Sunday, May 11th - Mother's Day
We've decided we aren't going to try to make it into town for church today. Our congregation is on the other side of the river - some 30 miles away from home. The radio passes on a new problem - gasoline shortages. When the power went off yesterday morning, everyone rushed to the gas stations. Several in the area are completely out, even given that they are only taking cash or local checks There's no word on when we can expect more, either, since the military gets first priority on fuels.
We held a small community church service and invited all the neighbors we could get to easily. Almost everyone showed up, too. Donny opted to keep working on staying drunk instead. We had our family, Curtis's family, Donny's, Rodney's, the Bigelows, the Colemans, and the Rogers all for services. One family wasn't home - Coleman said he'd keep an eye on their place - and one family thanked us for our concern and headed on to their own congregation. There wasn't a whole lot of preaching - I did read several of David's Psalms of entry - but there was a lot of singing and praying. We even managed a communion service from canned juice and homemade unlevened bread Bec made at breakfast. Somehow, though, I doubt any of us had ever been to church where over half the men were wearing sidearms.
After services, the kids worked on getting to know each other and romped their way through several yards. The adults gathered up to talk about the situation, both close at hand and across the country. Those locusts make it difficult to concentrate on the conversations, but if I were out here by myself listening to them, I think I'd go mad. I'm sure God has a useful plan for them - I just wish I knew what it was!
I filled everyone in as best I could on the rumornews I was getting off the TB2K board. An invasion. That's so hard to imagine. I know some folks were reporting an invasion flotilla of commandeered barges having run up the Mississippi River during the last week, but that can't be right. Bec grew up on the river and knows a bit about barge traffic and said it would take three and a half days or more to get from New Orleans to Natchez, assuming the barges to be loaded and ready to go. There's no way they could have offloaded from cargo ships onto barges and made it all the way to Memphis so quickly - not if they had to fight their way through New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Natchez, and Vicksburg first.
No, for something like that, they had to either run their own "landing" craft up the Mississippi or had pre-positioned equipment in ports along the river and just manned them at the right time. Running the river would be risky for them, not just from the locals sniping at them along the way, but also the river is real low right now from drought. They'd need a highly-experienced local river pilot, shallow-draft vessels, or air-cushion vehicles.
I can only guess as to the types of armor our resistance guys are facing - from some of the reports, it *has* to be lighter scout tanks, maybe even the antiquated PT-76. Nothing too much bigger would fit inside a shipping container and some of the fighting reports indicate the armor has been successfully engaged with light anti-tank weapons. A T-80 just isn't gonna blow from a couple of RPG-7 hits to its butt. Heck, even our Dragon missiles would be iffy and they are *plenty* bigger than an RPG.
That's good for us! If the invaders are running lighter armor, it'll be a little easier for our guys to win a few. Our "streets" guys - Rodney, Donny, and Curtis - saw a train *loaded* with tanks heading east through town on Friday. Curtis rolled his eyes and handed me my little camera. I quickly downloaded the pics and found one of the train - M-60A3's. Some National Guard unit was moving hard and fast.
Everybody figures it's just a matter of days until things get real nasty here at home. No one can live in modern housing here in the "tropics" of Louisiana without air-conditioning. I make a note to ask on TB2K if anyone knows how to re-rig an AC fan to run on DC power. I have my 300-w inverter, but my big "tornado"fan won't run full-tilt through it. I figure if we don't have power for another 72 hours, there'll be riots all over both towns as people show up and demand their gubmint "Do Something." After a week, I figure there'll be some old scores get settled, too. The food supply in town can't hold out for long - no more than 2 or 3 days, I'd think. Of course, with panic-buying and *then* the loss of electricity... The city-folk will no doubt descend on the countryside like these blasted locusts that keep droning in the background.
Who can do what? Seems everyone says they can shoot. Big surprise. Coleman's dad was a State Trooper. Mr. Rogers is an older gent who has lived here since before most of the local houses existed, back when it was almost virgin woods. I know our "streets" guys hunt and fish regularly. I was Marine infantry. Guns are almost all hunting-type rifles - scoped bolt-actions. Not much in the way of military-pattern semiautos, though. Couple of the guys can weld and do stuff like that - small-engine repair and such. Several gardens are in or are going in. We're going to go up to Curtis's tomorrow and get his planted. Curtis is an EMT basic with ambulance experience, I'm first-aid/CPR certified through the National Safety Council, and Bec has finished all her coursework for her Certified Herbologist course. If we'd had two more weeks...well, if wishes was fishes, poor men would feast. I've got more stuff than an ambulance as far as medical supplies go - Curtis and another friend who is an LPN/Surgery Tech have both drooled over my collection, including "light" surgery instruments. So, our house is the de facto medical clinic. I warn everyone - again - about the use of bio-weapons and how we could be affected even here, especially those of us who have extensive contact with people.
