August 20
The nights were getting cooler already and that was worrisome. An early frost would damage the crops that were doing so well now.
Emilee pedaled her bike down the long driveway where I was working at stacking wood inside the garden area, getting ready for needing the smudge pot.
“Nahna! Rayn’s in labor! Dad said I should get you in case you wanted to be there.” I was surprised she wasn’t riding the new four-wheeler, and then realized she likely came in the truck with her father and Rayn.
“Of course I do. I was there when you were born down in Florida, and I was present when Jacob was born too.” I rushed to put my tools away, then dipped my dirty hands into the bucket of water I kept nearby to rinse off the mud. “You go on back to the hospital while I get my keys and I’ll see you there.” I darted into the house, pausing to wash my hands with soap. The baby coming in mid-August concerned me, as I thought he wasn’t due until September.
*
“How is she doing?” I asked Eric, who was pacing the narrow entranceway of the small hospital.
“Contractions are four minutes apart,” Eric told me. “Dr. James is examining her now. He said for you to scrub as soon as you got here.”
“Would you send Emi over to the offices and tell Jim and Tom where I am and what’s going on? I don’t want either of them to worry when they can’t find me.”
I waved to James as I passed the partially closed curtains that surrounded Rayn’s bed to let him know I was there. I scrubbed and donned gloves and mask, then joined Eric by his wife’s side just as another contraction hit.
“You’re doing fine, Rayn. You need to dilate just a bit more before you can start pushing,” Dr. James said. I could tell his confidence level had grown tremendously since his first delivery.
“Have you selected names yet?” I asked to fill in moments between contractions.
“We’ve decided on Alan for a boy and Harmony if it’s a girl,” Eric said, wiping the sweat off Rayn’s forehead.
“Both beautiful names…”
A half hour later the baby was crowning. “Okay, Rayn,” Dr. James said, “on the next contraction you can push.” And she did. We welcomed little Alan into world at six-ten in the evening.
I wrapped the baby in a soft blanket and laid him on his mother’s chest. I caught Eric wiping tears from his eyes as his son latched on to his finger with a tiny fist. Dr. James worked the afterbirth out, and then tied off the umbilical where I had clamped it.
“I’m going to wash him and wrap him in a clean blanket,” I said and took my grandson. I had a small basin of warm water waiting and quickly sponged the birth blood from him. Once he was covered in a fresh, warm blanket, I set him on the baby scale I once used for measuring shredded cabbage. Alan weighed in at six pounds eleven ounces, exactly what his father weighed at birth. This baby was not premature. Then I remembered an old saying my mother repeated to me a very long time ago: “The first baby can come anytime, the rest take nine months.”
*
“I feel like a grandfather,” Jim grinned when I stepped out into the small lobby where he and Emi waited.
“You have a new brother, Emilee. Would you like to see him?” I asked. Knowing she would, I had brought an extra mask with me. I fixed the loops around her ears, then tiredly smiled at Jim and told him I’d be right back.
*
Jim greeted me with a hug when I came back out. “You look exhausted, Allex. Did everything go okay?”
“It went perfectly. Labor was relatively short for a first baby, only seven hours,” I said after glancing at the clock. “Why is the power is still on?” I asked in confusion. It was now seven o’clock and the generator should have shut off an hour ago.
“We made a quick executive decision to keep the gennie going until the baby was born,” he answered. “This baby is too important to us to interrupt the birth. Jason is getting ready to switch the hospital over to the standby generator now and shut down the main one.” Jim brushed a lock of hair out of my eyes. “Are you ready to go home?”
“Yes. Let me go tell them I’m leaving,” I said and then added with a grin, “Grandpa.”
*
I accepted a drink from Tom, took a swallow, and let it warm me as the alcohol slid down my parched throat.
“I want to thank both of you for keeping the generator on.”
“It was the least we could do,” Tom said.
“By the way, did you notice how chilly it’s gotten?” Jim asked.
“Yes, I noticed it earlier. I’ve started stocking some firewood inside the shelter, just in case we have to use the smudge pot. I think tomorrow we should also alert the other gardeners to the possibility of an early frost so they can cover their plants. It would be a shame to lose the harvest after so much work.”
August 25
I slipped out of Jim’s bed, intent on an early shower. The view through the enclosed deck stopped me cold. It was white outside, and it was snowing! I was stunned for a moment, and then I rushed back into Jim’s room.
“Jim, wake up!” I shook him until he opened his eyes. He looked at me dreamily until he realized I was distraught.
“What’s the matter, Allex?” he sat up, now fully awake. The down comforter slipped off his bare chest to expose a mat of curly gray hair.
“It’s snowing! We need to cover the gardens!” I rushed back to my room for appropriate clothing.
Pulling on a jacket I hurried to our small garden of raised beds, thankful I had dropped the sides a few days ago, though it was still very cold under the shelter. Inside the enclosure I wadded up some newspaper and stuffed it into the smudge pot. Then kindling and a few larger sticks went in. I struck the lighter that was always in my pocket. On the third try I got a weak flame and lit the newspaper. The wood was well seasoned and soon the fire was sending up billows of smoke that hung at the top like a heavy fog. I used a long pole and opened the plastic flap Jason had installed. The gray smoke drifted out and the air cleared. I put a couple more pieces of wood into the half barrel and went back into the house.
