His right hand came down swiftly, the axe removing the head in one stroke. He turned and tossed her into the grass.
“So that’s what the saying means,” Jenny said with a touch of awe in her voice.
“What saying is that?” Paul asked as he took the second hen from her hands.
“Jumping around like a chicken with its head cut off,” she murmured, mesmerized watching the chicken jump all around the area. “I had always heard it but it didn’t mean anything to me. Do they always do that?”
A loud thunk sounded from the chopping block before Paul answered, the second hen jumping all around. “Most chickens do that, well except for broiler chickens. They are so heavy and weak legged they just lay there and kick. I sometimes refer to them as Dolly Parton chickens if you get the reference.” He watched them for another few seconds before continuing. “Now we need to get that hot water from the house.”
The pot on the stove was close to boiling when Paul got it and the dishpan with two paring knives that he passed to Jenny. He carried it to his butcher table in the machine shed then went to pick up the motionless hens. He held the first by the legs and dunked it into the water, sloshing it up and down. “The water needs to be short of boiling. Too hot and the skin rips and too cool, the feathers don’t release.” He dipped the hen up and down making sure the water had gone past the feathers and pulled it up and grasped some leg feathers and tugged. When they were easy to pull away he told Jenny, “That’s about right. This one is ready to pluck.” He set the hen on the table and repeated the action with the second.
He laid the second hen on the table and held one leg tight. “Now I remove the feathers. Notice how easy they come off.” He wrapped his other hand around the leg and pushed, coming away with a handful of feathers, just a few remaining attached to the leg. He continued to push his hand firmly across the breast removing even more feathers. He dropped most of them in a pile, some still clinging to his hand and started on the other leg. Jenny reached tentatively to the chicken in front of her and held the first foot. Okay, it’s just wet feathers. It’s no big problem. The feathers came away easy and she deposited them in the pile with Paul’s, shaking her hand to get rid of the last feathers. Paul was on the wing on his bird and showed her how he grasped the feathers and tugged hard to release them and the same with the tail feathers. He was doing the fine picking and looking close for pin feathers while Jenny was still on the first leg.
She looked up from the bird when the back door of the house closed a little louder than normal. Steve was stomping head down towards the garden, a couple of paces behind Ruth and Nick. The thoughts she had about Steve, comparing him to the natural fertilizer, she kept to herself. She was sure Paul wouldn’t approve. Instead, she attacked the feathers with a new vigor, quickly stripping feathers off. Paul observed the change in intensity and the reason for it as he scraped the feathers into a scrap bucket and waited for Jenny to catch up.
When Jenny’s hen was picked for the most part he continued. “Now see this nubbin in front of the tail, that’s where they get oil that they rub on their feathers. I cut this whole section away, taking the grease out with it.” He flipped the bird on its back and straightened a foot out. “Cut here at the joint and the foot will come right off. I cut the end of the neck off, both the skin and the bone. I don’t want to keep that dirty end after she jumped around everywhere.” He pointed out the raised area at the base of the neck. “This is the craw or crop. The food goes here. We remove it.” He split the skin and pulled the rounded pouch out and pulled the connecting tissue loose. “Next is the guts.”
Jenny was handling the entire process much better that she had the first time with the rabbits. She took the other knife and prepared her bird the same as Paul’s. The craw split as she pulled it free and she gasped as grain and grass spilled onto the neck. “Oh! Did I ruin it?”
“It’ll be okay,” Paul reassured her. Just pick off what you can easy and we’ll make sure to wash that section. In fact we’ll wash the whole bird, so it’s all right. Just try not to have the same thing happen with the intestines.” He took the knife and carefully cut the skin open from below the tail bone up towards the breast bone. He reached inside the chicken and worked his fingers around at the opposite end of the cavity. “I’m trying to get the heart free. I can do it this way or pull out what comes easy and go back for the heart, but if I pull it that way, it tends to pull the liver apart.” He tugged and most of the internal organs came out onto the table. Holding the carcass up to Jenny, he told her, “See the lighter, almost pink parts? That’s the lungs tight to the ribs. Work your fingers under them and pull them out. After that just look it over and remove anything that is still hanging on.”
She was extra careful opening the chicken up after splitting the craw and was able to remove everything without rupturing an intestine.
“Very good,” Paul assured her. “The hens go in the dish pan. Now the organs, we save the heart and liver just like on the rabbits, after removing the gall bladder. But the birds have one more part I take; the gizzard.” He pointed out the hard round muscle. “The food goes here and gets ground up. Remove the connecting tissue and then make a shallow cut across the muscle. There is another layer inside that we try not to cut through, although it happens often enough.” He rolled the muscle away from the inner layer and removed it, then cut off everything that connected to it. “So there, we have a nice piece of some of the toughest meat you’ll ever eat. It’s tough, but I sure like them.” He tossed the gizzard into the dishpan and slid the knife across the Jenny.
She was concentrating very hard on cutting just right when she was startled by Ruth’s appearance and question. “Are those about ready for me to take in and get on the stove?” The knife cut deep when she jerked, scoring deep into the gizzard and exposing the ground grain and gravel.
“Oh, I ruined it,” she said, disappointed in her action.
“No it’s going to be fine. You just need to clean that all out.” He showed her where to start working it then told Ruth, “Almost there. We’re just cleaning the second gizzard and then you can have them.”
Ruth looked at what Jenny was doing. “Oh you’re doing great. My first time was a lot messier than that.”
Jenny looked at Ruth, “Thanks.” She actually means it. She finished the gizzard and put it in the dishpan, relieved to have the chore done.
“So now, the chickens need cleaned up and the mess here needs cleaned up. Ruth, do you want to show her how we singe them now?”
“Wait, that’s another term I don’t understand. Remember, I still don’t speak fluent country,” Jenny told him with a smile.
“Right. See all the hairs on the carcass?” he asked as he held one near her. “I don’t like to eat hair, so we singe, or burn, them off. In the past, we used a small pan with some rubbing alcohol in it. I would light it and hold the bird over the flames, rolling it all around to burn off the hairs. I liked the alcohol because it burns so clean. Nowadays, not knowing when we’ll be able to get more alcohol, we have been lifting a plate on the cook stove and using the flames to singe off the hair. It’s not as clean but we scrub the birds anyway before we cook them.”
Ruth put the knives in the pan and picked it up and started for the house, Jenny falling in beside her. Paul turned back to the table and began to clean up the mess. When it was done he would take care of the axe.
The tractor started up before Paul was finished so he looked at the garden to check on the progress there. Steve and Toni were still spreading fertilizer on one side. Jake was on the tractor with Nick nestled in front of him. They drove to the side that already had the manure spread on it and started running the tiller. Nick was making a great show of helping his Dad operate the tractor. Paul chuckled and got back to work.
*****
Jenny and Ruth found Paul at the shed where he was loading the garden cart. “The chickens are on the stove cooking. What do you need us to do?” Ruth asked.
“Well, I was just getting everything loaded to set up the Wall O’ Waters. I’ve got them in, now I need a couple of five gallon buckets and a bunch of hoses. We’ll also need the hand cultivator.” He pointed to a contraption against the wall with a high metal wheel, two handles and a cultivator blade. When the cart was loaded, Paul wheeled it to the garden while Ruth pushed the cultivator.
“I’ll put in the row first. We’ll use it for a line for the transplants and set the plants close enough to it they’ll irrigate from it but not tip over the covers.” Paul took the cultivator and picked an aiming spot at the opposite end and started cutting a row in the fresh tilled dirt. He turned around at the other end and pushed the cultivator back to where Ruth and Jenny were waiting, removing more dirt from the row. After he leaned the cultivator against the fence he admired his work. “Well, it’s not exactly straight, but I’ll bet it’ll run water and the plants will grow.
“I’m going to run the hoses from the ditch in the pasture. I’m hoping we’ll get enough water flow to fill the tubes up. Why don’t you start laying the Wall O’ Waters out while I do that?” Paul picked up a hose and began rolling it out while Ruth and Jenny started to lay the Wall O’ Waters on the ground at two foot intervals.
When the hoses were laid out and a small dirt dam put in the ditch at the end of the last hose, Paul returned to the other end, pleased to see a slow trickle of water flowing. He stood a bucket on its end and set a Wall O’ Waters around it. Jenny stood to the side to see the process. The end of the hose was put into one of the tubes and it began to fill with water. “The bucket will hold it upright while we fill the tubes with water. I like to fill one on each side, then in a cross pattern. If I just start going around the circle, the weight will pull the whole thing over.”
After watching for a couple of minutes, Jenny set up the second bucket to be ready. Paul soon handed her the hose end and she began filling. He lifted the bucket out of the middle of the one he had filled with water and moved it to the next spot. Indicating the first, he told her, “I overfilled that; see how it stands pretty straight and is open at the top? After we get the plant inside it, we’ll squeeze the top together so it looks like a miniature teepee. The plants will utilize any water we squeeze out.” Jenny nodded her head in understanding.
“You’re doing fine with this so I’ll go get a load of plants,” Paul said and picked up the cart handles and started for the greenhouse.
Jenny had just started on the next Wall O’ Water when Steve sauntered over. “Boy, don’t you get the easy job. Holding that water hose looks a whole lot easier than all that shoveling and pushing wheelbarrows.”
The icy stare she gave him should have frozen him in place. She held the gaze while coming to a decision to be the bigger person. “All right, you can do this and I’ll shovel,” she told him and thrust the hose at him. The reaction caught him by surprise; the hose fell to the ground as she strode away.
“Well, I see somebody could have slept in a little longer,” he quipped to her back. He picked up the hose and started filling the plastic tubes. He had about a third of them on one side filled when the weight pulled the bucket over, all the water spilling out onto the dirt.
*****
The transplanting was done for the day and Ruth had gone to finish supper while the rest went separate ways to get the evening chores done before they ate. Steve followed Jenny to the chicken house and held the door closed when she tried to open it and go inside. “So are you going to talk to me? You’ve been pretty shrewish all day.”
She gathered herself and spoke in a calm tone despite the desire to lash out at him. “I just didn’t know what to say to you. You don’t seem to get it that Paul and Ruth are putting us up out of the kindness of their hearts. They don’t owe us anything so I am trying to do as much as I can to help out in return. But you,” she had been stewing all day, hoping the right words would come to her. As she had worked, she kept remembering her grandparents and her mother’s horrible treatment of them. Am I mad at Steve or Mom? Probably both of them. “You need to get it through your head that things are different. We can’t work for a paycheck and then pass it off to a waitress, then go home and watch Sports Center. That world died Steve, no matter how much you refuse to admit it, it’s gone. We have to adapt so we don’t die along with it. Personally, I’m trying to live in the new world and I’m done being an embarrassment.” The look she leveled at him left little doubt she considered his actions embarrassing.
“It looks like you’ve adapted enough for both of us. You’re turning into a regular little Laura Ingalls,” he snapped back.
“Steve, I know you said that to mock me, but that might be the best compliment you’ve ever given me. Now if you’ll move, I have work to do.” She pulled his arm from the door and went into the chicken house, leaving him stunned in place.
*****
Jenny walked into the living room where the rest of the family was seated in a circle, Steve trailing behind. There were two empty chairs in the circle. Paul finished the verse he was reading, lowered his Bible and looked at the two of them. “Do you know Jesus as your personal savior?” he asked with concern in his voice. “We would love to have you sit in with us.”
Steve scoffed at the statement. “You mean an all-powerful being that allowed a bunch of illiterate sand crawlers to turn our great country into a third world, backwoods place? For the survivors that is. Who knows how many millions of people have died because of this. And how many more are going to die before it’s all through. If that’s what you’re talking about, then no, I don’t know him and don’t care to know him.”
“We can never know the reasons the Lord allows things to happen as he does. But you need to know, Satan is the one causing all of these things. However, I do believe it was the Lord that drew us to that road block just when Jenny was being taken. We were put there at that time to save you both.”
“It seems to me that he put you there a little too late. I can still feel that knife going into me. I wake up at night sweating as that dirtbag stabs me again.” Steve delivered each word forcefully, small bits of spittle flying with each word. “For that matter, your lord put you there days late. How about getting my head knocked against the wall? Getting over the headaches was even worse than the knife wound.”
“The Lord,” Paul began before he was interrupted by Steve.
“I’ve listened to all I’m going to and said my piece!” He turned on his heel and stormed out the door, rattling the door casing with the force of closing.
“I’m so sorry,” Jenny said. “He just, he just, ….”
Ruth stood and walked to her and put a comforting arm around her. “It’s all right, Jenny Dear. We understand, we are concerned about him, but we do understand. Would you like to sit with us?”
Jenny nodded and allowed Ruth to lead her to a seat. “I haven’t looked at a Bible since I was little.” She sat down beside Ruth and the other woman took her hand and patted it. The seat that was there for Steve was conspicuous in its emptiness.
|
|
|
Post by bretf on Jul 4, 2016 14:06:13 GMT
Chapter 17
Jenny found Paul seated near the large window in the living room. His reading glasses were perched on his nose and he was poring over printed pages from a manila folder. He skimmed one page and crinkled his brow. Two pages later, he must have found something more agreeable. The look on his face had become more content. Jenny thought he was pleased by what he had just read.
“Paul,” she said, breaking the reverie. “You said I could try to milk Jennifer this morning.” Jenny had accompanied Paul to the barn numerous times when he milked the cow. She had decided the cow was now an important member of the family and deserved a name.
“So what do you think would be a good name for her?” Paul had asked, looking up from milking.
After some time to think, her face flashed in an elated smile. “Jennifer,” she stated.
“You want to name her after you?” Paul asked, confused. “I must be missing something here.”
“No, not Jenny; Jennifer or maybe J.F. It’s for Jennifer Farley,” she stated, very satisfied with the idea.
Paul wracked his brain but was unsuccessful in coming up with the name. “Sorry Jenny, but I’ve never heard of her. Was she that actor Chris Farley’s wife?”
She looked back at him; shocked he didn’t know and then reconsidered. Paul and Ruth lived so different than she and Steve had before everything had fallen apart. “No, not Chris Farley’s wife, Jennifer from Jersey Shore.” She watched him close to see if that would make a connection for him. The look on his face showed he was as confused as she was when he used farm terms.
“Jersey Shore was a reality television show and Jennifer Farley was one of the participants. I just thought tying Jersey cow to Jersey shore was a fit, especially considering the other aspect of Jennifer.”
“The other aspect? I’m sorry Jenny, but I really don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. I’ve never heard of that show. I wasn’t much for TV after I was down-sized and went through a lot of soul searching.”
“Okay, I understand. But Jennifer, well, in a way she reminds of the cow. For her twenty first birthday, she, well, … she gave herself breast augmentation. And just look at that cow. It doesn’t look natural!”
Paul bust out laughing, the cow startled by the outburst.
“What?” Jenny asked, not sure if she was being mocked. “You’re the one that calls those chickens Dolly Partons. I was just following your example.”
“Oh it’s perfect, although now you’ll have me wondering about Jennifer here’s namesake. I don’t suppose you could find a picture of her do you?” He continued to chuckle while he milked.
*****
“Oh sure, you get to milk this morning. I was just doing some reading while I was waiting,” he said as he set the folder and his glasses on the coffee table. He picked up his coffee cup and took it to the kitchen to rinse. He looked at the pot with longing, but didn’t pour himself more. He had cut back to one cup a day, knowing they were almost out. The lack of caffeine might give him a headache but he couldn’t think of an alternative at the time. It would be much easier on his system to cut out the stimulant from just one cup than the numerous cups he used to consume each day.
“So what were you reading?” Jenny asked as they put wash water in the milk bucket.
He handed her coat to her and started to pull his own on before answering. “I was reading about bio-diesel and using vegetable oil in a diesel engine. I found some pretty good stuff in that folder.”
A crowing rooster announced the morning as they were walking to the barn. “So does that mean you have some oil stored and can start using it in the truck?” Jenny asked.
“No, not exactly. What I have is a lot of edamame seed. They were very popular at the Farmer’s Markets with the health food crowd. I got a lot more seed than I needed to grow enough for the markets. So I was thinking we could grow them and make oil. We can mix it with the diesel in the fuel tank and run it in the tractor. That makes it so we can do so much more by stretching our fuel out. One of the neighbors has a small combine we could run. A combine harvests grain crops and beans and separates the edible part out,” he said after seeing the confused look from Jenny. “And grain, well besides the soybeans, can make flour and we all feed grain to our stock. Grain also makes ethanol. Another neighbor used to grow a lot of mint and has a mint still. Now I don’t know the first thing about stills. I had enough alcohol during college to last my lifetime, but still I wonder. Can it be much different to distill mint or grain? Really, I don’t know, but I think I need to do some visiting real soon.
“We are all in a rough spot, but I think the best way for us all to get through this is by cooperation. We have to work together for things to work out. I think Ben Franklin said it best: ‘We must all hang together, or assuredly we will hang separately.’”
He poured the water into the wash bucket and called Jennifer to the barn with the help of a shaken grain pan. When the cow was in the stanchion eating grain, Jenny sat on the milk stool, remembering Paul’s instructions.
“Grasp tight with your thumb and forefinger to hold the milk there and then squeeze the rest of your hand closed, all the way down to your pinkie.”
“I did it!” she exclaimed as her right hand managed to produce a small squirt; far short of what Paul produced. The left hand produced two drops of milk.
“That’s it; that’s a real good start,” Paul told her.
Soon, she was producing good squirts of milk with each hand, though not matching Paul’s production. It wasn’t long before she was feeling aches in her fore arms and hands. “My arms feel dead and I bet I don’t have much more than a cup. I’ll never be able to get as much milk as you do.”
“It takes a lot to work up to milking her without your arms hurting.” He well remembered aching arms and pushing through until he was done. “When you’re ready to take a break, I’ll take over until you’re ready to take another turn at it.” They would end up switching off numerous times before Jennifer was milked out; Jenny wanting to get as much time milking as she could bear.
“I sure hope you’re able to milk her alone soon; we’re coming up to my least favorite season for milking.”
“Really, why is that?” she asked, looking up from her milking.
“Well, in the summertime, the cow is hot; she seems to emanate heat. And then there are the flies. They buzz her like crazy and she is constantly swatting them away with her tail. It hurts to take a full blow from that tail, so I lean in to her even closer to protect my head and face.”
Jenny got up to trade off again on the milking. “You’re not encouraging me to master this you know?” she said as she handed him the bucket.
Paul grinned as he resumed milking. “But I haven’t even told you the worst part yet.” He glanced up to gauge her reaction. She was still taking the information in good humor, but would it hold?
“Well?” she asked.
“Yep, the worst is after she switches to fresh green pasture after eating dry hay all winter. It blasts out the other end in almost liquid form without any warning. It splatters all over everywhere. And it clings to her tail. That’s when you really have to duck.” Again he was watching for her reaction while he fought to suppress a grin.
“That’s quite a mental picture you’re giving me. You know a real gentleman would have explained all this before getting his victim hooked on the milk. I thought you were better than that,” she said shaking her head with a deep frown on her face.
Paul thought he might have gone too far and looked at her, ready to apologize. Her frown couldn’t hold and she grinned at the concerned look on his face. “Eviscerating rabbits, beheading chickens; what’s a little runny poop to the head after all that? The party never stops here.” Paul had a tough time deciphering her final words that were delivered in a burst of laughter. “All right, my arms and hands are ready for another shot at it and now I guess I need to practice ducking too.” She traded places with Paul, still giggling at their conversation.
When the milking was done and Jennifer was turned out in the pasture, they took the bucket and left the barn, continuing the light hearted conversation, laughing often. A noise at the hay shed made them look that way. Steve was muscling a bale of hay free and looked at them with a scowl on his face. An uncomfortable silence enveloped Jenny while Steve shot her an accusatory look; Paul greeted Steve and thanked him for getting the cows fed.
