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The beat goes on
Friday - dawn
The CB telegraph has been blazing away like mad ever since we were able to get back to the truck. There are Cubans all over the north of the forest and for some miles to the north of the barge canal. Apparently not in real numbers which may be why we had no encounters but enough so they are disrupting communications and travel. They haven't been trying to control territory so much as cause havoc which they certainly have been doing with their mine laying. Only a few have been in actual pavement since they are easy to spot but you go off the pavement there now at your own peril. The bastards, we'll be having to look for the damned things for years to come.
Once the resistance had time to gravitate towards the area their small units began to come under continuous fire and ambush so they are beginning to pull out now. It was a feint after all - word on the telegraph is coming out that they're massing down to Lake County to strike at the Cape north of Orlando where they'd been beaten once before. Still the best way to get there though. I don't think Charley has the manpower or resources to fully occupy the entire state of Florida and the southern ends of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi as well as successfully prosecute his invasion front spreading up the Mississippi Valley. It could be the enemy is coming to the realization that conquering, occupying, and <I>pacifying</I> an entire continent is a tall order.
Fewer tanks are being seen now but more APCs and gun trucks. The heavy armor seems to be moving north to the front The helicopter gunships have returned as well as some sort of ground attack aircraft but that last has not been reliably confirmed. A Ham over to Cedar Key on the Gulf coast west of Gainesville swears that he saw two F-18 Hornets flying north ten miles west of the key while he was in his boat fishing. No one else has confirmed this but if it's true then it would imply that one of our carriers is loose somewhere in the Gulf. Now wouldn't that pucker a few sphincters in the Cuban HQ? Further unsubstantiated rumor has it that we nuked another Cuban port and one in Venezuela but no word on precisely which ones. Haven't had a chance to speak with JimmyJohn or Billy about what they're pulling off the shortwaves.
It's beginning to look like our short and medium term situation is this: The hardest fighting continues to be the invasion front proceeding up the Mississippi which naturally draws Charley's best and latest equipment and most of his troops. He doesn't presently have the manpower to fully pacify all territory he's taken so far. He can't allow large well organized pockets of resistance in his rear like the Cape so he continues striking against it. The rest of the occupied area isn't presently as well organized or equipped but not completely unable to act either. This means we are going to be playing a continuous game of seek-and-destroy between the resistance forces and the Cubans. So long as we stay intact and able to act Charley must concern himself with us which siphons off a certain amount of resources. We hit where he's weak and retreat from where he's strong.
Made it back to base yesterday afternoon late. Two highwaymen were hung in Gainesville today, survivors of an ambush that killed five of their colleagues. We're steadily establishing contact with the surviving county sheriffs, state and municipal police to try to reestablish at least minimal law and order. The captain seems to be making contact with or organizing resistance cells from north of the Georgia line nearly to Tampa and some points away from the Interstate. Don't know exactly who or where but it's happening. Sgt Peterson was wounded in the knee rendering him pretty immobile so has now been more or less permanently assigned to us as a liaison between the Florida resistance and the Army. Small amounts of weaponry are now making their way to us, either from the Army or what we capture ourselves. Mostly it's enemy weaponry but we're using it.
Charley's tactics for keeping the Interstates open are changing. He now sends heavily armed and armored clearing parties out before the convoys to remove whatever obstacles we've been able to emplace which is less than what we were doing before the gunships returned. This means the actual convoys themselves don't have to stop or slow down but we've increased our short and long-range sniper fire on the trucks themselves as more volunteers with appropriate weaponry have arrived. We took two entire semi-loads of supplies while I was gone from trucks that we disabled in route that the Cubans were unable to destroy. The first truck was rations, I thought our MRE's were nasty but what they get is *almost* as bad as eating pone for days on end. The second truck was a gold mine and it was only by expending some of our RPG's and taking casualties that we were able to beat off the Cuban APC's that were trying to destroy it. A fair part of that cargo was weaponry, including mines, RPGs and shoulder launched anti-air missiles. Unfortunately, the two APC's we destroyed taking the truck were too thoroughly burned to salvage much. The three gun trucks we took out did yield two heavy machine guns and the third that was too damaged to use will go for parts.
