By lunch time the rain had stopped. As we left the barn, I spied a pickup truck coming down the road. It had a utility body on it and had boxes and other things piled in the bed high above the cab’s roof and covered with a tarp. Into the driveway it pulled and as the driver emerged I recognized him. It was Barry, our auto mechanic. He was an unforgettable fellow. I remembered him as a jolly, smoking fiend and a very foul mouth. He and Dad would vigorously debate politics. Actually sometimes it would seem more like arguing, the way Barry would carry on. Yet in the end he’d be laughing about it. He had long hair and was extremely overweight. I often wondered how he could even get close enough to work in some of the tighter areas of cars. I thought I had heard Dad tell Mom one time about some of the health problems Barry had. Today, however, he looked different. Hard to describe; perhaps more humble, mellow, or subdued. Shorter hair, that was obvious. And definitely weighing less. It looked like he lost a hundred pounds.
“Good to see you, Barry,” Dad said. “What brings you out here?”
“My truck,” he said. So he had some jolliness left in him. “I’m out of business,” he continued. “When the gasoline supply dried up, no one needed their cars fixed, nor did they have money to pay for repairs. But I knew there were people out here, especially farmers, who had equipment that might still be in use and could need repair. So I packed up as many of my tools as I could, at least those I deemed to be most likely to be useful. Put all the gasoline I had in a couple cans, together with some clothing and the little food I had and hit the road. I’ve been going from house to house and farm to farm trying to trade my skill for some room and board. Hasn’t really been working out. I had to trade most of my gasoline for food. Fact is I probably couldn’t drive another ten miles before I’d run out of gas. Didn’t know this was your place. Soon as I saw you, hope returned. Is there something I can do here to earn some food?”
“Not a thing,” Harvey said. Some of the color drained out of Barry’s face. I almost couldn’t believe I’d just heard Harvey say that.
“This here’s Harvey Stump, my second cousin. This is his farm,” Dad said.
Barry remained silent. After a few moments Harvey extended his hand and said, “Glad to meet you, Barry. We’re getting ready to go to the house to eat shortly. Like I said, there’s ‘not a thing’ you need to do, except to join us. If you want to eat, you’re welcome to what we have to share.”
A big smile emerged on Barry’s face as he grabbed Harvey’s hand and shook it. “Thank you, thank you,” he said. He just kept shaking it as he looked at Dad and said, “You put him up to that didn’t you?”
“Didn’t have time to,” was Dad’s response. “But we had the same great-grandfather and they say he was a corker, so I had a pretty good idea what Harvey was doing. Let’s go eat.”
The boys were planning to tackle the project of preparing the butcher house for housing the milk tank after lunch. Of course, while it was raining they had been preparing. Larry had the sprayer pump all flushed out and cleaned up. Jake and Joe had started converting a bicycle into the drive for the pump. Aaron was working on Jean’s oven. Poppop and the rest were pulling the water line from the barn. Dennis had the least success. While we were eating, he explained the problem he was having making the blender run on 12 volts.
“I think,” he said, “the trouble is a battery is direct current and the blender as well as all these other motors around here are alternating current.”
“That would be correct,” Aaron said, “to convert it we need a transformer to go from DC to AC.”
“Sounds like a rock group,” Grandmom said. Chuckles from everyone.
“I guess the transformers we might have go the other way?” Dad asked.
“What transformers?” Dennis wanted to know.
“Like the one for a toy electric train, a re-chargeable flashlight, Mel’s laptop, the two-way radios, or an electric fencer,” Dad answered.
“Yeah, those convert from AC to DC,” Dennis agreed, “but still it makes me wonder…. I guess I should have played a little closer attention in school.”
“School?” Dad said, “did you hear that Alyssa? Dennis learned something in school.”
“Now don’t start that again,” I said.
“Enough already you two,” Mom said, “Boys, I have something on my mind. I’d like to ask you three questions. Address them whenever and in whatever order you wish.”
“What are the questions, Mom?” Jake asked.
“Number one - you are putting a lot of effort into powering our basic machines by people power, what with the bicycles and all. Rightly so, I guess, we need to do something quickly to meet some of our needs. But shouldn’t you be investigating using other power sources such as animals, water, or wind?”
“Number two - Just like practically every other farm and household in the country we have many things like motors, appliances, and tools that run on electricity. Additionally, we have a generator capable of making electricity if we only had a power source to turn it. Isn’t it feasible to spin that generator with one of the power sources I just mentioned? Or wouldn’t it be an even better long term solution to develop an alternative fuel source so we could use our tractors again to run the generator? Then we wouldn’t have put so much effort into converting all these machines we have to mechanical drive or to 12 volt. Number three…”
“Four,” Josh said, “You already asked three.”
“Don’t get picky,” Mom continued. “Number four then - A few weeks from now we are going to have more darkness in a day than daylight. So far we’ve been able to see well enough into the evening with a couple flashlights, lanterns, and candles. Without making electricity, recharging the batteries will end and our supply of them will be depleted. There is only a little kerosene left for the lanterns and it positively isn’t a good idea to have candles in the barn. Have you devised a plan to provide lighting for the winter?”
