June 15
“Are you trying to keep us busy, Mom?” Jason lamented when I told him of our latest project.
“Is that a bad thing?” I asked. “Besides, I think this is just as important as having a gas stove for the winter, maybe even more. Walk with me, Jason.” Eric had stayed home to tend his own garden, knowing that Jason would be making most of the technical decisions anyway.
I asked Harold to meet us at the house since this would be more his project than mine. I talked with Tom and Jim about how Harold could earn his keep during the winter, and they had agreed.
We entered the quiet house through the back door. Harold was waiting for us in the kitchen. The house had an eerie silence that I could almost taste as Jason and Harold wandered the house on their own while I waited in the massive kitchen.
“Nice house,” Jason said when he found me standing by the large windows. “Tell me again what your thoughts are.” Harold waited silently.
“The kitchen is perfect as it is. The only drawback is the stove is new and has an electronic ignition, which means we can light the burners manually, but not the oven. Baking would have to be adjusted to the five hours of power time; not a big deal. There is more than enough cabinet and counter space for storing jars and the canners.
“These windows let in a lot of light that I want to utilize for growing things during the winter. We’ll need shelves for that, which is where you come in. Floor to ceiling would be my preference, though the top shelf might be too high, so could be for storage only. The shelves need to be well spaced so the available sunlight will reach all the plants, and I’m thinking no more than two feet deep. Covering all these windows will still give us plenty of shelves, which I think should be made of wire to allow ventilation, evaporation and more sunlight.
“The very bottom shelf can be wood for stability and will house the earth-boxes I found in the barn. Those are filled with water and will be quite heavy. The boxes for the upper shelves will vary, and mostly will be shallow for growing beans, greens, shallow rooted things. I can also see flats of starter plants.” I turned back to them. “Harold, do you have any thoughts or suggestions to add? This will be mostly your project.”
“Where are we getting the equipment from?” he asked.
“Some of it will be my private stock, although I thought we could approach it the same way we did the bicycles: ask everyone to check their basements and garages,” I answered. “Especially for jars, my supply of that is very limited and already in use.”
“And all this furniture,” Harold swept his arm toward the couches and tables that took up space in the open living room. “What are we going to do with it?”
“This is a four bedroom ranch. I think we can take down some of the beds to make room for moving the unnecessary items,” I responded. “Much will have to go anyway when the wood burner is installed. There won’t be any other way to keep the place warm during the winter. I’ve already arranged with Earl to do that since it’s his unit.”
“So do you want this going all winter?” Harold asked.
“That’s my intension, yes,” I answered. “Only if you decide to stay and to live in this house.” He raised his eyebrows in question. “Someone has to keep the fire going or all the plants would freeze no matter how good the sunlight is.”
“Shelves are no problem, Mom. I can get a couple of guys from town to move the furniture once Harold decides which room he wants to keep as his own. Is there anything else?” Jason asked.
“There is the basement that I think would make a good root cellar, though we first need to know what kind of vegetables we’ll be storing. Regardless, we’ll need hooks to hang things from and wire shelves for storage, maybe a couple of bins with sand for root crops.”
June 25
Joshua had been bringing Emilee to school for a couple of weeks now using the extra four-wheeler.It was charming to see how he waited for her to get inside the doors before he left for the office and his time on the ham radio. As arranged, at three o’clock when school let out, Emi took her turn manning the radio until someone arrived to take her home.
“I’m really glad you suggested this arrangement, Allex,” Tom confided in me. “Joshua has an engaging personality when he’s on the mike, and we’re getting a great deal of information through him.”
“Anything useful?” I asked.
“Not anything pertinent to us, but it’s been good to hear what’s going on elsewhere. There’s yet another bridge that’s been replaced over the New Madrid crack, and traffic has increased. Those on the east side of the fault line aren’t happy about the extra population though.”
Joshua burst into the office with a sheet of paper and handed it to Tom. He read it quickly and turned to me.
“The president has died, Allex,” Tom said, stunned. “An apparent heart attack. With the VP already missing and presumed lost, that leaves the Speaker of the House as president.”
“Disturbing news to say the least. Still, I don’t see how that will affect us here,” I replied. “We are a forgotten piece of real estate, and for the most part that’s not such a bad thing, in my opinion.”