The Preppers Lament (9 page)

I got to also get myself up to see the “Mole Boys” eventually. I don’t know how they are making out these days or even which one of them boys are around. They will get the notion to all walk or drive down here soon enough
though I bet, but those danged dogs of Clancy’s will mess with you if they walk past his house on the way to mine. Those ill-mannered hounds of Clancy’s have always been free ranging country dogs, but me and Clancy disagree on how much manners those dogs actually have. If you are used to dogs you can sort of control their aggressive behavior by hollering at them, but they are still squirrelly enough that even though I have met them hounds before and have been formally introduced I don’t like getting out of my truck unless Clancy’s around when I go to visit him. That SOB Clancy likes it that way and thinks that it’s in some way amusing that if the dogs don’t know you well, they tell you whose property they think it is by quite loudly barking and challenging you”. David said reminiscing on the meet the dog’s routine at Clancy’s which you were never quite sure how it would turn out.

“He is ok personally, but I know what you mean about them dang dogs of his. I remember when he let farmer Lutz put them bee hives next to his catfish pond. I didn’t say nothing but I was hoping that damn Akita looking male dog of his named Farley would have gotten an attitude adjustment from the bees for pissing on their box when they arrived. I told you once about that one damn time I tried to ride a bike over there? Damned dogs made me walk it half way up the road there and halfway back. That friggin Akita got a thing about bicycles and those other two dogs do whatever he does because he is the ornery Alpha male. Separated from him they are pretty sweet dogs on their own, but don’t try riding a bicycle by them both without stopping and walking it.” Mike said gruffly thinking he would of smacked one of them dogs if it had of kept up its barking charge that was hard to tell if it was all bluff, nervousness or naked aggression towards him and his bicycle.

“He feeds them catfish he raises in his ponds with regular pelletized fish food; I wonder what happens to that smaller catfish pond if he doesn’t feed them at all? You reckon without that oxygen bubbler going and regular feeding those fish will just all up and die?” Mike asked thinking maybe tonight would be fish and forest food for the dinner plate.

“Damn good question Mike. What DOES happen to an overstocked pond if you don’t feed the fish contained in it?” David said looking skeptical. He had not even considered that bit of info until Mike had brought it up for discussion.

“They eat each other and the big fish wins and chases the smaller fish around the pond at lunchtime?” Julie said not joking in the least and the group babbled questionably and vociferously about the future outcomes of the smaller fish in the ponds until Mike and David eventually rousted themselves and headed out of the house to go to Charlie’s place and ask him the same question.

“Well it’s the same old shit I see David. Those neighbors of yours got all their blinds closed up, front yard is full of weird junk and they are themselves nowhere to be seen. Hell the only way you know anything about them is to watch what type of junk disappears or appears in front of that rundown place.” Mike said as he and David walked by the dubious structure.

“To be honest, I hope it stays that way.” David said picking up his pace to pass by the house quicker and hopefully not be observed by the occupants.

“You know Mike, in a normal grid down situation, like one caused by a hurricane or something, I would have been the first one to finally walk over to that house and see that they were doing all right after a bit of reflection on their welfare. Now a days it feels weird to hope I never have to see them or visit that house EVER.” David said unsure of the wave of feelings and emotions coming over him suddenly that apparently caused him to have such low opinions of folks he had never met.

“I can understand your wanting to do something helpful or be sociable to people David, but don’t you be letting folks take kindness for weakness. Like you said,” its dance with the devil time and the ox is in the ditch”. You can’t just go help out whoever you want these days without some kind of unexpected or unwanted repercussions possibly coming from it. Besides, you got nothing much food wise put away for yourself and for that matter, I will remind you that you are now sharing game as hunting partners with me!” Mike said giving David twinges of guilt on how much food he had hidden away from his quasi, well up until now anyway, friend.

“We’re living in a time of constantly evolving instability David.” Mike said, adjusting the hunting knife sheath on his belt. “It doesn’t take long for people to turn into animals. I seen it in Iraq” he concluded.