Steve’s response was an unintelligible grunt and he turned his back and took the hay to the feeder. Jenny began to apologize to Paul when he interrupted her. “Don’t Jenny; he’s responsible for his own thoughts and actions, just like you are.
“I have to admit, I think I can relate to what he’s going through. After I finished school, my life revolved around work and climbing the corporate ladder. I’m sorry to say, but I missed too much of Toni’s special times because I had to work. I always had to work; the goal of the corner office drove me on. Once I got it, I thought everything would be perfect. But the stockholders, well, they didn’t think everything was perfect. So they found a buyer and sent all of our jobs overseas. Oh, I could have had a job in the new company but my pride was hurt, my dream shattered; my world….” He was quiet for a while, thinking of his past.
“Stubborn pride wouldn’t let me take a demotion, not after everything I’d done and given up to get where I was. And I certainly wasn’t moving to India. We men can be kind of funny. We put on a tough exterior, but our egos can be bruised very deeply, very easily. One of my friends looked for answers in the bottle. The last time I saw him he was a hopeless mess.
“I got sullen, not unlike how Steve is now. I floundered. Ruth was so patient with me, that woman’s a saint. At the time, I thought it was the lowest point of my life but looking back, I feel I was delivered. I’m not saying that Steve will ever come to the same realization I did, but he needs time and support to find his place in this new reality.”
Jenny was deep in thought, digesting everything Paul was telling her. She thought he was so strong; it was hard to picture him any other way. His humbleness and willingness to admit his faults was just more of his strength. She resolved to try to be more patient with Steve.
After breakfast they started for the greenhouse and garden to water, weed and transplant. A tarp suspended under the large maple tree drew Jenny’s attention. “What is that for?” she asked pointing. “It looks like it’s filling up with all of the helicopters.” Like so many people, she had often taken maple seeds and tossed them in the air to watch them spin their way to the ground.
Toni was closest to Jenny and explained to her. “Dad is collecting the seeds to eat.”
“You eat them?” Jenny asked.
“Well, we’ve all been having them on our salad the last few days,” Toni answered. “You know those things like pine nuts; that’s the seeds.”
“I thought they tasted different but I never thought about it enough to mention.”
Paul joined them looking at the tarp and picked up a seed. He used his thumbnail to split the hull and pulled out the green seed and held it up. “This is what I’m collecting. You can eat it like this but it’s kind of bitter. Ruth has been putting the ones we’ve been eating on a cookie sheet and lightly roasting them. We can also boil them and it takes the bitterness out. They’re pretty good either way, but I like the crunchy addition to salads. And look at how many are collecting. That’s just too much food to let go, even with the work to hull them.” He popped the seed in his mouth and grimaced at the flavor. As he resumed walking to the garden, he muttered, “Should have roasted it.”
There were few weeds in the garden to pull, but a number of chickens paced the separating fence hoping for a treat. Jenny saw the hens and remembered something she had meant to mention to Paul. “Paul, when I’ve gathered eggs the past few days, there’s been a hen on the nest that doesn’t want me to get her eggs.”
“Has it been the same hen on the same nest?” he inquired.
“Yeah it is, and she sure pecks hard.”
“She’s probably gone broody. She wants to hatch some chicks,” he added, remembering she wouldn’t know what the term meant. “Why don’t you show me?” He nodded toward Steve before Jenny started for the chicken house.
“Steve, would you like to come along?” she asked, understanding Paul’s intent after their earlier conversation.
He looked up from the water he was directing and gazed at his wife’s face for a moment. “Sure, I wouldn’t mind coming along.” He took his hoe and hung it on the fence and joined Jenny and Paul. Jenny couldn’t keep from wondering if he was curious to learn or just wanted to stop working for a while. She suppressed the thought.
In the chicken house, Jenny pointed out the hen, “That’s her. She’s been on that same nest three days in a row.”
Paul reached under her as she squawked loud and pecked the offending hand numerous times. “Yeah, I think she wants babies. I do too. We’re going to need new chickens for eggs and meat. I can’t go to the hatchery and get new chicks to replenish the flock like I used to. We have to do it the old-fashioned way. So we need to get her on eggs.
“I don’t like to set a hen with eggs in here because the other hens will fight for the nest, eggs get broke and extra eggs get laid in here. The side of the henhouse that isn’t used, that’s my brooder room where I always raised chicks. We’ll set up a feeder and some water in there. Tonight, when it’s dark, we’ll put twelve to fifteen eggs in one of the nest boxes in there and put the hen on them. I’ve been successful moving a hen that way, though they don’t always accept it the first time. If they wake up on a bunch of eggs it works a lot better than moving her during the day.”
Paul led them to the brooder room. He pointed out the nest box they would use and made sure there was clean, albeit dusty lining in it. A feeder was on the floor that he took to fill with grain and he picked up a dusty waterer to fill. “You called this the brooder room and that you raised chicks in here?” Jenny asked.
“Uh huh. When we did the farmer’s markets, fresh chicken was always popular. I would go to Dunlap Hatchery in Caldwell and buy broiler chicks that I raised in here. I’d usually pick up a few pullets, the girls of good laying varieties too. Those broilers were the worst chickens I’ve ever been around. All they do is eat and poop.” He started chuckling before he continued. “Did you guys see the movie Wall-E? Nick brought it along once when he spent the weekend with us so Ruth and I watched it with him. Those people in deep space all their lives reminded me of those broiler chickens.” He chuckled more at the memory. “Those chickens lay around so much it rubs the feathers off their breasts and their legs have a hard time supporting them. Eat and poop. I would put layers of newspaper under the brooder and change it out twice a day. Those chickens grew so fast, at six to eight weeks I would butcher them. Sometimes, they would have heart failure about that time because of the way they grew. I’m glad I won’t be doing that this year. That is something from the past I certainly won’t miss. Still, I wouldn’t mind being able to go buy a bunch of chicks anyway. However, now I would get a variety that lays good and makes a decent sized carcass for eating.”
They returned to the garden in time for Jake to pull up with the garden cart loaded with plants from the greenhouse that were ready to be put into the garden. “I think frost danger is pretty much over now so we’ll get everything into the garden in the next couple of days. We also need to take off the Wall O’ Waters and drain them and put them away,” Paul told them. It had been many days since they had staked the Wall O’ Waters to stay open and tomato leaves were sticking out the top of many of them.
Paul soon excused himself and returned sometime later with the wheelbarrow, steel fence posts sticking out the front. A post driver was in the load as well as loops of baling twine left over after feeding the cows through the winter. After stopping the wheelbarrow at the end of the garden, he went into the garden section occupied by the chickens. A number of chain link fence top rails were against the fence. He picked them up one at a time and dropped them on the other side of the fence. The chickens ran to investigate his actions and began scratching the dirt where the rails had been. A rooster started calling to the hens, inviting them to the spot he had just scratched up. The hens were in a frenzy ridding the spot of any bugs or worms they could find.
In the new garden, Paul started moving the top rails to the newly planted row of pole beans, laying them on the ground with a slight overlap at each end. Jenny was curious about his actions and wanted to learn what he was doing. She looked at Steve, on his knees one row over, placing the final squash plant from the greenhouse in its new location. “Steve, I want to see what Paul’s doing. You want to join me?”
He finished placing the dirt around the plant before answering. “No.” Jenny got a pained expression on her face at his abrupt answer. He didn’t notice it but continued to talk. “No, I’d rather join you at Big Al’s with a nice tall, cold beer, beads of condensation running down the side of the glass. The big screen showing the NBA playoff game. At least I think it’s time for the playoffs.” He grimaced. “But somebody made it so we can’t do that, can we.” He picked up a dirt clod and threw it forcefully at the fence. “Fine, I’ll go see what he’s doing since we’re stuck here in purgatory.” He got to his feet and brushed the dirt off his knees with a faraway look in his eyes.
“What’s all this Paul?” Jenny asked as they approached him.
“Support for the beans,” he told them. “Once they start producing, I pick green beans two times a week and can’t stand that much bending over so I grow pole beans. They’ll grow up instead of bushing out. They’ll get higher than our heads, so this is to support the vines so there’ll be a lot less bending over.
“These pipes are about twenty feet long. We’ll put in steel posts to support them, one at each end and another in the middle. After we drive the posts, we’ll lash the pipes to them at the tops. That will put the pipes about eye level for me. We’ll run a strand of baling twine along the bottom of the posts about three or four inches off the ground. Then we tie twine vertically from the pipes to the bottom twine runner about every six inches. The bean vines will grow up the twines so we will have a wall of bean plants. There will still be a lot of bending, but a lot of the beans will grow where we don’t have to bend over to find them. I know my back sure appreciates it at the end of the day. It’s quite a bit of work to set up, but the twine is just left over anyway so we might as well use it for something else.”
Jenny worked close with Steve during the process, trying to engage him in conversation while they worked. It was awkward at best; Jenny was thrilled about learning new things that tied her to memories of her grandparents while Steve continued to fester over their situation.
A memory of her grandparent’s garden tugged at Jenny. “I don’t remember pole beans but it seems my grandparents grew tomatoes in some kind of supports. Do you do that too?” she asked Paul.
“I do, but not like other people. The stores used to sell light tomato cages, that personally, I think were junk. The plants knocked them over, the welds broke, the legs broke off. I was intrigued when I read about people using concrete rebar matting for cages. It is real heavy mesh mire. I bought a roll planning to make cages, but then changed my mind. I didn’t know about storing them; it just seemed as many as I needed would be in the way when I wasn’t using them. Instead, I cut the roll into twenty foot long pieces. I stand two of them up parallel to each other, one on each side of the tomato plants. I have a bunch of sticks that I cut notches into eighteen inches apart. I slide the notches over the wire, joining the panels together. Three or four of the sticks go on each side of the plants at various heights. I drive three steel posts beside one section and wire the panel to it. So I have support walls and cross pieces instead of individual cages.”
They spent the rest of the day in the garden, putting in supports, planting seeds and the young plants from the green house. Jenny tried to work near Steve without pressing him. With Paul’s words echoing in her head she kept any comments to herself when she wanted to lash out at him. More than once she compared Steve’s work with Nick’s and wasn’t sure which one was accomplishing the most. Much of the time he had a faraway look or a look of disgust; on occasional he joined her in conversation. She rode the wave of his moods and tried to be encouraging without being pushy. Slowly there was a slight thawing of the iciness that had been growing in each of them.
|
|
|
Post by bretf on Jul 4, 2016 14:11:11 GMT
Chapter 18
“So, I’ve been thinking,” Jenny told Paul.
He rose up from the row he was mulching and addressed her before she could continue. “A dangerous thing for a blonde,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.
She grimaced at him and retorted, “Well, I do try to keep it to a minimum. Anyway, it looks like work is slowing down just a little now and we are waiting for everything to grow. After we get all of this fine smelling stuff spread out, I was wondering about going to see Janet and see if she is doing anything with the wool.”
The “fine smelling stuff” was the half rotted, manure laced hay that had piled up in front of the cow’s feeder over the winter. Jake and Steve were pitch forking loads into the wheelbarrow and garden cart and wheeling it to the garden where everyone else was lining the vegetable plants with it and covering the bare ground between plants. The mixture would continue to decompose, feeding the plants while helping retain moisture in the dry summer climate and slowing down weed growth. But the hay was sure to contain seeds that would germinate and flourish in the garden. Paul thought the benefits outweighed the disadvantages.
Steve’s participation was reluctant at best, but he was enjoying the time with his son. He was impressed with Jake’s hard work, never slowing even when Steve stopped and leaned on his fork handle, panting. I guess I’ve missed out on a lot with him. When Jake was growing up, Steve remembered how his own father was always driving him on in sports, pushing him to be better. He vowed not to do that to Jake, and instead nearly neglected the boy, letting him find his own way and do his own things. He’s turned out pretty good. I guess I didn’t totally mess him up.
Paul stretched his aching back muscles, glad for the respite from bending over. “I think that’s a good idea; it’ll be good for you to go see Janet.” His brow furrowed in concentration. “But,…I want you to go armed.”
“Armed? Do you mean carry a gun? I don’t like guns.”
“Yes, I mean carry a gun. Now tell me, why don’t you like guns? Have you had a bad experience with them?”
“No, well, I don’t know. I guess because of all of those school shootings and everything. I mean, the things I saw on the news, well, there seemed to always be something bad happening because of guns. They are just so dangerous.”
Paul wasn’t surprised by her answer. Sensational news coverage had gone a long way in demonizing firearms. “I saw a news story about a guy over in Ontario that ran his car through a park full of people. I saw another story of the same thing in Reno. So I guess cars are dangerous weapons and we should all be afraid of them.” They mention those stories once and bury them but any story with a gun involved runs and runs. He bent down to lay more mulch near the plant he had been working around. Uninvited, a slow motion image came to his mind; the cross hairs of his scope settled on the bulk of the man that was dragging Jenny, he took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, as his finger tightened on the trigger, the man collapsing in a heap.
Sweat beaded on his head and the hands that had held the rifle so still began to tremble. He stood back up and swallowed hard at the taste of bile that had flooded his mouth, snatched his water bottle from near his feet and walked fast towards the shop.
“I didn’t mean to make him mad,” Jenny said, concerned about his sudden departure.
“It’s not your fault, dear,” Ruth said as she came to stand by Jenny. “He has some personal demons he is still fighting with. He just needs a little room and time while he works through it.” Ruth followed Paul’s path with her eyes, wishing she could comfort him. A tear ran down her face leaving a line in the dust that had clung to her during the day’s activities. Paul had been awoken on countless nights when the nightmare returned of that day when he rescued Jenny and Steve. After those instances, he needed time to himself while he settled his mind. It had been some time since he had had the nightmare. Ruth could only surmise that the discussion of guns and Jenny’s safety had brought the memories back.
Toni joined her mother and Jenny. “You know, a gun is only as dangerous as the person that uses it. Dad has one with him all the time. Do you consider him a danger?”
“Well…no.” Jenny answered.
“During the winter,” Toni continued, “There were quite a few people going past the house, getting away from the cities. Most of them looked like good people, just hungry, scared and tired. We helped them when we could. But some other people just looked unsavory, not much different than those guys that attacked you. Dad always had his gun visible when he talked to those people. Just seeing he was armed was enough. He has only had to fire a gun that one time since this whole thing started. Think about what happened that time. Where would you be now without that gun?” Toni went back to the row she was working on and continued to mulch the plants.
Following Toni’s example, Jenny got back to work, her mind awhirl with thoughts of guns, violence, the feel of the iron grip on her arm dragging her away. Alright, there are good people that use guns, just like there are bad people that drive cars. Maybe, no, probably, the media focused on the bad stuff. Her mind continued to go over what she knew of guns and people that used them as she worked. Didn’t Grandpa have a couple of guns for hunting? He wasn’t evil. She looked up, surprised that she was at the end of the row and that Jake and Steve had finished transporting the hay.
After cleaning up as well as she could in the irrigation ditch, she walked to the shop. Paul looked up at her entrance and set his worn Bible back on the shelf. “Paul,” she began, “I’m sorry for the way I acted when you mentioned guns. I guess I have to admit, I only know what I saw on television. I’ve never been around them.”
“I understand, but you need to understand too, I didn’t make the suggestion lightly, Jenny. Carrying a firearm is an incredible responsibility. I don’t like it, but I strongly believe it is a necessity in our current situation. I don’t like it one bit,” he stated.
“All right, but really, I don’t know anything about them. You’ll have to teach me,” Jenny said. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Paul took a deep breath and pinched his eyes closed for a few moments. “Well, the number one thing to know is that EVERY gun is loaded. Even if someone tells you it’s not, you still treat every gun as if it’s ready to fire. More accidental shootings have happened with guns someone thought wasn’t loaded.
“The next thing is to never point a gun at anything you’re not willing to destroy. Stuff happens, guns discharge when they aren’t expected to, so always, always make sure of where it is pointed.
“Your finger never touches the trigger until the sights are on the target. Again, accidents can happen, so you must learn to keep your finger clear until you are ready to fire.
“The fourth major rule of guns is to be certain of your target and what is behind it.”
Paul stopped talking to give her time to think about what he had told her. When she looked at him like she was ready for him to continue, he told her, “Never forget those four rules. They are the most important rules of gun safety. Now I guess we better get a couple of guns.”
They went to the house and Paul left Jenny in the kitchen while he went to the bedroom. Jenny was instantly drawn to what Ruth was working on. She was just pouring liquid out through the screened top of the butter churn, leaving clumps in the glass container. While Jenny had seen her skim the cream off the milk and pour it into the churn, and start turning the crank, she had never seen what happened next. She looked at the clumps she thought was butter and the thin liquid Ruth had collected in a pan. “Is that butter?” she asked. “It doesn’t look much like what you’ve been putting on the table for us.” Jenny had been amazed with the deep yellow color of Ruth’s butter, and the flavor. She had never eaten butter that compared to it. She didn’t even use jam on her bread most of the time, the butter was so much better than what she had been used to.
“It’s a start, dear. I just finished churning it, now I’m going to wash it.” Ruth drained off as much of the buttermilk as she could and added some cold water to the churn. “I prefer to drink the fresh milk, so I give the buttermilk to the chickens. They love it. Now to rinse it out.” She began to turn the crank, mixing the cold water into the clumps of butter. Jenny noticed that the crank turned a lot harder than the one time she had seen Ruth start with just cream in the churn. Two rinses later and she was getting mostly clear water out. “Now I want to get all of the moisture out,” she said and dumped the contents of the churn into a dishpan, after she had drained the water out. She tilted the dish pan up in the sink so there was a low side and began to knead the butter. Moisture ran slowly to the low end of the pan as she kneaded. The water she worked out was dumped out of the pan and she continued to work the lump, releasing as much water as possible. “After I’ve gotten as much moisture out as I can, I’ll add a little salt and work it in. Once the salt is mixed in, I’ll pat it out into the glass baking dish you’ve seen butter in.”
“May I?” Jenny asked holding a finger near the pan.
Ruth gave her a flat stare. “Not a chance, I know where your hands have been. Now, if they were clean…”
Jenny glanced at her hands, embarrassed she had to be reminded to wash. “Oh,… right.”
When her hands were cleaned, Jenny dipped her finger into the fresh butter and removed a small sample that she popped into her mouth. “Uhm, that’s good. It makes me want to get one of those biscuits we had left from breakfast and slather that all over it.”
“Help yourself,” Ruth said. “After all, the way Jennifer is producing, we’ll have more soon.”
“Naw, I’ll wait until supper and try not to drool too much until then. So that’s really all there is to making butter.”
“You missed the fun part, turning the crank on the churn. The temperature makes a big impact on how long it takes to churn. Fortunately, the house is about right now so it churns pretty quickly. But yes, that’s about it.”
Paul had returned to the kitchen and saw the two women huddled around the sink, so he set the box he was carrying on the floor near the back door. When he had gone to the bedroom, he opened his gun safe and took out a 9mm pistol and 20ga shotgun and laid them on the bed. He followed that with a box of shells for each and closed and locked the door. A cardboard box filled with hearing protection and safety glasses was on top of the safe that he took down and set near the guns. He took two paper targets from near the safe and set them on top of the box. After seeing Jenny and Ruth with the butter, he decided to leave the guns in the bedroom for the time being. After he closed the door, he checked to be sure Nick was occupied with his father and wouldn’t wander into the bedroom and see the unattended firearms.
“You might want to see this too,” Toni told Jenny once Ruth had finished telling about the butter. She was stirring a pot on the stove, a thermometer clipped to the side of the pot.
Jenny crossed the room and looked in the pot. “You’re making warm milk? Sorry, I know I’m blonde, but I think I know how to do that,” she said, certain Toni was doing something more.
“This will become cottage cheese,” Toni told her with a chuckle. “This is the milk that Mom skimmed all of the cream off of. I need to get it to 120 degrees and then I’ll put vinegar in it.”
“Vinegar, in cottage cheese?” Jenny asked.