The battery clock on the wall said it was only six-thirty. How were we going to alert everyone so early?
Tom stepped out of his room, concerned over the activity. Apparently I hadn’t been very quiet in my rush to get outside.
“What’s going on, Allex?” he scowled.
“It’s snowing, Tom, and if we don’t let everyone know so they can cover the gardens, all the vegetables will freeze!” Instinctively I reached for the coffee pot to make our morning brew. Within ten minutes, the three of us were out the door, dressed, with coffee mugs in hand.
Jim ran next door to wake Harold. That house wouldn’t need any further protection, and we needed his help up at the community garden.
Tom and I grabbed some sheets and tarps from the barn and took off for Bradley’s Backyard with Harold close behind. Jim piloted the Humvee around the town, blasting the loud horn to wake people.
*
By noon, the gardens were mostly covered, but the snow was coming down even heavier. Inside the church, people were gathering to get warm and for guidance.
“It may be premature or too late to worry about the plants, so I would highly suggest everyone pick the mature produce and quickly,” Harold said from the podium. “The root crops should be okay for now. However, beans, tomatoes, peppers, tender greens, and anything above ground will get frost burned if left out.”
“There are a lot of beans out there, Mr. Wolfe, we can’t possibly eat that many,” a young woman called out from the back.
“Keep some fresh for eating over the next two or three days, and the rest we will start with mass canning,” he looked over at me and I silently nodded. We had days of processing ahead of us.
“What about those of us who have our own gardens?” another voice asked. “I planted all corn in my backyard. What am I supposed to do with all of that?”
“Yeah, we were encouraged to do a single crop. Now what?” That voice was tinged with anger.
“Harvest your own gardens first,” I replied. “The idea is to get the food out of the damaging snow. It’s going to be a great deal of work, I won’t deny that. Just keep in mind this is your food for the winter! There is no waiting until a better day. It has to be done now!” I looked over this sea of unfamiliar faces and wondered what I was doing here. “We’ve set up a house as a food processing station and storage. Most of you are already aware of that. After you have separated what you want fresh, take the rest to that house and we will set a schedule to help you process it. I know we thought we had another month of growing and could tackle the harvest in stages. Well, we were wrong. Now let’s get busy!”
*
“Are you going to start harvesting, Allex?” Tom asked.
“No, we don’t need to. That shelter has bought us some time. Not much, but some,” I answered, knowing it should be done soon or the weight of the snow would collapse the plastic sheeting. “What I need to do right now is get to Eric’s garden and help them.”
“I think the community is expecting you to work with them first,” Tom continued.
“There are a hundred people out there working to save their produce,” I said in exasperation. “My sons have each other, Amanda, and Emilee. That’s it! I’m going to save my family first.” I turned to leave and bumped into Jim standing behind me.
“I’ll come with you,” he said. “Tom, would you make sure the fire in the smudge pot keeps going? Remember, that’s our food, too.”
*
We spent three hours at Eric’s picking vegetables and digging root crops with the snow falling around us. In the end, there were bushels of small and medium sized potatoes, onions, beets, and rutabaga, and more bushels of ripening and green tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant, all of which were stacked in the greenhouse to stay out of the continuing snow.
“I think your pumpkins and acorn squash will continue to ripen in the cold pantry,” I said to Eric when Jim and I were getting ready to leave. “I left you one of the quart canners and dozens of jars with enough seals.”
“Thanks, Mom. We wouldn’t have gotten this done in time without you,” Eric said, giving me a hug.
*
People struggling with small wagons and wheelbarrows continued to beat a path through the snow, taking the harvest next door for storage or processing.
The three of us worked nonstop to harvest the small garden that would keep us fed.
“Don’t pull the plants yet. It’s a long shot, but we might still have some growing time.
Jim, Tom, and I harvested two bushels of green and yellow beans and I intentionally left six plants of each unpicked that might be our seed for next year.
“I’m surprised there are this many tomatoes,” Tom said, looking at the basket of nearly ripe tomatoes and two more boxes of green ones.
We used the plastic milk totes for the potatoes and onions, leaving some still in the ground. Many years in the past I’ve dug spuds only to have missed a few and they came up the next year. Leaving some may be our only way of propagating. I instantly thought of Jacob’s French fries and Emilee’s chips and my heart heaved.
“We can dig half of the carrots now and they will keep well. I think if we mulch the rest down with the compost we just might be able to dig more in a couple of months.”
We did the same for the beets and rutabaga. I had no idea what we would do with two dozen green peppers, except share them with Marsha.
“Where are we going to put all of this?” Jim asked.
“Right now, we just need to get it into the house so it doesn’t freeze. We’ll work on storage later.”
*
The blanket of snow was now a foot deep and snowflakes drifted down in a lazy spiral. The temperature hovered at thirty-five degrees. Tom stared out the glass door to a curtain of all white and shivered. He looked worried.
“What are we going to do?” he said.
The lights blinked and went out. It was six o’clock.
“Tom, I think it’s time for you to move downstairs with us,” Jim said, clamping his large hand on Tom’s shoulder. He looked forlornly at Jim, and then at me, and grimly nodded.
“Tom,” I said, “we are going to make it. It won’t be easy. It’s going to be a bad winter and there will be more losses, but we will survive.”