It was our most successful convoy hit of the war so far but it cost us five dead, nine wounded. We found dead hostages in both trucks - all children. The Cubans we took were crucified along the highway where they would be seen.
I didn't ask if they were still alive at the time.
.....Alan.
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Hank's tractor turned over the soil just wonderfully, but now it must be worked fine to prepare for sowing. We use some half inch rope to jury rig some makeshift halters of a sort for the cows so that they can pull the cultivator. It takes two people to plow this way, one to lead the cow and one to work the cultivator. Still we manage and it's not altogether a bad job. I dig out the non-hybrid seeds and we drag all the old rotten wood fence posts down from the debris piles up by the driveway to make raised beds. What we don't have is any 8 foot high woven wire fencing to keep the deer out. Last year a neighbor told me that she had to shoo an errant moose out of her garden that was nonchalantly testing the nutritional value of her tomatoes. Her husband told me a story about how one day while he had his head up inside a wheel well on his truck trying ( and his backside sticking out ) to fit the grease gun to a nipple, when he finished and straightened back up he noticed a black bear had come out of the nearby woods to sit in raptured admiration of his mechanical skill. Not sure what this says about the bear, or his wife. I guess that once the plants start sprouting we are just going to have to stand watch until we can figure something else out.
There have been only a few mild aftershocks, hardly noticeable, from the 8 point earthquake in Seattle. Peter and Nadia and the children, Randy and Bonnie moved back into the house. The weather is typically warm and clear with cold nights. I am content out in the tent pavilion, I rather like sleeping outside. And it gives the couples a bit more privacy. We hear more references on the radio to the volcanic build up in the Oregon Cascades but no details. There are massive and continuous swarms at Mono and Mammoth Lakes in California. Not many people left living in central or southern California. Those who could have migrated to Arizona and Nevada. The radio says that the residents of the Hooverville type tent camp at Luke AFB near Phoenix vastly outnumber the residents of the city of Glendale, in which Luke AFB is located.
With the garden well in hand and needing only periodic maintenance there was now time for us to turn our attention to other improvements. We rigged up an overhead windlass for the hand dug well to ease the labor of drawing water. And we, that is to say we menfolk, started logging in the nearby National Forest. In a normal winter around here a family would typically burn up 10 or more cords of wood. So I set an even dozen as our goal. This is almost entirely pine forest here, and second growth at that. Most of the timber averages only a foot or so at the butt. Figuring an average of 40 foot or so length per log comes out to approximately 3 logs per cord. So we needed to cut and limb and drag three dozen logs or more, about 2 plus miles from the forest back to the farm. Then they all had to be bucked and split. And we needed to find and cut as many Tamarack as we could. Tamarack is the local name for Eastern Larch, a hardwood. In fact the only hardwood in these mountains. Tamarack is common enough, but distributed irregularly. A clump here, a single tree there. They turn the most spectacular gold in fall, but right now they are deep green like their Jack and Lodgepole pine neighbors which makes them hard to spot.
While we were walking back and forth to our logging each day I kept thinking about the landscape around us in terms of strangers approaching the farm. With Randy's and Peter's past military experience it came as no surprise to me that they were making the same kind of strategic inventory and assessment that I was. The difference being that I had never been in the military. I had a blood clot attack in my legs when I was 18 years old. My 1-A rapidly changed to a 4-F. I didn't want to be drafted, but it annoyed me to be rejected. So I waited a year and enlisted. Got 4-F'd again. I was dead set against Nixon's creeping and creepy proto-police state and the war. But after Kent State I was never again confused by the difference between knee jerk jingoistic flag waving and honest patriotism. Anyway it ended up I never went to the Southeast Asia games as Randy had. Where I had an eye for topography and terrain mixed with a healthy dose of fear, Peter and Randy had training and experience. It was their turn now to lead our little family.
Since we were too few to form up our own platoon and conduct patrols and because we had no radio communications gear it was decided not to create dug in or hardened LP/OP positions. We did hack out some look out positions on the hill to the west overlooking our driveway and again at the military crest of the nearest hill behind us. And we did scout for potential sniper positions more for the purpose of denying them to a potential enemy than for our own use. We made plans for hardening our perimeter and approaches, but did not have the time to implement very much. It takes a lot of time and man-hours to log all the wood we needed for winter without having the use of trucks and power equipment. Our Stihl 034 with the 24 inch bar and its fuel were more valuable to us coupled to the Alaskan mill for making slabs and boards. So we cut timber with axes and bucked the bolts with that oh so aptly named misery whip.