“Look when we get back to the house Mike, Julie and me set you out a care package of sorts. Nothing much mind you, just a bit of food to tide you over until we get the hunting and trapping routine down and hopefully start producing some regular meat from our trap lines. Before we go any further with this conversation, I can tell you here and now buddy that you’re likely going to want to turn your nose up at most of what it is that I have reserved for you.” David said before gently hushing the rising protests from his friend and fellow soldier that Mike was never going to turn his nose up at anything David ever offered or happened to discard as surplus food stores or garden produce in his direction.

Mike paused to reflect.

“Hell on earth, I would bet that some people were probably already wishing they hadn’t fed rover that last can of dog food and had instead saved it for themselves and their own bellies by now . Or for that matter if they didn’t have a pet themselves to care for themselves then they might most likely be eying their neighbors pets by now as possible a la carte menu entries
.
It is a dog eat dog world now. I can not even imagine what folks will be doing or thinking in the big cities when there are no dogs, rats or cats left to eat
.”
Mike thought with a shudder before quickly clearing those bad thoughts out of his mind.
However, Mike still worriedly kept thinking about of his own dog’s safety in these trying times. Once it is matter of your life or that of a dog, opinion can change as to property rights or to someone’s normal loving nature and view of them.

“Look Mike, you’re a meat eater and a have a hardcore male appetite the same as me that does not under any stretch of the imagination think we even ate a meal if we are forced to partake of a vegetarian diet. No meat on my plate and eggs don’t count, I didn’t eat a meal is the way I feel about it. Which, old buddy, you and I might be stuck eating grazing food like a cow for more days than I care to think about later on in this disaster. I really don’t know how in the hell women do the salad thing entrée for dinner or lunch and claim they get their tummies so full, because as far as I am concerned that only works if you are a rabbit. I have got a variety of canned and bucketed crap stored for long-term last ditch emergency rations like 5 gallon buckets of different types of wheat. You know the kinds of wheat I mean like soft white summer and hard red winter wheat that the emergency food stores sell you in order for them to puff up the numbers of the daily adult required calorie counts on those high priced year supply packages of dehydrated or freeze dried long-term storage foods? Yes wheat is tried and true real nutrition and yes you can live off it long-term, but we aren’t going to be none too happy with it or without it I am afraid. The bible says supposedly “wheat is the staff of life” or so I have heard. I had my wheat stored for when things were brought to a level where we eat just to survive. You know, sort of as iron rations to keep me from seeing my ribs too soon should the game disappear for a season. I have this belief in regard to preps, “if it’s all you can afford, then buy wheat and have SOMETHING!”  The day will come or might come along when you say to yourself I really want to eat SOMETHING, but it is not too important WHAT that SOMETHING is and if that’s all there is to eat anyway, it won’t matter.” David said, regarding Mike before carrying on.

“However buddy, we can be somewhat hopeful about the menu we are going to likely get stuck with someday. I have some recipes for wheat that knowledgeable folks swear makes it sort of taste like meat, but I have never tried any of them dishes myself personally. I do know however, that I can pour hot water over wheat and wait a few minutes and end up with something like cereal if need be, but that ain`t even close to oatmeal from what I gather. As far as I know the stuff might taste like grass, but I will eat it and be thankful for it when we get to that level.” David explained, regretting that he couldn’t do more than share some of his precious iron rations with his survival neighbor.

“Iron rations were my last line of defense preps and could be considered a make or break starvation solution while Julie and I were trying to make it through a tough winter.” David said while hoping somewhere in the back of his mind that he could make up for the loss of some bucketed and canned grain now by producing and growing his own replenishment come summer .

“I remember you telling me about us needing to plant a bit of that wheat and oats rather than eating it up awhile back David. When do you plant and when do you harvest that wheat grass stuff anyway? I never known anyone to grow it down south and closest thing I might know would be Rye that is raised around here.” Mike asked trying to grasp the amount of seed and labor it would take to even raise an acre of the commodity.

