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Post by kaydee on Oct 31, 2013 2:46:30 GMT -6
This story inspired me to come out of lurkerdom! I've been following this for awhile, checking every day for new chapters. Great job, keep it up. I've got a whole list of things that could be in the boxcars: >Load of Greenhouse kits bound for Home Depot/Lowes/farmstores/wherever >Diapers, baby clothes, beds, toys, all the stuff found in a Babies'R'Us/Toys R Us Superstore >Rolls of carpet and linoleum, flooring >Another Hazmat load--Plastic Barrels and/or containers of lye. Biodiesel and soapmaking, etc. >Assortment of parts and stock (belts, hoses, fluids, batteries, tires, air fresheners--all that STUFF found in an auto parts store like NAPA or AutoZone or O'Reilley >Load going to a farm equipment dealership--couple of small lawn tractors, parts, tires, who knows? >Granite, slate, marble, slabs of rock--or bags of landscaping rock? >Hopper of crushed stone or gravel >Sacks of green coffee beans being shipped from the importer to a Roasterie (much better than that 'ole instant stuff, LOL) >Load going to an Amish store >Load for Restaurant Depot--everything from food to large pans and everything needed for food service >Load of cases of bottled water--many of them leaking from having frozen >Industrial Laundry and Uniform Service--clothing, towels, floor mats, laundry soap, bleach, cleaning supplies, aprons >Electrical and Lighting Supply store >Bulk loads for repackaging elsewhere (these are pretty common)--Rice, beans, pasta, grains, cereals, salt, sugar >Covered Hoppers--Scrap metal, Scrap plastic, Fertilizer, Bone Meal/Blood Meal, Rock Salt, Powdered Clay (pottery?) >A whole boxcar of stacks of plastic pallets. Or Barrels. Or buckets. Or weird stuff--From a plastics plant. How about a container full of McDonalds Packaging-wrappers, boxes, cups and all. >Container full of games and playing cards, chess sets, high end electronics (could be some really fun stuff there!) and knick-knacks >Roofing Shingles >AN order going to a music store-pianos, instruments, sheet music, strings, reeds, supplies >Load going to the Amazon fulfillment center nearest You could always divert a large order going to or from Lehmans! That would get you that treadle sewing machine and a whole bunch of goodies! Or there is a new treadle Janome in the back of the JoAnn's lot. Just needs a base. Hope this gives you some ideas. Have fun-who knows what all is on a train???
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mommasue
New Member
Only slightly strange .
Posts: 16
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Post by mommasue on Oct 31, 2013 7:36:52 GMT -6
Really cool list Kaydee ! About the only other thing I can think of right now is pallets of "quik-krete" (sp?) .and cinder blocks or bricks. And insulation of some kind. How about some survival "stuff" from some place like Mountain House ?
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Post by notchman on Oct 31, 2013 10:23:40 GMT -6
Wes and Co. already have cement - "The next 2 cars were dry bulk hoppers, both full of masonry cement." from Chapter 63.
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Post by patience on Oct 31, 2013 20:29:36 GMT -6
Chapter 67, cont'd.
Olivia Davis was getting more curious about what they might have sitting in those rail cars, so she encouraged Neal to open the rest of them. There was only one more boxcar. The rest were flatcars with 2 containers on each one. He had noticed some leakage from the boxcar so he opened it next. When he released the plug-seal door, a brown sludge came dripping out. The stench made him nearly lose his breakfast. It was filled with canned food that had apparently frozen and burst open the cans, then rotted.
He closed that one as fast as he could and went to the barn for a bucket and a shovel. The bucket he used to dip water from the creek and slosh the brown ooze off the car and the wash down the tracks and ties below. Neal shoveled some dirt over the mess on the ground and that helped some, but the stench was still bad. It looked like rain, so maybe the smell would diminish soon.
Knowing better than to disappoint his wife, he went back to work opening containers. The first one wasn't going to be of much use, being full of washing machines from The GE plant in Louisville. The problem was, very few people could afford much electricity now, let alone a new washer. The other container on that car had a shipping label addressed to Big Lots on the boxes inside. He cut open an unmarked box and found plastic bags of inflatable Halloween decorations--tombstones, ghouls, ghosts, a ten foot inflatable spider, and witches with brooms that looked like they crashed into something. This wasn't going well at all today, he thought, but dutifully moved to the next flatcar.
Neal's next discovery helped make up for his earlier bad luck when be found a shipment from Marion Kay Spice Company. The boxes were smaller than he had been finding, and marked Cayenne Pepper, Vanilla Extract, Cinnamon, Black Pepper, Cloves, and Bay Leaves that he could see from the door opening. A carton of each went to his wagon on the hill above. He dug deeper and found granulated garlic, mustard seed, allspice, celery seed, coriander, and several kinds of extracts like lemon, almond, and butter flavor. There was more further back in the container, but he called that good for now and went on to the other container on that car.
Proctor and Gamble was the name on the shipper he found, but the aroma told him it was cleaning products. All he could see were cartons of Tide and Dawn detergents, but the papers said there were Ivory soap and Mr. Clean products as well. Neal took a carton of both detergents to the wagon. Olivia would like those, and they had lye soap they had made, so he left the rest for now, but got out his pocket notepad and wrote down what he'd found so far. It was close to lunch time, or at least he was hungry, so he went to the house with his small load and the news of what he'd learned. He had five more cars with 2 containers each to look into later. It was time he got the garden plowed up and planted some things, so this was going to have to wait a while. Food came first in his mind. _________________
Struggling internet providers tried to provide service, but after some of their electronics failed the only service for most places was dependent on telephone lines, and there was little or no maintenance on those lines now. The tower that gave Ed Wilson internet service was still working, so when it came back on the last time, he and Mike dutifully paid the fee when they were in town once a month. Todd Reynolds also had service, and gladly paid for it so Alicia could access the State Education site for teaching and testing materials. Todd watched the financial reports sometimes, mostly to get the current prices on oil and watching currency exchange rates. The various statistics put out by the government were always out of date and suspect anyway. There was still a BBC News site, but it was as sanitized as the rest of the so-called news. They still monitored the shortwave radio for real news.
The last he had heard, the US dollar was staying pretty stable, but inching down relative to the Chinese Renmimbi, as China recovered faster from the world currency reset. Japan's Yen had been toast since the reset, and the shortwave news from China, always a critic of the Japanese, said that millions of Japanese were starving due to their inability to afford imported foodstuffs. There was no news of significance from the Mideast, beyond the normal butt-kicking going on between Israel and their neighbors. Russia had made an offer to sell more natural gas to Europe, but their stranglehold on Europe's energy supplies had cratered the economy so badly that there was almost no economic activity outside Germany. The Mediterranean countries had devolved to something like feudalism, from what little news was known about them.