Memo to self : next world war, make sure to lay in more Ben Gay. Lots more. And rubbing alcohol. And more Bag Balm. And aspirin. And more Ben Gay.
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The bikers were over this morning with some staples for the pot. They asked if maybe they could take their meals here as long as they contributed. Sounded good to me. They stayed about an hour talking with CH. Bud was out on sentry and Bonnie was napping. By the time they left it had been decided that two of them would stay here and 3 of them would head out and try and joing up with Alan up north of the forest. I could tell CH was frothing to go too, but the only thing that is moving very fast are his jaws. I hope they leave before CH thinks he is capable of going too. Today was the first day he got down the 3 steps of the trailer to the ground. And there he sat in a lounge chair playing king all afternoon. I had had about enuff of him having me fetch this and that and told him his body needed some excercise and to get off his dead butt and get it himself. I think he got in a snit but I think he got the message too. I had my own agenda for the day and didn't need his interuptions. I needed to bake some bread and to make some jerky from the doe that one of the bikers brought in. That and some corn doggers. I want them to have some food that they can carry with them. The problem is water. Have to give that some thought as I gave the only small bucket to Alan. Oh for one of those old canvas water bags that we hung on the car bumpers when heading west in the 40s. Hmmmmmmm...I have several canvas bags, large purse type things. I also have lots and lots of zip lock bags. Wonder if we could fill those with water and then they could carry them in the canvas bag. Will have to test the zip locks for water tightness. Thats a job Bonnie can do while I do the cooking. The bikers are working on their bikes today getting ready to head out. They have been messing with their exhaust systems so that the engines run almost silent. A new twist for them, I am sure!
CH will fill their gas tanks from the 55 gal drum of gas we have stashed about 50 yards from camp. But what happens when they run out? I haven't a clue as to how far one will run on one tank. But they will figure it out. I can't be the one that does all the thinking in this crew. Right now I just want to make sure that they leave here with the maximum supplies needed for survival. That means food and lots of ammo. And CH was adament about ammo pre rollover so we have cases and cases of it buried around camp. Wonder if they could carry a 3 gal bucket of fuel on the back of one of those bikes. I have an abundance of buckets with the gama lids.
CH is on the couch snoring away. He thinks hes strong but the least exertion really does him in. But his vitals are good and I keep pushing him to drink lots of water.
Tonight will be the last night all of us will be together for some time. I want it to be special so I got out jars of my home canned chicken, mixed it with couple cans of cream of chicken soup. Will serve that over homemade biscuits. Making lots of biscuits so that they can then have them as strawberry shortcake. I have frozen strawferries in the freezer. I get concerned about the propane. But we did manage to move 4 100# tanks that CH bought and filled prior to roll over, plus at least a dozen small trailersize tanks. So we do have lots of propane.....but I use it only for the refridge/feezer and nothing else. All our cooking has been on a wood fire which suits me fine. Done a lot of that in my life time. We do have a box woodstove to set up but we just haven't gotten around to it. That might be a job for CH in another couple of days. That would make cooking even easier. Gotta get super on the table for the guys headed out tonight. Wonder where Day Late is...I am afraid that something has happened to him or else something happened that he took off to fight in another direction. Circumstances might have been that he had to bypass us and go south. IIRC his folks had a hide out place down at Bass lake about 13 miles south of here and he may be down there.
At 8pm we will turn the SW receiver on and listen for 5 minutes to see if we can hear anything. I must say that the chattering of Cubans has grown less over the last week. So far we have seen no troops of any kind and no "hoards" out of the city. But most the city folk are scared to death to come out in the Forest, thats the truth. We have a badd ass attitude out here and it scares them which is fine by us. They know that every red neck bastard and biker and vietnam vet is going to be heavily armed. Besides with the bridges blown, they would have to swim the rivers and that alone would keep 99% out of the forest. What NG troops that were camped down on the Marshall swamp have already gone through here headed east and I am sure are over on the St John's river by now. So....so far we seem to be by ourselves, but I am sure there are other "woodsrats" out here keeping a real low profile. One of these days we will have to connect up with them but right now I like the silence of no one else around. The first few days out here we would here 4X4s and motorcycles but all that has quit now. I suppose they have no fuel to run the roads with. Gotta get back to packing the food for the boys.