“That’s what we use because that’s what we have. It will make the milk form the curds. A lot of people use something called rennet to make it curd. Mom didn’t have any of that though. I think I heard it is something that comes from a goat stomach, so I’m okay with using the vinegar.” The milk had reached the right temperature while Toni talked so she set the pot on a trivet she had ready on the counter. “Now I mix in the vinegar.” She poured in a measured amount and stirred for two minutes. “And now I cover it and let the curd form.”
“How long does that take?” Jenny asked.
“About a half hour. I’ll pour it through a cheese cloth in the colander after that and drain off the whey.”
“Curds and whey; just like Little Miss Muffet?”
“Yes that’s it. But we’ll give the whey to the chickens too. We wouldn’t want to invite a spider to come sit down beside you,” Toni said with a laugh. “After it drains, I need to rinse it too, just like Mom did the butter. Mix in a little salt and we have cottage cheese.”
Paul saw they were done for the time being so he brought the two guns in and set them on the table. Toni brightened up when she saw them. “Are you going to shoot some Dad? I could use a little practice.”
“We need to teach Jenny, but everyone is invited that wants to shoot. I want to get Nick out there too so we can make sure he knows these aren’t toys and what kind of destructive power they have. Now, Jenny, what are the four most important rules of guns?”
Jenny went through the rules and then Paul picked first one of the guns and then the other, explaining everything about it he could without loading it. “Well, I guess we need to go out and use them for real,” he stated as he handed the pistol to Jenny. He watched to make sure it was pointed properly and was happy to see she was very conscious of that rule. He held the shotgun out to Toni and she got a dejected look on her face.
“I have to finish the cottage cheese first,” she said. “It should be all formed up by now.” She had just washed her hands and raised the cloth over the pan and pressed on the curd. “Yeah, it’s ready; I’ll have to stay here. But Jenny come and look at this curd before you go out.”
While Jenny was looking, with Toni pressing it with a finger, Ruth came to her daughter’s rescue. “I’ll take care of that dear, you can go play with the guns,” she said with a smile.
“Thanks Mom, but you don’t play with guns,” Toni said as she took the shotgun from her dad.
Paul called to Jake and Nick to join them and then picked up the box and led the women past the small orchard. He stopped them some distance from a pair of hole-riddled pieces of OSB board. He had the women wait while he went to the boards and attached new paper targets. Jake and Nick soon joined them and Paul began to stress safe handling again.
“One other thing,” he said. “Jenny, you said you only know guns from what you saw on TV. Well, dispel all of that. It’s pretty much rubbish. Hollywood loves to have people hold guns all wrong and they have guns that shoot forever and don’t have recoil. Try a “gangsta hold” on this pistol and it’ll twist right out of your hand. And they really overdo jacking a round into the barrel. If you do that as often as some director calls for it, you’d drop half your rounds out on the ground unfired.” He was shaking his head as he finished.
By the time evening shadows were long, Paul was suited that Jenny would be safe with either weapon. He was chagrined that with his age weakened eyes, each woman had better patterns than he did with the open sights of the pistol. Nick was wide-eyed at the results of the shots and promised to never play with a gun.
“All right, that was good. Now let’s go to the house and learn how to clean those guns,” Paul said as he returned to the group with the destroyed targets.
*****
After the morning chores were complete, breakfast eaten and cleaned up, Jenny rolled her bicycle out of the shop where it had been accumulating dust for the past months. She wiped it down and checked the tires. While not flat, they both needed more air. She lamented losing the tire pump when they were attacked, the last time she had been on the bike. I hope Paul has one. She found Paul and was relieved that he did have a hand tire pump.
He led her back to the shop to show her where it was kept. “Is Steve going along with you?” he asked.
“No, he said he’d rather stay here and see if he could find any weeds in the garden.” She didn’t tell Paul the rest of Steve’s response.
“Go back down there and see those stinkin’ sheep. Are you kidding me? I especially don’t want to help wash the wool, if that’s what she’s doing now.” He had ranted more before Jenny wished him a good day and said she would enjoy the ride by herself.
“I could go along if you want,” Paul told her. “I haven’t seen any strangers go by for a long time but you never know.”
“I appreciate it, but I’m sure I’ll be fine. If I see anyone on the road, I’ll just turn around and come back as fast as I can. Besides, somebody taught me how to use this dangerous weapon,” she said with a grin, tapping the holstered pistol on her belt.
“Suit yourself. It looks like a beautiful morning for a ride. Just make sure you don’t get caught out too late. Do you have a water bottle?”
She said she did as she returned the tire pump to its hook. She put her water bottle in the holder and shouldered the small pack Ruth had asked her to take along. It contained the butter and cottage cheese Ruth and Toni had just made as well as two freshly butchered rabbits. Jenny had almost pouted when she saw the fresh butter go in but Ruth assured her they had plenty. She sat astride the bike and gave Paul a wave as she started down the driveway. The weight of the pistol on her belt felt strange to Jenny as she rode her bicycle toward Janet’s house but as she remembered her last time on the bike, she was comforted by the presence. It all depends on the person holding the gun, she reminded herself.
Paul was right; it was a wonderful morning for a ride. The late spring morning was warm enough that only a sweatshirt was needed for warmth and that soon became too much. She took it off and secured it to the rack, happy for the bungee cords Paul had provided. Her legs were already tired from pedaling but she didn’t push the bike as she had when leaving home. Instead she put the bike in a lower gear, resolved to pedal the entire way. She made a personal pledge to start riding the bike as often as possible to get her legs in shape to make longer and longer rides.
*****
Jenny enjoyed the entire time with Janet, even with pulling smelly, water-laden sheep fleeces from a barrel and helping spread them on drying racks in the barn. As they worked the beautiful day darkened; a cool breeze was blowing and the sky filled with black clouds. Jenny insisted on helping spread the last fleece, ignoring the clouds. The result was a steady drizzle of rain falling when she got on the bicycle and started pedaling for home.
Her shoulders ached from the day’s work and the unaccustomed weight of the pack on the ride there as she bent over the handlebars. Janet had exchanged the food in the pack for fresh lamb meat. It was quite a bit heavier so Scott had secured it to the rear rack. She was grateful to not have the straps pulling on her shoulders.
The rainfall soaking through her clothes did little to dampen her spirit at first. What was a little rain anyway? The wind on the other hand was more of a problem. Steadily pushing her from the side, sudden gusts would threaten to dump her and the bike at the road side. Her good humor soon evaporated. Her legs, already tired from the early ride, were soon screaming from the effort as she went to a still lower gear. The ache in her shoulders intensified. Who knew wool could weigh so much. Those poor sheep when they get rained on. As she fought through the tired aching muscles that seemed to spread from her hair to her toes, she began to berate herself. That’s it Jenny, you’re a wimp. I bet Nick could make this ride easier than you. You better toughen up girl if you’re going to last long in this new world you live in. It soon became a chant to keep the pedals moving; Jenny you wimp, toughen up. She continued to push herself and was happy to see the shape of the house and outbuildings growing larger.
She was jolted out of her thoughts as two dark figures materialized through the rain at the side of the road. Adrenaline shot through her as her mind flashed “fight or flight”? Before she could decide, Jake’s voice cut through to her. “Hey Mom, we were getting kind of worried about you. Why didn’t you come home sooner?”
She got close and stopped the bike. She was able to see Steve was the second figure; his face half hidden by the hood of the raincoat. He had a distinct scowl on his face, irritated to be out in the rain. “Oh you scared me. I was concentrating too much just on going forward and didn’t notice you there.” She made a mental note to be more aware of her surroundings in the future, no matter what the conditions were. If they had been beasts like we ran into when we were leaving town…. She squelched the thoughts and continued what she had been saying. “But anyway, we were busy and weren’t paying attention to the weather until it was already on us.” While she stood in place with her legs on each side of the bike, they were rubbery and she hoped a strong gust of wind didn’t hit just then, it might knock her over. Her wet clothes clung to her skin and she gave an involuntary shudder as the heat she had been generating through movement was drained away by the wet clothes and the wind.
Jake noticed the shake and her lip that began to quiver. “Get to the house Mom and get some dry clothes on and warm up. Leave your bike by the front door and I’ll put it away.”
Jenny accepted and pushed off again, her legs even more rubbery after the pause, but she pushed on. Remembering to be more aware of her surroundings, she noticed the cows through the rain, all backed up to the wind, the calves huddled to their mother’s sides. Poor cows. At least I’ll be able to get out of this. She turned onto the driveway, happy to be moments away from the dry house. Note to self: also pay attention to the weather. She stopped the bike right at the front door and started to reach for the handle. No, I won’t soak Ruth’s floor. Instead of opening the door, she put her head down and plodded around the house to the back door of the enclosed back porch. She peeled the soaked sweat shirt off and hung it over the faucet in the utility sink to drip there.
“Oh there you are Dear,” Ruth said, looking up from the stove. “You need to get out of those wet clothes right away. I’ve got a towel here warming for you to dry off with.” Jenny looked at the puddle she was making and grimaced.
Ruth saw the look. “Don’t worry about it dear. That’s what mops are made for. Now you go change and then sit here by the stove and get warmed up.”
Jenny was amazed yet again at Ruth’s compassion and by reflection Paul. He probably told Jake to go look for me. I doubt it was Steve, seeing how thrilled he was to be out there. She accepted the towel that was offered to her and went to her bedroom.
When Jenny returned to the kitchen in dry clothes, Ruth sat her in a chair near the stove and took her wet clothes to hang and nodded towards the counter. “That cup has rose hip tea and honey I just made for you. You drink that and warm up while I take care of these wet things.”
Following supper Paul went back into the rain and secured the chicken house for the evening to keep the raccoons and other predators out. He walked through the garden and pushed into the dirt with the toe of his boot, happy to see the moisture depth. Summer rains were rare in the region, usually just thunder storms that were fast to pass over and quickly dried out by the wind. A good soaking rain would be welcome as he had noticed the cheat grass on the surrounding hills was already brown and yellow. He studied the cloud cover more, not seeing a break anywhere. He wasn’t a weatherman but it looked to him like this rain would last for a while.
After he had shaken his raincoat to remove as much water as possible and hung it in the back porch, he joined the family at the kitchen table where they were playing Rummy. “Jake, can you milk in the morning? I have something else I want to do.”
Jenny looked up from her hand of cards. “I’ll help.”
Jake looked at his mom. “Are you sure? You looked done in after your ride. You can sleep a little longer and I’ll do it.”
“I guess I’ll see how I feel in the morning,” she said.
*****
Paul was up at first daylight, such as it was, as was his practice. He was pleased to see the light rain was still falling, a good soaking rain; the sky enveloped in dark clouds. He took a butter knife out of the drawer and put his irrigator boots and rain coat on and a light pair of gloves. Slipping the knife in his pocket, he stepped out into the gloom. At the shop, he picked up a bucket and walked towards the road.
He was soon rewarded by a night crawler on the pavement. He slipped the knife under it and plopped it into his bucket, then continued down the road, searching for worms that had come up from the soaking rain. The key he knew was to get to them before the robins and starlings. In the past there would also have been cars, but that was no longer a problem. He stooped often over a squiggling worm and dropped it in his bucket.
Jake and Jenny were leaving the barn with the milk bucket when Paul walked up the drive way. Always curious, she left Jake with the bucket to take care of the milk. She waited for Paul and looked to see what he was carrying in his bucket. “Wow Paul, I’ve done some strange things since we’ve been here, but don’t tell me you’re going to feed us worms now. Yuck!”
“Hey, don’t knock them till you’ve tried them. Haven’t you seen how fat some birds get? Why if I hadn’t got these ones first, the road would be covered with fat little birds, too plump to fly.”
“No really, what are you going to do with them? Are we going fishing?”
“Fishing, wow, don’t I wish. No, I’m going to pour these out all over the garden. They are very beneficial out there. Their tunnels aerate the soil, and they will break down the compost. All of that stuff that we mulched with, they will help break it down and make even better fertilizer. Tilling always takes a toll on the worms and the chickens get a lot of them in the section they run in. So whenever we get a good rain like this one, I like to walk the road a couple of miles and get as many as I can to replenish the stock. So I’ll go dump them out, unless you want to try a couple. You know they’re full of protein.”
“Tell you what, I’ll eat as many of them as you do,” Jenny retorted with a grin.
Paul gave her a wry look and turned to walk to the garden. And I just bet she’d do it too. “I better get these in the garden before they start to dry out.”
|
|
|
Post by bretf on Jul 4, 2016 14:14:23 GMT
Chapter 19
Jenny parked her bike in the shop and wiped the sweat from her face. She no longer wore a watch but was certain she had just made the return trip from Scott and Janet’s house faster than ever. Since riding home in the rain, she had made time to ride the bike almost every day. It didn’t take long before she could easily make the ride to Janet’s and asked Paul to show her a different route to add extra miles to the trip. The changes in her strength and stamina shocked her. Working hard and eating healthy food; who’d a thunk it? I think I’m in better shape than my friends that spent big money at fitness clubs. Of course they had the ever present mega-cup of pop and loved to follow their work outs with cocktails and finger-food. What good was a work out if you couldn’t boast about it with your friends?
Invites to Steve to accompany her on rides were always turned down. She didn’t know if it was from the memory of being knocked off his bike at the road block, irritation at their current circumstances, or just plain laziness. It was probably a combination of all of them and it was reflected in more than just refusing to go for rides. She still wasn’t sure if he could outwork Nick. That boy always wanted to help while Steve went about everything half-heartedly. She was certain he didn’t avoid the rides because he had developed a love for gardening; he spent a lot of time alone in the garden. Paul said he just needs time, but really, how much time does he need?
Jake and Toni each rode with her on occasion, but Jake decided she rode too fast and too far. Paul had ridden with her a few times, actually she had accompanied him. She took it easier with him than she did with the two younger people. He was using the rides to talk with the wide spread neighbors. Over the weeks they had determined what everyone had in excess that could help others out. It was all barter; both materials and labor. Paul used his equipment to put up hay for one neighbor that provided fuel and manpower to help Paul with his own. Paul would help fuel one man’s combine in exchange for grain. The combine would also harvest the beans and they would share the oil from the beans once they were pressed. The pressing would be done by another neighbor that would take beef once the weather cooled enough for it to keep. Meat, firewood, grain, beans, hay, labor; the trades went on and on, to the benefit of everyone.
Paul was relieved that the fuel was still good to put up the hay. He had dreaded what it would be like to scythe and hand rake enough to get the cattle through the winter. But that didn’t stop him from working the scythe around the buildings and loose stacking the dried grass. Every one took a turn with the scythe but no one could match Paul’s rhythm. He swung the long handle with a grace, the tall grass falling before it. He would love to have at least one more scythe if not more, but he had never seen the need when he could have gotten one. So he made do and spent long hours swinging the one he had.
Jenny’s rides with Paul had been very enjoyable. It gave her the opportunity to learn about more of the countryside and meet the neighbors. It relieved the feeling of isolation she had begun to have with just the family; although it was better than the winter spent with no-one to interact with except Steve. Until she started meeting the surrounding people she hadn’t even realized how much she was missing being around people. She tried explaining to Steve but if he understood how she felt, he still wouldn’t accompany her. Yes, there are other people out there; living and working hard to get by just like us. Maybe if I told him one of them has a working TV and a stack of Nascar DVDs he’d want to go along.
Jenny wiped her face again and drank what water remained in her bottle. She saw Ruth and Toni walking towards the garden with the garden cart filled with boxes and went to join them. All right, more canning today. Once the vegetables had started ripening, they spent countless hours preserving the bounty for winter. Besides canning, they had loaded racks drying vegetables and herbs, crocks filled with fermenting sauerkraut, other crocks filled with cucumbers in salt brine.
“Did you have a nice ride dear?” Ruth asked when Jenny caught up to the other women.
“Yes, it was very nice, although it’s already starting to feel like today will be a scorcher,” Jenny said. “I saw some fox pups playing. They were so cute, I would have liked to watch them, but kept going. I hope they don’t come here and to get the chickens and rabbits. It would be a shame if we have to shoot them.”
“That’s why we keep the chickens and rabbits locked up tight at night. You’re right; it would be a shame if we had to shoot them. They get a lot of mice, and mice and voles can be very damaging if there’s nothing to control the population,” Ruth said.
“So what are we putting up today?” Jenny asked.
“The same as every day the past couple of weeks; whatever is ready,” Ruth replied.
The three picked as fast as they could, trying to beat the heat, the sun already beating down on them. They loaded the boxes in the garden cart and rolled it to the outdoor kitchen. Paul had set up a partial outdoor kitchen from his days of working the farmer’s markets. He had large benches and a utility sink under a screened in lean-to where he and Ruth had cleaned and prepared the vegetables they sold.
As the weather warmed, Paul had traded for a wood stove a neighbor had gathering dust in his barn. Payment for the stove would be a half beef once the weather cooled. In the meantime, the stove was set up in the outdoor kitchen to heat the canners. It was hot business, but at least the extra heat wasn’t added to the house. Paul had considered taking the stove out of the kitchen, but didn’t want to unhook the hot water system he and Jake had put in. Not that it was used during the summer. Instead, he had a water line running through a full roll of black poly pipe he had never used. The summer sun heated the water nearly as well as the wood stove.
Paul was cleaning ashes from the stove when the women rolled the cart in. “Are you going to put the ashes in the garden?” Jenny asked. “It seems I heard somewhere they are good for gardens.” As she spoke she realized she hadn’t seen ashes in the garden but knew Paul had cleaned the stoves numerous times.
“No, I don’t put ash in our garden. It depends on the dirt whether or not it is helpful; you need acidic soil to use ashes. Most of the ground around here is alkaline, so adding ashes just makes the ground worse. In fact, I’ve put ashes out under fence rows and it has killed the grass there.” And a whole load of new seedlings. Paul hadn’t known about the alkaline soil in the area and had learned the hard way about soil additives. The county extension agent had since provided him with a lot of helpful information.
“So what do you do with it? Are you pouring it out to kill weeds?” Jenny asked.
“No, have you seen that wood hopper by the shop? I pour them in there.” Paul told her.
“Hopper, do you mean that big wooden box on legs?” Jenny asked, still needing help with a lot of the terms Paul used.
“Yep, that’s it.” Paul said as he stood up and picked up the ash bucket.
“Okay, but what do you do with them then? I mean, I don’t think you made that hopper box and pour the ashes in for the fun of it.”
“I’m going to make lye with the ash,” he told her.
“Lie? You’re turning into a liar now?” Jenny asked, knowing that was wrong, but not sure what he was talking about.
He chuckled at the response. “Not l-i-e lie, but l-y-e lye,” he said and started walking away.
“Well, thanks for the spelling lesson, but what on earth is l-y-e lye?” she asked following him.
He had arrived at the hopper and took off the cover. “In your past life, you would have bought lye to clean your drains. It is very caustic and was widely used for drain cleaner. It also is used in making olives. But we won’t use it for either of those things.” He poured the contents of the bucket into the hopper and looked in after the dust had settled. “I think we have about enough in here now.”
“Hey, wait a minute. You’re telling me they use corrosive drain cleaner in olives? Now I’m glad they don’t grow around here,” she said.
“They sure do. Remember the bitter taste in the maple seeds? That is something called tannin. Olives have it too and it has to be leeched out before they are edible. A brine is mixed up with lye and water and the olives put in and soaked. It takes quite a few days and changes of the brine, but eventually all of the tannin is leeched out.”
“So what do you want with it?” Jenny enquired. “You don’t do things on a whim, so what will you use the lye for.”
Paul had set his bucket down and started walking to a hose bib, Jenny going with him. “Well, it has three other uses that I’m interested in. First of all, lye can be used as the catalyst to make biodiesel. Now I don’t know what all that entails, but Jerry, you remember meeting him a couple weeks ago? He has played with making the stuff for years and said he will use any lye I have left over.