The UK had begun to dig out from their economic rubble, using their highly regulated agriculture to the utmost for producing all the food the country needed. That was almost possible now that their population had dwindled to only 15% of what it had been, and with some revival in the North Sea oil field, the UK balance of payments began to look better. Their cities had been ravaged with riots and disease to the point that labor was again moving to the cities for employment, leaving the rural parts begging for farm labor. ______________________
Matthew had tested in the high 90 percentile ranks when he took his high school graduation exams online and received his diploma. Thankfully, their printer still worked so Alicia could get him a copy of it. His graduation was recorded at the County Courthouse, according to the State, so it was a matter of public record. This practice had been started when there were no funds for public schools, and all students were required to be home schooled. The old Federal Laws pertaining to education were ignored as being impossible to comply with them.
Matthew decided he wasn't finished with education, however. He asked Todd to teach him some higher mathematics and science classes, so he was still a regular at Alicia's school sessions. That suited Emily very well. She had convinced her Mom for Matthew to teach her more of what he knew about herbs and how they grew. She had an idea to cultivate all of them she could for sale. It had the fringe benefit of spending a lot of time with Matthew in the woods, too. __________________
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Post by patience on Nov 1, 2013 18:57:45 GMT -6
CHAPTER 68 May, 2016
Crops were being planted after an early Spring warm up that let farmers begin plowing early. Larry and Wes were somewhat ahead of the game because they had been plowing off and on all winter with the oxen, whenever the ground was not frozen and dry enough. A single bottom plow was slow, but 4 oxen could pull it most of the day in the easy ground that had been worked for years.
An acre a day is not that much, but by working many days in the winter, Wes and Larry had plowed the 40 acres they planned to put in corn and soybeans this year. This month, they had gone over all of it with a disk and had it ready to plant. Not trusting their young oxen to be precise enough for planting, they resorted to Larry's tractor, but that was light work and took little fuel. They had their crops in early, and had spent very little to do it. Cultivating could be done with the oxen, too, when that time came. ___________________
The stamping plant got word to Ed Wilson that they had a contract to make several parts and would probably be working through the summer. The next time he was in town, Ed went to the plant and told them he was no longer interested in working there. The Plant Manager was not happy about that and told him it was the best place to work in the county. Ed told him no, it was not, and he was not interested, thank you, since they couldn't pay him the pension he had been promised for prior service, he doubted if they could be relied on to pay him for work now. The Manager had no idea where to find knowledgeable help. He asked his General Foreman who he could get to help start this production run and he had no ideas either, so he got appointed to do it himself. It was a slow startup with a lot of expensive mistakes. ______________
Gloria decided that she could open boxcars and containers as well as the men could. She was dying to know what was in the rest of the train and determined to find out. She wanted some fabric anyway, so her first stop was the JoAnn Fabrics shipment. She and Alicia consulted the list and drove the pickup truck into the edge of the woods and out of sight of the road. Once they had the car door open, they began to methodically remove cartons of fabric until they could get deeper inside the load. The cartons were smaller in the west end of the car. Further digging got them deep enough to hand out boxes from the dark interior.
It took a couple hours of work to get the assortment of cartons outside for inspection, and more work to open each one. This shipment seemd to be intended to open a complete new store, based on teh variety of things. There were cartons with entire displays of thread, scissors, needles, bobbins, zippers and buttons. They found whole pallets of new patterns, some dress forms, sewing machines that they laughed about because they were electric until Ashley saw "Janone 712T" on a box and knew what it was. An Amish friend of her Mom's had one of those mounted on an old Singer Treadle base.
"That one is going home with " Ashley said.
"What's so great about that one?"
"It's a treadle powered machine! You don't need electricity for it," Ashley told her.
"They still make those?"
"Yep. The Amish buy a lot of them because the antiques are getting harder to keep running. I guess they sell them in other countries where they don't have electricity, too. They don't come with a treadle, so you just use it to replace the head on an old treadle machine like Mom's. Her's is skipping stitches and is pretty worn out, so this will be great. It's a modern machine, too, that will do a lot of things, like buttonholes."
They had quite a load to carry to the truck before they finished in that one car, but Gloria wasn't finished. On they went to car #22. It took both women on the crowbar to get the door to move.
"What the heck is that stuff?"
Ashley said, "Welding rods, that's what. Lincoln makes everything for welding. Let's see what else is in there." ___________________
The town had a newspaper again, of a sort. It was one sheet, printed both sides and folded in quarters, with a few commercial ads and lots of small classified ads. Someone had taken the old high school print shop equipment from storage and had cut newsprint sheets from the ends of rolls at the old newspaper plant. The new paper was printed by letterpress, set with moveable type just like Gutenberg had done it. The first issue was printed on Friday and taken to the market day meeting at Brent Collins' farm to distribute at a quarter per copy. The type was small to get more on the single sheet, but the front page carried a big headline, "BANK PRESIDENT ARRESTED" , followed by "Embezzlement Charges Filed". The run of 500 copies sold out in nothing flat.
Tara asked Ronnie, "Did you read about the bank guy?"
"Read what?"
"The newspaper. It says that the guy we bought the farm from was embezzling money and now the State Police have arrested him. They say he sold the bank's foreclosed properties and kept the money. At least the money is missing from the bank's accounts."
"I thought that guy was shady as the devil. Maybe I should have bought another farm, too.
Tara asked, "Won't the court ask questions about us buying it? Are we in trouble?"
"No, we're not in trouble. We have a deed to the farm and that's it. What that guy did with the money has nothing to do with us. He's the one with a problem," Ronnie told her.
But the next day 2 State Police officers came knocking on their door asking for Ronnie. Tara called him from the barn. Tara was worried sick, but the officer only wanted to confirm what they had paid for the farm and a witnessed statement to that effect. The State had the deed as proof the bank had sold the property, but there was no paper trail for the amount since it had been a cash deal. Ronnie filled in the amount in the prepared statement, his name and signed it. One officer signed it as a witness and the other one pocketed the paper.
"That's not much to pay for a farm," one officer said.
"It's not much of a farm, or, it wasn't until after we got it," Ronnie told him. "It's in a lot better shape now, but it was grown up in brush when we got it and the buildings were in bad shape."
The other officer said, "He's right. I made an arrest at that place some years ago and it needed work back then. Not that it matters. You paid for it and the deed was duly recorded. You folks don't have to worry about this at all. Oh, one more thing. We found the remains of a truck in a hollow along the highway close to here. It had some bullet holes in it, and some parts were taken from it. Do you folks know anything about that?"
Ronnie and Tara looked at each other and both said no they didn't know it was there.
The officer looked seriously at them and said, "I doubted if you did. We ran the VIN number and it was stolen years ago. Hunters probably shot it up. Thanks for your time and help on the bank matter. We'll be going now."
Tara breathed a sigh of relief when they got in their car and left. Ronnie remembered that Mike Wilson had been careful when he installed that truck rear axle for Charlie's windmill and made sure the end with the VIN number on it was in the concrete. It looked like that old situation was peacefully at rest now. __________________
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Post by notchman on Nov 1, 2013 19:06:39 GMT -6
Ooohhhh, what's in the rest of the train cars? Can't wait to find out. Keep it coming patience, can't hardly wait for the next installment.