Taz
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Bump back towards the top.
It'll likely be late tonight before I can put another piece up on my story. It's the weekend and I've got planting, watering, mulching, and fertilizing to do on the homestead.
See y'all about then, lunch is about finished.
.....Alan.
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The happenings in North Alabama. I just have got back online. After the EMPs in California webtv went all to hell and I just have gotten on with this captured laptop and a cell phone. I always figured that when TSHTF I'd hunker down on the homestead to wait it out and defend what I had to from bandits; but I never thought I'd see an invasion coming at me from the Tennessee River. The enemy came out of containers in Decatur and Huntsville, Alabama and then started to spread out. A lot of movement on I-65 and US 231 coming south. They are going around my place for the time being and sticking to to main roads moving a LOT of stuff to the south. Look out Florida. Has anyone heard from Ft. Benning in Georgia? I did hear that they captured the nerve gas incinerator in Anniston, Alabama with what stockpiles I don't know. I couldn't wait out an invasion; it was time to ride to the guns, so I saddled my best mare and loaded my BOB and a packhorse. With a scoped deer rifle and the SKS in the boots and a pair of .357 magnums on my hips I went to see what could be done to help. Sure do wish my brother were here; he's a lot better sniper than I am but I'm sure he's doing what he can where he is, that is if he's still alive. I hadn't gone far down the trail before I ran into some like minded individuals. Horses move in this hill country even better than ATVs and are a lot quieter. They don't need gasoline either. We decided to pitch camp in a spot we'd been horsecamping before and try and make some plans and inventory our supplies and armament. As we were settling in an old buddy came riding up and man, was I glad to see him. Bobby is retired USMC gunnery sargent and this group needed a gunny in the worst sort of way. He quickly took charge and got things organized. He sent some young fellas home; those with new wives and or new babies need to watch the home fires and we'll need places to hide or resupply later. Billy didn't want to go and put up an argument for a little while but I convinced him that the new baby at home needed him more right now. He went. He came back the next day with blood in his eyes. Bandits had hit his place and killed the wife and baby and burned everything to the ground. Gunny sent me and five others back with Billy to track the scum down so our first action of this war was vigilante. We found them a few farms over from Billy's and shot them down like the rabid dogs they were. Hung their bodies from some trees as fair warning to other scum. So now I have a small squad to lead. These fellas are good and they've been blooded in combat. We've got some ordinance and are thinking about a couple of bridges over the Tennessee River. We need some intel. Should we blow those bridges will it mess up the US military plans? We don't know. We have been hitting convoys with small arms fire and then retreating without taking too many casualties. The leaf canopy on the trees gives us good cover from the choppers and those semis aren't designed to withstand gunfire. The tanks and APCs we try to avoid at the present unless a molotove cocktail is within range. Then we burn those Cubans and shoot the ones lucky enough to get out. Gotta go, this cell signal has been on long enough and Gunny says we'll go raiding tonight on a supply point along 231. If we can burn their fuel it will slow them down.
Spear
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It's starting to get dark so I just have a minute to post this before we go try to take out a fuel depot. We just heard the bridges on the Tennessee River got taken out. The I-65 bridge got blown by a barge pilot with a load of fertilizer and diesel. A couple of truckers blew the US 231 bridge with their rigs loaded down with something, probably fertilizer too. This has cut the north-south supply lines for these creeps for now and even more importantly the debris has blocked the river traffic for a while. Gotta go, it's time to saddle up and a long ride ahead. Pray for us.
Spear
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Great scott where to begin well finally got the satelite link
to work so here goes.
The alarm system goes to beeping power loss i thought great
another iodit creamed a power pole nope not this time.
Not much to do in the dark so i go back to sleep about 6 am
Charles wakes me up pounding on the door. I get up he has his whole family with him as instructed per shtf instructions.