“The next thing I want to use it for is to make hominy. We’ll put some lye and water and dry field corn in a pot and boil it for a while. After it has set for a time, we rinse the lye out. It takes a number of rinses to get it all out. The dark tips will separate from the kernels; we have to work it with our hands to get that. We’ll separate the corn out and then start cooking again. We boil it, then change the water and do it again; and again; and again. After the kernels are soft we can eat it and can it.”
“Hominy, huh,” she said. “I used to eat that when I lived in the south but haven’ had any for years. That sounds like a good thing to make. But you said you’ll use the lye for three things. What’s the other one?”
“The other thing that we need it for is if we make it strong enough, it will dissolve fat.” He had reached the hose bib and turned it on and picked up the hose end and started back towards the hopper. He waited for the next question, working to keep the grin off his face.
“Wow it dissolves fat. I’ve sure been looking for something to do that. Paul’s wonder fat-dissolver. Actually, it seems to me all the work we are doing is pretty effective at that. Now would you quit being cryptic and tell me what you want it for,” she said with an exasperated tone.
At her remark, he couldn’t keep the grin from forming. “All right. We’ll make something you’ll be very happy to have. You mix the lye with fat and water, maybe mix in some good smelling stuff and it makes soap.”
Jenny stopped walking and stared at him, looking for the joke. “Really, you’re not lye-ing to me? You mix fat, drain cleaner and water to make soap?” They had been very careful with soap usage lately as Ruth’s stock was going fast. She had never intended on having it last for a long crisis, especially with five extra people using it.
“Really,” Paul stated. “Fats and lye make soap; we can also use milk in it.” He continued on to the hopper.
“So what are you doing? I mean, how are you going to get the lye out of the ashes?” she asked, even more interested now that she knew what the end product would be.
He indicated the hopper with his free hand. “I’ve been putting the ashes in there pretty much every time I’ve cleaned the stoves since we lost the power. In the bottom of that hopper, I have gravel and straw to work as a filter to keep the ashes from draining out. Now I’m going to add water and mix it into a sludge. It is recommended that rainwater or boiled water be used, but we’ll make do with what we have. I’m hoping the water from the spring doesn’t have anything that will react with the lye.” He held the hose over the hopper and started running water into the ashes.
“After it has leeched for a few of days, we’ll drain the liquid out the bottom. We have to be very careful doing that. It will burn if it touches skin. We’ll drain it off into a plastic bucket. Then we need to test it to see if it is right to make soap with. It would be easy if we had PH strips, but we don’t so we have to go old school. One way to do it is put an egg or potato in it. If it floats with an area about the size of a nickel above the liquid, it is just about right. Another way is to put a wing feather from a chicken in it. If it dissolves the feather, it’s strong enough to dissolve fat to make soap. Now, if we do those tests and it isn’t strong enough, we need to heat it and cook off the water until it is strong enough. I’ve heard of some people that run it through the ashes again to get it more concentrated.” Paul dropped the hose on the ground and stirred the sludge with a stick he had leaning against the hopper.
He rinsed the stick and leaned it back against the hopper and went to the hose bib and shut the water off. “But how do you get soap?” Jenny asked.
“Most of the soap recipes I have are for using crystalized lye. We could take our bucket and leave it in the sunshine and the water will evaporate, leaving us just the crystallized lye. But I was looking at some literature a couple days ago and found some instructions that use the lye water we will make. To use it in that form we will mix some of the water with fat, a little vinegar and some hot water. We have to boil it for quite a while and eventually we’ll have liquid soap. Put a little salt in it and it will make hard soap. Don’t ask me to explain why, I don’t know. I just know from my reading that it’s supposed to work.”
“So you keep saying fat. What fat?” Jenny asked.
“If we need to make some before fall, we’ll use lard. We still have quite a bit of that. If we can stretch what soap we have until fall, we’ll use the fat when we butcher. I’ve read that it works pretty good to do a mix of beef tallow and hog fat. I don’t know; I’ve never done it. And I told you I read about using raw milk. So we’ll just have to see how it goes.”
“So once we butcher, we can use all of the fat and make as much soap as we want?” Jenny enquired while they were walking back to the outdoor kitchen. “But we need to butcher to get the fat.”
“Yep, as much as we want,” Paul answered.
“You know, a barbecue and neighborhood party sure sounds good,” she said grinning.
Before stepping back into the shade, Jenny looked around, wondering where Steve, Jake and Nick were, what they were doing. She spotted Steve in the pasture, leaning on a shovel while Nick ran and splashed in the irrigation water. It sure seems to take a lot of time to irrigate. She never saw Jake but was sure he must be working harder than his father.
Ruth and Toni were busy cleaning vegetables so Jenny joined them while Paul worked on getting the stove ready to start and brought in another wheelbarrow full of firewood. The temperature rose fast once the fire was burning and the filled canners were heating. The group took a break outside under a shade tree where chairs had been set up, but still close enough to keep close tabs on the pressure gauges and the fire. Tall glasses of cool spring water were a welcome relief after the stove’s heat.
Jenny was thinking about a cool shower with unlimited soap. Her hair had been growing out and she had been feeling guilty about keeping it clean, but now…. No, I want Toni to cut it again. It has been so much easier to take care of and I like it this way now. She was shaken out of her thoughts at something Ruth had just said.
“I’m sorry Ruth, what did you say we need to do?” she asked.
“Oh, I was just saying that since we are getting more eggs than we use, we should dehydrate some for the winter. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but chickens egg laying is tied to sunlight. Once the days shorten, the hens really drop off. We won’t get near as many eggs, so I was just telling Toni that we need to dehydrate a lot of them for winter,” Ruth said.
“That sounds like a good idea, but how do you do it?” Jenny asked.
“We’ll break a bunch of them into a mixing bowl and whisk them up. Now if we had electricity, we would pour that on the fruit leather trays and dry them in the dehydrator. But since we can’t do that, we’ll still use the trays, but also cookie sheets and lay them out on the seats of the car.” The immobile car had become the defacto dehydrator for many things. “After they are dry and brittle, we’ll crush them up and put them in canning jars and store them in the pantry. It would be nice to vacuum seal the jars, but they should be good enough to last until the chickens start laying a lot again.”
Supper was prepared and served in the outdoor kitchen, everyone filling their plates and sitting around in lawn chairs enjoying the coolness of evening once the sun had dropped below the horizon. Jenny marveled at all of the sounds that had become music to her ears in the short time on Paul and Ruth’s farm: a distant owl hooting, frogs croaking, crickets chirping and the very satisfying ping of sealing lids on the Mason jars.
|
|
|
Post by bretf on Jul 4, 2016 14:22:33 GMT
Chapter 20
After the work table was cleaned up, Paul delivered the dishpan with the fresh rabbit meat to Ruth. While in the house, he gathered a number of items and set them all in the empty bucket he had carried along. He went to the shop and added a container of small finish nails, hammer, and a well-used file to his bucket and picked it up along with a section of plywood.
He carried it all back to the machine shed and laid everything down on the work table. Flies were buzzing all around the two fresh rabbit skins and the scrap bucket. He brushed away the flies from the hides and laid them out flat with the hair side down and sprinkled salt on them and spread it evenly on each skin. With the hides covered, he picked up the scrap bucket causing an eruption of the irritating insects, took his shovel in the other hand and went to bury the offal. After he was finished he washed the bucket and returned it and the shovel to the machine shed, turning the bucket upside down to drain.
He swept his hand over the hides, shooing the ever-present flies away. He had decided to set up there instead of the shop to take advantage of the light breeze that was blowing through. He could be fly-free in the shop, but along with that came the stifling heat of an enclosed room on a hot summer day. He settled for shooing flies.
He laid the first hide out flat on the plywood with the hair down and stretched it out, nailing the edges to the plywood. When it was secure he repeated the process with the second rabbit skin. Once the second skin was secured, he took the file and fleshed the hides, pushing any remaining scraps of meat and fat free. He paused often, brushing his hand over the annoying flies. When both hides appeared free of scraps, he wiped the file clean and set it aside.
He took two bowls from the bucket he had filled in the house and shop, and set them side by side on the table and then took out two eggs that he cracked into one bowl. He took a water bottle from the bucket, and with the lid off, squeezed most of the air out and placed the uncapped end on an egg yolk. Releasing his grip, the yolk was sucked into the bottle. He expelled the yolk into the empty bowl and repeated the process with the second egg. The bowl with the egg whites and the water bottle were pushed to the back side of the table.
Something brushed his leg and he looked down at Shadow. She was snuffling all around the table and the work area, hoping for some morsel that had fallen on the ground when he had butchered the rabbits. Tuning out the dog’s noises as she worked her way outside the machine shed, he picked up the fork and whipped the egg yolks. He poured about half of the whipped egg yolk onto one of the hides and was rubbing it into the skin when Shadow came back into the machine shed and lay down near him. The egg tanning wasn’t the best tanning method, but it was a close substitute for brain tanning. He was sure it would be good enough for the rabbit skins that were thin and would most likely wear through with much use.
Shadow crunched on something she had carried in with her, making him wonder if she had dug up the waste he had just buried. He was intent on rubbing the egg yolk into the rabbit skin when the dog farted; long, noisy and stinky. “Oh man, Shadow, did you have to do that here?” Paul said. “Wow, you’re making my eyes water and my nose hair curl with that one. It’s a good thing there’s not an open flame here; you’d blow us both up.”
He continued working the egg yolk into the rabbit skin while the air cleared. His hands froze in place as it dawned on him what he had said. “Shadow,” he said excitedly, making her jump up in alarm. She looked all around trying to locate the cause for her master’s excitement. “You wonderful, stinking dog. Why didn’t you remind me about this sooner?’’ He found it hard to concentrate on what he was doing as his mind raced. Eventually he had the egg yolk rubbed into each of the skins. He picked up the rag and went to the hose bib and washed his hands and soaked the rag. He carried the board with the skins on it to the shop and set it flat and covered the skins with the damp rag.
He looked around the shop and located the dusty box on an upper shelf. He wanted to pull it down then, but had to put everything away before that. Put away the stuff from one project or you’ll never get back to it. At least the rabbit skins could wait until morning. He went back to the machine shed and gathered everything up, his mind filled with possibilities, not on what he was doing. Shadow watched over him as she lay in the shade chewing on her treasure, unknowing and uncaring about what she had caused with her blast of flatulence.
He carried the bucket to the pump house and set the bowl with the egg whites in the box he had adapted as a make-shift refrigerator. When the weather had warmed too much for the dairy products to keep well, he had emptied a Rubbermaid tote and arranged a trickle of the cool spring water to run through it. A couple jars of milk, cottage cheese and butter were generally in it. It wasn’t as good as a refrigerator but it extended the life of their products, keeping them cooler than they would be otherwise.
He hurried to the house and cleaned everything he had used and set it to dry and went back outside in a rush. Ruth watched him, perplexed at his manner. Paul usually moved at a settled, steady pace. She wondered what was on his mind, but knew he would tell her when he was ready.
In the shop, Paul put away the tools and looked back at the shelves. I’ll need the step ladder. He set the ladder in front of the shelf and pulled off the box, dust filling the surrounding air as he jostled it towards him. After picking up his reading glasses from the work bench, he carried the box to the chairs under the shade tree and sat down and opened the box. It was filled with old magazines; mostly the original Mother Earth News, a few Grit and others thrown in. They had been there when he bought the farm. After thumbing through them briefly, he had repacked them, planning on looking at them more thoroughly someday.
He started pulling magazines out and glanced through the headings on the covers before setting them aside. A smile formed on his face when he saw a heading he was looking for: “Homemade Natural Gas: The Mother Earth News Methane Digester”. He found the story and read it through and marked the page with a subscription return card. He set the magazine by itself on an empty chair and picked up the next one in the box. Once he had gone through the box, he had four magazines set aside and started back through the pile, looking at each with a more careful eye. He failed to notice the garden cart pushed past with a load of vegetables to the outdoor kitchen.
“I didn’t realize today was a holiday,” Jenny quipped to him. Paul was so engrossed, he never looked up. “Wow, what’s going on with your dad?” she asked Toni.
“I don’t know, but there must be something good in those old magazines. I guess we get to bring the wood in ourselves today.” She looked at the cart load and the blazing sun. “I can hardly wait to get the fire going.”
Paul soon left the chair carrying the box of magazines, leaving the short stack, and returned with a clipboard of papers and a pencil. He opened first one magazine and then the next, reading and making notes. After finishing the last article, he scanned his notes and stood and looked around.
He began to talk to himself while he looked. “All right, where to build it? Close to the house I guess, where it’s going to be used. And I need heat, as close to 85 to 95 degrees as I can get it; and that will have to come from the sun.” At another glance at his notes, he added, “It still works a little down to freezing, but pretty much stops doing enough to be beneficial at 60.” He walked towards the house, looking the area over with a critical eye.
“Toni, your dad’s acting weird,” Jenny told her.
Paul was near the house and glanced at his notes again. “Good, no tree roots around there and it’s in the sun. I can bury it as much as possible and use the ground as insulation. If I put it right there against the chimney, it should pick up some heat from the stove. I think I could scrap together enough material to build a greenhouse type shelter over it, and it’ll only need to be three sided if I use the house. That’ll save some materials. Have to make it so I can vent it easy and shade it when it’s too hot out.” He studied the site a bit more and perused his notes again. He turned and went back towards the machine shed looking at all of the materials he had neatly stacked.
Reading through his notes again after looking at his pile, he considered his options. “They say the vertical designs tend to plug easier than the horizontal, so if I can pull it off I need to go horizontal. And that also makes it easier to be a continuous feed rather than a batch system.” He looked at his notes and back at the material pile. “So, I shouldn’t use metal parts because the hydrogen sulphide will corrode it, unless I build a ‘washer’. I don’t think I can build that in our current world, and I’m not sure I can be that picky about metal. Have to see what I can scrounge up. It sure would be nice to have access to a good junkyard now,” he muttered as he looked over his supplies. “But some old farmers living at the same place forever might be just as good.” He got a big grin at the thought.
An idea formed. He picked up his short stack of magazines and walked back to the shop and removed a day pack from a nail and put his magazines and clipboard in it. After he had filled two water bottles, he went to the bicycles and put one bottle in the pack and secured it to the back rack and the other bottle in the holder. He pushed the bike to the outdoor kitchen. “I’m going to go see some neighbors. Not sure when I’ll be back.” He mounted the bike and started down the driveway.
The group watched him ride away. “His mind is really on something,” Ruth said. “I haven’t seen him this distracted for a long time. Steve, would you be a dear and bring in a wheelbarrow of wood. We need to get the stove going soon.”
It was a rare instance when Steve helped with canning. And I had to be in here today. Sure I’ll get the wood and start the fire while he goes and shoots the breeze with his friends.
The evening chores were complete and everyone was relaxing in the lawn chairs when Paul returned. Ruth saw him and went into the outdoor kitchen and stirred up the coals in the stove and added some small wood to get the fire going to fry the rabbits. The pan was already on the corner almost warm enough to cook, as well as a pot of water for cooking fresh ears of corn. Jenny and Toni followed along and started slicing tomatoes and cucumbers. Jake picked up the box of corn he had picked earlier and moved with it to the seat next to his dad. After shucking one ear and Steve not getting the hint, Jake removed two ears from the box and dropped one on his dad’s lap. Steve stared at it for a bit. Nick saw his hesitation and told him, “Here Grandpa. I’ll show you how it’s done,” and took the ear and started to pull the husks free.
Supper was ready to serve by the time Paul joined them from the shop. They filled plates and sat down in a circle and Paul asked the blessing. They began to eat, except for Ruth. She looked at Paul. “Well, are you going to tell us or not?”
He chewed and swallowed the mouthful he had and then unable to keep the grin off his face said, “How would you like to use the gas stove in the kitchen again? And have gas lights in the house?”
His answer drew everyone’s attention, at least everyone that had been working over the woodstove in the summer’s heat. Toni was the first to respond to him. “That would be incredible! How are you going to do it Dad?”
“We’re going to build something called a ‘methane digester’. Once it is done, we’ll feed it manure. We’ll be able to take methane gas and fertilizer out of it. I’m hoping we can plumb the gas into the natural gas line and burn it in the stove.” He took a bite of his corn while everyone thought about what he had said.
“That sounds like in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,” Steve said around a mouthful of rabbit. “I always thought they made that up, you know how movies do. I mean really, making power from manure?”
“I’m not sure if I saw that movie,” Paul said. “And if I did, I don’t remember it. So they made power with manure, huh? I’m happy to say it’s real and we’re going to be using a form of it soon. We won’t make electricity however. I’d need a generator for that but I never bought one. But we can burn the gas.”
“Hey Dad,” Jake said. “It’s like that story you told me about you and your buddies at the movie theater, only we’ll harness the power.”
“What story?” Toni asked. Jenny dropped her face over her plate, knowing the story Steve had been so proud of. While it used to be funny, now it was flat out embarrassing.
“Dad and his buddies had a whole bunch of chili and more than a few beers then went to the movies. They put their legs up on the seats in front of them and were lighting their farts on fire until they were kicked out,” Jake told her. He and Steve both laughed while Jenny felt her face getting hot.
“Nice dinnertime story Jake,” Toni told him. “So Dad, how do we make this thing?” “Jerry has an old water tank he used with his bio-diesel until he got some better tanks. We’ll get it over here and use it for the digester tank. We’ll need to put a hole in each end and put in sewer pipe that we cap off on the outside. We’ll pour in the manure on one end and take it out from the other.”
“Pour it?” Toni interrupted. “How do you pour manure?”
“We’ll mix it with water; make a slurry out of it. One article says you can mix it as thin as six percent and have it work and another says it would work with mostly manure and just a little water. It seems like most of them mix it from one to one up to three to one with water being the three. I think that’s what we’ll start with. We’ll just have to experiment.” He took another bite from his plate before continuing.
“We’ll need one more hole and pipe near the bottom on the discharge end for cleaning. The papers say invariably, sludge will form over time and will need cleaned out.”
“I don’t get how you’re going to get the gas if there is a sewer pipe going into it,” Jenny said. “Won’t the gas just escape out the sewer pipe?”
“The pipes will go down into the liquid manure and the gas will collect at the top of the tank, above the slurry. We also need to pipe in a line in the gas collection area for the methane to exit.” Paul savored a bite of the fried rabbit and washed it down with a drink of cold milk.
“Besides the digester, we’ll set up some gas collection tanks. The process works best at 85 to 95 degrees. We’ll bury the digester for the most part and build a greenhouse type enclosure around it. I don’t know how well it will work in the winter, but it’s not as important then since we use the cook stove for room heat as well as cooking. Hopefully it’ll make enough gas that we can run some lights on winter evenings. But I’m sure we can make gas and quit burning wood during the summer. Any wood we save will be a big improvement.”
“So this methane will burn in our kitchen stove just like the natural gas?” Ruth asked.
“It won’t burn as hot,” Paul told her. “The BTUs in methane is under half what natural gas is, so it will take longer to cook. I’ll probably have to tinker with the air intake on the stove a little bit too.”
“So how are the gas collectors made?” Jenny asked.
“I have some barrels; fifty and forty gallons. We’ll set the large one on the ground with the open end up. The smaller one will fit inside it, open end down. We’ll put water in the bottom barrel and it will make a seal between the two barrels. We’ll have an in and an out fitting in the top for the gas to flow. If we need even more gas storage, I have a couple of tractor inner tubes that we can put in line to collect the methane. If we push all the air out, they will inflate as the methane enters and fills them. Who knows how warm we can keep it in winter. The inner tubes might become the primary collectors.”
“It all sounds good, but I’m not so sure about having that right at my kitchen window. What about odors?” Ruth asked.
“That’s why we’ll have caps on the in and out pipe. As long as we keep everything capped it shouldn’t stink,” Paul said. “We should only open it when we add more slurry and drain off the same at the other end.
