Chapter Four - Neighbors Cont.

Janice said, “Back to preserving our food that we have in the freezer. How’s that going to work?”
“Well,” Dad said, “You’re welcome to come up when we do it and give us a hand, and learn the process. I didn’t open any freezers yet, and it’s really hot. I don’t know how long it will stay cold or frozen. I don’t know how yours are. I know it won’t be tomorrow; tomorrow’s Sunday, a day of rest.”
“You’re not going to work tomorrow?” Norm asked.
“Not on Sunday,” Mom answered.
“Oh sure,” Jake said, “we’ll carrying water in. We’ll keep the fire going. We’ll feed the animals and feed ourselves. And do the dishes. There’ll be enough work even though we aren’t doing any.”
“Well, that’s something,” Hallie said.
“That’s the way it has to be,” Mom said. “God got us this far and He asks little in return, but one of the things He asks is keep the Sabbath Holy. We’re probably in enough trouble already without having Him mad at us.”
“Now Mom,” Dad said, “It’s not that He’d be mad at us. He knows the trouble we’re in and He knows how weak we are but in Him is our strength. He deserves to be honored tomorrow and every Sunday. Actually, every day.
“I suppose that’s true,” Marie said.
“Poor choice of words on my part,” Mom said. “But you’re still welcome tomorrow to come up for water if you need it or anything else you might need, even if you want some fresh vegetables.”
“Yeah,” Mel said, “take some of that zucchini. It certainly isn’t my favorite, especially when they mix it with tomatoes.”
That’s the way Mom liked it, but not the rest of us.
Dad continued, “If you are coming around tomorrow, I guess most of us aren’t going to use any gas to go to church, a church without electricity. I’d be willing to have a little service for you.”
“Well, that would be nice,” Norm said.
Marie chimed in, “We could have it at our house, if you’d like. Our pool is still filled. Chlorine is up to snuff. Haven’t been able to run the circulator, but the water is still pretty clean for how hot it’s been. After a little worship, we could cool off a little bit.”
I thought it was a great idea. I often went up and swam in Marie’s pool.
“Look out,” said Mel, “Give Dad a pulpit and a pool and it’s liable to bring on a baptism.”
“Well you never know,” Dad responded.
“That’s real nice of you,” Mom offered, ignoring Mel and Dad, “What time do you think we could get together?”
Now time was an interesting subject. One of the first things Dad had done was take the batteries out of the clocks to save them for flashlights or whatever. He had his wristwatch. Josh had one and Jake. I also noted most of the neighbors had one. But here of late, when the sun got up, so did we; time wasn’t that important, but Dad still had an answer.
“I guess we don’t want to wait until it is too hot or that it’s too cold to take a dip in the pool afterwards, so I guess midmorning, 10:00 or 10:30. We don’t want to start too late; it’s going to rain by tomorrow evening.”
“How do you know that?” Jim asked.
“See those little wispy clouds? My grandfather always said when you see those you’d have rain by the next evening. He had to know that kind of stuff. When he started farming they had no radio, TV or Accu-Weather forecasts. Turns out my meteorology professor in college, justifying my grandfather, said the same thing. He told us that those wispy clouds are the leading edge of a cold front. Therefore my forecast is for cooler, dryer air on Monday.”
“Or maybe hot and sticky?” Mel said.
“OK, maybe hot and sticky. But either way tomorrow will still start out hot. So we’ll meet up at Marie and Bill’s then?”
“Sure,” Norm said. And the others agreed.
Marie added, “I’ll have some food for us, too. Some of these fresh tomatoes and some other things just the two of us will have trouble eating before they spoil.”
So the neighbors left and we continued with our chores. Just a few moments later, another pickup came down the road. It was one of Jake’s friends, Tom. He had his girlfriend along, Louisa, and his parents, AnnMarie and Jeff. Jeff’s parents lived on a farm one valley over. Jeff’s family had come out from town to stay with his parents and care for them. The farm had spring water, too, so they were doing all right.
Jeff said, “We thought we’d stop in to see how you were doing and if there’s anything we could do for you.”
Dad said, “Well, we do have a big chore today yet if Tom and you would be willing to help.”
“What’s that? Tom asked.
“Jake and Josh are going out to fetch mother’s parents here. They live a mile or two out of town. They have no water of their own. Fortunately, there’s a Mennonite farm next to them that has a windmill and last we talked to them, they were able to get fresh water to drink. But in earlier communications with them, it was decided that they’d be coming here. We were going to go out with the pickup and load up all the goods that we felt we could use and bring them here this afternoon. So, if Tom would want to go with his pickup too, it would be a big help.”
“Sounds good,” Tom said. “Are you going to go along, Pop?”
“Sure,” Jeff answered. “Are they expecting us?”
“Yeah, they’re expecting us,” Dad answered.
Jeff asked, “So they know what we’re supposed to bring back?”
Dad said, “I have a list all prepared. It’s on the pickup seat.” Jake went and got the list. Here’s what it looked like:
Their car and truck.
All and any medical supplies like alcohol, witch hazel, prescriptions.
Canned food. Packaged food that doesn’t need refrigeration.