This really wakes me up and he proceedes to tell me he was on a
call at down town atlanta about 4:30 came out of the underground parking garage the whole city was dark.
Couldn't get a radio station so he went home and grabed every
thing that wasn't nailed down and headed to my place.
This means the others will be here soon i hope, well Rob and Jamie shows up in the desiel ram 4wd it was parked in his metal shed we built guess that protected it. Got a million things to do
David and Kinkerly show up in the 65 chevy truck that David is
restoring. Hope Tony and Jake and crew make it soon realy need them for our gathering missions. Haven't heard from my sister and brother inlaw yet either. We chose my place because of the remoteness of it the main hwy.
Got the high freq. radio in plac but nothing yet. Time to round up some much needed suplies sent Rob and Jamie to the welding store, Tony and Jake to the rock quary, David, Kinkerly, and Trix
my other half to the pharmacy. That leaves me and Rambo to
go to the chemical supply house. Met Roy and Toby on my way out they were coming in the only thing that would run
for them was there dump truck i told them to to to all the local
convinence stores and grab all of the full propane bottles they could haul. Then swing back by their place and bring the back hoe. OOPs gotta run incomming.
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I miss our weathervane on the shed. Its a leaping stag. Actually I dont miss it,I miss the normalcy that it is. Get up in the morning,get a cup of coffee and the paper,glance out the back door and see if we are going to get a "norther" today.
Miss the paper too. Still got the coffee but have to take the cup and go out and sit outside in the miserable rain on sentry. We have sat here,waiting for the 150 or so Soviet troops that should be heading up to hit our NG at the Mackinac Bridge on the south end. Think they are going to surprise them. Fat chance now. We gave the boys.....and girls much warning. And they are waiting. Got the mortars all lined up on I-75 and waiting word from us at the forward position that the Ruskies are coming. This time we lay low. Now there are only 10 of us at the R/V taking turns with the NG radio. Where we sit,they could go around us but the NG have placed other LP/OPs to cover them.
We hope to drive up on them from behind as they engage the NG at the bridge. If they get that far.
I'm tired but not tired. I got a full 8 last night and got to sleep at night instead of the day like it has been for DW and I alone.
Our 8 other "civilian soldiers" have really eased us on the level of alert we had gone through.
Plus for now,I dont have to ride that blasted M/cycle.
I think this waiting is worse than the action. Maybe just the let down,the lack of activity after the different rushes we have been through. I miss having one of the dogs to scritch behind the ears.
They are staying tight to the R/V since we got here.
I even miss the TV! That's going a long way there. But as I think about that I know it is just the normalcy of life I miss.
DW and I head this way every summer for vacation and upper Michigan is still beautiful uncrowded country. Especially when you get a little ways from the main highways. And eventually that is what we plan to do. Damn Russians. Damn the world and where it has put me right now. Sitting under a tree in the rain,with my coffee getting cold. I look up at the trees around me and check the wind direction. I sure miss our weathervane. Did I say that its a leaping stag?
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The past week was something the Captain did not want to relive anytime soon. It started with what was supposed to be three recons through the forest, to see what was what, and maybe hook up with the people to the north. It wound up with three platoons. One spread out along the western side of 19, moving north, untill they got to the area of Rodman Dam. The second went up along forest road 88, untill they linked up with First Platoon. Mean while Third Platoon would shadow the Cubans long the western bank. They would have the trebuchets' so they could discourage crossings.
That was the plan. It soon became apparent that life was almost normal the further east you got. The Cubans tried numerous crossings that had been turned back. But this forced the transfer of most of 2nd plat to cover the 3rd. This ment pulling in men from the east probe to cover the missing men from the center. While all of this is going on, word reached him about Macs death. They had also picked up a message that seemed to indicate someone he knew from the board was up here.
Almost the same time, the Cubans increased their activity. From what he had seen so far, the Cubans seemed to be moving north along the river, but about 20 or 30 miles west of Rodman Dam, they started to be driven back to a area along I-75 that extended to the neasrest town or city, occupy that, and operate from that base, as a sheild since the locals weren't allowed to move out. This ment they always had to wait to react to the enemies move. It was critical they make contact with the resistance up here, Alan might just know who to talk to, but how to find him?