As they ate, there was further discussion of the project, each of them excited to get started on it. Steve was having mixed thoughts. It sounds like a lot of work. But once it’s working I guess we won’t be splitting and hauling that much firewood. No wait, we’ll be hauling manure instead. I guess we’ll see if it’s worth it – if it even works. Power from manure, really?
Following chores the next morning, Paul, Jake, Jenny and Toni mounted bicycles and started for Jerry’s house. Paul had arranged for Jerry to drive the tank over, along with the needed piping, but it would be a big job to load it. Steve had turned down the chance to go along, saying parts of the garden needed irrigated and he would stay and take care of it with Nick’s help. Ruth stayed and worked on removing dehydrated food from the racks and refilling them.
Ruth had just replaced two racks when Jerry’s old flatbed truck rolled into the driveway. After Paul directed him to a place near the back of the house, Jake and Toni got off the back of the truck and started to unload three bicycles while Jerry got out of the cab. Ruth looked at the load and noticed Jenny’s absence. “Jake, what happened to your mother? I don’t see her.”
“I’m not sure what she’s up to. She told Jerry she wanted dropped off before we got home, I can’t remember what the road is. She unloaded her bike and started down that road. She wouldn’t tell us what she was doing.”
“Well I’m sure she had her reasons. So that’s our gas generator huh?” she said looking at the large steel tank.
“Yep, now we get to unload it and start digging.” Jake didn’t look enthused at the idea but went straight to unhooking tie down straps.
The tank was soon upended onto the ground and Jerry said his goodbyes, promising to be back in a few days. He was interested in any alternative fuel, and although he didn’t have livestock on his farm, he wanted to see the digester when it was finished and working. If it did everything it was hoped for, he just might have to get some animals. As he drove away, he thought more about it. Or just run the drain from the house into a digester instead of the septic tank. I might not need animals after all.
Paul laid out the footprint of the digester’s destination and they started digging. When he took breaks from the shovel he worked on the holes in the tank. Jenny soon came peddling home and parked her bike and took a turn digging. Enquiries by Jake about what she had been doing went unanswered.
By evening, the tank had been rolled into the hole and the dirt packed around it everywhere except at the drain. That would have to remain accessible. The pipes were all put in the holes and sealed with silicone. Paul wanted to get some slurry in the tank, but decided it would be wise to wait for the silicone to dry. Patience, Paul, Patience. What’s one more day after all? Weary from the tough day, he carried the tools to the shop to put them away and for the first time that day noticed the stretched rabbit hides. Oh, those still need to be taken care of. He pulled the nails and carried the hides to the machine shed, picked up the empty bucket and went to the hose bib and filled the bucket with water.
He put the hides in the water and started washing the salt and egg yolk off them. He was pleased to see Jenny go to the barn with the milk bucket. Good, I sure don’t want to milk this evening. He returned to the task at hand, continuing to wash the hides. After the water had been changed, he rinsed the hides again, then hung them on the clothes line. They needed to dry some, but should still be damp for the next step.
Ruth was putting the finishing touches on supper when Jenny came in with the milk bucket. “So Dear, are you going to tell me what secret mission you were on today?” she asked.
Jenny looked around to be sure no one else was in listening range. “What would you think of having a working refrigerator?” she asked.
“I think that would be wonderful, but how would you do it?” Ruth said.
“When we were going to Jerry’s, I saw something down one of the roads I’ve seen on my rides but never paid much attention to. While we were loading the tank Jerry was going on and on about all the things we could do with methane gas, besides cooking. I tell you, that man is passionate about alternative energy. He barely took time to breathe. But anyway, when he mentioned gas powered refrigerators, I remembered there is an old run-down travel trailer down there. The roof is caving in on it, but I figured the refrigerator might still work if it’s there. So I went to find out. It’s still there and I think we can trade some milk and eggs and a couple of rabbits for it. Think about it Ruth, a refrigerator; ice in summer. We could take some of that wonderful cream and make ice cream for Nick’s birthday!”
Ruth did think about it. “Yes, that would be incredible. Paul would be thrilled with that. He considered ice cream its own food group. He went through worse withdrawals from that than coffee,” she said with a chuckle.
Following supper, Paul retrieved the rabbit skins and a shovel. He rested the shovel handle across the front edge of his chair. He picked up one hide and started to work it across the wooden handle. When Jenny saw what he was doing she got another shovel and started to work the second skin. She had assisted him on many evenings by working rabbit skins while they dried, making the skin soft and supple. It was much better than allowing them to air-dry where they would end up hard as a board.
When they were totally dry and pliable, Paul would have Jake climb a ladder and clip them to a rack he had arranged over the chimney. The smoke would help make them waterproof. After that they would be ready to cut for mittens or whatever Ruth decided to make out of them. He had a good stack of tanned skins that were waiting for cutting and sewing.
The following day, they worked to complete the gas collectors and the piping between the digester, the collection tanks and the gas line into the house. Paul was checking the silicone seal on the input pipe when he saw Ruth whispering in Jenny’s ear. He stared at her for a moment and asked, “What? If you have something to say, share it with everyone.”
Ruth and Jenny both busted out laughing to Paul’s irritation. At his pointed look, she controlled her laughter enough to answer him. “I was just telling Jenny you were just like a little boy shaking all his presents at Christmas. I swear Paul; it will be dry when it is dry. You don’t have to check it every five minutes. There’s an old saying, maybe you’ve heard it. “A watch pot never boils.” Now just relax and wait for it to be ready.”
He glared at her for a bit longer and then his gaze softened. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I just want to get the slurry in there and let the bacteria get to working. It’s supposed to take a couple weeks if not longer before it works.”
“Tell you what, it looks like we’re done here for now. Go milk the cow and after that fill the wheelbarrow with manure. It will have to be ready to pour in by then,” Ruth told him.
He stood immobile for a while. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. See, I told you I married you for your brains as well as your beauty,” he said and gave her a quick kiss before he went to get his milk bucket. When he was out of hearing, the two women started laughing again.
After Jennifer was milked, Paul filled and rolled a wheelbarrow load of chicken manure to the digester. I needed to clean the chicken house anyway, so at least it’s good timing. He checked the silicone seals and mentally complemented Ruth on her wisdom; she had been right. He had kept busy and it was now dry enough to start adding slurry if he was careful. He mixed water with the load of manure and started pouring it in the input pipe. When the load was empty, he checked the seal on the clean out pipe and was pleased to see there was no leakage.
While he was checking Ruth and Jenny rolled the garden cart up, filled with cow pies. “We thought you might want this,” Ruth said flashing him a grin. “After all, you’ve been acting like this is your Christmas present and you always need batteries with the good presents. Consider this the batteries.”
“Thanks. Your timing is perfect, I was just ready for some more.” He transferred the cow manure to the wheel barrow, added water and started mixing it.
Each morning and numerous times during the day, Paul checked the gas collection chambers. When he noted one chamber raising, he was elated, then remembered it was supposed to make carbon dioxide first. He knew that, but he still couldn’t stop himself from getting a long lighter and holding it over the tank release valve as he cracked it open. He fought his disappointment as the release didn’t ignite. He closed the valve with a sigh. It just needs more time. The articles said it will take two weeks if not more. He looked up as Ruth and Jenny peddled past the house on the way to the road, a filled pack on Jenny’s back rack. Now where are those two going? Ruth doesn’t ride bikes like Jenny. He shook it off and went to don his bee suit to check the bee hives.
*****
Paul was elated. He had held the lighter over the valve, opened it and flame had shot out. It works, it really works! He had hoped and prayed it would work, but harnessing the gas from manure seemed like it would take something more complex. While he had been monitoring the digester, he had remembered some of the large dairies setting up digesters. They had spent thousands and thousands of dollars on each system. And he had made one that was so simple, make that we made one that is simple. He decided the USDA must have had some kind of grant for setting up a system. Oh well, their policies don’t affect me now.
He opened the valve to send the gas into the house and was just stepping though the doorway when Ruth and Jenny came into the driveway, pushing their bikes. Now what happened that they’re pushing instead of riding? And what on earth do they have on Jenny’s rack? He was going to go check on them when he remembered what he was doing. I’ve got to go check the stove and make sure it is right. I guess they can tell me later what happened that they are walking.
Paul had done a little plumbing in the time he had waited for the digester to work. The gas line to the hot water heater was disconnected and capped off, the shortest possible route remaining for the gas to the stove. He sniffed around the new connections and didn’t detect any odor. After going to the stove, he cracked open a valve and held the lighter flame to it. Nothing. After an interminable wait, he finally smelled the methane and held the lighter flame to it. It burned, but was a small flame. He stared at it trying to figure out a solution. More pressure, the gas needs to come in under more pressure. He was starting for the back door when he remembered the new fittings. He gave another sniff test and ran the lighter around them all and was pleased there did not appear to be leakage. Now to increase the pressure.
He stepped out the door and stopped just before he ran into a large object. Ruth and Jenny were standing behind it with big grins. “Merry Christmas,” they chimed in unison as he looked up at them. He looked back down at the boxy object.
“We were worried you didn’t have enough to do and would be getting bored, so we found you something, well Jenny found something, that you might have fun with,” Ruth beamed.
“Is that a refrigerator? Where’d it come from?” Paul asked, amazed at the two women.
“It sure is. Jenny found it in a travel trailer so we made a little trade for it and got it out with some help from Jerry,” Ruth said.
“Jerry?” Paul asked.
“Yes, he was so interested in your project that when Jenny told him what she was working on, he jumped right on board. I think he wants you to get all the bugs worked out so he can copy your system.” Ruth was pleased with the happy expression on Paul’s face. “So if you notice some missing rabbits from the breeders, that’s what happened to them. We had to pay for this after all.”
“So, will you be able to make enough gas to cook with and run this too?” Jenny asked.
“Well, I’m not sure, but we’ll find out,” he answered. He looked around at the digester area that had become a construction project. He had been busy working on the building enclosure. A pile of bricks were nearby that he had planned on laying between the dirt and the lumber. He picked up four bricks and set them on one of the inverted barrels.
Paul looked at the women with a very satisfied grin. “I was just burning a flame on the stove. It worked, but was weak. I think this weight will increase the pressure. You want to see it?”
The women followed him into the kitchen and watched while Paul started a burner. The flame was increased with the added pressure. Ruth moved the teapot from the cook stove and set it on the burner, all three staring at the blue flame. Paul cleared his throat, “Uh, I think it might take a while. So, where do we set up that refrigerator?”
*****
Paul looked up at the unfamiliar sound of an approaching vehicle. It seemed odd that the one-time familiar sound now generated alarm. He remained tense until he recognized Jerry’s old truck turn onto the driveway. He walked over to intercept the truck and regretted it. The truck braked to a stop creating a large dust cloud in the dry dirt.
Jerry climbed out and greeted Paul. “Good morning Paul. So, is it working?”
Paul’s face wore a wide smile. “It’s working great, just like the articles said. Did you want to go see it or just stand here in the sun and talk about it?”
“Lead on Trailblazer.”
They walked to the digester, the building around it taking shape. “Do you have enough material to get it fully enclosed?” Jerry asked.
“Barely; I didn’t have enough cement for a foundation, so I’m just going with pier footings. I’ve got some brick to separate the ground from the wood, but some wood will sit on the ground. I’ll have to make sure I give it good ventilation in the warm part of the year. I’m sacrificing three of my cold frames for the glass and the wood. But that’s all right; I didn’t use them much after I got the greenhouse.”
Paul showed him the full set up, answering all of Jerry’s questions about it. “So you are making gas; how about the heat? Does it do what you hoped for?”
Paul’s smile broadened. “The ladies have been canning with it. It takes quite a while to get the canners to pressure, but no worse than the wood stove. And then it’s lots easier to keep the heat adjusted. I just wish Shadow would have clued me in earlier in the summer.” Jerry had laughed and laughed when Paul had told him his inspiration for the system.
“What about the refrigerator, do you get enough gas to run it too?” Jerry asked as Paul led him into the house.
“See for yourself,” Paul said. Ruth approached them as they entered the kitchen holding out two glasses filled with ice tea.
After Jerry had seen all he wanted to see and made some notes on the system, he walked back to his truck, accompanied by Paul. “Will you be back for Nick’s birthday?” Paul asked.
“With those ladies making a chocolate cake and ice cream? I wouldn’t miss it.” Ruth had told him of the plans she and Jenny had for Nick’s birthday and insisted he attend.
“You’ve given me a lot of good ideas here Paul. I think I should have something working before long. I’ll come and get you when it’s going and let you look it over.” He started the truck, turned and drove away, kicking up nearly as much dust as when he arrived.
*****
The meal was cleaned up and Ruth put four candles in the cake and had Nick stand in front of it while everyone encircled the table. She clicked the lighter and the breeze snuffed out the flame. 0. “Can you hold that tray to block the wind, Paul?” she asked, indicating the tray they used to carry the stack of dishes.
Paul did as he was asked and held the tray as Ruth lit the candles. They sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Nick and he leaned in to blow out the candles. The swirling gust of wind coincided with Nick’s action, the candles all going out.
Paul stepped back and looked out across the fields. The sky to the west was filled with black menacing clouds. A cloud of dust was on the horizon and trees were bending from the wind. “We need to get under cover, there’s a storm coming fast,” Paul snapped.
They moved fast, carrying chairs and everything needed for the dessert into the outdoor kitchen. Ruth covered the food and dishes with a towel just as the strong winds hit, accompanied by flying dust. The dust cloud was gone almost as fast as it arrived but the wind continued with strong gusts. The sky darkened, then lit with a flash of lighting. Rain began to pound, making Nick put his hands over his ears as it hammered the tin roof. The rain was intense and short lived, but the clouds remained, sheet lightning flashing across the sky. There were constant rumbles of thunder.
Paul watched the sky with concern. Summer thunderstorms were responsible for many range and forest fires in the region. So how bad is it gonna be without the fire crews out on them. He anticipated the valley filling up with smoke soon if fires began to burn unabated, which they were sure to do. Have to make sure we keep everything here irrigated and green.
“Hey Nick, come over here,” he said as the women again started to fill bowls with cake and ice cream. He arranged a chair and sat down and pulled the boy onto his lap. He pointed out at the sky. “How’s this for your birthday? You not only get ice cream, you get fireworks too.”
|
|
|
Post by bretf on Jul 4, 2016 14:27:50 GMT
Chapter 21
“So I always thought gardening was a summer thing. But you mean to tell me we can grow stuff all winter?” Jenny asked as she helped plant seeds in the newly worked beds in the greenhouse.
“No, it won’t grow all winter, I said we can harvest all winter. The key is to get the seeds in now so the plants are close to maturity when the big freeze hits. But we can’t have everything like we do in the summer garden. The fall and winter garden will be made up of cold hardy plants.”
Jenny glanced at the small seeds in her hand. “We’re doing lots of different salad greens now. Are we going to do anything else?”
“We have to get the garlic in the outside garden soon. It needs to get some good growth and then it will winter there but we won’t be using it until next summer. But for winter harvest, besides the salad greens, we’ll put in root crops; the carrots, beets, green onions. With a little luck, the peas we put in last week will be ready in time. If not, I’ve over-wintered some plants when the winter wasn’t too harsh. Every little bit will help in the winter,” Paul told her.
“Will we have to heat the greenhouse for this to work?” she asked.
“No, not with these plants we won’t. But we’ll add extra row covers over the plants when it gets cold for one more layer of insulation. Just like when we dress in layers. Something else I’ve been contemplating is the compost pile; setting it up in here. You know, when the decomposition is happening, it creates a lot of heat, maybe enough to make a difference in here. I don’t know if it will or not, but we’ll never know until we try it.” He paused while he covered some seeds with screened soil. “Maybe you can pull out your smart phone and google it up to see if anyone has done it,” he said with a grin.
“Good idea,” she retorted. “While I’m online, why don’t I order a pizza too? What do you want on it? Everything but the kitchen sink, and extra anchovies?”
*****
The new plants were flourishing by the time cold fall temperatures killed most of the summer garden. The long storage foods had been harvested. Squash was stored under most of the beds in the house. The potatoes had been dug and put in gunny sacks, and stored in the pump house. Paul lamented not having a real root cellar, but the pump house would maintain a cool temperature with higher humidity from the water he had flowing through.
The fruit had all been picked. Most had been canned and dehydrated, but a few boxes of apples were in Paul’s shop. He knew better than to sore the apples and potatoes together since neither spot was well ventilated. Other boxes in the shop held all of the tomatoes that had remained on the vines when the cold temperatures hit. Some would ripen; others would go to the chickens.
Beets, carrots and parsnips were left in the garden and heavily mulched. They could be dug as needed throughout the winter. The onions were in mesh bags next to the potatoes. Jars of fresh honey filled a shelf in the pantry. Dandelion and chicory roots had been dug, cleaned and were drying. They would be ground and used in place of coffee. It wouldn’t have the caffeine kick Paul had been accustomed to, but he hadn’t had real coffee all summer so it wouldn’t matter. The final cutting of hay was baled and under cover.
It was satisfying to see the bounty of the summer all stored and ready for winter. There was just one more thing Paul wanted to add to it. The weather had a distinct bite to it and he was ready for some fresh red meat. Canned meat, rabbit, and the occasional chicken were getting pretty old. Just imagining a juicy steak next to one of those large baked potatoes had him nearly drooling.
He wasn’t a meteorologist by any stretch of the imagination but he had gained a feel for the weather over the past few years. It felt to him like the weather would be cool for some time and he planned on taking advantage of it to hang a beef and eat as much fresh as they could while it aged. They could always can and dry meat at any time if the weather warmed.
Paul wandered out to the pasture fence and looked at the cattle, still grazing on the dry grass. They had done very well over the summer and he would be taking a load to sell soon if things were normal. He tallied how many were spoken for due to summer trades. He came up with two and a half. He glanced at the full wood shed and praised that trade especially. Besides the wood, he had a pile of fir bark. He hoped the tannin in the bark would tan the cow hides into leather. It would definitely be a bigger job than rubbing egg yolks onto rabbit skins.
He would ask some additional neighbors to help with butchering and pay them with the remaining half of beef. One more steer for his own family brought the number to four they would butcher. There was also an older cow that had been barren the past spring. There was no need to continue to feed her. She was well past the age to make steaks but could be ground for burger and canned into stew. He imagined his arm aching from turning the hand grinder that much.
Five in one day would make for a long day, especially without power equipment. But it needed to be done; he wanted to get it done before he had to break into the hay stack for winter feed. That won’t be long. He looked back at the steers. I think we might even butcher one more in the middle of winter and let it freeze hanging. Then we could take meat off it whenever we wanted. He continued to gaze across the field, enjoying the colors that came with fall. The colors of fall rivaled spring with all of its new growth for him. It’s hard to believe it’s been over a year now without power. So many changes, yet that view looks just like always at this time of year.
Standing still too long allowed the cold air to work through his coat. He gave an involuntary shudder as he cooled and he came out of his trance. Okay, time to get on with it. He walked to the house and removed his coat, allowing the comforting warmth from the cook stove to displace his chill. “Anyone want to go on a bike ride with me? I’m thinking we need to butcher some cows in two days, if that will work with you,” he told Ruth with a questioning look. “I was going to go around and invite everyone to the party.”
“That’ll be fine with me. It’s not like our calendar is filled with pressing engagements,” she said with a chuckle. She looked at the pile of rabbit skins in front of her. Many of them had hand shapes traced where she was going to cut them and start making mittens. “I’ll stay here and work on this and get something started in a while for supper. Besides, if you get to talking to Jerry, you might be out half the night.”
Always ready to ride, Jenny agreed to go along. Jake and Toni said they would stay and do the chores. Steve was in the living room with Nick, playing checkers and of course, declined the invitation.