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Post by patience on Nov 1, 2013 22:04:06 GMT -6
Chapter 68, cont'd.
Larry said, "We gotta keep the electric bill paid now, with all those welding rods you found."
Wes said, "Yes, and it will be easier to pay since we can work in the shop."
Ashley said, "I knew you needed them, so that's all we brought up here, but there's a lot more stuff in there. I saw boxes of helmets and lens filters, some grinding and sanding discs, MIG wire, all sorts of welding stuff. You two should go through that one. We just brought the 6010, 7014 and 7018 rods you use a lot, but there are several other kinds."
"We need to get back on Neal's planter job. He needs it bad. But we'll go take a look as soon as we can," Wes said.
Ashley said, "We've got the early garden put in, so there's nothing pressing today. We're going back and work until milking time." ________________
"Wes ain't gonna believe this," Gloria said. "He's been whining about needing steel for ages."
"He'll be in shock, but he'll get over it," Ashley told her. "I have to make some notes. I wish we had something to measure with. Oh! Yeah, my notepad says it is 3 1/2" x 5". That will work. Let's see here, that has to be 2" wide, and that is 4" wide," She said as she made marks on her pad, creating a crude ruler. "Okay. I have marks at every inch up to 4" now. I'll tear this sheet out and you take notes for me."
Gloria took the pad and pencil while Ashley climbed up on the ends of the bundles of steel in this container, calling down measurements. The bundles were fairly large so there weren't that many different sizes. Most of it was flat bars of several thicknesses and widths, with several bundles of steel angle in sizes from 1 1/2" wide to 4" wide. They closed up the container and moved on to the other on on the car. There was nothing but black pipe in it, 1", 1 1/2", 2" and 3" diameters. They made notes and moved on.
The next 2 containers also had steel in them, a variety of shafting quality cold rolled rounds in one, and sheets of plate in the other one, from 1/8" up to a few 1/2" thick, all from a Canadian Steel mill headed to a distributor in Louisville.
"Who the heck is Browning? Is that a gun company?"
Ashley looked inside the container and said, "Not this load. They make gears and pulleys and stuff."
"It's headed to Industrial Motion Sales Company in Louisville," Ashley read off the shipper.
They dug open some cartons and found no end of chain sprockets, pulleys, roller chain, and bearings in profusion. All types and sizes, of those. The stuff was too heavy to move, but they read the shipping list and saw that buried in there somewhere were hundreds of Vee-belts, too.
Ashley said, "Our boys are going to be in seventh heaven with all this stuff. And they are going to work us like slaves getting it up to the shop. Let's take them as many different samples as we can, because they are going to need this when machinery starts breaking down this year."
The women worked until late in the afternoon digging through the container, taking off just the top layer of cartons so Gloria, being the skinny one, could crawl in deeper for more. She began to get a little claustrophobic when she got stuck once, and wouldn't go back without making more room for her. The Spring sunshine was heating up the inside of the container, too. She came out sweaty and dirty, and not at all happy about getting stuck, but she had brought out cartons of tapered roller bearings.
"The boys can dig for their own buried treasure. That's enough for me today," Gloria said.
"Let's open the other container on this car. That will finish 26 cars, and we'll have an even dozen to go," Ashley said.
"Whatever. You get to break the lock this time," Gloria said.
It came open with moderate difficulty this time. The contents were crated in wood and cardboard to protect stainless steel sinks, tables, and carts that they could see, from Aero Manufacturing to a restaurant supplier. They didn't try to move any of the heavy crates, but peered in as deep as they could. There were boxed cartons in the far end they couldn't figure out. The women decided that was enough for the day, and headed for the house with their load on the truck. __________________
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Post by kaijafon on Nov 1, 2013 23:39:27 GMT -6
it's hard to think of something that would NOT be useful. well except for electronics. Even a carload of shelving headed for a dollar general would be useful. thanks!
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Post by kaydee on Nov 2, 2013 0:24:59 GMT -6
Everything could be useful somehow, it's all in how you look at it. Electronics could be scavenged into useful things if there's a person who tinkers in that direction. Driveway alarms, security cams, lighting, small motors, who knows what they could make. And since they have the small Harbor Freight solar set-ups that would take care of some power needs. How about Christopher with a quad-copter or other drone type flier? Or all the LEDs, sensors, wiring, power supplies and other scavengable bits. The Halloween blow-ups would be really cool to put up in the woods to scare people off. Stuff them with leaves and all instead of having them blown up, or string them up with wires and strings. Can you imagine someone sneaking up through the woods and encountering a 10' spider? Or ghosts fluttering in the branches above reach? Even the Hobby Lobby load is useful. Just because no one is painting now doesn't mean they won't. The baskets can go to trading days, the models would be a hit with kids, and the flowers and vases could go to the community when things finally get to the point they have a memorial for all those who've been lost. Another 5 years or so, maybe. But those darn potholder looms make such small potholders they're half worthless. Sludge from burst cans? Halfway to compost Washing machines? Let Mike figure out how to retrofit them for bicycle or hand-crank power. Or salvage the components, lots of metal. Purses, coats, and fashion shoes? Lots of ground in the "fashion"shoe category, like those UGGS winter boots, and all sorts of winter footwear. Target considers Converse to be "Fashion" shoes. Purses can be big useful bags or made of useful components. Leather coats are coats, or at the very least large pieces of leather. ETA: Too bad they aren't hooked in tighter to the ridge crowd, a community and more people to trade with quietly and work with might be helpful. You're doing great--keep thinking outside the box.
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Post by patience on Nov 2, 2013 7:55:12 GMT -6
Anchor Hocking makes glass, not restaurant items. I messed up. Got confused on a website that sells restaurant things. The right company is Aero Manufacturing. I'll fix it. www.aeromfg.com/
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Post by papaof2 on Nov 2, 2013 8:01:52 GMT -6
Driveway alarms and the like use standard batteries (AA to 9 volt) so you'd need rechargeables and a 12 volt charger. Some of the better chargers (MAHA, for example) come with a wall wart and a 12 volt car cord - you could connect the car cord to a battery being charged by the Harbor Freight solar kit.
