The Solitary Man’s Refuge (14 page)

“
Society will become far more primitive than the one
to which we have been accustomed. In the meantime, you
need a strategy to get you and your family back to your
bug out location and in a timely fashion.” Donald
considered as his most pressing issue to wrestle with.

No man is an island he had often lectured; it is
crucial to remain connected to a community if one is to
survive a breakdown of government. And that’s where the
family stronghold comes into play. His place wasn’t that
defendable on its own but he could improve on that
situation. He had a good supply of prepper resources and
a little land to fall back on and that was what was most
important.

The greatest “resource” of all to possess, though,
will be the knowledge inside one's own head versus having
a fortress. People with the information and skills required
for supplying themselves and their community with food
and shelter, however, can certainly be called the
survivalists now, even if a better label like Prepper is used.

It is well-documented fact that Donald studied often
in college, that natural and man-made disasters are
followed by increases in altruistic behavior and social
solidarity so he didn’t see things spinning out of control for
some time. A lot of people also had gardens this time of
the year and would be spared a lot of hardship because of
them.

Those who expected to get by with just their so
called “victory type gardens” are unaware, however, of the
arithmetic involved to do so. Perhaps some of the
misunderstanding is due to the misconception that humans
live on “vegetables” in the narrow sense of the word (e.g.,
in the sense of “green vegetables”). In reality, it is not
“vegetables” but grains that are the foundation of human
diet. Thousands of years ago, our ancestors took various
species of grass and converted them into the plants on
which human life now depends. Wheat, rice, corn, barley,
rye, oats, sorghum, millet — these are the grasses people
eat everyday.

It is these members of the grass family that are
used in raising the pigs and cows that are killed as other
foods to sustain the body. A diet of strictly green
vegetables would be slow starvation; it is grains that
supply the thousands of kilocalories that keep us alive
from day to day.

By knowing and relating to this basic information to
his current situation, he thought it was now very crucial to
sacrifice the two bags of feed wheat he had recently
bought as soon as possible to the community and try to
get his neighbors to help him till and plant Bobby’s land
with this life sustaining crop or he couldn’t see very many
making it. Bobby had the only good size piece of open
land close by and owned a fishpond to boot that he was
willing to share if he got something in return for depleting
his fish stock.

Donald had already mentioned the possibility of
Donald planting wheat as a basic necessity crop after a
disaster to him one time when they got on the subject of
prepping when Donald had first moved here. Donald had
already described various “what if situations” so he felt
good about his success in implementing his plans and
Bobby’s cooperation. Bread is the staff of life as they say
and he was going to insure this community had plenty of it
in some form or fashion.

Infrastructure and social order are interdependent
to a large extent. The more fully infrastructure is woven
into social life, the more difficult it is for human beings to
anticipate and prepare for the day when it may come
crashing down. Donald’s household would have some
basic amenities that many lacked because of his extensive
planning to be as self-reliant as he could.

Even though he felt like it darn near sent him over
the edge doing all this mental and physical work alone or
with very little help, he now felt somehow refreshed and
back in control of his destiny again as the time for prepping
was over now and the day to day survival game was
starting up. He would have lots of time now to work on his
various prepper projects, hell, eventually all they would
have is time on their hands to devote to trying to improve
their positions and try to insure their survival success.

He was glad he had also had the aforethought to
stock some decks of playing cards and board games to
pass time away in a more leisurely fashion when things
settled down a bit. Around the farmstead these simple
games would give his family and friends some much
needed recreation time as well as help bond them together
better and help get their minds off the aftermath of this life
changing event and move on to simpler pleasures.

He wished that he could hang around and grill and
smoke some of that stuff he had in the freezer with the rest
of his neighbors but he had to keep moving when he hit
town. He could give some of the meat from his freezer to
Michael and ask him and Amy to please clean out his
refrigerator as well while he was gone, though. Whew, he
could only imagine how the air would smell a week from
now in the cities. The stench would be building up as trash
wasn’t picked up and the sewer systems backed up. Ok,
he would talk to Michael and Amy and remind him
LowBuck might be traveling by driving a motor home.

“
What’s up with that big old prepper, anyway? I
wonder if he’s still coming my way? Probably not. I
suspect he would want to haul ass back to his bug-in
location but maybe not. My place is about a thousand
miles closer for him to get to and he may just decide to
ride the storm out my way if he realizes gas is going to be
a big issue as well as some major arteries on highways will
be shutdown or impassable. I hope he comes though; I
could damn sure use him around my place. It’s not often
you could find as good a man and woman as that
personally and the prepper knowledge they had between
them would fill many books.

Let me consider my course here for a minute, I am
3-4 hours out from my house if I don’t have any traffic
problems. Donald mentally added another hour or so
travel time to his Mom’s house and mentally dreaded
playing hell driving in the traffic entering into that city to get
to her.

If that Mr. Lowbuck and crew is on the road and
coming in and he left right when the shit hit the fan, that
puts him in maybe the same time as me or an hour earlier
than me if he doesn’t have any traffic issues or major
detours to get around.