The wind on their faces was cold as Paul and Jenny peddled up the road, their fingers cold from gripping the handlebars. Elsewhere they generated enough heat through the physical activity that the cool temperature wasn’t very uncomfortable. As they were heading back towards home, Jenny said, “You know, this will be the biggest group of people I’ve seen together since last winter, when we went to the food handouts. It seems so funny to think that around twenty people is a big gathering.”
“I know what you mean,” Paul said. “I haven’t been around a crowd of people in over a year now, at the last Farmer’s Market of the season. Since then, I guess when we put up the hay was the most people I’ve seen in one place.”
They pedaled on in silence for a while. “Maybe it’s wrong of me, but for the most part, I like the new world we live in,” Paul said breaking the silence. “Things aren’t as convenient now, we have to work hard, but I go to bed at peace with myself nearly every night. There are things I miss on occasion, but there is so much of the old world I don’t miss.
“When I was a kid on a farm not too much different than ours, I couldn’t wait to get out. There was a big world out there with all kinds of opportunities for someone with ambition. I got out all right and was all wrapped up in everything. I’m sorry I wasted all those years, because I saw a whole lot of ugliness out there and just about lost my family to boot. Family values had been pushed so far back. The cities, even before the crash had areas that the cops were afraid to go to.
“I could go on for a long time and editorialize about so many things; our government, waste, greed, ill-behavior, feelings of entitlement, children growing up without their parents guiding them, but I won’t. I can only pray that when the long darkness ends, the people who step forward have a vision of something better than what we had become. I look at little Nick and pray every day that we make him a better world than he was born into.”
“I know what you mean Paul. And Steve would totally freak if I told him something like that. He certainly misses the old ways,” she half snorted. “But not me; not anymore. I can hardly fathom all the personal changes I‘ve had this past year. That woman that almost blew a gasket when “Dancing with the Stars” blipped off the TV screen was so shallow and self-absorbed.” Jenny’s eyes began to mist thinking about it. She was glad there was no traffic or she would have to stop at the side of the road. “I don’t even know who that person was anymore.” She kept her composure while she pedaled, barely.
“I think about my grandparents all the time now. Grandpa worked hard every day of his life. He had a job that didn’t pay much, but he also had his home. He always had a milk cow, chickens and a big garden. He and Grandma grew most of their food to get by. But they seemed happy. I know I was little, but they always seemed so perfect together, nothing like my parents, … or… or….m. Anyway, I miss them so much now. My mom, well she hardly ever let me see them. She’s a whole lot like my husband. I can see now why she was so happy I got a hold of him.” She rubbed her hand across her face, pushing tears away. She was glad to be riding the slower pace Paul preferred, rather than the speed she went when alone.
“I can never express to you how grateful I am to you and Ruth. I feel more like a part of a family than I ever have before. And the opportunity to see Nick every day; well, I would only see him once in a great while before,” Jenny sobbed and stopped the bike. Paul braked beside her and waited while she cried. Through her sobs, Jenny got out, “Just look, now I’m turning into a blubbering idiot.”
Paul sat his bike patiently, “Take all the time you need,” she told her. “It’s a tough road you’re on.”
When she was ready to continue towards home, Jenny looked at Paul, ashamed at breaking down in front of him. “Thanks, I’m ready to go now. Now, why don’t you tell me about what we need to do for this party you’ve got planned. I may be a blonde city-girl, but I’m guessing it’s going to be a lot more work than a couple of bunnies.”
“Maybe a little bit more,” Paul told her with a smile.
*****
The steers and the old cow in the small pen looked at Paul when he left the barn. They had been penned up the previous afternoon and were ready to join the others and start eating. Five steers and the old cow were in the pen. During the visits with the surrounding neighbors, Paul had traded an additional steer for a pig and a spring lamb. Despite his preference for eating beef, too much of it would get tiring. The other meat would be a nice change.
Paul looked around. He could not see anything else they should have accomplished the previous day. Everything was ready as far as he could see. He dropped to one knee and started to talk, “Dear Lord, You have provided for my family as we have gone deeper into this new situation. I can’t guess what your plan is in this, but my life is in your hands. We are about to take the lives of animals you have provided for us and I pray that we are worthy. I ask your blessing on all that we do today. You are the great provider and you put them in my hands and I pray that I haven’t taken your gifts for granted, that my family and myself are deserving. In the name of my savior Jesus, I ask this, Amen.”
Paul stood up and looked at the animals again. I really don’t like to do this. It was so much easier when everything came packaged, but those days were gone. And I better get on with it.
He went to the house with his milk bucket. Ruth and Jenny had breakfast prepared and everyone was up and ready to eat, even Steve, he noticed. Jenny must have guilted him into getting up today since we have a hard day’s work ahead of us.
They had breakfast and all but Ruth went to the small pen; she stayed to clean up from breakfast. Clouds formed as they breathed out in the cold morning air and Paul was glad for the gloves he was wearing, one hand wrapped around the twenty-two rifle. To everything there is a season, ran through his head. Paul directed Jake and the others in general to bring one of the steers into the chute near the overhead beam they had erected the previous day. A come-a-long and chain hung from the timber. He looked around at the sound of approaching people. Just in time. The people that would get the meat were coming down the driveway in various forms.
Jerry was in his old flatbed truck, the cab filled with two other people, others huddled on the bed. Paul couldn’t stop his grin when Dallas turned the corner with his wagon, pulled by two mules, the bells on their harness jingling. His wagon was also loaded with extra people. Well, I better get his over with. Paul pictured the imaginary X on the steer’s head, aimed and fired.
*****
The last animal had been quartered and each section was hanging in the machine shed with the rest. Paul walked through the hanging meat again, happy to see it was devoid of flies. It had warmed enough during the day he was concerned they might have come out. A few yellow jackets were out however. “Hey Jenny, come and watch this,” he said.
Jenny walked over to where he was standing and saw him watching the busy insect. “Aren’t you going to kill it or shoo it away?” she asked.
“Naw, I don’t mind them too much if they aren’t right where I’m working. Just watch it for a bit.”
Jenny watched in fascination as the yellow jacket cut a small piece of the meat free and flew off with it.
“When we are working the meat, they will come and take the tiny pieces off our hands. It feels pretty strange some times, but they don’t sting if they aren’t bothered. Now flies, on the other hand. If they were out, we’d have someone in here trying to keep them shooed away,” Paul told her.
Ruth called from the outdoor kitchen for everyone to come in. She had chairs, hot tea and a large pot of soup ready for everyone. The soup was a thick vegetable blend, nearly a stew, with ample chunks of canned beef. The meat had been in their freezer when the power had gone off and they had canned it to keep from losing it. The soup was accompanied by sour dough bread Ruth had baked that morning.
The stove was burning, emitting comforting heat into the room that had had Visqueen wrapped on it the day before. The group of workers settled in to the chairs, grateful to sit down and have something warm to drink and eat after the hours spent skinning and quartering the animals. Despite the hard work in cool weather, it was a festive atmosphere. Most of the people had only limited interaction with others. As Jenny had stated two day’s previously, this was a big gathering.
“Ruth, this tastes so good, I can almost forget about all those steaks hanging out there,” Jerry said. “No wait a minute, I can’t forget about them after all,” he said with a hearty laugh. “But at least it looks like you cooked with clean heat, not that cow manure stuff. That might stop me from eating if you cooked on ….. that,” he said with a big grin.
Ruth was up for the needling. “What Jerry, you want me to put a wick in a chamber pot and start it on fire like you do at your house? Thank you, but I’m fine with whatever my wonderful husband gives me to cook with.”
The gathered people erupted in laughter at Ruth’s reply; even though most of them had looked at both Paul and Jerry’s system and made a form of one of them for their own methane digesters.
Paul carried his bowl over and sat down near Dallas, wanting a chance to ask about his team. He was especially interested; not knowing how long the stored fuel would remain viable, and whether or not his edamame experiment would pan out. The beans had been harvested but they had run into problems pressing them.
“The mules look pretty well behaved. I’m sorry I didn’t get over to your place when you were putting up hay. How did they do with that,” Paul asked.
Dallas laughed loud like he was hearing a great joke. “Oh man, you should have been there. It was a real rodeo. They had been doing great pulling the wagon. And then the fun started. I hooked them up to that old mowing machine and everything went fine until it actually started cutting. You know how the sickle bar rattles on a mower, well, it spooked the daylights out of them. The more noise, it made, the faster they went so it made even more noise. They did their darndest to outrun that evil thing that was out to eat them. I was holding on for dear life; the reins were pretty much useless. They started getting close to the end of the field. There’s a ditch and fence there. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I started trying to turn them for all I was worth. Well, they turned, and ran about halfway down the field the other direction. I wasn’t sure if the mules would tire out or the mower would bust into pieces first. Luckily, the field is pretty long so the mules ran out of gas first.” Dallas laughed long and hard, joined by everyone else that was listening. “I can laugh about it now, but I was afraid all three of us were goners while it was happening. They did pretty good after that, I guess they figured out that thing wasn’t going to eat them. Or they were just too tired after their run.
“Raking went better. The first couple of passes across the field, they lurched ahead every time the dump rake cycled, but they settled down pretty soon. It probably didn’t help a bit when I let out a yell when I triggered it the first time. I hadn’t been on one since I was a kid and had forgotten that you just hit the peddle and jerk your leg back. The dang thing just about busted my leg the first time.” Dallas laughed again at the memory, joined by most everyone else. One of the older men didn’t laugh; he nodded his head in remembrance of a sore leg.
Jenny was sorry to see the gathering coming to an end. It had been hard work, but a satisfying day to have all that meat hanging and have a chance to interact with everyone. She knew them all from her rides and had welcomed the chance to get to know them a little better. She had noticed when talking to one couple that Steve was scowling at her. That’s your problem. She continued to enjoy the remaining time with the neighbors.
The quarters of meat were wrapped in a variety of tarps and loaded onto either Jerry’s truck or Dallas’ wagon to be delivered. Scott reminded everyone he had trades with that more of the same fun would be happening at his place in four days. “After all, you’ll probably be sick of that beef by then and want to get some good lamb meat that’s more palatable.”
If the weather remained cool enough, a few days after that, there would be another gathering to butcher hogs at a different farm.
There were still a couple of hours before darkness so Paul went back to the butcher area. Jenny saw he was going back to work so she followed along. On the way past Jake and Steve’s chairs, she lightly kicked each one and nodded towards Paul’s retreating figure. Jake got up immediately, Steve much slower to follow.
Paul had pulled the garden cart up beside the pile of skins. Five of the six remained; one had gone with the man that had traded them firewood. He wanted to try making leather himself. Paul was just beginning to fight with the first hide to get it into the cart when Jenny and Jake joined him. They soon had two loaded and rolled them to the machine shed. “I take it we’re going to tan these. Are we doing it like the rabbits?” Jenny asked.
“No this will be different. I think we’ll try to do two with the hair on and three without. The egg yolks and brains don’t really make leather. From what I’ve read, we need chemicals to do that. So we’ll use that pile of bark I’ve been chopping up to make chips. The tannins in it is what will make the changes in the skins. So now we need to stretch these hides out and cover them with salt. We’ll stack them one on top of the other so we don’t take up all of the space in here.”
“So what’s the point of the salt?” Jake asked.
“It is to cure the hides. It will dry them out without disturbing the structure of the skin. They will start decaying right away if we just leave them, so if we want them to be useful we need to do this pretty quick.” They were pulling the first hide out flat while Paul was telling them about the process.
As Paul was spreading salt, Jenny dropped to her knees and used her hands to get an even coat, making sure it was spread to the edges. She glanced at him. “What next?”
“This might not make a lot of sense, but then we rehydrate them when we’re ready. But drying with the salt stops decay and buys us time. We’ll use water to soak them, getting them pliable and cleaning all of the salt and blood off of them. We’ll do that when we’re ready for the next step. In this cool weather, we won’t need to rush, between the salt and the cold they should be fine for quite a while.” He set the salt box on his bench and started to pull the next skin from the cart.
“At that point, we do different processes for making leather or buckskin, you know, tanning with the hair on. The ones we are going to de-hair, we’ll fill a garbage can or two with some ashes and water and mix it up good and put the hides in. Remember me telling you that lye is caustic? Well, it will eventually loosen the hair up to where it will come loose. It also frees up any fat or meat we left on skinning. So we don’t have to flesh those ones like we do the rabbit furs. We’ll stir our brew two or three times a day. It’s supposed to take a couple of weeks or more.”
The second skin was stretched out so he handed the salt to Jake and picked up the cart handle. “Steve, can you help me load up some hides while these two spread the salt?” He walked away, not waiting to see if Steve would follow; which he did reluctantly.
“So we’ve soaked them in the lye solution until the hair comes out,” Jenny said when Paul and Steve returned with the laden cart. They began to stretch the top hide out on their pile. “I guess we clean all the hair and lye off?”
“That’s right. And we need to stop the action of the lye, so remembering your science class; you neutralize an alkali with an acid. Unfortunately we can’t just run down to the hardware store and get something for this so we’ll have to make our own. Come to think of it, if we could run down to the store and get what we wanted, we wouldn’t be doing this. But anyway, while the skins are soaking in the lye, we’ll be making lactic acid.” He stretched and knuckled his tired back, glad for the short break while Jenny and Jake salted the skin.
“We’ll soak some rice to get starchy water, then save the water separate in a jar. The jar will need to be covered with a rag and then stored in a warm dark place. The starchy water will attract bacteria from the air. Our jar of water will get cloudy and have a scum line at the top. That’s the bacteria, although more than just lactic acid bacteria.”
He pulled the edge of the next hide free from the cart and they all took a side, stretching it out. “So now we need to isolate our bacteria, and lactic acid loves milk. We can mix one part of water to ten parts milk and put it in a warm spot. In about a week, it will be full of lactic acid. If we time everything just right, we’ll have the acid just in time for the hides. After we get the hair and everything cleaned off, we soak and rinse the hides in the acid bath a number of times.
“Then those hides are ready for tanning. In the meantime the other hides, the ones with the hair, should already be in the tanning solution. Before we put them in the solution, we will have to scrape and flesh them. We’ll use the chunks of fir bark and water for the solution and soak them for a few months. Modern chemicals make it go a lot faster, well when they were available anyway, but we’ll make do the slow way and hope we don’t need a new fur coat before they’re done. The tannin will displace the water in the hide and combine with the collagen fibers in the skin. This may take a lot longer than other methods, but makes for the longest lasting leather.”
Jenny stood up, glad to have the last hide salted. “And that’s it?” she asked Paul.
“You should know better than that. Of course there’s more,” he said with a smile. “The hides will need washed in soapy water and rinsed good, and then we have to work them to keep them supple while they dry, just like the rabbit skins. Then we can finish them off with a coating of beeswax or neat’s foot oil. Which brings us to the next thing we need to do.” He took the handles of the cart and started back to where they had butchered.
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the next project?” Jenny asked as she and Jake walked along with him.
“If we’re going to use neat’s foot oil, we need to make some first.” He bent over and picked up two of the cows feet and put them in the cart.
“This is starting to look almost as fun as most of your projects,” Jenny said as she joined him in gathering feet. “Since we don’t have electricity, these beauties aren’t going to become lamps stands. How do they fit in?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” he told her with a grin. “The term “neat” is an old name for cattle. We’ll skin these shin bones and feet off, remove the hooves and boil the bones and skim off the oil. That oil is called “neat’s foot oil”. It can be used as a preservative and softener for the leather.”
“That just sounds….wonderful,” Jenny said, not sounding like it was even close to wonderful. “I’m sure Ruth will appreciate you cooking that in the house.”
He chuckled at that. “I guess it’s a good thing I have the outside stove.” He parked the cart in the machine shed. “These can wait until tomorrow. Let’s do the chores and call it a day. I’m kind of tired.”
The wood box was filled and they gathered eggs and milked the cow. When they entered the kitchen they were greeted by the aroma of frying liver and onions. “That smells heavenly, Ruth,” Paul told her as he breathed deep. “That’s the best part of butchering day,” he added to Jenny.
He didn’t hear Steve’s less enthusiastic opinion from the living room. “You’ve got to be kidding me. We work like dogs all day, we have all that beef hanging and she is feeding us liver and onions. Give me break!”
***** The weather cooperated enough that first sheep and then hogs were butchered and shared amongst the workers. The hogs could be either skinned or have the hair scraped off, since the skin was edible. That would have required a vat filled with hot water however to dip them in and one wasn’t easily located, so they opted for skinning.
When the butchering was complete and the hogs were hanging, Paul went through the waste pile and started removing the small intestines. “Does anyone else want any of these?” he asked.
“I don’t know; what are you going to do with them?” Jerry asked.
“I’ll make sausage casings the traditional way,” he said.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jerry said.
“Am I to guess by your underwhelming response you don’t want any of these?”
Paul raised the intestine and cut it free from the stomach, traced it down to the large intestine and made a second cut removing it. He held it by the end and pulled it through his fingers, forcing out as much of the contents as he could. Jerry was watching him, waiting, knowing an explanation was coming.
“I’ll wash this off good and squeeze as much out of it as I can, then I’ll turn it inside out. I’ll wash that side real good and then it’s ready for stuffing. Tie a knot in the end and push it onto your sausage stuffer. If you don’t have a stuffer attachment for your grinder, just use a big funnel. Fill it as tight as you can, then tie the ends into a circle and hang it in the smokehouse. After it’s cured, it’s ready to eat.” He looked at Jerry’s expression as he started looking for another. “After all Jerry, parts are parts.”
He found another small intestine and worked at freeing it. “Or if you want links, fill about five inches and make some twists and do that until you get to the end. Tie the links in a circle and smoke that. I’ll try some that way too.” Jerry shook his head as he watched Paul rummaging through the gut pile.
The following day, the meat was prepared for smoking. Paul cut off the hams and bacons and directed the others to rub them thoroughly with salt. They were set in a wooden box to give the salt time to be absorbed. If the weather held, he hoped to give the meat another good coating in a few days and let it absorb before he started smoking it. While the salt was absorbing, Paul would throw together a small enclosure to act as a smoke house. He had a decent pile of alder wood to smolder for the smoky flavor.
He cut off the lions and the spare ribs and boned out the rest of the hog carcass. They never canned meat with the bone in; it seemed a waste of valuable space. But the bones would be set on the stove in a large stock pot to cook down and make broth. They would can the meat and the broth and make sausage from all the trim. The ribs however, would be cooked and eaten fresh.
When the hog was cut up, Paul went to the shop and looked at the beef and sniffed it in various places. The old cow had already been processed. The meat had been removed from the bones; a lot of it was course ground into burger and cooked into large stock pots of chili that was canned. Other pots were cooked with thick stews, with bite size chunks of meat. It was also canned and added to the pantry. In one form or another, all of the meat and broth was now in jars.
He had been closely monitoring the steer while enjoying fresh steaks. “Probably better take care of this tomorrow.” He removed the bottom round from each hind quarter and carried it to the house. He cut the meat into strips and dropped them in a pot of salt water. After it soaked for a day, he would hang it to dry. When it was dry, it could be stored in canning jars.
After working with the fresh meat all day, Steve was anticipating a nice pork chop, or maybe spare ribs. He face fell when he saw Ruth rolling the slices of heart in a pie tin of seasoned flour. He put on his coat and stomped out into the cold evening air muttering, “All that fresh meat and she’s going to feed us guts again!”
|
|
|
Post by bretf on Jul 4, 2016 14:33:55 GMT
Chapter 22
Steve heard the strange sound and took a while for it to sink in what he was hearing. That’s a car or truck. He looked around nervously and saw the approaching vehicle. He forgot all about the row he was irrigating. His heart started hammering when he saw the vinyl lettering reading “Idaho Power Company” on the side of the white pickup. His shovel was dropped and the pistol he carried was in his hand. He didn’t recall drawing it but there was no way that trick was going to work on him twice. It had been five years, but the sight of the truck brought the memory from his subconscious like it was yesterday.
