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Nick scowled at the big board in his office at the warehouse. It listed all of the trading partners, their products and expected delivery time slots. Early spring was turning out to be a tricky time. There was a gap in the food supply that he didn’t seem to be able to bridge no matter how he tried.
They could bring in a small amount of fish from Seaview for cheese from Creamery, but they didn’t have much to spare. They’d used up a lot of the backlog at the dairy last year through greeting baskets, negotiations and emergencies. Now Creamery wanted to be paid for their products which had Nick scrambling to find something Creamery might accept that wouldn’t leave High Meadow with a deficit.
The farms were putting seed in the ground now for summer produce. The quickest they might have anything to eat was about thirty days. And even then it wasn’t bulky food like carrots or potatoes. They took much longer to grow. Spinach, radishes and green onions were more likely what they’d have. All of which was tasty but not hearty.
There was one bright note on the board. The winter wheat could be harvested in another week or so, but there was a possibility that they might run out of flour before then. If they ran out of flour, Mary couldn’t bake the bread, rolls, cookies, muffins and such that everyone had gotten very used to having. After ten years of train food, most people were very watchful of the food supply. A dip in amounts or a few items missing off the market shelves could cause a panic. Nick had to find some unconventional substitutes.
Even the animals were being uncooperative. The hunters were being very careful with the deer population because the does were calving. The chickens had stopped laying for some unknown reason. A flock of turkeys had vanished into the woods, and the farmer was blaming feral dogs.
And then there was human error. Five sacks of grain had gotten damp and had spoiled because of a leak in the warehouse roof. He made another note on the board. Every little loss combined together to make for big problems. The population kept swelling as word of High Meadow slowly spread across the country. For some reason, it was up to him to make sure there was enough food to feed them all.
Most of the new people who had been settled in during the late summer had managed to put in a few quick crops before the first frost. After the Great Fire, Angus had encouraged everyone to plant something. Nick hoped that there were enough supplies squirreled away in various households so that they wouldn’t have a major shortage. There might still be a few hairy carrots and leathery kale that had made it through the winter in kitchen gardens. They just need to get through the next few weeks and things would ease up.
Rationing had been discussed repeatedly and very publically. Angus had stressed that he didn’t want anyone to say that they hadn’t seen it coming. This first winter without train food had been scary. Stewgoo and Crunch had been around since the world changed. Now it was gone along with the factories that had manufactured it. That all by itself had made people uncomfortable. There was no safety net to fall back on anymore. But they had managed to get through the winter all right. Angus and Tillie had been able to calculate and store enough food to tide them over. It was the waiting for the first crops to come in that was nerve-wracking.
Nick worried about how people were going to react. They had too many strangers, and the community was scattered across the entire territory. Back when it was barely a hundred of them up at the school, it was easier to keep an eye on things. Now if someone started trouble over a suspected food scarcity in the far corner of the Survivor’s Alliance, he might not know it was brewing until there was a riot over here at the train station. Martin had the Rovers out checking on people, but it was a lot of territory to patrol, and there were a few too many people who didn’t want to be found.
Wisp was out training the Rovers to forage in the woods. That would ease the burden a little. This time of year did limit what was available. Wild strawberries might be delicious, but it made a poor meal for a soldier. Over the winter, they had managed to set up each Rover Station and Sentinel Post with a big garden, a few chickens and a goat or two. Martin planned to make each of them self-sufficient, but that was a ways down the road. Until that point, they needed to provide enough food for the men, so that they could do their rounds and respond to emergencies.
Nick turned back to his lists and lacks. The soap makers in Barberry Downs had let Nick know that they had a few extra sacks of sunflower and flax seeds to spare. They pressed them for the oils and the leftover solids were being traded as chicken feed. Raw, the seeds were a good protein source. Eunice had told him that she might be able to use some of it in her baking, which brought him back to the reports on the dwindling flour supply.
“Nick?” Jean leaned against the doorjamb looking worried. She kept her thick black hair short, and it massed in curls around her face.
“News?” he asked eagerly.
“Hydroponics is harvesting some greens tomorrow. Should I have them put that in the newspaper?”
“How much is some?” Nick asked. They had been trying to let everyone know when there was something on the market. For the last week or so, every time they’d made an announcement, it had caused a rush on the store. He was concerned that people might be hoarding food. It was understandable. This was a new chapter in their history, and no one knew how it was going to play out.
“I asked for an estimate,” Jean said. “They figure it might be about a bushel.”
“That’s not enough to put on the market. People are getting a little hysterical. Send it on to Eunice.” Now that the school cafeteria was being used just for the students, the original staff had branched out. Eunice had taken charge of the food and supplies for the Watch, Rovers and Sentinels. Mary had opened a bakery which supplied Eunice, a restaurant and a couple of shops. All of his friends were spread out around town.
“Okay.” Jean folded her arms, turning her frown on the board. “We’re going to have to start rationing aren’t we?”
Nick groaned. “I’ve got a meeting with Angus about that this afternoon.”
“People are already scared.”
“I know.” Nick tried to conjure up a smile for her, but couldn’t. “We’ll get through this. If we keep adding a little bit here and a little bit there, it will be enough.”
“That’s a fat lie, but thanks for trying,” she said with a faint smile that took the sting out of her words.
“What have we got coming in?” Nick asked, hoping for some good news.
“Golden Oaks said they can send us a shipment of baby beets and carrots early next week.”
“Baby just means that they are picking them sooner than usual,” Nick grumbled “How much?”
“I think it’ll be enough to put on the market.”
“Okay. We can put that in the paper. Take a look at the numbers, and let people know there will be a limit to what they can buy.”
“Say maybe a pound per person?”
Nick glanced back at the big board. “I’ll let you know after I speak to Angus.”