Aaron, Dennis, Jake, Josh and the others just looked at each other for a few moments, then Joe asked, “anybody get all that?”
“I think I did,” Jake said.
“Go ahead then; answer her. And give it your best shot,” Joe said.
“OK,” Jake started, “If I got them straight --- Yes, Probably, Yes, and Not entirely.” Dad and Jeremiah put their hands other their mouths in a weak attempt to keep from laughing out loud. Harvey and Larry couldn’t help it; they broke up, then the rest of us too.
Mom responded, “What the… what kind of answers are those? Yes, Probably, Yes and Not entirely?”
“Well you asked yes-no questions,” Jake said.
“You guys!” Mom shrilled, “you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone.”
“I’m sure they will,” Dad assured her, “I’m positive I will. Who’d we make fun of?”
“Oh shush,” she finished. “I won’t say another word.”
Joe took over. “Ignore them; those were good questions,” he said. “And Jake’s answers were accurate, but worthy of explanations. I’ll try, and anyone please jump in if I twist things. Yes, we should be investigating other mechanical power sources. Larry and I are designing a windmill and I think your husband has talked a little about damming the creek and building a water wheel. Design and construction might be the easy parts. The trick is getting a way to get that mechanical power to the machines we want to power.
“Probably we can spin the generator with one of those other power sources you mentioned. Problem is the generator requires a minimum of 45 horsepower to spin. Neither a windmill nor a waterwheel could produce that much, unless they were gigantic. Then the problem would be getting enough wind or water to turn them.”
Aaron chimed in, “A decent possibility, besides developing an alternative fuel, would be a steam engine. That’s kind of what the electric companies do. We have wood to burn and the excess heat could be used to heat Harvey’s house. But we haven’t come up with a design yet. It requires large pistons and some sort of control valve system.”
“Unless we could locate one of those old steam tractors that some of those antique farm tractor collectors might have?” Harvey said. “If someone would want to part with one.”
“If they aren’t being put to use already?” Dad wondered.
“Or a steam locomotive?” Josh added.
“Some of them around, too,” Joe said, “some even in museums. But no doubt someone already has claimed them.”
“And that would quite an endeavor to transport one here,” Larry said.
“So you see,” Joe said to my mom, “as we come up with ideas we often run into roadblocks. Now Aaron has already answered your third question. Yes, it would be a better long term solution to develop an alternative fuel for our vehicles. They’re all in the thinking stages for now. However your last question is a more urgent one. We need light. Especially in the barn as we will have to milk in the dark around the beginning of November. You were right about the lanterns. Kerosene’s soon gone. We thought of other fuels; it appears to just raise more questions. In the Bible they used olive oil in their lamps. Could we squeeze oil from the soybeans or render the beef tallow when we butcher? Would they burn? But still we’d like to stay away from open flame in the barn, so we’re leaning toward car headlights. A superficial solution would be to just pull two cars or trucks over to the doors and shine the lights in while we are milking. However, it would be a wasteful use of gasoline, for if we didn’t run the engines now and again, the batteries would go dead.”
“Actually,” Dennis jumped in, “charging the batteries is already a problem we need to solve. Remember we are using one on Harvey’s furnace. In fact we’re on the second one now; the first is too low on juice to keep the control working.”
Josh added, “When we rigged up the bicycle to run the water pump, we also designed it to run an alternator from my old car. But it just doesn’t seem to work right. We think it has something to do with the voltage regulator that’s built right into the alternator.”
“It never fails,” Joe resumed, “as soon as we have a good idea, glitches develop. We’re hoping as more and more people join us, they’ll bring some of the skills we need to overcome these obstacles. Our next step is to get Ben down here; remember he’s an electrical engineer. Maybe he can talk us through them.”
“I can help,” Barry said.
“Yes, Barry!” Dad said. “You’re an auto mechanic. Do you think you know what’s wrong?”
“Maybe two things,” Barry answered. “First, we’ll want to make sure the alternator is spinning fast enough, just to be sure. Second, more than likely your assumption about the voltage regulator is one hundred percent correct.”
“But can you do anything about it?” Jake asked.
“I used to keep that old beat up jalopy of a Pontiac you once had running didn’t I?” Barry remarked. “When I was a teenager back in the 60’s, my buddies and I spent a lot of time converting our hot rods with generators over to alternators. Did it for many farm trucks and tractors, too. We always had to rework the voltage regulators. I’m pretty sure I remember the intricacies of them. I can make it work for you.”
“That would be great,” Harvey said. “then we can remove some of the headlights from a few vehicles and position them right in the barn. We’d just have to keep charging the batteries as they run down.”
“And we wouldn’t have to depend on people-pedal power either,” Larry said. “We could use the windmill Joe and I are working on.”
“Right,” said Joe, “and maybe even rig it up to charge several at a time. Think that can be done, Barry?”
Barry answered, “Don’t know why not. A lot of things can be done if you try; nothing if you don’t.”
“That’s a good attitude, Barry,” Dad responded. “We should all remember that.”
“Yeah we should,” several voices echoed.
To be continued…. Mort
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