“
I best buy us all some beer or something with my
little bit of remaining money and plan for some post
apocalyptic shindig in a few weeks while I got a chance to
maybe find a store open.” Donald thought as he began to
look for any kind of store to buy the last batch of alcohol he
and LowBuck might see for a while. That might be a good
thing for himself, though alcohol sometimes tended to
attract odd and strange troubles to him like a magnet
sometimes and he knew he had plenty of troubles already
to deal with without attracting any more new extra glitches
for a while. Poor Lowbuck is going to be lost between two
shores if he does visit though; it’s a long way home for
him.

“We are about an hour out from Donald’s house, if I
am guessing correctly from this map.” Cat said looking up
from her navigating duties now that the GPS was dead.

“I hope it stays this smooth driving, I wasn’t realizing
how close he was to Jacks’ or how good the condition of
this highway may have been when I said I hoped to get
there before dark. If you see any kind of a store at all that
looks open lets stop and spend what green cash we have
on whatever we can get before its fiat value is considered
worthless for buying stuff.” Bubba said, slowing down a
little and searching the landscape for a place.

“ Buy a lot of dog chow if you can, weaning this
beast of ours off of a bowl full whenever he wants it is
going to be tough.” she said, half grinning as she rubbed
Harley’s head but worried his diet would soon change as
drastically theirs and would often have to be hungry.

“I got about 125 lbs. of food on the trailer for him
but you’re right, he has got to start on lighter rations quick
enough. Well, you his mamma, make him some of them
dog cookies out of our wheat stores you make sometimes
and supplement what food we have for him with what we
got on hand otherwise.” Bubba said smiling, he would eat
them things to himself if he had to, they were sort of like
hard tack he guessed and was willing to give it a try.

Combine flour, wheat germ and garlic in a large
bowl. Cut in butter. Stir in egg, milk and molasses. Add
enough water so mixture can be shaped into a ball. Roll
dough onto a floured surface to a thickness of 1/2 inch.
Cut into desired shapes and place on a greased baking
Cut into desired shapes and place on a greased baking
1/2 dozen.

Nutritional Facts 1 serving (1 each) equals 56
calories, 2 g fat (trace saturated fat), 7 mg cholesterol, 22
mg sodium, 8 g carbohydrate, 1 g fiber, 2 g protein.

•
2 cups whole wheat
flour
•
1 tablespoon baking powder
•
1 cup unsalted natural peanut
butter
•
1 cup skim milk

1.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190
degrees C). Grease cookie sheets. Stir together the flour
and baking powder; set aside.

2.
In a medium bowl, mix together the peanut
butter and milk. Stir in the flour mixture until well blended.
Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead
until smooth. Roll out to 1/4 inch thickness and cut into
shapes using cookie cutters. Place 2 inches apart onto the
prepared cookie sheets.

3.
Bake for 20 minutes in the preheated oven,
or until lightly brown. Remove from cookie sheets to cool
on wire racks.

“He loves both of those mutt munchies recipes. I will have
to make us some ships’ biscuit or hard tack if we can get
enough wheat to make some flour out of for iron rations.
Grab whatever prepackaged enriched flour we can get too.
It won’t be going bad anytime soon as much as I anticipate
us needing it at the moment. Can Donald grow wheat?”
Cat asked unsure of just what Donald’s climate and arable
land would support.

“I never talked to him about it, I know he was
experimenting with some Moringa trees and also had
some soybeans and a peanut patch growing.” Bubba said
before going on to explain what a Moringa tree is.

Moringa is considered to be the most nutrient rich
plant on earth. Moringa leaves have been consumed by
Asian people for millennia as a healthy food product.
Containing more than 90 nutrients and 46 antioxidants,
these vivid green leaves are nature’s super-power food

Moringa Oleifera is the best known of the thirteen
species of the genus Moringaceae. Moringa was highly
valued in the ancient world. The Romans, Greeks and
Egyptians extracted edible oil from the seeds and used it
for perfume and skin lotion. In the 19th century, plantations
of Moringa in the West Indies exported the oil to Europe
for perfumes and lubricants for machinery. People in the
Indian sub-continent have long used Moringa pods for
food. The edible leaves are eaten throughout West Africa
and parts of Asia. Moringa is more than a super food. It is
a food and commercial resource that can change people’s
lives. In Comparable Amounts (gram per gram) Moringa
contains more vitamin C than oranges, three times the iron
of spinach, and four times the calcium of milk. The leaves
are the most nutritious part of the plant. Moringa trees
have been used to combat malnutrition, especially among
infants and nursing mothers, being a significant source of
beta-carotene, Vitamin C, protein, iron, and potassium The
leaves are cooked and used like spinach. In addition to
being used fresh as a substitute for spinach, its leaves are
commonly dried and crushed into a powder, and used in
soups and sauces. Although you can cook with Moringa, if
it is exposed to temperatures above 140 degrees
Fahrenheit some of the nutritional value will be lost. The
tree is a good source of calcium and phosphorus.

Moringa leaves and pods are helpful in increasing
breast milk. One tablespoon of leaf powder provides 14%
of the protein, 40% of the calcium, 23% of the iron and
most of the vitamin A needs of a child aged one to three.
Six tablespoons of leaf powder will provide nearly all of a
woman's daily iron and calcium needs during pregnancy
and breastfeeding.