“Hello is anyone home? We’re with Idaho Power Company. We’re going through the neighborhood discussing the restoration of electrical power.” The front of a white Chevy pickup was visible, parked at the side of the street. The cab was obscured from view by the SUV in the driveway. He changed his angle to look at the door, just able to see a sliver of a man’s back. He was dressed in dark blue Dockers and a snug jacket. “That looks like the clothes I’ve seen Idaho Power workers in”.
The door flew open in a shower of splintered wood from the shattered door frame, the door hitting him in his exposed face and knocking him back into the room. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs that had coated his brain and felt warm blood pooling in his nose. Three men burst through the doorway, two with ski masks over their faces; the third, the man with the power company uniform wearing a Groucho Marx glasses, nose and mustache.
Before Steve could regain his senses, he was thrust against the wall, his hands viciously pulled behind his back and secured with a large zip tie. Jenny’s screams came to an abrupt stop with a smacking sound from behind him.
Steve was jerked around in a move that sent pain surging through his left shoulder and slammed back against the wall, his head bouncing painfully off the surface.
He could feel his arms being pulled and secured behind his back, his head hitting the wall. Phantom pain laced through his head and shoulders. The terror he had felt when they had threatened Jenny. His heart pounded and his breathing felt labored. His hands began to tingle from hyper ventilation.
He looked around, desperate for cover or concealment. Something, anything, I’ve got to hide, they can’t do that again. There was little cover to be had in the garden but…; the railroad tie corner post would have to do. He slipped in behind the post while a man exited the pickup. Steve pointed the pistol in the general direction of the man, the end moving all over in his shaking hands. He tried to make himself smaller as he watched the stranger. The man walked to the front of the house– no sneaky or suspicious movements - and posted a notice without knocking. He returned to the pickup, turned it around and drove off down the road.
Paul approached the door while still watching all around – where on earth had he been, Steve wondered. Steve hadn’t seen any other movement, though to be honest he had been focused on the stranger. He worked to control his breathing and get the shaking under control. He saw the moving pistol and used both hands to holster it before it could fall into the dirt. The shovel lay forgotten where it had fallen, the water now running over the handle. He walked toward the house watching the road in case the pickup returned.
He got to where Paul was looking at the paper with Ruth, Jake and Toni. Paul couldn’t decipher most of the paper without his glasses so he handed the paper to Ruth. Steve finally noted the absence. Jenny’s still out on that stinking bike. Why can’t she learn to stay where it’s safe? She better have brains enough to hide if she sees that guy. He had no idea where she rode. He was jolted from his thoughts when Ruth began to speak.
“Here are the highlights of what it says. Idaho Power Company has restored all of the hydro capacity on the three big Snake River dams and has checked the power lines and repaired them as needed to the main Boise substation. They have been working out from there. Most of Boise now has power. They make a note the capitol is powered and our exalted leaders are back in their offices. They are restoring power outwards from there. We should expect crews in our area in two weeks’ time.”
Steve forgot all about Jenny being away. Boise has power! I can finally get out of this pit and go home! He came to an instant decision. “Paul, could we put some of that fuel Jerry made in your truck so I can go check our house and try to find my old boss? You have been wonderful, but if we can get out of your hair and back to our normal life, it would be for the best.”
Ruth’s face fell at hearing Steve. Paul had a grim look when he answered, “Are you sure that’s what you want Steve? You’re more than welcome to stay on here. You’re family, you know.”
“I’m sure. We’ve imposed on you too much, so if we can stand on our own again, we need to,” Steve answered.
“If that’s the way you feel, and I can’t say anything to change your mind, well, you know where the fuel is. At least take Jake with you to ride shotgun. You have no idea what you’ll run into.” Paul took Ruth by the arm and led her into the house.
Steve made a quick trip to his and Jenny’s bedroom. He picked up his wallet where it had lain for years, then went and got the truck keys while Jake was getting two shotguns. After putting some fuel in the truck, they roared out the driveway in a cloud of dust.
*****
Jenny rode her bicycle to the machine shed and noted the absence of Paul’s truck. I wonder what he’s up to. She walked around a little to allow her legs to re-accustom themselves to walking instead of pedaling. The rides invigorated her, especially in late spring and early summer when so much was changing. Everything was growing with such vigor after the cold winter. She headed to the house to change out of her sweaty riding clothes and put on something more appropriate for spending the day transplanting.
Ruth was staring, unseeing out the window when Jenny entered the kitchen. She turned her head and Jenny saw her stricken look. “Ruth, what’s wrong? Has something happened?”
Ruth dabbed at her nose with her handkerchief and held out a paper to Jenny. “You need to read this dear.”
Jenny read the paper and looked back at Ruth. “Ruth, this is fabulous news! I mean electricity, and all the comforts that come with it. How many times have we talked about it, how wonderful it would be to have all of that again? And it’s going to happen. So I don’t get it. Why do you look like the dog died or something?”
“Yes, it will be wonderful to have the power back on, but, well, Steve drove to town. He wants to check on your house and get back there just as soon as he can. The house will feel so empty without you. You’ve become the sister and best friend I never had.”
Jenny felt as if her bodily functions quit working. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t talk, she only stammered, “He…..he…..”
Ruth instantly became the comforter, pulling Jenny into a tight embrace and patting her back. “It will work out somehow dear. We can’t know God’s plans when he puts us on a path, but it will all work out.”
*****
Steve and Jake approached the city, slowing the truck down and looking all around. Burned out shells of buildings greeted them everywhere, some entire neighborhoods. Many of the cars near the road had been riddled with bullets. “Wow Dad, this looks like some of those pictures from the middle of wars. Geez, I’d have never believed that would happen right here, at home. Man, it’s a good thing we got out to Paul’s place.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Steve mumbled.
As they progressed, the destruction lessened, with fewer burned out shells of houses and buildings. If cars had been abandoned along the road, they had been removed. Steve and Jake began to see a few people and more evidence that people were living in the area.
Steve stopped the truck when he made the turn onto his street. Two houses had burned, the foundations marked with their stark charred remains. The rest of the houses appeared in good shape from the outside. Closer scrutiny showed most had been vandalized.
Every lawn looked dead, just showing a spattering of hardy, drought resistant weeds. Where shrubs had been, there was just roughly hacked stumps. A few trees were showing green growth, though most had died without water. All the remaining trees had jagged busted branch ends. Small stumps looking rougher than a beaver gnawed stump marked where smaller trees had once stood. Wood for heating and cooking had obviously been at a premium. The road was full of large cracks, weeds sticking out from many of the gaps.
Steve put the truck back into gear and eased off the clutch. He stopped again in front of his house. Jenny’s Explorer was still in the driveway but was missing the glass in every window. The house looked in the same state: each window he could see had rock holes through them. The garage door had been pulled free of the rollers.
Jake and Steve got out of the truck and moved cautiously towards the open garage, holding shotguns at the ready. Steve cursed and went back to lock the truck’s doors. They ducked under the broken garage door and stepped into a mess. Everything Steve had stored in the garage was strewn across the floor. Many of the items had been broken. He stepped through the chaos and looked down at his busted up sports trophies, feeling regret at leaving them to be destroyed.
Jake continued on through the door leading into the house. The door was askew, hanging from one hinge. The kitchen was just like the garage, but worse. Besides having all their belongings scattered, holes had been busted into the sheetrock walls. Water had come through the broken out window and the flooring was swelled and buckled where the water had settled. Tom’s sheep herder stove was missing. A few splinters were all that remained of their oak table and chairs.
The rest of the house was more of the same; senseless destruction. In the master bedroom Jake bent and picked up the strewn photo albums. I’m pretty sure Mom would like to have these. He carried the shotgun in one hand and cradled the albums in the other. Steve followed him out to the truck and unlocked the doors. After Jake had the albums deposited in the back seat of the truck, he asked, “So what now Dad? The house is quite a mess.”
Steve studied the house a little longer before answering. “Let’s see if we can find Tom. Repairing this place is the kind of work his company did.”
The truck pulled away and started in the general direction of Tom’s house. Steve was already seeing the house looking like it had, enjoying his old life when Jake startled him.
“Hey Dad, do you see that?” Jake asked. “I think that Winco store is open.”
Steve hit the brakes and came to an abrupt stop right in the street. They had encountered a few vehicles once they had reached town; Steve checked the mirrors and was glad there were no cars behind them. His gaze shifted to the store. Yes, there’re a few cars in the lot. An armed guard at the door. He was sure Jake was right when a figure exited the store and went to a bicycle, carrying bags. He stowed the bags in his panniers and rode away.
Steve pulled into the parking lot and shut off the engine. “Let’s see what they’ve got,” he told Jake and got out and walked towards the entrance doors.
The guard looked them over carefully as they approached. “Can you pay? If you can’t, turn around right now,” he stated.
Steve pulled a twenty out of his wallet and showed the guard. He had picked it up on a whim before leaving the house. He had hoped to find businesses operating but hadn’t counted on it.
The guard grunted something that they took to mean they could go in, and walked into the store with wide eyed fascination.
The shelves weren’t full by any means but still, there were a lot of things available that Jake and Steve had lived without for a long time. “Dad, look, toothpaste. Think we could get a tube?” Jake asked.
Steve looked at the prices. He thought they were higher than in the past, but he wasn’t sure. “Yeah, get a tube. It’ll be nice after all that salt and soda we’ve been using.”
They continued to look at what was available. Jake froze at one spot. “Look, they have real tea and coffee.”
Steve’s gaze had slid past them to another display. “Uh huh, but I see something even better.” He walked to a small cooler stocked with beer. “If we get the toothpaste, I’ve got enough for a six pack, but we can’t get coffee.” He didn’t hesitate before he pulled out a six pack. “All right let’s pay for this and hit the road.”
Steve was barely seated in the truck when he pulled a can from the plastic ring and popped the top. He took a long drink and smacked his lips. “Man that is good! I’ve definitely missed that.”
“Uh Dad, if you’re going to be drinking, I should drive,” Jake said uncomfortably.
“I’ll be fine. But aren’t you going to have one? I didn’t get it just for me. It’s for both of us.”
“No, I better not. I want to stay alert in case we run into trouble.” Jake told him.
“Humpf,” Steve grunted and looked at Jake puzzled. “I thought you were my kid.” He took another long drink and emitted a satisfied belch. “Man, that’s good,” he repeated, and took another drink, emptying the can. He tossed if over the back seat, and pulled a second can out and popping the tab before he started the engine and roared out of the parking lot.
*****
“Okay, this one is it,” Steve said in a slur. “I’m sure this time.”
“Yeah Dad, right. That’s what you said what, three or four roads ago?” Jake said, giving his head a shake.
“Hey, don’t cop an attitude on me!” Steve snapped. He crushed the beer can in his hand and tossed it behind him. “I was only out to Tom’s house that one time, and it’s been a few years.” He looked in the bag. “Dang, we’re out of beer. We should have bought more.”
Jake rolled his eyes in response. Oh yeah, more beer is just what we need now. “That barn up there is covered with solar panels. Is that Tom’s place?”
Steve slowed the truck and looked at the barn and house, trying hard to remember. “Yeah, that might be it.” He slowed even more when he saw the mailbox. “Tom Roberts” was still legible in faded paint on the side. “All right, that’s the place. See I told you I could find it,” he told his son, the challenge evident in his tone.
He made a sharp turn onto the driveway, almost missing it. One front wheel dropped into the barrow pit. Jake was sure the truck would either get stuck or take out a fence. Steve managed to get it back on the driveway without doing either.
Steve parked the truck in the circular drive in front of the house and got out with unsteady steps. Jake followed, not sure that he should. A man came from behind the barn, a pistol strapped on his hip and carrying a long gun in his hands. Jake stopped where he was while Steve moved towards the man.
“Tom?” he asked as he got closer. It looked like Tom, just older and more worn.
Tom studied the bearded man in front of him in the loose fitting clothes. “Well I’ll be. Steve Miller. I can’t believe you’re standing here. After I went by and saw the mess your house is in, I wrote you off.” He shifted the shotgun to his left hand and walked to Steve with his right hand extended.
“You went by my house? Why?” Steve asked.
“Yeah, I did. There’s a big rebuilding effort on, now that services are being restored. I’ve still got some connections in the county and they came by to see if I would be involved,” Tom told him. He looked at Jake still standing a few feet behind Steve. “Don’t tell me this is your son.”
“Oh yeah,” Steve said. “That’s him. Jake get up here. You remember Tom don’t you?”
“Hi Tom, it’s a pleasure to see you again,” Jake said.
“You’ve sure filled out since I saw you last. You must be getting good food and lots of exercise. What about that son of yours? What is he, about ten now?” Tom said as he shook Jake’s hand.
Jake was impressed with Tom’s memory. “Close; he’ll turn nine later this summer.”
Tom noticed Steve was unsteady on his feet. “So do you want to come to the back and have a seat, have a glass of water?” I don’t think he needs anything else now: it appears he’s had enough of whatever he found.
“Sounds good, but can you point me to the facilities first,” Steve said.
Tom directed him to an outhouse and Steve considered just stepping behind it to drain his bladder. He hated using outhouses. Better not do that if I want him to give me a job. He opened the door and stepped in. He was puzzled about the set-up; a bucket under the seat, a second bucket at hand filled with sawdust. Wow, it doesn’t stink in here.
Steve stepped out and saw Jake sitting in a lawn chair, half in the shade. The late spring air was nice, but not quite warm enough to sit in full shade. It would be perfect if they were active. Steve pulled a chair into direct sunlight and settled in, anxious for Tom to join them.
Tom returned with a jug of water and stack of cups. He offered a cup to each and began filling them. Steve stared at the water as it filled the cup wishing it was something else. “So you didn’t tell me why you were at my house,” he said before Tom had a chance to get seated.
“Right, I figured if I was going to start up the company again I would look for the guys that used to work for me. So I’ve been going around to where everybody lived to see if anyone was still around. Of course I didn’t find you, but now that you’re here, what do you think?” Tom asked. “Do you want to get back to work?”
“I’d love that Tom.”
“One thing though,” Tom told him. “I’m not anticipating needing full time drafters for some time. You would have to be doing a lot of physical work this time around; you know actually working on houses. There will be limited desk time for a while. Do you still want to do it?”
Steve contemplated for a bit. No, he didn’t want to do the work, but could it be any worse than farm work? At least there wouldn’t be manure to shovel every day. “What about this,” he asked, a thought coming to life. “We make my house livable first thing so I can have a place to stay. I don’t have anywhere to live that’s close enough, so if I go to work for you, well, I’ve got to have a place that’s close, and well, I don’t have any transportation either.”
“I think we could work something like that out,” Tom said.
“Oh, and one more thing. I know I’m not in any position to make demands here, but if you bring Jimmy back, I’ll take a hammer to him, unless I can get ahold of something bigger.”
“Is that so? I didn’t realize you didn’t get along with him.” Tom thought about the days before the power shut off. “In fact, I thought you went drinking with him.”
“Oh yeah, I drank beer with him. A fat lot of good that did me when he and his goons busted into my house.” The venom was obvious as Steve spat the words out. Steve then told Tom about the break in and Jimmy’s part in it. “And after they got what they wanted, they took my car. We were getting out the next morning, so we had to go on bikes. That led to me getting this.” He pulled his tee shirt up and showed Tom the knife scar. “So no, we aren’t drinking buddies any more. I’ve had years to think about him, so it’s not going to be pretty if I ever run into him again.”
“Well, you won’t have to worry about that,” Tom said. “His activities caught up with him. The National Guard cornered his bunch and used them for target practice.”
“Good,” Steve hissed. “The only thing wrong with that is I couldn’t spit on the corpse. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go visit your outhouse again.”
Steve returned and worked out the arrangements with Tom for work. He felt like he was walking on air when he got back into the truck and headed for home, no wait, Paul and Ruth’s place he amended with a chuckle. “Jake, what an incredible day! Too bad we don’t have more beer to celebrate.”
Jake’s look was filled with disappointment. “No Dad, you don’t need more beer. In fact you had about five too many already.”
“Well aren’t you Mister Gloomy Gus. That’s okay; I’m not going to let you get me down. This day has been too good to let that happen. In fact, I can’t remember when I’ve felt so good.” He began to hum and then to sing;
Green Acres is the place to LEAVE Farm living is the life for fleas Land stretchin’ out so far and wide Don’t want Manhattan but get me out of that country side.
He finished with uncontrolled laughter at his wit, turning that lame song from the old show into something more appropriate. Man, what a moron that guy was.
They were within a couple miles of home when Steve stopped the truck and peed in the road. When he was finished he opened the back door and brushed all of the beer cans out into the road.
“Classy Dad, that was just so classy,” Jake told him when he got back in and started driving again. I guess I’ll ride a bike over here tomorrow and clean up his mess.
The remainder of the ride was completed in icy silence.
They pulled in just in time to see Jenny going to the barn with the milk pail. “Put my shotgun away, will ya? I’ve got to tell your mom the great news.” He dropped the keys on Jake’s lap and got out of the truck and went to the barn.
He leaned against the wall while Jenny got the cow in the stanchion and settled on the stool to milk. “Great news Babe, we’re getting out of this hole.”
Her hands froze for a moment and tears leaked from her eyes. Haven’t I done enough of this already today? “This isn’t a hole, Steve. It’s a wonderful home and farm.”
He continued undaunted, unhearing. “So Tom is getting his company back together and of course, he wants me back. In fact, I’m the first one, isn’t that great? The first house we work on will be ours, so that I can have a place to live in town again. While we’re doing that, he’s going to let me stay in his camper. Then as soon as the house is ready, I can come and get you and take you back home.” He sounded so pleased.
Jenny paused in her milking long enough to wipe at her eyes and blow her nose. “It sounds like you’ve got everything figured out. But what if I don’t want to leave? We have a good life here, Steve. We don’t need to go back there. That life was so. . . empty.”
“What are you talking about? This is a good life? We bust our fannies every day just to get by. No, forget it, we’re going home.” He no longer sounded pleased; his good humor had been replaced by a smoldering fury.
“I really don’t want to go. I’m happy here. Please reconsider.” The milk bucket plopped with the tears dripping from her face.
“No I won’t reconsider, but you consider this. That Bible you are always reading has some pretty direct words for you. It says wives are to obey their husbands. You remember that one? Well I say we are going home as soon as I can have the house ready.” He stomped out of the barn, leaving Jenny motionless, her head leaning on Jennifer while she wept.
|
|
|
Post by bretf on Jul 4, 2016 14:37:37 GMT
Chapter 23
Jenny sealed the lid on the paint can and filled an empty coffee container with water to clean her paint brush. She looked at the stove where the supper she had prepared was drying out. Okay, I’ve waited long enough. He’s evidently ‘unwinding’ again as he calls it. I call it getting plastered. She left her brush in the water, filled her plate and carried it into the back yard. She sat in the lawn chair near the small chicken pen that held her only companions. “It’s just us again tonight girls,” she said.
The time at home - she was trying to consider it home even if it didn’t feel like home any more – had been even worse than the first cold winter without power. She was trying hard, Lord knows she was trying hard to make it a home, but she was doing it alone. Steve got up early each day and drove away. He had had the gas tank on the Explorer repaired and obtained a new battery for it. The windows were still busted out, but that didn’t seem to bother him. He returned home most nights after she had already gone to bed, reeking of beer.
When she asked him about it, he had blown up at her. “I work hard all day and I’m just unwinding with the crew for a while. And getting something good to eat in the process.” He had expressed his displeasure for any meals that reminded him of his time on the farm. He seemed to be living on beer, burgers and fries.
Jenny spent most of her time working inside the house. Oh yes, Steve and Tom had repaired the house: they had fixed the doors, windows and walls. Everything else was left for Jenny. She spent countless hours scrubbing and painting, trying to bring the house back to what it had been.
She tried visiting the neighbors for some respite, but they were just plain weird. The nearest one had a husband that worked for the FEMA shelter. She droned on and on about all the good things her husband and the wonderful shelters had done for everyone. She looked at Jenny like there was a horn growing from her forehead when Jenny described some of the things she had done in the past five years.