Having been interested in solar power for some time, here's a synopsis of what I've learned. The Harbor Freight 45 watt solar kits provide perhaps 3.5 amps at 14 volts for charging a 12 volt car battery. The type of panels used in the HF kits will lose some capacity over time, so you'll get less power as they age (top-of-the-line panels have a 20+ year warranty on power output). Depending on season and location, you might get from 4 to 10 hours of adequate sun to produce power from the panels (and the panels need to be at the proper angle for your location). A typical car battery is rated at 80 to100 Amp Hours. Four hours of 3.5 amps would be 14AH charge that day (always design for the minimum sun situation and allow for a week of rainy days). You need to put a little more in the battery to allow for losses, so you'd need 6 days at 14AH per day for a full charge on an 80AH battery.The HF controllers can handle more than 3 panels, so you could double up on the number of panels on the controller to double the speed of the charge. There's also the problem of battery life. Car batteries aren't designed for deep discharge (you need golf cart or fork lift batteries for that), so you wouldn't want to discharge the battery more than 20% before it's recharged (20% discharge level gives 2 to 3 times the number of charge/discharge cycles that 50% discharge does; 80% discharge cuts that number way down). That will let you do small things, but not nearly what most people would want. Having 14AH daily charge available means you could run something that requires 1/2 amp continuously (small DC fan - I have an 8 inch fan that uses less than 1/2 amp when on the low speed - or several LED lights or ...). If you had 6 panels charging the battery, you could have a 1 amp continuous load (I'm using pessimistic numbers for everything - if it's a long sunny day, you would have more available power than I'm showing). Adding batteries in parallel will provide more capacity, but will take longer to charge. If you had a bigger controller (I think HF has a 30 amp controller), you could have more panels in parallel (8 on a 30 amp controller) but would need much heavier cables to handle the current (8 panels would be 28 amps). You'd need some serious fusing to keep things safe. Also remember that car batteries can give off hydrogen during the charge cycle and need good ventilation plus being located away from people space.
Quad-copters always look impressive, but they eat betteries. Expect several hours charge time for a 10 to 15 minute flight.
I think this story has more good ideas per chapter than any other I've read. Keep up the great work.
Sent from my IdeaTabA2109A using proboards
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Post by patience on Nov 2, 2013 18:06:28 GMT -6
CHAPTER 69 June 2016 Gloria had been busy. The garden was producing, so harvesting and canning was proceeding, but there were some hours that she found to help Kate and Ashley put some of their newfound wealth to work. The south porch roof was covered with small solar panels now that were charging the golf cart batteries they had lugged out of the creek bottom and installed in the enclosed porch. The welding supply container had spools of welding cable they used to hook up their battery bank. Electric power had been somewhat erratic, sometimes being off for days at a time, so shop work would come to a halt until the power came on again. That was no longer a problem after Neal had found a container of 15 Kilowatt Generac diesel generators. The families had been sharing whatever they found and this was no different. Wes and Larry helped Neal move and install a unit for each farm, complete with transfer switches for automatic operation if desired. The tanker car of kerosene provided fuel to last for years. The units were pretty quiet, but they had improved on that by stacking hay bales for a square wall around the inside of the machine sheds where they were located and venting the exhaust up through the roof with a long pipe. www.electricgeneratorsdirect.com/Generac-Protector-RD01523GDSE-Standby-Generator/p11632.htmlThey only ran the generator for shop work when necessary, and the women planned their laundry accordingly if the utility power was off. The biggest hassle was the occasional trip to the tank car for fuel. That required some barrels and the 12 volt transfer pump that Neal had on his farm truck fuel tank. They filled the tank in Neal's truck, plus a couple barrels to transfer again to each farm's generator tanks. The units were frugal, so they had only done that once so far. Sorting out clothing had taken some time, as did moving steel and welding supplies to the men's shop. The soon understood that it would take years to move what they could use from the train cars, and they could never use even a small portion of what was there. So far there had been no security breaches, but this week a couple neighbors had wondered aloud where they got some things. Their explanations of black market sources may, or may not have been believed. It was time to do something about the wealth they were sitting on. "We need to open up the train cars as a store," Larry said. "People need a lot of that stuff and we can never use it all. If we sell it for what people can afford to pay, they won't try to steal it." "It would be one whopper of a store," Gloria said. "Maybe we should have more than one store, and let somebody else do some of the selling for a share." Kate asked, "And who would we trust to do that?" Wes said, "I know some people. Ed Wilson and his son, and their neighbor, Todd Reynolds. We've done business with them, and they are a solid bunch. And I think we should talk to Brent Collins, too. He's a natural for this, since the market is at his farm now anyway." Ashley said, "There is bound to be trouble out of doing this. Somebody will be jealous of what we have, and some will try to steal things, no matter how cheap we sell it." Kate said, "Yes, there is no changing people. Maybe the Sheriff can help with that. He ought to know about it before we open that barrel of snakes, at the very least." "I know him fairly well," Gloria said. "Let's go talk to him about this. He just lives a couple miles down the road. He'll have some ideas, I'm sure. Neal and Olivia will have to go with us and be partners in the whole deal, too. We have to go see them before we do anything drastic here." ___________________ Sheriff Townsend did indeed have some ideas. "Use that big farm truck of yours to haul goods into town. There are store buildings sitting empty that you could rent for very little, I'm sure. That would keep the attention away from your farms and give people a central place to shop. It would be a lot easier for us to keep an eye on the whole proceeding, too." Olivia said, "We're too old to do that much work, and it will take a lot of help. There are a lot of people out of work. Let's ask at the Saturday market for labor help to move things. If we provide meals and let them choose goods for pay, we can get all the help we want." _____________________ Wes and Ashley went to see Todd Reynolds, who they knew had a large storage building. Todd jumped at the opportunity to use it as a consignment store for the goods, and offered to pay in silver for some things he wanted. Todd called all his neighbors for a meeting and solicited help to move things from his storage building to the barn and elsewhere. Then he would need help to move the goods using his truck and trailer. From what he had learned, there would also be work for anyone who wanted it sorting things out for sale. Todd had no doubt that there were plenty of people in the north end of the county who would rather not travel another 8 miles to Brent Collins to buy things. He could add his ammunition sales to the new store. Ed and Joann would sell garden seeds, Ronnie would sell pork products and herbs, Mel and Charlie could provide a noon meal, and everyone would also sell at the Saturday market. Reaching a wider crowd was sure to increase sales. Retail Sales tax was payable to the County Treasurer's office at the courthouse, a duty the State required from each county now. It was the practically the only source of State revenue, chosen because of the widespread unemployment and the difficulty of collecting income taxes. The Federal government was considering doing this for the same reasons. Food was still exempt from sales tax, and the rate on clothing was reduced to 5% to make the tax less onerous for the poor. Tobacco and liquor were taxed at 25%. The rate was 15% of any sale, including real estate, but items for farm use were exempt to encourage agriculture. The States still got their taxes on fuel, but the federal government had monopoly control on it so they made a killing on it, which helped offset what they were not getting in income taxes. Wes and his family decided that they would not sell any fuel to avoid tax complications and assure their own supply. After reading their old encyclopedia, Larry learned that naptha had a flash point very close to gasoline. There were other additives in gasoline that naptha did not have, being a pure solvent, but he tried it and found he could mix half and half naptha and gasoline with no ill effects. The books said that naptha was once known as "white gas", and had been used alone to run engines long ago. They had a lot of Chinese made small engines that he planned to try on pure naptha. It would be a small cost if he ruined one of them. _______________
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Post by nancy1340 on Nov 3, 2013 18:48:57 GMT -6
Thank you.