They had also run into more choppers. This one the Captain had an answer for. All the vehicles were equpped with an air tank that was hooked to pieces of pipe that when they blew air through them, they could send metal rods a long way up with great force. Even if they missed the body, they would do nasty things to the rotar blades. Since it was realitively easy to keep the vehicles out of sight and again there was no "muzzle flash" for the weapons systems to lock on to. These encounters usually ended in favor of the gun crews. The one loss was when a crew was caught by its'self.
He worried about the area to his south. What if they had pulled him north, just to hit him from behind, so to speak. He had to contact someone.
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WMD Coon-Ass Style
(This is freaky Spear. I had similar thoughts to yours yesterday about possible use of items at hand to make BIG booms, but you beat me to it! I'll go ahead and post what I had been thinking on.)
Well, the enemy probe from day before yesterday turned out to be one of many in this corner of the state (MS), though they've been pretty scattered up to now. The one my neighbor rushed over to tell me about was dealt with by some locals who laid out a nifty ambush. The enemy probe consisited of a Cuban recon squad and a ChiComm recon squad, about 20 men all told. It appeared that they'd been in the area for at least a few days and had been foraging for food and other loot judging by what was taken off their bodies. A few of them were driving stolen ATV's and two were on horses that were ID'd as having come from a horse farm down around Zachary, LA which is just north of Baton Rouge on the east side of the Miss. River. A local man who raises horses took down some numbers they had tattooed inside their ears and compared them to a breeder list that he had from one of the breeder's associations. Turns out the owner was a good friend of the local guy's brother-in-law who had bugged out from Denham Springs, LA and was now up here in our area. The friend of the breeder said he imagined it was a hell of a fight to get the man's horses cause he was a vet of Korea AND Vietnam and damn sure wouldn't have been collaborating with the ChiComms.
The horses and ATV's are now property of the local partisans and will be put to good use once all the blood is cleaned off of them. The enemy recon platoon never had a chance once the Franklin County boys had 'em in their sights. The enemy was just bebopping up a county road through a heavily wooded area when all hell broke loose. Men on both sides of the road opened up with hunting rifles and the whole thing was over in a matter of about thirty seconds. When the shooting stopped the guys gathered up all the bad guys' gear and took it back to their stronghold for inventory, intel, and OF COURSE later use. They scored 15 assault rifles, 3 light machine guns, a couple of RPG launchers w/ 10 rounds each, numerous mags full of ammo, grenades, a few handguns, and some commo gear that they're still trying to figure out. All documents on the bodies were turned over to a local coordinating group who have been attempting to compile and translate everything any local people and groups have turned up from enemy dead. They have several people who are proficient in Spanish and one family of Chinese immigrants who owned a local restaurant have been eager to help out too. Seems the man and his wife both lost family members at Tianenmen Square, which was a major reason they found their way to the US by way of Taiwan back in 92. I'll bet they can't wait to get their hands on some live ChiComms to interrogate. Payback's a bitch.
After my neighbor Jerry and I got off the CB talking to the fellow about the ambush, we heard someone calling for a break from down at McComb, about 25 miles south of here. I keyed the mike and told him to come on and he proceeded to relate one of the heart-warmingest events that I'd heard in the last two weeks. By now it was pretty obvious that the ChiComms and their allies had taken New Orleans and were moving north out of there. I and others in the area were surprised that we hadn't seen or heard much of them around here yet. The fellow Alvin from McComb told a story that explained why to a large degree.
Alvin's family from just north of New Orleans had just arrived earlier in the day and carried news of a magnificent partisan action that had occurred at Manchac, LA which is about 20 miles from NO on the north shore of Lake Maurepas. Most everyone who lives down in that area are CB'ers because the area is sparsely settled and some places are only accessible by boat. As a result word of the invasion and fall of NO got around pretty quick and all the folks from around Manchac and Ruddock got bugged out real quick headed this way. Before leaving however, a few of the local men got together and hatched a plan ruin the ChiComms day. Lead by a Vietnam Special Forces vet that everyone called "Loco Larry", the men saw to it that their families were headed out of harms way and set about a "deny use" op before leaving themselves.