The next closest neighbor had spent time in that same shelter. She didn’t describe it with the same glowing terms; in fact she jumped at nearly every sound. She didn’t say it happened to her personally, but said that beatings and rapes were commonplace there.
The bright spot in Jenny’s existence had happened one day when she heard a diesel engine shut off in front of the house. She had looked out the window and squealed with joy when she recognized Paul’s old truck. Paul, Ruth, Jake, Toni and Nick were all getting out and she ran to greet them, hugging them all in turn.
The back of the truck had quite a load. There was a dog house like structure on legs that Paul said was her new chicken coop. A crate held three hens. There was wire and steel posts to make a pen. Two feed sacks were full of grain for the chickens. A large pile of compost filled part of the bed and was accompanied by tools, a wheelbarrow and young plants. “We didn’t want you starving here on the . . . stuff they call food,” Paul had told her with a smile.
The house was forgotten for the day. They spent a happy day putting in the chicken pen, turning over the sod in half the back yard and transforming it into a garden. For the day, Jenny was able to forget her existence; for one day she felt alive again.
Jenny brought herself back to the present. She finished her meal and scraped the plate off for the hens. “There you go girls; eat up. I’ll come out and lock you up after I do the dishes.” She walked to the house. Wow girl, now you’re down to talking to your chickens. How long before you start to understand them when they answer?
*****
The doorbell ringing startled Jenny. It was an uncommon sound and always made her nervous when it broke the oppressive silence. She didn’t recognize the person she saw through the peephole. “Yes, what is it?” she asked through the door.
“Mrs. Miller,” the man said. “I’m Jeff Wallace with Century Link. Your husband arranged for us to get your phone hooked up today.” He held an identification tag in front of the peephole.
The pistol was in her right hand when Jenny opened the door and asked to see the tag closer. After she looked it over closely, she allowed the man in but kept the gun in hand and watched him the entire time he was working. He was glad to have the job done and leave. Man, I think she was ready to shoot me if I did anything sudden. I wonder what her story is.
Jenny watched him leave then walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver. A dial tone, it’s really a dial tone. She pondered what to do now. Did she even know anyone to call anymore? She found her address book that had somehow survived the vandalism to the house. Steve had told her she should toss it when she put all of her contacts in her smart phone, but she had put in in a drawer in her nightstand instead. Now she opened it and started turning pages. Mom and Dad, I wonder. Are they alive? Are they home? Her hand was shaking as she dialed the number.
Jenny heard the phone ring. And ring. And ring. That’s a good sign isn’t it? For the phone to ring, it must mean that there are people there, right. It’s good that it’s ringing isn’t it? On the fifth ring, a tentative voice answered, “H… hello.”
Is that her? It’s been so long. “Mom,” she said uncertain, “It’s Jenny.”
“Jenny, is it really you?” she said and broke off sobbing into the phone; Jenny doing the same on her end. “Oh darling, it’s so good to hear your voice. I just knew Steve would take care of you.”
It was an emotional afternoon as they talked and caught up with each other. Jenny’s parents had used their wealth and influence to buy a position in a community that was prepared for the crisis. It was a process that played out in many places: if you were wealthy enough, you got by.
*****
Tom had piles of paperwork to fill in with the new subsidized building program he was participating in. One day a week, he did nothing but paper work. Those days, he had Steve complete any drawings they needed prior to doing a job. Business had been picking up and Tom had added another crew. He was afraid he would soon be stuck at his desk more than not. And this day was the worst one yet. He heard Steve make a call for the third time that morning.
“Hey Jen, are they there yet?” he asked into the phone.
“No they are not. I told you I would call you when they came. I’m starting to reconsider that. Tom isn’t paying you to pester me, now start earning your pay.”
“Oh all right, but you make sure you call me.” He hung up and day-dreamed about the evening. Finally his home was going to be his castle. After so long, the new dish was being installed. He had set up a new big screen television two nights before. It was all happening just in the nick of time.
The NFL had put together twelve teams and the first game was going to be that night. America was finally back! Nothing said that like Monday Night Football.
Steve could barely contain himself at the desk until the phone rang. He spoke excitedly and hung up. “They’re on their way Tom, so I’ll be taking off now. Are you sure you don’t want to come over tonight?” he said as he picked up his jacket and lunch bag and hurried out the door. He didn’t listen for Tom’s response.
Tom took his glasses off and ran his fingers through his hair. He shook his head and sighed as he heard the car door slam, the engine start and speed away. “No matter how long I live I’ll never understand the injustices in this world. Someone as pulled together as Bill is dead and buried yet that guy came through it all somehow.” He looked towards the ceiling, “Lord, please grant me patience to accept what I don’t understand. I can only guess you’re not done with this one yet.”
Steve sped down the road, unmindful of speed limits. With all the other concerns in rebuilding, enforcing traffic laws was low on the priority list. Many areas remained unsafe to venture into but each day brought improvements.
The car came to a stop at the liquor store, kicking up a cloud of dust. The powers that be seemed intent on the adage “Bread and Circuses”. The liquor stores had been some of the earliest business re-established. Keep the populace inebriated and stupid; they are much easier to control. Not to mention collecting all of the sin taxes.
*****
Jenny watched quietly while Steve and his friends yelled at every hit on the field. His friends; where were they when he was bleeding by the road? Popcorn and chips were scattered on the floor and ground into the carpet; the carpet she had worked so hard to clean. Pop and alcohol was spilled on the floor and the couch. She flinched when they jumped to their feet and yelled for an extra hard hit. Just like when that thug knocked him down. The only thing that’s missing is slipping a knife between his ribs. No wonder they turned savage, it’s been programmed into them and they’re all too stupid to see it.
She picked up her sweatshirt and ran out the back door unnoticed. Her tears ran freely once she was outside. Steve never noticed, only looking up once to see if she would refill his drink. He muttered a curse as he had to extricate himself from his chair and go to the kitchen and help himself.
The three chickens in the small run were blurry through Jenny’s eyes. But she went to the side of the run and clung to the wire. The hens saw her and ran over, expecting a hand out. She held onto the wire like she was grasping a life-line, grooves forming in her hands and told the hens she was sorry she didn’t have a treat for them. She turned around, her vacant gaze passing the small garden she had been nurturing. She didn’t appreciate the nearly ripe tomatoes that always gave her so much satisfaction, the cucumbers and zucchinis that were ready to pick.
Her distant gaze was on the farm with Paul and Ruth. “Thank you for saving us Paul and Ruth, or at least me. I love you and can never begin to make it up to you.” Her vision shifted and instead of Paul’s farm, she saw a hard-scrabble farm in Arkansas, a little girl laughing with her grandparents. “Grandma, I wish I could live here with you always,” the girl said. “So do I sweetheart. Nothing would make me happier.” The little girl was scooped up and held close, then nose to nose, the woman told her, “Nothing would make me happier than to have you here, always.”
Jenny jumped at the sound of breaking glass in the living room followed by a curse and raucous laughter. “Wow man, your wife’s gonna be ticked at you,” came out in alcohol slurred speech.
“Big deal,” came Steve’s boast. “She can get glad in the same pants she got mad in.” The comment elicited howls of drunken laughter.
She walked to the sliding glass door and looked in at the scene, then back at the small garden and chicken pen. Her mind flew over the time since she had returned to the house with Steve. “It’s so good to be back home,” he had said, and then avoided the place as much as possible. When he wasn’t at work, he was with his friends, more often than not at a bar. He had shown no interest at all in her garden and threatened to kill the chickens each time he ventured into the yard.
She thought of all the hours she spent at the house alone, cleaning and trying to restore it to how it had been. Oh sure, Tom and Steve had replaced the windows, repaired the door casings, patched the sheetrock. But there was so much more to it and she and done it alone, always alone. And now he was trashing it with his friends.
As she looked in at the mess in the living room, her resolve firmed. “This isn’t home. This is prison and I’ve been in solitary confinement!” She went unnoticed to her bedroom and took out a pack. The few clothes she had and her Bible went into it. Steve had insisted she buy more clothes, we’ve got a great line of credit with the bank, but she had refused.
She opened another drawer and took out a fleece vest and fur mittens. Holding them tight to her chest, the memories flooded her mind; Ruth and Janet so patient while they taught and helped her. She put the items in the pack and took the knitting needles and yarn out of the drawer and forced them into the now full pack. It was a strain to secure the zipper, but she got it closed.
She sat on the bed and took a piece of paper and pen from the nightstand and jotted a quick note and folded it across the alarm clock. She reached into the nightstand drawer once more and removed Paul’s pistol and box of ammo. Under the pistol, she noticed something she hadn’t thought about in a long time, nearly another lifetime ago. It was the lock of her long hair she had saved so long ago. She picked it up and studied it, and tried to remember the woman whose head it was cut from. Unable to re-connect with that person, she laid the hair on the note she had just written and returned her thoughts to the pistol. Paul had insisted she take it with her when she had left. After she checked the magazine, she dumped the remaining ammo into a side pocket in her pack. She carried it and the pack to the garage and set it by her bicycle.
The crate Paul had brought the chickens in was still in the garage. She carried it out to the pen and coaxed the hens close, caught them and put them in the crate. The crate was awkward but sat firm once she had secured it on the bike’s rack.
She went into the house and ignored the request for another beer while she filled water bottles.
Even over the television’s noise she heard the drunken voice, “Dude, your lady has some ‘tude happenin’. I thought you said you had her trained.” The comments were followed by howls of laughter.
As she looked around she didn’t see anything there she wanted. She looked once more at Steve. The man was truly in his element: he had his television with the sports channels and his drinking buddies. He didn’t need anything else.
She walked out and packed the water bottles for travel. She strapped on the holster, put her pack on and got on the bicycle, and pushed off, riding rapidly towards the setting sun. She never looked back; it was time to look ahead. She should be out of town by dark if there wasn’t anything to bother her. It would be smooth riding after that.
She thought once about the note she had left for Steve, “You told me once to go back in time all I want, but I was doing it by myself, and then tried to insult me by calling me Laura Ingalls. You are the one that’s gone back, and frankly, I don’t want to relive that past. Have a good life.” She had signed it simply “Jenny”, nothing else. Should I have taken him aside and actually told him? No, we haven’t talked to each other in so long, or did we ever, she amended the thought.
She dismissed it from her mind and reminded herself it was time to look ahead, always ahead. No more going back to rebuild the broken past. She looked towards the future and the setting sun and did some quick calculations. “I should be home a little after midnight, one o’clock at the latest.”
|
|
|
Post by bretf on Jul 4, 2016 14:39:35 GMT
Epilogue
“Are you sure you won’t come back home?” Jenny’s mother asked her yet again. Her arms were stretched out in front of her, her hands clutching her daughter’s hands. They were standing in the Boise Municipal Airport, in the area leading to the security gates. The older woman would soon board an airplane for the first leg of her trip home to Arkansas. Nick had accompanied them and stood next to his grandmother Jenny. “After all, you don’t have a husband anymore,” this statement was delivered with a sour look on her face, “And Jake is grown. There’s nothing holding you here anymore. Come home with me. A few of your old friends are still there; some of them made it through those troubling times. And I’ve told you all about Kevin. He’ll have your Dad’s job after he retires next year. He needs a wife and a woman could do a lot worse.”
The conversation was another round of the same conversation they had had nearly constantly since Jenny’s mother had arrived ten days earlier. Although Jenny loved her mom dearly, she couldn’t wait for her to leave. “Thanks Mom, but the answer’s the same. I’m staying here. I have a good home. I get to see Nick here every day and see what a great young man he is growing up to be.” She freed one hand from her mother and gave the boy an affectionate squeeze around his shoulders.
“Then if you won’t come home with me, what about”
“Mom, no! I’ve told you Steve and I live totally different lives now and we have for the last five years. We are not getting back together. So don’t even try to go there.”
“But Jenny, you can be so much more than a simple farmer. I know it was important during the troubles, but that’s all in the past. Leave it in the past and get back to the life you deserve. And I’m sure Steve--”
“Mom, I know it’s not for you, but I love the way I’m living now. I feel more fulfilled than I ever did when I lived in town. You need to face up to it that you and I are different. This is the life I’ve chosen.” Jenny hadn’t told her mother about another reason she wouldn’t ever go back to the city. She would really freak out if she knew her daughter was dating a common farmer. She would be aghast to learn they had discussed marriage, but were taking it slow. The man, Jim, was a neighbor of Paul and Ruth’s that Jenny had seen a few times during the crash. It was always at the gatherings where the neighbors got together to work on labor intensive projects. Jim was the anti-Steve. He loved the land and what it provided to them. He had been quiet around her for a long time; now the two of them spent hours talking, hiking, and working together.
“Oh darling, I just want something better for you. You deserve it,” Jenny’s mother said.
“Mom, I love you, but my mind is made up. Now you better get in line. You don’t want to miss your plane.” I don’t want you to miss your plane! “If you stayed here, Paul would have no choice but to put you to work,” Jenny said, grinning.
“Oh all right,” she said and pulled Jenny into a hug. “You too Nick,” she said and pulled an arm free to include him.
Jenny and Nick stood to the side and watched while the carry-on bag was run through the x-ray machine and the body scan performed. When she had her shoes back on, Jenny’s mother gave her one more imploring look, waved and walked towards the boarding gates.
“Well, we better hit it Kiddo,” Jenny told Nick. She wrapped an arm around his shoulder and turned him towards the exit. “Since when did you get this tall? You’re as tall as me now.”
“Grandma,” Nick said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but well, your mom is kind of a snob.”
Jenny hugged the boy tighter and steered him to the escalators. “Yes she is. I’m glad I grew out of it. Now let’s get out of this crazy place.”
They maneuvered through the building and went to the short term parking area for the truck. Jenny and Nick would have parked as far from the concourse as possible enjoying the long walk and cheaper rates in the long term lot, but her mother wouldn’t hear of it. She directed Jenny to park in the covered short term lot and had placed a ten dollar bill beside the parking ticket. She wasn’t about to walk all the way across the lot. They paid the parking fee and exited the lot.
Driving away from the airport, Jenny noted all of the empty lots where motels and apartment complexes had stood before the crash. The burned rubble had been cleared away, but the blackened concrete footings remained like skeletal reminders of what had been. A few houses were being constructed, but not many. The population had taken a big hit and there was still a surplus of housing. Jenny shuddered at the thoughts.
“We need to stop and get some groceries since we’re here, but we’ll stop at the store across town so when we’re done we can get going easier, and you won’t have to drive in as much traffic. Does that work for you?” Jenny asked.
His face lit up. “Really, you’ll let me drive home?” Nick had been driving around the farm – fuel allowing – for years, although most of the time it was on the small tractor. Once fuel supplies were re-established, Paul had been letting him drive the truck on the country roads around the farm.
“Really. After all you’re going to turn fourteen next month. That used to be the age you could get a license.”
*****
Jenny pulled the truck into the Winco parking lot and parked near the back of the lot. Besides liking to walk, she didn’t like trying to maneuver the truck into parking spaces with cars on each side. One end of the store was newer than the rest of the building. She had been told that looters had started it on fire to create a diversion while they stormed the front entrance. It wasn’t enough that the terrorists were burning stores down. She was still amazed that she and Steve hadn’t fared even worse by staying in town that first winter.
Jenny turned her shopping cart into the baking aisle. “Okay, Nick, we need baking soda, baking powder and vanilla from this aisle. There might be more things we need; we’ll just have to see what else is here. Jenny glanced at a woman in front of the soda and stopped, waiting for the woman to move. That woman looks familiar, but where would I know her from? She continued to shoot glances and tried in vain to dredge up the memory of where she might have known the other woman. So many memories of her old life and the people in it were blurry, when she could remember at all. It felt like a different life and she had been a spectator rather than a participant.
The woman put a box of soda in her own cart and was ready to push the cart away when Jenny’s curiosity made her speak. “Excuse me, but you look familiar, and I can’t place where I might know you from. My name is Jenny Miller by the way.”
The other woman studied Jenny’s face and mouthed the name. A look of recognition swept over her features. “Of course, I remember now. I’m Amy Moser. Your husband is Steve isn’t he? My husband Bill used to work with him for Tom.”
“That’s right, Amy Moser. Well, that would be ex-husband now, but, yes that would be Steve.
“I was so sorry to hear about Bill. I always wished we would have had a chance to tell him how much the stuff he arranged for the guys at the shop helped us and thank him for it. That first winter was brutal, and I’m sure I wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for him. It doesn’t seem right that he didn’t make it.”
“I appreciate that Jenny. He would be happy that you two made it through everything. But you aren’t with Steve now? That’s too bad,” Amy said.
“Well, I feel that I finally grew up, and in doing so, we just grew apart. Steve went back to the old ways, but I couldn’t.”
A younger woman came around the end of the aisle walking toward the two women. A boy of about four or five was carrying a coffee container, while a little girl that looked just big enough to walk was carrying a box of tea bags. “I thought you were coming over there Grandma,” the boy said. He dropped the coffee over the edge of the cart.
“I’m sorry honey. I ran into someone I knew from before you were born. This is Jenny, her husband worked with your grandpa Bill before the lights all went out. Jenny, this is Billy. And this little lady is his sister Jessica. The taller one here is my daughter Amanda,” Amy said.
Jenny held out her hand to Amanda, “It’s nice to meet you,” she said. She dropped to one knee and greeted both of the kids. After she stood back up, she put her hand on Nick’s back. “And this strapping young man is my grandson Nick,” Jenny said.
Jenny looked down at the two children. “Amanda, you are so blessed to have such lovely children after what we went through. There were times I thought nothing good would survive.” She sniffed, remembering.
“It was so good to run into you Amy, and again, I’m so sorry about Bill. I can appreciate the type of man he was now; something I couldn’t do when I knew him. But we better get going. We’ve still got to get home in time for chores,” Jenny said.
Amy and Amanda both said goodbye and watched Jenny and Nick go down the aisle. Amy was questioning her memories. Jenny seemed nothing like she remembered.
After the shopping was done and the purchases loaded up, Jenny tossed the keys to Nick. He got a huge grin on his face and climbed into the truck behind the wheel. He was so close to his grandmother’s size that he didn’t have to adjust the seat or mirror. He pulled out of the parking spot after making sure it was clear, then made a cautious entrance onto the highway and picked up speed gradually. Jenny watched him and admired how well he was doing. What a fine young man he is turning out to be. And those lovely children of Amanda’s. She is so blessed to have both a son and daughter. Jenny was filled with a surge of hope for the future.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2016 1:54:37 GMT
Author! Author! Well done!
|
|
|
Post by Ozarks Tom on Jul 5, 2016 12:12:47 GMT
Thanks again Bret, for changing my brother-in-law's name to Steve.
Now get back to work on the Ashen Horse!
|
|
|
Post by joebill on Aug 1, 2016 0:22:42 GMT
Bret, you might be interested to know that I ran out of reading material here, decided to re-read some of my favorite Louis Lamore books that I hadn't seen or read for many years. I used to cycle them through every couple of years along with my other reading.
Anyway, I laid out a copy of "The Lonesome Gods", which had been a favorite, read a few pages, then happened to run across this story. I decided to sample it just a bit, Now, 24 hours later, I just finished it, without reading any more of the Louis Lamore.
You did VERY well. I believe that you should at the very least get your book (S?) on Kindle and begin building a readership if you have not already done so. You'd make a bit of money, which never did any of us any permanent harm, and it would motivate you to do more writing.
Thanks for a good read....Joe
|
|
|
Post by themotherhen on Aug 1, 2016 8:23:36 GMT
Yes, Bret, you definitely have a gift for writing. I'm usually kind of broke, but you are an author ibwould stand behind. You manage to weave so much information into your writing. I have a photographic memory, so I really enjoy your stories. I am entertained and educated in the same post :-)
|
|