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Post by patience on Nov 3, 2013 20:39:00 GMT -6
CHAPTER 70 July, 2016
It was roasting hot in the shipping container. Sweat ran off Emily and Matthew as they handed out boxes of motor oil and boxed tubes of pressure grease.
"That's enough for now," Todd said.
The two young people gratefully came out into the comparatively cooler shade of the creek bank, wishing for a breeze.
"When you cool off some, we need to load barbed wire and fence staples. Then some instant coffee and teabags, and a dozen golf cart batteries. That should do it for today."
They were all tired. Already on the trailer were solar panels, 40 gallon buckets of paint, a lot of welding rods, a full pallet box of fabric and a smaller box of sewing notions, a big box of school supplies, and 2 Stihl chain saws. Under all that was 80 sheets of metal roofing and 14 sheets of 3/8" plywood. The trailer was sagging on the springs, showing it had all it wanted.
"Let's put 6 of those bikes on top of the load in the trailer, too," Todd said. The youngsters wanted to groan, but Todd was right there helping and sweating as much as they were. The bikes were not the top of the line, being built in China for Wal Mart, but they were a sensible choice for general use. They were 26" frame size branded Schwinn, and were 15 speed "comfort" bikes, with front spring suspension like a mountain bike and medium width tires to carry a load on less than perfect roads. Todd dug out some spare tires, tubes, patch kits, frame pumps, carry racks, and other accessories from the end of the container and loaded those. Todd pulled out a couple 20" kid's bikes and some things for those also. The trailer was heaped high when they finished.
Matthew and Emily were taking their pay in roofing metal, nails, and plywood. They were fixing up the unused chicken house on the Duncan farm for Bob Clemmons to rent. The plan was he would live there rent free for helping Ronnie with the livestock and farming, then the house would be available for Matthew and Emily when they got married next Fall. Matthew had been saving his money, and Emily had been making money of her own gathering herbs and processing them to be sold by Tara in Todd's store. They had pooled their money to buy a used kitchen cabinet with a sink and some used furniture from Brent Collins. The roof on the chicken house was fairly new metal, so it didn't need attention. The metal they were getting now would be used for siding the old building to eliminate the need for paint. The plywood was for finishing the interior of the walls, already insulated with odd sized styrofoam sheets salvaged from various packaging materials in the rail cars.
The couple had been working for a couple months making things for their new home and buying some used items at the Saturday market. Bob was still living in the house, but he only used the kitchen and other rooms downstairs, so they were storing things as they gathered them upstairs. Matthew was a busy young man, putting in full days working for Todd, doing morning and evening chores at home for his parents, then working evenings with Emily renovating the chicken house.
Mel had never liked to get up early. His body clock had always kept him awake to all hours of the night, so he was not an early riser. That fitted him perfectly for the job of night watchman at Todd's store. He usually took a turn around his own property pretty late at night anyway. With a little pay for that, and what he made providing lunch for the store customers, Mel made all he thought he needed and still had time to tend his garden and home chores. He and Charlie still went to Brent Collins market on Saturday, too. Or, at least Charlie did. Mel began to stay home on Saturdays, to take the day off and just made some extra food on Friday for him to serve. Charlie made a little more money, Mel still got paid for cooking, and he had a 2 day weekend. Vickie told him his name should have been TOM Sawyer, for getting Charlie to do his work, like the famous fence painting scheme in Twain's book. ________________
Kate approved heartily of the plans they had made jointly with the Davises and the Sheriff. They had rented the old National Guard Armory that had been sold off when a new one was built. The 80 year old building was huge, and resembled a gymnasium with a full basement. The owner was an older man who had once had a business there, but closed it due to Chinese competition. He was glad to take his rent in the form of goods he selected, based on the volume of business they did. Gloria had worked out that deal, and was fast becoming the family's business negotiator.
The building had excellent security, due to it's original function back when an armory actually had ARMS stored there. The Sheriff had his deputy do some patrols at odd intervals, but there was never a problem. The family had started rumors that there were booby traps in the building. There were none, but nobody could be sure of that. It would take a cutting torch or heavy equipment, to break in there anyway, and gas for cutting torches had been unavailable for several years now.
Conveniently, the Courthouse was only a few blocks away, so the tax agent showed up now and then to monitor the level of activity and check their sales records. Nobody tried to cheat on sales tax collection and payments. The penalties were severe. ________________
Alicia found that nursing her new baby had helped get her figure back in less than 3 months. Benjamin Carter Reynolds had been born on March 18, and she was back to her old weight by the end of April. Working the early garden had something to do with it, and the rest of her everyday chores, but her belly had gone away much faster with Logan and Benjamin than it had with Christopher who had been bottle fed. She still had some belly left, but she knew that was normal. Women who had kids could count on never looking quite like a teenager again, which brought Emily to mind. Alicia hadn't said anything about it, but she had noticed that Emily's clothes were getting a bit tight around the middle, and the girl had been skipping breakfast for a while. She hadn't had any menstrual cloths soaking in the wash bucket for a while. No mistake about what that meant.
She guessed it didn't matter all that much. The kids were getting married in September, and they were working hard to get their life in order. She thought it would work out fine, so she didn't bother to mention it to anyone. She did resolve to talk with her when Emily was ready. She was probably worried and would need her mother's advice. ________________
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Post by nancy1340 on Nov 4, 2013 0:46:04 GMT -6
Thank you.
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Post by idahobob on Nov 4, 2013 9:59:27 GMT -6
Tax Agent.......Harrummph!
Bob III
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Post by patience on Nov 4, 2013 18:22:55 GMT -6
Chapter 70, cont'd.
Todd had been working like a fiend. Besides farming 120 acres, he was working late nights in the new store with Christopher and Sophia sorting goods and setting it all up to sell. Tonight they had put the bicycles on display. Todd had found small cheap tool kits in one container that he put with the bikes for sale, along with tires, tubes, and all the other accessories he'd found. Alicia had looked it over and saw that he was a natural sales person.
Somehow, he still found time to check on money matters on the internet, too. What he had told her was discouraging. The dollar along with the Euro and UK's Pound Sterling were still about par with each other, but the Canadian dollar and the Chinese Yuan was increasing in value by comparison. The Chinese had amassed an untold amount of gold in the last 10 years to back their play for the Yuan to be internationally recognized. The new Gold Bank started by the Chinese, Russians, Brazil, and India was at the crux of it, he said, causing those currencies with a greater backing by gold to get stronger. Those countries had recovered pretty fast, too, and were being very productive again. The US was lagging in that respect, with the economy stifled due to high priced energy, and bereft of gold without the borrowed backing of the European fortunes.
In Todd's words, "The damned bankers are doing it to us again, mining every cent they can get out of us for oil, and devil take the hindmost. We have to get energy independent, as individuals, and as a country. If we don't we will be serfs forever." ______________
Matthew thought he could make it on the Duncan farm. His Dad and Mom had agreed to let him work the place on half shares, except for the hog operation that was still theirs. They had put both farms in a trust at the Courthouse with them as joint first Trustees, and he and Emily as joint second Trustees. That meant that when his parents passed away, both farms would belong to him and Emily. Meanwhile, his parents would pay the property taxes, and he would only have to support his family. His family was already on the way, so that was no small thing, but he knew he could do it.
