The Solitary Man’s Refuge (7 page)

“I lost track of what all you did, I know you got the
all male purple and green hybrids as well as the Martha
Washington Asparagus that produces seeds so you might
have a bunch of young ones, too.” Janice said pouring
Don another cup of coffee.

“Oh, they are doing well, you know we didn’t add
manure or fertilizer like we said we were going to after the
foliage died back this winter.” Janice said reminding him of
one more duty they had shirked.

Janice had back problems if she overexerted and
Don usually did most of the manual labor, but had just
found too many other distractions in the last year and
basically left the perennials like asparagus and
strawberries to fend for themselves.

“You need to recruit your sister and one of your
girlfriends to pitch in if they want some free veggies this
year.” Don suggested.

“Well, they mean well, but you know how that
goes, it’s never convenient for them when it needs doing
now.” Janice said evaluating the possibilities to get some
garden help from someone other than Don.

“I got more plants coming in the mail, by the way,
for my spread and I got my regular start from seed planting
to do for squash and okra, etc.” Don said hinting that he
couldn’t be counted on either this year.

“Well, you could just till me up two beds and I can
handle the rest. The other beds can just lay fallow, be
solarized or planted with some kind of cover crop, but you
could take a day here and there and try to help weed the
perennials if you would.” Janice said glumly.

“We need to talk about what, if any, preps you want
moved up to my place and figure out strategy.” Don said
broaching a subject neither of them liked to consider, but
one that had to be reckoned with.

“Well, you moved my boxes of holiday food there
already.” Janice said referring to her special, more
expensive preps like dehydrated canned Turkey and
special treats, including a whole canned chicken.

“I left it all in the boxes in case you had a change
of plans and wanted to carry it back, which I don’t think
you want to do, but it’s packed and ready if you ever
decide you need it back here. What do you have excess of
or taking up too much space? How about taking those big
heavy buckets of wheat?” Don said, mentally trying to
envision all the past orders they had received and divided
up over the years.

“Yea, take them. I need the space and since I plan
on bugging out in your direction I couldn’t carry them
anyway. You need to maybe take some of that field gear I
got, it’s not too practical for the city and I need to do a
rethink on how I will get to you if cars don’t actually work
after a solar storm.” Janice said pondering.

“I don’t know, a web belt, canteen etc. is about the
only way I see you carrying much extra other than a very
light backpack. You could ride your bike in a few days to
my place, but you’re leaving a shitload of preps behind. I
know the idea is to leave a bunch with your sister in town,
but you got logistic problems you haven’t thought out far
enough.” Don said, knowing Janice didn’t like to consider
some harsh realities. Janice’s mother lived in the same
town, but a pretty good distance away and Janice said she
wouldn’t bug out and besides there was no room at my
place, so her sister would stay and take care of her.

Don could depend on Janice checking on his Mom
and sharing supplies if need be because they lived in close
proximity, but that just delayed the inevitable of needing to
get to the bug out location before it got too wild out there
on the road and in Don’s opinion he thought they would
wait too long and jeopardize all his plans by making him
undertake the journey to come in town to get them and
then leave his home unguarded for a period of time.

Now having preps in two locations had a lot of
merit. He was constantly in between the country and his
Mom’s place and there was no guessing about the odds of
being in either place at an opportune moment unless he
got a space weather report in time to take proper actions.
Two to three hours is the most heads-up time he would
have. If he was in the country, it was an hour in and an
hour back. That was cutting it too close and he had never
seen a woman in the world who could leave a house on 5
minutes notice once someone arrived to leave for
somewhere.

Janice had a bug out bag packed as well as had a
very useful portion of her preps ready to go in 3 duffel
bags. She had a car-top carrier that could be rigged to
take even more preps, but just loading stuff would take
over an hour, even if Don was there to push it.

His Mom had a stocked pantry full of stuff that he
could load in her car if he was given enough time, but he
had more than just a niggling feeling most of the available
time would be convincing her she had to leave and leave
now! Unless of course the yahoos at the emergency
broadcast network actually gave useful advice like store
water now, etc. and the chances of that happening, his
experience and education said was not going to happen.

Hell, during the Civil Defense era everyone was
primed and ready to head for a shelter or take precautions.
Now, the liberals don’t want to panic anyone by giving
them unadulterated truth. Civil defense was dissolved as
being unsustainable and un-survivable and people just had
apathy about any kind of government warnings to prepare.
No, it was up to old Prepper Don to gather his flock and
head for the hills based on his own. AND, the big ” IF”, was
could he pull it off without his significant others getting him
killed trying to help them or forcing him to give up any bug
out notions and survive in the city away from his carefully
prepared refuge from the apocalypse. He had at best a
year to convince them and plan for contingencies. Where
to start planning when something had no particular end or
beginning was driving him nuts.

Word gets out quick when a shortage or an
impending disaster threatens and then many people’s
imaginations take over. Watch a gas shortage become
worse as people race around town to fill up after being
warned not to do that so they don’t cause a crisis by
depleting demographic reserves. The cell phone and
telephone lines will get overloaded quickly and he had no
idea how early the system might actually start getting
technical difficulties before the full fledged geomagnetic
storm hit. Might be quite before the fact as satellite
operators tried to turn them away from the solar flares or
change orbits. He ruled out the possibility of being able to
talk to his Mom and Janice on the way in from the country
to tell them to get ready to come with him and get packed.
It’s going to be a three ring circus on the highways as
people rush to get home and of course use those damn
cell phones while driving anyway to call their loved ones.
Ok, so dangerous drivers, possible car failures after the
solar storm hits, humm.