At Manchac are three links to the north that are situated in close proximity: the main line of Illinois Central Railroad, US highway 51, and Interstate 55. They sit in this order from east to west and each is less than 100 yards from the other. As everyone was getting ready to bug out, one of the local men wondered aloud about the possibility of leaving some nasty surprises for ChiComm Charlie and everyone agreed they needed to find Loco Larry. A couple of guys headed toward Larry's place and met him coming up the road on his way out. They flagged him down, told him of their thoughts, and were pleased to find out that he was thinking the same thing himself. The three then headed back and rejoined the other five men who had stuck behind and a quick discussion revealed that there was potential makings for a VERY big boom on a rail siding nearby. One of the locals worked for a supply yard that had a double rail siding that they let the railroad use to park a few cars from time to time. Only a few days prior, ICRR had dropped off 3 carloads of ammonia nitrate from Mississippi Chemical Corporation that was bound for NO, but there had been some kind of screwup that was still being straightened out when TSHTF. As a result, the locals now had over 200 tons of bomb making material on their hands! The supply yard did a good trade in diesel fuel for the local truckers and commercial boats and had two 20,000 gallon diesel tanks on the property. Loco Larry then spoke up and said that all this was just fine but 200 tons of ANFO doesn't get set off by just sticking a match to it, that they would need something to set off the main charge and it had to be very powerful in its own right to set off that much ANFO effectively. Just then one of the locals broke a big smile and told them how his boss had 6 cases of dynamite in a magazine at his construction company's main yard just up the road. Larry dispatched the guy and a helper to fetch back the dynamite and detonators, while he and the rest set to rigging up hoses to pump the diesel to the rail cars.
The guys were set to begin pumping about the time the others got back with the dynamite. Larry had sat down and done some calculations to figure out how much diesel per car based on an estimate of 70 tons of fertilizer per car and instructed the guys to start filling with the required amounts. Using some 2" plastic pipe from the supply yard, the crew worked holes through the ANFO in which to drop several sticks of dynamite all wired together with the leads from their electrical blasting caps. They wound up using about a case and a half per car, leaving them over a case to carry with them for later surprises. About then Larry noticed that the guy who had gone after the dynamite had been absent for a while. "Where in hell did Mike get off to?", he asked to no one in particular. Just about then they heard the rumble of a diesel truck coming up the road and looked to see Mike driving one of the company trucks pulling a lowboy with a Caterpillar D8 on the back. "What in thunder are you gonna do with that?" asked Larry as Mike dismounted the truck. Mike then explained, "Why rig up to blow up the supply yard and a bunch of the bad guys, when we can take down the railroad bridge and a bunch of the bad guys. Hell we might even get lucky and take down the highway bridges too." Just then Larry cracked a big smile and said, "Now that's usin' your head for something other than a hat rack!"
With the cars all rigged up with ANFO and dynamite, Larry had the guys get a couple of spools of wire and interconnect all the blasting caps. Larry then got Mike to help him and they took the batteries out of the Mack that had hauled the dozer in and rigged up a rudimentary electrical firing system on one end of the trailing car. With the wires strung but still unconnected, they released the brakes on the cars and Mike pulled the dozer up straddling the tracks and nudged into the rear car heading toward the railroad bridge. It took him most of an hour to cover the mile distance to the bridge and when he got there Larry walked ahead to the middle of the bridge and showed him where to stop. Larry then set the brakes on the cars and told everyone to pull back to the supply yard in case anything went wrong with the final connections. Everyone else took off and after waiting a few minutes Larry set about rigging a basic contact type firing mechanism. Whenever ChiComm Charlie came along to move the cars, the circuit would be completed with about a half revolution of the cars' wheels and BOOM! Larry knew that if he'd done his calcs correctly that this would make Oklahoma City look like a dud firecracker going "pffttt".