He needed some farm equipment of his own and a team of horses, for which his Dad had said they would increase his share of the farm earnings to 2/3. He was thinking about how to get those things. After what Harlan had drilled into him not long before he died, Matthew wasn't about to try to work his farm with a tractor that needed diesel fuel. It had been a good thing for Harlan for a while, but when fuel went up many years ago, Harlan had bemoaned letting go of his horses. Matthew had seen fuel prices get stupid expensive, and would not make the mistake of being dependent on it. _______________
A trial was held for the bank President. It was short. He was found guilty of embezzlement, then sentenced to 5 years of hard labor at the State Penitentiary. The prison had been emptied of prisoners and closed for a time, but now a portion of it was reopened in the old style. The prisoners grew their own food on the prison grounds, and those not required to that or other duties to maintain the place were sent to work on roads, bridges, and repairing other public works in chain gangs.
The money the bank president had stolen was never recovered. His wife had absconded with it, all in the form of silver and gold coins. It was rumored that she had run to distant relatives in Louisiana, never to be heard from again.
By contrast, the bankers who were at the helm when the currency crashed left their positions with untold wealth and disappeared. The general belief was that they had a lot of help from certain government officials. ______________
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Post by patience on Nov 5, 2013 11:08:08 GMT -6
CHAPTER 71 September, 2016
"It was the big bankers fault that it all came apart! Why aren't they in jail? They should be the ones who pay for what happened to the country," Alicia said.
"You're right that their playing with leveraged derivative bets were what drove it over the cliff, Todd said. "But it was the whole money system that was at fault. It was built upon the idea that debt is money. When a new loan was made, that CREATED money out of thin air. That can only last so long before the interest on the accumulated debt gets out of control. It requires constant growth in the economy to pay the interest, and infinite growth is impossible. The world is finite. There are limits to how much we can mine from natural resources and then it is all gone. So, we cannot keep growing forever to satisfy a banker's Ponzi scheme."
"I still want to see them hanging from lamp posts," Alicia said. "They created this paper money system, so it all goes back to them."
"Good luck with that. They still have everyone dancing to their fiddle just like they always did. Politicians don't care where the money comes from as long as they can use it to retain power. The bankers can dole out a little or a lot of money and make the economy go up and down while they make a profit in both directions. They control the money and the oil, so they have a choke hold on the world."
"There has to be a way to stop them, somehow," Alicia said.
"Presidents have tried and they ended up dead," Todd told her. "Andrew Jackson lived because the gun misfired, but Lincoln and Kennedy both died. Jackson was actually successful at getting the National Bank kicked out, but it was back going again before he died. No, they have too much power to fight them head to head. All we can do is try to protect ourselves from the worst of it."
"How can we do that? The government makes us pay taxes in their money, so we can't get away from using dollars. Gold and silver are scarce now, because everybody used what they had to survive and the banks got most of it," Alicia said. "I don't see how we can NOT play their game."
"All we can do is work with what we have. They keep trying to control everything so they can get a piece of it. The answer is to not NEED money. If we produce our own needs to the greatest degree possible, then that much is not subject to their games and we keep all the benefits of our labor."
Alicia was frustrated to the max. She said, "We can't keep from using gasoline and diesel, and they tax everything."
Todd said, "I think we can get along buying very little energy. The State has some things going there, too. Indiana is working on coal gasification and making gasoline from coal. The real battle will come when they try to sell it. The big government and bank interests will try to take that over, too. But in the meantime, we can do things for ourselves that will help. Mike Wilson and Wes Blake are talking about wood gas and biodiesel fuels. Their are some hurdles to cross with both of them, but I think they'll get it done. And I've been talking with Dan Billings about farming with horses. He and Ronnie Nichols know some Amish folks that are breeding draft horses."
"Are you going to sell the tractor?"
"No. At least not yet. I can still make money with it. I have to see if we can make more money using horses. Fossil fuels like oil and coal are limited and as they get more scarce the prices will go up. Horses are sustainable. That's what we have to work toward, is sustainability. I believe that sustainable business is where future wealth will have to come from. We have kids that will need all the wealth we can generate to get a start in life, or they will never be able to be anything but laborers. We have to provide that start for them, and show them the way." ________________
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Post by patience on Nov 6, 2013 12:13:08 GMT -6
Chapter 71, cont'd.
Ashley asked, "What are we going to sell and what are we going to keep from all the stuff in the train cars? We have to know before Todd makes another trip." She noticed Ella patting the dog a little too enthusiastically and went to show her how she should do it.
Gloria asked Wes, "What about all that steel and stuff. There's more there than you can use in a million years, isn't there?"
"Oh hell no! I'm not going to sell the steel and bearings and all that! Well, I'll sell it, but I'll do it myself, one piece at a time and charge labor for putting the parts on. Lots more money to be made that way, and you can't even buy that stuff now, unless it's some crap import from China. There's enough parts in that one container to keep machinery running here for years. Let's sell the clothes and shoes and those huge rolls of paper instead."
"I want some of those stainless steel tables and sinks for canning and butchering," Kate said.
Larry said, "We need to keep enough of the metal roofing, and paint and building materials to maintain the farm. Who knows how long it will take before we can get those things again?"
"We should sell the canned food that was still good. It's not getting any younger," Ashley said.
Kate said, "Yes. I was amazed that so much of it was still good. I guess the outside stuff insulated the inner stuff to keep it from freezing. After those men cleaned that car out, the cans that were still good are showing some rusty spots, so it has to be used or it will spoil soon. At least they sorted it out before they washed the labels off! Even at fire sale prices, that will be worth something. Those men who worked on it sure thought so."
Gloria said, "It paid for all the help so far. That was the best part. We know most of what we want to keep, but those men haven't gotten to the back ends of most of the cars and containers yet. There will be more things to decide later. It looks like we will need hired help for some time yet. Harvest time is coming up so that means we will all be working on that for a couple weeks. So, we need to get Todd's store all stocked up before then, and have the hired men keep things sorted out for us to sell on market days."
Kate said, "I still don't want to sell any whisky. It would be a tax problem, and we don't want to let out that we have it. We've been real lucky so far not having any security problems, but whisky would start trouble for sure."
"I'm amazed at the demand for the cigarettes," Ashley said. "You'd think that after people had been without for several years they wouldn't start up smoking again."
Wes said, "People want their vices. I guess smoking isn't that easy to get over. Maybe we should learn about growing tobacco. I heard there is someone up around Brownstown that is growing some, so maybe we could get seed there. The stores have tobacco again, but it's outrageously high priced."
Larry said, "That's because it is all imported. The tobacco companies here haven't got going again yet."
Ashley said, "There's a high sales tax on it, too, but it might make sense to grow some to beat the import prices. That seems to work on anything we can produce now."