Don shuddered as his imagination showed him
miles of interstate covered with broken down cars and
burning wrecks within hours of notification that this was it,
the big Carrington effect NASA had predicted was about to
happen.

Well, they say timing is everything and this was one
piece of the puzzle that was not going to get revealed until
an event actually happened. Don drew a mental circle
around the two towns and tried to figure out best case and
worst-case scenarios where he would be when the lights
went out. Really best case would be sitting at his Mom’s
house. That meant he didn’t have to get back up to the city
and he had what? At least two weeks to get her moving in
the right direction. Humm, what are the conditions third
week after a disaster on the road? Well, that could be
framed as a research question so what was his
hypothesis? What variables were present or not present
that he needed to contend with?

First off, you need to consider the state of the
subject you are considering, what is the environment, what
is their state of mind?

Well, Mom was a product of the depression era,
the greatest generation that pitched in collectively during
WW II and had been through a few power outages from
hurricanes, etc., so mentally and physically meeting her
needs were covered for a while.

Janice? How was Janice going to deal with this?
Her sister lived within walking distance so they would be at
her house. Her other sister, I think, was closer to her Mom
so maybe they buddied up. If Janice knew Don was in
town, she would be sitting tight waiting on him to come by
with a plan. What if he was out of town? Might take her a
week? 3 days, maybe, to check on his Mom. Janice’s
neighborhood would be having a hen party of
conversations about the disaster and it would be only days
the low life’s or homeless that lived in the area would start
looking for food and water so folks would be on their
guard. I have seen people using the faucet at the gas
station on the corner to fill milk jugs when they didn’t pay
their water bills or be loitering to bum money. Well, Janice
has protection in the form of firearms, but it’s still a couple
miles to Mom’s place. The thing we don’t talk about much
is the number of gunshots you hear in the adjoining
neighborhoods all too frequently anyway. Those angry
folks will be settling vendettas amongst themselves for a
while depending on how hot or cold it is outside when the
geomagnetic storm or EMP takes the grid out.

It appears, if we are all separated, then early
movements are better than later ones to get together. The
option of waiting things out to move from a “Bug In”
situation to a “Bug out” situation is moot if it jeopardizes
forming your survival group’s continuity. A force field per
se of shared preps, protection and mutual support is
needed immediately. The closer you are at the beginning
of the event, the stronger you will be when the threat level
escalates. How long everyone should act or react is a
decision that must be addressed and discussed before
hand and a dependable time frame of receiving support or
assistance must be arrived at before the fact.

“Don, what are you making faces about? You
seem lost in thought and disturbed by something.” Janice
said breaking the trance that he had seemed to have gone
into.

“The usual Prepper shit, worrying about something I
just realized I need an answer to and don’t have yet. Sorry,
I think too much about too many things sometimes.” Don
said, drinking the dregs of his cold coffee.

“What’s got you worried now?” curious about what
weird prepperdom solution or scenario had Don so
distracted today.

“Well, I see a bad moon rising in regards to all this
traveling around in what will be possibly badlands for us to
be able to bunch up and assemble if a solar storm did hit. I
just can’t seem to get a handle on my objectives and
timing on our movements.” Don said and went back to
staring out the window at the bedraggled raised bed
garden which he also couldn’t figure out when he would
have time to attend to.

“I will see to your Mom’s welfare, don’t you worry.
We can get down to you one way or another.” Janice said
trying to console him.

“Well, we’ll chat about that subject later. I need to
think about a few changes I need to make and some other
pressing things to get my mind off it and back to the here
and now. I am seriously considering going to Florida, by
the way, for a few days, although I know I shouldn’t really
be doing it with all the work around these three places to
do, let alone the expense.” Don said tentatively and side
glancing in her direction.

Janice knew if Don had gone beyond just
entertaining the fleeting thought of a trip, to now talking
about actually considering it, he most likely was going to
go ahead and do it.

“Think it through, there’s a lot going on with you,
but maybe you need some away time for yourself.” She
offered noncommittally.

“I can think of a hundred reasons for or against me
going but I feel like I am overwhelmed and a little vacation
might be in order. I know it’s stupid, but hey, I like a road
trip once in a while to appreciate what I got when I get
back.” Don said grinning.

“More like the lyrics to that old country western song
“Where am I going to live at when I get home?” Don
quipped.

Don and Janice made small talk after that and said
their farewells as he went back to his Mom’s house to
make lunch.

Don had made a mental list of all the things modern
and country living required him to do but today he wasn’t
as motivated as usual to get things done. He was thinking
more about what had to get done to free him up if he was
going to actually leave for a few days. NUMBER ONE ON
THE LIST WAS SIT DOWN AND WRITE HIS BILLS. Got
to get those out of the way first and count his pennies left
for his next actions or preps he needed.

week of a 10-week semester to get a second Masters he
could care less about. He had basically almost finished a
doctorate before he had decided to drop out and pursue
his other endeavors and the school’s counselor had said to
him it made more sense to just drop back and get another
degree instead of wasting all that time and money and Don
had agreed. The other students in his class were
struggling to get ready to turn in their capstone course
papers and earn their masters, but Don was just going to
dumb down an old Doctorate level paper and turn it in to
the school and move on. He wasn’t cheating in any way;
he had just done all the work before and considered it an
art he had to perform in taking a 55 page PhD paper and
turning it into a 21 page psycho babble on Emergency
Management applied to Human services at a lower level.
No sense in reinventing the wheel for just this course.