Soda, beer, and liquor.
Containers, especially those with lids.
Cleaning supplies, personal hygiene items, any old eyeglasses.
Hand tools: carpenter, plumbing, food prep, knives, and gardening.
Any liquid fuel, if it can be safely transported.
Guns and ammo. Any seeds.
Coinage, gold, silver, precious gems.
Bedding, mattresses, towels and washcloths.
Toilet paper, paper towels.
Batteries, flashlights, candles, lanterns, matches.
Shoes, socks, underwear.
Bicycles, Grandpop’s moped.
Bring a few eating utensils, plates, bowls, and large cooking pots.
Any self-help books, especially medical ones.
The family Bible, stationary, pens, scotch tape.
Jeff responded, “That’s a neat list. I think when we’re done with your in-laws, we’re going to back to our house in town and make sure we have a lot of these things to bring out to the farm.”
“You’re welcome to do that,” Dad said. “Here are a couple of things I wouldn’t worry about bringing. Electrical appliances unless he has a generator - that might come in handy one day or any two-way radios or any 12-volt items, like an air pump. If he has a 12-volt air pump, that might really come in useful. Most books and magazines you can leave there. Records, tapes, DVDs are no use. Dress clothing isn’t really going to be needed with the exception of bring the shoes that they have. We don’t know when we will be able to buy shoes again. And forget the furniture. But there are two exceptions. Try and get every table they have on the truck and if you have room, a couple of chairs.”
Jake said, “I’ll get the two-way radios, Dad. They are charged up and we can stay in a little bit of contact if Grandpop has any questions.”
“That’s a good idea,” Dad said. “I’ll turn mine on about twenty minutes after you leave here, and then you can get in contact with me if you need to.
Listen, Jeff, you’ve been around a little bit the last day or two. How are you finding things?”
“Haven’t really seen anything too bad yet, Jeff answered. People are a little anxious. Didn’t really see any looting at all, but people are on edge.”
“Do you have a weapon with you?” Dad asked.
“Yeah, I got a loaded one behind the truck seat,” Tom said.
“Jake,” Dad said, “You best get one too, load it up and keep it behind the seat. Follow Jeff’s lead, but it’s only for last resort measures.”
“I understand, Dad,” Jake said.
“And another thing,” Dad said, “Before you leave, use the pickup, pull the hay wagon out of the barn and park it near the back door. That way, we can just back the trucks in the barn when you come back and we don’t need to unload everything tonight. Put the food on Tom’s truck and we’ll make sure we get that one unloaded.”
“Okay, Dad,” Jake said, “but why do you want the wagon near the back door?”
“Oh,” Dad said, “we might have to throw some things out of the house to make room for what we’re bringing from your grandparents.”
“Okay, Dad. Well, let’s get rolling.”
As they went down the road, we got back to our work. Mom and Mel took over with the jar cleaning; that was coming along pretty well. Louisa and I were given a job by Dad.
He said, “Go out in the shed and gather up all the storm window panes that I have and the screens. There’s a few above the chicken house also, if you could work them out please. Bring them to the butcher house. We want to clean them up. There might be one or two in the cellar also.”
“What do you want those for Dad,” I asked.
“We’re going to make a drying bed. They need to be nice and clean. You’ll see how it works on Monday.”
So we started gathering and Dad started getting some wood together. He put it in a nice flat sunny spot and made a frame, like a grid work, that the screens could be placed on without falling through. Then he took narrow boards, about an inch and a half high and laid them on top of the screens. He put the panes on top of that. He said the sunlight will come through the glass and dry the fruit that we’d spread out on the screens. We weren’t going to do that until Monday, but we needed to be ready. Finally, we covered the drying beds with blankets to keep animal litter off.
As evening approached, Tom, Jeff, the boys, and my grandparents arrived. There had been no trouble, nothing unusual. We unloaded Tom’s truck, put the coolers in the ground cellar, a couple of mattresses in the cellar. The other trucks could wait until Monday. Tom and his family were anxious to leave and get back to their family. We bid them well and mentioned about the church service at Marie and Bill’s.
As we wrapped up the chores, Mom and my grandmother laid out a supper for us. We didn’t need anything hot, just lunched on the food from Grandpop’s refrigerator. He even had some ring bologna that had kept.
“Eat it up,” Dad said, “Might not have anything like this for some time.”
“Alyssa,” Jake said, “Over in the blue cooler is something for you. Help yourself.”
I opened the cooler and found a little ice cream that had been left in Grandma’s freezer. He had put all the ice in that cooler to try to keep it frozen. It was pretty well melted, but still tasted great. I shared a spoonful with those that wanted some and said, “I guess this is the last time we’ll have this for a while, too.”
As the sun went down, everyone was tired enough to sleep. Grandma and Grandpop slept in my room, so their mattresses in the cellar were for us kids to sleep. It was much cooler down there. Jake had set a couple of buckets of water around, then right before we turned in, he threw a bucket of water all over the cement floor part of the cellar. That made it even cooler. Jake said a prayer for all of us and as I fell asleep, I just wondered what tomorrow would bring.

To be continued… Chapter Five - next week, Happy New Year, Mort