Gloria said, "I have more free time than Ashley. I'll go down there and look at what they are dragging out today and make a list." _______________________
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Post by kaijafon on Nov 6, 2013 14:25:08 GMT -6
thank you so much! It sounds like they are really being smart about all the goodies.
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Post by patience on Nov 6, 2013 19:34:43 GMT -6
Chapter 71, cont'd.
"TODD'S STORE AND TRADING POST" the sign said. Sophia was very good at painting that kind of thing. Alicia had helped her lay out the lettering on a sheet of plywood after Christopher had painted it 2 coats of outdoor white enamel. Todd and Charlie Allen had set 2 cedar posts with crossbars of cedar and mounted it along the highway. There was an arrow pointing down their road and the storage building had been converted to a store with another sign above the door.
Christopher painted old cardboard white for indoor signs and Sophia lettered those using a small brush Chris had made from squirrel hair. When wet with paint, the brush became very limp and allowed her to draw the letters by dragging the long hair, eliminating jiggles. It looked very professional, indeed. She had signs for everything in the store, including Mel's lunch table, with price lists. There was also one that said, "TRADES CONSIDERED, SEE OWNER".
People heard about Todd's new store by word of mouth, or noticing the sign by the highway. It began to be common to have several customers in the store at once, mostly exploring what was for sale. The school supplies were very popular, many people buying paper and pencils then using them to list prices for what interested them. There seemed to be a lot of demand, limited by what customers could afford. By the end of the first month, there was a good collection of traded in items in the back of the store, now for sale.
Todd struck a deal with the people printing the weekly newspaper, trading a roll of printing paper from the rail car for his ends of rolls of cheap newsprint, plus free issues of the newspaper for the next year for him to sell. He could sell the newsprint for notepaper by having the printers cut it up into 8 1/2" x 11" sheets that they glued together into pads. Todd made money on the deal, and was able to undercut the price of paper from China at the stores. He sold it fast while it lasted. Todd seemed to have a knack for spotting shortages that he could find a way to supply. ______________________
It was a small wedding at the valley church, attended by just the two sets of parents, Bob Clemmons who Matthew had asked to be his Best Man, and Emily's siblings. The reception at Todd's store was another matter. The whole community came, and a lot of regular customers. The crowd was enjoying one of the first joyous events in a long time. Mel Sawyer and Vickie had done the food, helped by several others, and makeshift tables were loaded down with it. The store was closed for the rest of the day, with sheets hung over the displays and everything crowded back against the walls to make room.
One table was heaped with many hand made presents, none of them wrapped for lack of paper, but all were tagged by the well-wishing givers. There was a long-hoarded greeting card and envelope behind the cake that Laura Wilson had baked. A wedding toast was given with the bride and groom partaking of Gerald Tomes' finest wine. The cake was cut and the bride and groom properly stuffed each other's faces with it, laughing and smiling.
While the crowd was treated to cake and punch then Laura's mints made with Tara's wild peppermint, Matthew and Emily began to acknowledge presents, reading the tags aloud for everyone to hear. There was a complete set of hand forged kitchen knives from Mike Wilson, a gallon of honey from Gerald and Anne, and household items by the dozens, including hand carved wooden spoons and a huge wooden bowl for breadmaking. Wes, Ashley, Kate, Larry and Gloria had given them a hand written Gift Certificate, for up to $500 in goods of their choice.
The envelope was left until last. It simply said, from Mom and Dad. Look behind the curtain. One curtain from the house had been hung over what looked like just more covered store goods. Alicia pointed it out to the couple, with a big smile. Emily drew back the curtain and gasped at the array of things. There was a box of clothing for each of them, and it looked like some of everything in the store. The couples' eyes were drawn to the pair of lever action rifles, and a pair of revolvers. The rifles had slings with their names carved into them, and the revolvers each had a holster and belt, all the leather custom made by Ed Wilson. The whole collection rested on a wood crate of .45 Colt ammunition. A dozen steel traps hung on that crate, with a sackful of walnut hulls to dye them with. Atop the crate was another note that said, "Look in the barn."
When they read that aloud, the whole crowd followed them to the barn, where Todd's best kept secret was standing in a big box stall, a pair of Belgian mares in new harness. Matthew couldn't contain his joy at seeing this and gave Todd a rowdy hug, then shook his hand vigorously saying thanks with tears in his eyes.
With her arm around his waist, Emily whispered in his ear, "We CAN make it! I know we can!"
Matthew nodded and said, "We can now, for sure!" ________________
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Post by kaijafon on Nov 7, 2013 6:18:19 GMT -6
wonderful!
thank you!
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Post by patience on Nov 8, 2013 16:29:08 GMT -6
CHAPTER 72, November, 2016
The belly was getting in her way. Emily was less than happy about that, but she was awed by the feeling of the baby moving. She had talked to her Mom and put some fears to rest, learned more, and then at her suggestion, she talked to Vickie Hoskins about attending her as a midwife when the time came. Both older women had told her that she had wide hips that would make birthing a baby a lot easier. Not to worry. They had figured out that the baby was probably due by the middle of the month, so she had a little time yet.
Matthew was bone tired, but he was satisfied he had done his best with the farm this Fall, and worked 4 or 5 days a week for wages away from home, too. The new bicycle had made it easier because he didn't have to walk all the way to Todd's when they were building on to his store. Now, with the corn harvest in, he could settle down to logging the woods between him and his Dad's place. He was anxious to really try out that new Stihl chain saw.
There was a market for hides now that the tanner had hooked up with leather workers in other communities, so Matthew had been trapping for coyotes and raccoons. He got a few 'Possums, too, but they sold pretty well also with the winter fur on. Matthew always took tanned cowhide in trade for his hides. That suited both him and the tanner, because money was hard to get. The leather would be needed to make harness, because he had a plan to raise draft horses from his mares and would need harness for them. More people were wanting horses now, and he didn't see that changing anytime soon.
Ronnie and Todd had both said that a man should make all the money he could while he was young, because there was no old age pension or disability insurance for a safety net now. Matthew was doing all he could think of that would add to their savings. Really, savings wasn't the right word, since they only kept a fraction of their excess in money and the bulk of it in livestock, or other farm investments that would make a profit. He and Emily both remembered all too well how money could go bad and leave you with nothing. It had happened to both their families, and they were not going to let it happen to them. ______________
Kate had the same thoughts. She had noticed that gasoline was up to near $15 a gallon, and diesel fuel was $18.90 now. Soon after those prices went up, so did everything in the stores. It was just like what happened years ago, and it scared her. She began to think hard about how they could live without buying much of anything. It didn't matter much that they were really wealthy now, from all the rail car goods, she was still scared because she had seen everything go to hell once, and knew it could happen again.
When Ashley came in from milking with Ella, Kate said, "We need to keep making cheese and butter and doing things just like we have been. I'm afraid the money could go bad again, and I don't want to get caught by it."