I've made a bunch of hand-outs on the printer for everyone - colloidal silver, basic decontamination, nutritional needs...everything I can think of or find in my files that *might* be useful. I sure am glad I got the batteries and solar panels going - I can run the laptop on its battery while I use the printer and then let the laptop recharge once I'm done. Some of the folks are skeptical about the colloidal silver, but thankfully no one brings up "Rosemary" and her silver nose spray that turned her blue. Sometimes a lack of education is a good thing.
We have a medical center and an information center here at our place. Rodney has a lean-to shop and Mr. Rogers and Bigelow have impressive shops. Mr. Rogers and Coleman have tractors and several implements and Curtis has a large tiller for quickly working up gardens. Curtis has reloading equipment for some of the calibers in use.
Mr. Rogers volunteers to talk to the two families that live back behind us on the dirt road - he knew them when they were kids, so he expects they'll listen to him. Between the Rogers family and the family behind us, there is something like 500 acres or more in timber. Having the owners in agreement and support of the new "community" will be invaluable.
Everyone over 13 who can walk is going to have to take a turn at standing watch. I figure we'll need just one for now, with one inside our perimeter awake to sound an alarm. I explain our sentry needs to cover the approaches into Sandy Ridge and thankfully it can be done from one spot, where the dirt road meets the blacktop. From there, the sentry can see the fenced-off part of Sandy Ridge Road as well as the gravelled end for traffic. I recommend everyone stay armed as much as possible
No one expects to be going to work tomorrow...but we'll be working hard enough right here trying to get serious gardens in the ground.
I need to make a trip to Winnfield and check on our family there. Plus, we still have several things there we need to bring up here - like a wood heater, several 5-gallon buckets of foodstuffs, a radiation survey meter from dad's office trailer, and several other odds and ends. If I can ever get enough fuel and it is safe enough, I'll go.
We seem to have four orphans on our hands. We found a bundle of little kittens living in our subfloor insulation. They are mobile - highly active - and prone to falling down out of the insulation. We haven't seen their feral momma in days. So...looks like we gotta raise some cats, on top of it all. The other day, Bec found some powdered milk packets that ants had eaten into but then left alone. Bloody waste, I thought - it woulda made six gallons or so of milk. But now I guess it *won't* go to waste. We'll fix it for the kittens. They sure seemed to appreciate their first bowl of it.
The chickens have settled in after their trip and are actually laying eggs! We found one yesterday and four this morning. Bec figures we can expect something like six a day once they get settled in good. I sure hope so, since we are about out of cereal.
The youngest is heartbroken over not getting to watch her movies. She wandered about for half an hour today, repeating "Moo-vee, peas" over and over. I feel so bad for her, but with not enough juice to run the two machines, I can't do anything except tell her "Not today."
Our oldest has first watch tonight - she's on post until midnight. I'm her contact and I'll get Curtis up about 11:30 to relieve her. Ginny is supposed to be his contact, but I'll be leaving my radio on. Plus, with the windows all open and no noise from air conditioners and such, I'm sure any sort of action will wake me up.
We've got so much to do...
late afternoon, Monday the 13th
It was getting late - sometime after 6pm - but the sun was still up, so everyone in the little community was still outside working. It had rained that morning, hard in the dark hours, but more of a light soaking rain after the sun came up. It didn't quit until noon, so no one had been outside working and now everyone was trying to make up lost time. The war had been raging for a week, but other than losing their electricity for most of the day and having no hope of regular "just-in-time" inventory replacement of foods or fuels, they'd seen little in the way of hardships. They had to work hard and fast, though, to make sure they'd be able to feed themselves later.
The McNeills were finishing up their efforts to relocate their long-suffering fig tree when a blood-curdling scream sounded from towards the paved road. Michael snatched the FRS off his belt as he ran and keyed it up.
"Someone report! What happened?"
He got no reply, not that he'd expected one. Not everyone had one of the little radios to carry around. When he rounded the corner at the top of the hill, he saw Rodney's teenaged son Jamie on the ground, holding onto his leg as blood poured over his fingers. In less than a heartbeat, he understood what had happened and swung into action. He saw the handle of a brush-blade lying close beside him and mud all over the kid's boots. Jamie must have been clearing for more garden space and slippined in the mud, burying the wicked edge of the tool in the side of his leg.
He keyed up his radio again. "All hands, we have a medical emergency! Medical crew report to 174 now!" He let go of the radio and yelled to Rodney and Donny, who had come running, "Get him over here!"
Michael turned and sprinted for his house, passing his Rebecca, who was still trying to figure out what was going on. "We gotta get the table up! C'mon!"
