Todd had only a few more words before he opened the floor for discussion.
“So much for all the macho stuff. Now down to some more mundane issues, such as, how are we going to handle the eating and sleeping arrangements?”
The discussion on these subjects went on for another half hour. It was decided that aside from meals eaten on picket duty, everyone would eat communally, albeit at different hours. Nominally, the food for any given day was to come out of the stored food of one individual, on a rotating basis. This worked out well, because most of the group members had stored similar, or in many cases, identical, foodstuffs.
Sleeping arrangements also worked out well, although things were as Mike described it, “A bit cozy.” The group’s three bachelors, T.K., Kevin, and Dan, were to share one of the bedrooms. The room had only two twin long size beds, but because of round-the-clock security shifts, they could “hot rack”
them, as the Navy did on its submarines. The Grays would have a bedroom to themselves, while the Nelsons would have the other bedroom. Jeff and Rose, being low couple on the totem pole, got the basement. The hide-a-bed from the living room would be moved down for their use. The Laytons were the only missing part of the equation. It was decided that sleeping arrangements would be reorganized if and when they arrived.
Also in reference to the Laytons, Todd declared, “Last item of business: Assuming that they won’t be arriving for a while, I’d like to temporarily assign Lisa with Terry’s responsibilities as logistics coordinator. Does that sound agreeable?” There were nods all around the room.
“Very well then, Lisa is now the authority and final arbiter when it comes to ‘beans, bullets, and Band-Aids.’”
After looking down at his boots for a moment, Gray added, “Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention it, but for Rose’s reference, and as a reminder to you all, we’re now living a strict ‘Conserver’ lifestyle. We’ve got to make virtually everything we own last as long as possible. Just use common sense. For example, don’t waste a drop of anything, use both sides of each sheet of paper, and then when it is completely filled, save it for kindling. All vegetable matter goes to the compost heap, and all meat scraps and bones not used in soups or stews go to Shona. All metals, including aluminum foil, will be washed if necessary, sorted, and stored in scrap bins. Basically this means that we are going to have virtually no ‘trash.’ We have to live as if each item we use is our last, because with no means of resupply on the horizon, the day will come when we really are out of some things. And under the present circumstances, that may be more serious than a little discomfort.”
The next day, traveling in an armed convoy of four trucks, half of the group went to move out anything that might prove useful from Kevin’s house. With six people working and one posted on security, the moving process lasted just under five hours. The bulkiest item was Kevin’s set of photovoltaic panels. The entire solar tracker assembly, minus its support pole, was carried back sandwiched between a mattress and box spring in the bed of Todd’s pickup. It was the only Power Wagon in the group that was not equipped with a camper shell. Todd would have liked to put the tracker back in action at the retreat, but he did not have any of the extra heavy Schedule 40 four-inch diameter galvanized steel pipe that was needed for a new support pole. Moving Kevin’s support pole was out of the question. The lower three feet of the tracker pole was encased in a thirty-six-inch diameter cylinder of reinforced concrete.
When they got the array back to the retreat, they were able to get it hooked up in a series-parallel arrangement with the retreat’s existing eight-panel array.
Unfortunately, without a tracker pole, they had to make do and bolt the array up against the south side of the house at a forty-five-degree angle in a space between two windows. This at least provided 75 percent of the array’s potential power, and Kevin’s panels were safe from theft or vandalism during what looked like was going to be a prolonged absence from his home.
When Kevin’s stocks of storage food were added to the rest stored in the basement, it made a considerable difference. In fact, there was scarcely enough room to walk around. After the gear from Kevin’s was moved in, Todd asked Lisa to coordinate an inventory of all the expendable items that the group members had brought with them, including food, ammunition, and fuel. Lisa was told not to bother doing another inventory on their pre-positioned stocks, as Todd had been keeping up running inventories of these all along. Lisa asked for everyone to give her their inventories by 8 p.m.
In order to meet this deadline, Mike, who was on picket duty, had to dictate his inventory to the C.Q. over the field telephone. That evening, Todd and Lisa sat down with the inventory sheets and made some rough calculations. They were surprised at the results. Todd called for yet another meeting early the next day.
The meeting was held in the living room so that Rose could listen in without having to get out of bed. Todd began by reading from a written report that he and Lisa had prepared the evening before. “Assuming that Ken and Terry make it here safely, and nobody’s granny decides to show up, we’ll have a total of eleven people to support at the retreat. Also, assuming a normal diet, our combined stored food will last about 1,140 days.” On hearing that point, Jeff Trasel let out a loud whistle of descending pitch.
After the interruption, Todd went on. “If put on a more stringent diet with fewer calories, the supply could be stretched to last more than 1,700 days. Furthermore, this figure does not take into account any food that could be grown in our garden, or Camas bulbs or Bitterroot bulbs that we go out and dig, or game that we shoot or trap. And further still, there’s plenty of water available to expand our garden’s present capacity. The only constraint on expanding the garden would be fencing materials to keep the local deer population from wiping out our garden.”
At this juncture, Kevin spoke up. “I’ve noticed that the locals around here all fence their gardens, but they don’t bother fencing their corn patches. Couldn’t we do the same thing? All we have to do is cultivate another plot the size of the garden and we could have a great stand of corn.”
Todd gave a thumbs-up sign and replied, “Your point is well taken. Thanks, Kevin.”After stopping to look around the room, Todd explained, “We planned our food needs pretty well. We even socked away four hundred pounds of kibble for Shona. Once that is gone, she’ll have to make do on meat scraps. As for ammunition, we are in excellent shape—in all nearly 300,000 rounds, almost half of which is .22-rimfire. I won’t give a detailed list. Suffice it to say that we have plenty of ammunition. Assuming that ammunition will become the first recognizable form of currency when society starts to rebuild, consider yourselves filthy rich. Joe Schmo on the street probably only has a couple of hundred rounds on hand, on average.”
Lisa cut in. “Most of our calculations last night concerned fuel. There are currently a little over fourteen cords of firewood on hand. What can I say—Todd really likes cutting and splitting wood. Each summer, he cut twice as much as he needed. Given winters with normal temperatures, this supply could be enough to last at least three years. Of course, more wood can always be cut next summer and the summers thereafter. When the gasoline for the chain saws is either used up or has broken down too far to be usable, we can always use the hand two-man saws. That reminds me. We’ll have to find one of the old-timers around Bovill to teach how to set and sharpen those saws. It’s an almost lost art.