“We have ourselves a wheat cook book and a farmer’s almanac for reference is about all I can say on that subject. I have about three hundred pounds of the stuff stored around here to experiment on or get creative and process further.  Come spring we will give planting some kind of wheat a shot. What we got to have us Mike is some kind of grain crop as a staple to preserve and put away for hard times as well as supplement our daily diets with. The land around here is not good at all for growing vegetable crops and we don’t have much fertilizer to help it along. I have tried to raise corn before here and other places and if you don’t have a ton of fertilizer for this poor soil and plenty of rain, you are just wasting your time and energy. At least wheat is lot like growing grass and we can do that I hope. I have some canning jars stocked up, but I don’t have very many to spare. We are going to have to try and dehydrate or sun dry what we can with the fruits from the vegetable gardens.  I have never tried sun drying myself before, but I have some muslin and mosquito netting to try out in order to keep the bugs off of the veggies while they are baking and drying under old Sol. I also got some of those dollar store plastic picnic, white netting looking food table tent things to try. Hopefully I won’t need to try my hand and patience at that lost art of air and sun drying. I have a truly modern approach to solve my preservation and drying needs though utilizing two small electric food dehydrators that I can run off my marine batteries and solar panels. I also have a Sun Oven that has dehydration capabilities which I haven’t tried out yet for that purpose, but I have the directions and recipes that came with the oven and I have watched a lot of YouTube videos on the subject. I want us to try our hands at making some jerky in the Sun Oven using some of the deer meat this go round. We shouldn’t have any problem doing it I don’t expect, that is if we get it sliced nice and thin along the grain”. David explained trying to envision the ramifications of trying to plant a crop in spring and hopefully being able to store something for next winter from the gardens as well as put up any kind of meat some way or the other. If he and Mike couldn’t through their toil and labor produce and preserve some kind of surplus from the gardens this summer, then they were going to have nutrition problems aplenty no matter what kind of meat they could secure from hunting or trapping efforts.

“Damn, first thing I want to trade for if I can find them is a few live chickens” David mused, mad at himself for not preparing properly to raise a flock someday. Other than previously buying 25 foot of chicken wire on a very limited budget, his plans for having the material like wood and nails on hand, or having the completed project done by this time evaporated into one more of those would
da, could da, should da, sentiments he seemed to lament a lot about lately. He didn’t give such wishful things much further thought though. He had done his best to balance his prepping and his regular life as well as he could. What he now had on hand in the way of preps was as adequate or not as it will ever be and no sense fretting about anything missing or depleted. No one could possibly afford to buy the supplies that might be needed for this level of disaster. What you had to invest in was knowledge and practicality to even have a general idea of how to “ad lib in the danger zone” as David referred to some of his MacGyver like tendencies of his using a common household item to overcome the lack of a tool or technological solution to get the basics of life like food, fuel, shelter, clean water etc.

“What’s a “Sun Oven’? Is that something you can run off your solar panels and batteries also? “Mike inquired trying to envision some kind of low wattage appliance like device.

“Oh no, a Sun Oven is not electric at all, my friend. Regular appliances require way too much wattage to even consider. Think of a sun oven as basically black steel or iron pot nestled in an insulated box with glass over it that uses the suns energy to cook with. Mine is far from being that simple though. I have what I am standing here proud to say, the Cadillac of all solar cookers with the trade marked name “Sun Oven”. How spectacular is that? That fine technologically advanced cooking and baking solution is an alternative energy marvel with many hidden as well as evident craftsman oriented attributes. I will show you my sun cooker later and maybe we can talk about building you something to cook in but it will be much less efficient and elaborate as my commercially made one.” David responded thanking his lucky stars and doing a mental happy dance he had such a resource on hand for his post-apocalyptic and intriguing off grid kitchen setup.