They had two six-foot-long folding "church" tables, made of heavy plastic with metal legs that they used for picnics and such. They were about to turn one into an operating table.
He had already hefted the table and was setting it up when Rebecca caught up to him. "Inside - get the medical box and CS spray. Hurry!" He helped her up the stepless entrance into the back door and popped the legs out on the table. The two men carrying Jamie arrived just as he flipped the table onto its feet.
"Here, set him down on this." They all three worked to settle him onto the tabletop. Rebecca came back with a plastic squirt bottle in her teeth and a large metal ammo can in her hands. She handed them down to her husband and started to jump down herself. "Wait - duct tape and my blue-handled snips."
She nodded and spun around to get the requested items. Michael turned on the garden hose and began to hose the boy's leg, washing away the mud and crusting blood.
"Jamie, I'll tell you now, I got nothing for the pain and what we're gonna do is gonna hurt like hell. Rebecca, call Glenwood's ER and tell them I'm gonna need to talk to a doc."
He took the tin-shears and cut up Jamie's pants-leg from the cuff to above the wound. Blood was still oozing out, but it seemed to be moving slower. Or maybe I'm just moving faster, he thought.
In seconds, only the strip of denim caught immediately between Jamie's hand and leg remained. The gash ran almost along the length of his leg from just below his knee down to somewhere above his foot. "Okay, I gotta get your boot and sock off, kid. Y'all hang onto him, I know it's gonna hurt."
Judging from the scream, it hurt more than just a little. The top of his boot had caught the blade right above his shinbone, deflecting the stroke. Michael send up a brief prayer of thanks for that - the heavy blade would likely have chipped off part of the bone had it sliced into it. It was, after all, fairly close in design to several medieval polearms designed for warfare.
"They don't have the Doc there, Michael. They are running on emergency power and skeleton staff"
He sighed and prayed a little more. The blade had sliced deep into the meat of the kid's leg up close to his knee, with the cut becoming shallower as it ran down toward his bone. He ran water over the wound again and gently opened the cut, looking for the white gristle of ligaments.
"I think we've had our first bit of luck, folks. I don;t see anything like a nicked tendon or ligament. Best I can do is clean it out and wrap it up." He sprayed a heavy dose of colloidal silver into the wound. He looked up at his wife. "Bring the honey - we'll doctor him up like a horse." It got a wretched sort of laugh out of Jamie, as he'd hoped it would. In minutes, the wound had been poured full of honey and Rebecca was holding it closed. Michael rinsed the blood off his hands and dug out a couple of packages of large gauze pads. He ripped them open and laid them along the surface of the wound.
"Here's the least-fun part of the whole thing, Jamie. I gotta hold it all together with duct tape." He quickly spiraled it around the boy's leg, fastening the makeshift dressing in place.
"Okay, hopefully all those muscle parts will grow themselves back together in there. I'll keep an eye on it for infection and keep you sprayed down with this silver-spray. The tape should keep it held together so that nothing gets ripped apart just as it starts healing up. You don't get to do any heavy movement for several days - stay in bed and keep the weight off your leg. If you must be up, keep the leg elevated. Other than that - we pray."
Donny and Rodney gathered the kid up in their arms and made their way slowly towards Rodney's place. He put the lid back on his medical box and sat down heavily on it. That's when the shakes hit him. He wrapped his arms around himself and looked up at the window - three faces of his own kids looked back at him. He winked at them and drew a shakey breath through a lopsided smile.
"Betcha didn't know I could move that fast, did ya?"
Sorry to be so far behind - rl intruded
Tonight is my first turn at gate duty & guard rounds. Most of our houses sport darkened windows so the night is extremely dark. We do our rounds on horseback and/or foot according to which area we are patrolling. I knew that the chances of seeing anyone, enemy or refugee was pretty slim but the chance still gave the night a knife edge.
When I reported for duty, we were read the op-orders for the shift by the shift commander. So far the refugees had been significantly slowed by the lack of motorized transportation, having only progressed as far as the outskirts of Worcester. He stated that power has been intermittent at houses on the outskirts – and that we would probably lose all power during the next day or two. News further east of Worcester is spotty at best and rumor at least so he wouldn’t pass any other information that wasn’t accurate on to us.
The watch routine went fairly event free by that I mean other than Jimmy’s carload coming through the gate it was pretty dead. I sent Jimmy on through the next gate with a note to get him passed the guards. It did me good to know that he made it and I made a mental note to tell Brooks that he came through.
After seeing Jimmy I took a moment to send up a prayer for all the TB2Kers and another for the local ones that I have yet to hear from. I hope they are all safe. I reached home just as dawn started to peek through the trees, I took a moment to write on the whiteboard what needed to be accomplished today and then dropped into a deep sleep.