"Wes and I had that discussion, too," Ashley said. "He doesn't want to sell much more of the train stuff because he says it will always be worth what it is now, or more, and money might not."
Gloria was making biscuits to go with supper and said, "Boy that's the truth! I'll never trust money again like i used to. It's funny, but even back ten years ago, prices were going up and everybody just thought it was normal, that you couldn't do anything about it. Then when it really went to nothing, we all thought the world had ended unti we figured out how to get along with out much."
Larry came in from doing chores and had heard most of the talk. He said, "Wes and I have been talking about that. We agreed that we'd be better off keeping our profits in real stuff instead of saving money. The damn bankers can make money worth a lot or a nothing, so we have to keep it out of their reach."
Kate said, 'It would help our tax situation if we just didn't sell everything now, too. I vote that we hang onto what we have, at least most of it. If it's something that would spoil, then go ahead and sell it, or trade for something better, but otherwise, just let it all sit there. We can always use it or trade it. It better than money in the bank."
Wes had come in for supper and heard the last of the talk. He said, "You're right about that. Money in the bank is fool's gamble. Wish I'd known that a very long time ago. But trading might be a better idea, for things we really need."
Kate said, "I'm glad we all see it that way. It makes things a lot simpler. Now we need to put more of those new things to work. I want to be ready for butchering this year with those new stainless steel tables and a big sink."
Larry grinned and said, "Sounds like we got work to do Wes." _________________
Todd got a new list from Wes and Larry of things they wanted to take in trade. It looked like they might get into horse farming, too, and they wanted a windmill for their well. They wanted a lot of the same things he did and most of them were antiques, like the old style milking machine, and cream separator. He was pretty sure he could get them the farm implements they wanted. People were getting pretty hard up again, with prices going up and they would trade off anything they didn't absolutely have to keep. It was a good time to be buying things, yet oddly, his store was busier than ever. Maybe folks have learned to get prepared for hard times, he thought.
He had just read an old book Alicia had found at the market, that told about how empires collapse. He had begun to see how what was happening in the US had happened many times before. We have to learn from history, he thought. Then it occurred to him that it presented an opportunity for someone who was ready to take advantage of it. Land was still cheap, and would get cheaper, but fuel was going up and would probably keep going up. That gave him an idea. ________________
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Post by patience on Nov 9, 2013 9:42:37 GMT -6
Chapter 72, cont'd.
The cheapest land around was the rough forested land nearby. Todd still had some of his original stash of silver coins, bought before the crash, and he was making a good living from the store with some to spare. Their farming income was being put back into farm improvements and livestock. They owned 20 head of beef cattle now and he had bought a pair of draft horses from an Amish man some distance away. They were young and one was a mare that he'd had bred. He thought Ronnie and Matthew were doing it right logging with horses, but they needed a better market for their timber.
Todd began to think about fuel prices in relation to that, and the sawmill in the valley that ran on wood gas. He and Mike Wilson needed to talk about that. If they could come up with a reliable wood gas setup that didn't require all the tinkering the sawmill needed to keep it going, they would have a winner.
Todd also wanted a windmill to pump their water for livestock. It hadn't been part of his original plan, and he was kicking himself for not thinking of it. The hand pump was fine for the household needs, but cattle drink a lot of water. That meant letting them out to go to the pond for water twice a day, and in winter he had to chop ice off the pond so they could drink. He would want his windmill pump enclosed so it didn't freeze up, and the water tank would have to be insulated somehow, too. But he had to find a windmill first and they were getting scarce.
Todd made a trip to get more stock for the store from Wes Blake, but first he went to the Courthouse in town and inquired about tax sales. He learned there would be several tracts of land for sale at the end of the month for unpaid property taxes. They accepted silver, gold, or cash for payment. He looked over the list for property near his own farm and saw a large tract of land owned by a a timber company that he happened to know was bankrupt. There was over 600 acres of timberland in one parcel that bordered Mel Sawyer's place, from the plat map he looked at. The was some road frontage, but most of it was steep hollows and virtually none of it suitable for farming, so the property taxes were very low. He would attend that auction on the Courthouse steps in a couple weeks. _______________
"Fuel prices are going up again," Ed told Joann.
"How can they do that? It's killing us now!"
"The news on the internet said Venezuela's wells are dropping their output. It seems that the last dictator squeezed them too hard to finance the country and now they are putting out over 90% water. Won't be long until they are dry, so that takes some oil off the world market and that always means the price goes up."
"Any idea how much?"
"Not yet. They only produced about 4 or 5 per cent of the world oil supply according to the article, depending on who you believe, but the problem is they sold a lot of it to the US because we had refineries that could process their sour crude oil. That means the US will be hit harder than other countries, and I don't see anybody else making up the difference. We can look for shortages before long."
"I don't know how people can pay any more for gas and diesel. Everybody is hurting now. Todd said business had been good, but he expected it to slow down this winter. He thinks people have been spending their harvest money to stock up for winter and that will be over soon," Joann said.
"That may be right. It could be a long, hard winter," Ed said. ________________
"I haven't made a gasifier before," Mike told Todd. "I have read about them a lot and I looked pretty close at the one on the sawmill. They didn't do much to clean up the output gas, so they keep having trouble with the engine. And they some trouble with corrosion, because the gas is dirty. From what I've read, that's not too hard to fix, but it means building a more elaborate filtering unit."
"Make a list of what you need to build me the best gasifier you can, and I'll see if I can get the materials for you. I want it as soon as you can get it built and working. I'll pay you for your work as you go, because this sounds like it will take a while," Todd told him.
"That would be fine," Mike said. "I did promise Matthew Nichols I'd finish that old machinery he bought, so he is ahead of you in line."
"It will take a while to gather materials, so get me the list and I hope to have that collected by the time you are ready for it. I need to find a vehicle to use, too."
"Okay. Look for an old pickup truck with a gas engine. Something before 1980 would be good. They are simpler and we don't want a computerized engine. Something like Ronnie's old truck would be ideal."
"He wouldn't part with that truck," Todd said.
Mike laughed. "No, he won't. But there are some around, and a lot of them sitting now because they used too much gas. A 6 cylinder would be better."
"I'll start looking. If this works out, I'll want a stationary engine, too," Todd said.
"Let's do the stationary engine first, because that means I don't have to make the unit so compact and it will give me chance to get the bugs out of it."
A week later, Todd hauled in an old Chevy 1/2 ton truck and 2 spare engines for it, all alike. Todd bought the 610 acre land parcel of forest for $2,200 in back taxes. There was the usual caveat that the previous owner had up to a year to pay the taxes and the deal would be off, but Todd knew the timber company no longer existed. He began to search for a saw mill for sale. ________________
Emily's back had been hurting, making it uncomfortable to sleep. She had just got breakfast started when she had a bad cramping pain in her belly that doubled her over. She cried out and Matthew came running to the kitchen. _____________
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Post by kaijafon on Nov 9, 2013 18:31:51 GMT -6
the baby's coming!!! yay!! thank you!
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