When he was done, Larry drove his truck back to the supply yard and told the guys, "You can head out if you want but I'm gonna stick around and see ChiComm Charlie get his hair mussed." From the guys' reactions he knew that he couldn't have run them off with anything less than a flamethrower. They all decided that they'd post a lookout at the top of the interstate bridge which was the highest point for looking south. Mike, who was single, volunteered and Larry instructed him to park his car just below the crest of the bridge on this side and put the hood up so if an enemy aircraft came along he could get under it and the bird would just think it was the abandoned vehicle of a refugee. "And Mike, be sure it's pointed north. An abandoned refugee car would look kind of suspicious headed toward New Orleans!" Everyone had plenty of canned chow and all the necessary supplies for a couple days campout, but they were all anxious to see the big bang. No cars had come up the highway for several hours now and everyone assumed that Charlie had NO and it's suburbs sealed off and was headed this way or soon would be. All the guys decided they'd just sit and wait up on the interstate two miles north of the railroad and highway bridges with their cars and trucks pulled up close to each other in a haphazard way so that any air recon would think it was the remnants of a small pileup.
By the time Mike had reached his vantage point it was almost evening and Larry had told him if the enemy was coming today he'd be here before dark most likely. He and Larry had worked out a system of check in every hour via CB so when he called Larry at 10 pm he told him he hadn't seen anything yet and that he needed some sleep. Mike told him to call for him on the CB at about 2 am that he figured his battery would pull the radio that long and the way he was parked on the bridge he could easily roll start his car to crank it. He then laid down across the front seat to get a little shuteye and was quickly asleep. At about 2 the radio crackled to life and Mike awoke feeling like he'd been asleep about ten minutes, but he knew he'd be good til well after daylight. He told Larry there was still no sign of life and that he'd call him back after daylight. Mike then drank the rest of some lukewarm coffee he had in a thermos and got out to walk around and get woken up.
Just as the sky started to lighten a bit, Mike was sure he'd heard the rotor beats of a chopper off to the south aways, but the sound quickly went away. About an hour later he was sure he heard them again and about 15 minutes later they were getting loud enough that he knew they were headed his way. He crawled part way under his car, scanning south with his binocs, and with the noise getting louder was soon able to make out the outline of a small scout chopper headed generally north criss-crossing the highway looking for signs of trouble. He then crawled the rest of the way under cover and waited. Within a few minutes he could hear the chopper passing directly overhead, pausing briefly over his position. The bird then continued north a short distance and Mike gingerly eased his head out far enough to see it circling in the general area of the supply yard and thereabouts. After about a minute it turned to head back toward the bridges and Mike pulled his head back in and within a few seconds could tell it was hovering over the RR bridge. After hovering there for about 30 seconds it headed on back south and as the noise faded, Mike crawled out and scrambled to the CB to call Larry. The rest of the group had all taken cover under their cars also and Larry told him the chopper flew over their position briefly but didn't come back so he figured the ruse had worked. There were probably dozens of disabled cars all up and down the highway and ChiComm Charlie's Chopper was most likely none the wiser and was probably on the way back south to tell the column to get an engineer unit to the front to clear the bridge. "Stay sharp Mike. Next time you hear that chopper headed back this way he'll probably be at the head of the column and then you'll need to amscray right quick."
The noise of the chopper never completely faded out and about thirty minutes later Mike heard it gradually getting louder. He scanned the distance with his binocs and after a bit of searching was pretty sure he could make out the front of a tank with the chopper lazily tooling along above it. Mike hopped into his car and sure enough the CB had pulled down the batt, so he opened the door and started pushing off with one foot. As soon as the car got rolling pretty well he was able to get it cranked and he keyed the mike and told Larry he was headed his way. It only took him a couple of minutes to get to Larry's position and when he got there everyone had their vehicles fired up and ready to go.
Larry was looking through his Steiners and shortly after Mike had pulled his car to front of the column and rejoined the rest of the group at the rear Larry announced to those assembled that the chopper had set down at the top of the bridge where Mike had just been. "Probably scratching his head trying to figure out where that 'abandoned' car got off to."
From the 2 miles distance Larry could barely make out the features of the RR bridge, but he was pretty sure he could make out some kind of activity there. He had figured that with the ChiComms coming north pretty much unopposed in any significant military sense that they would be bringing a commandeered freight train up with them hauling a bunch of resupply and fuel. He was apparently right. The column was most likely holding up at the highway bridges while the RR bridge was being cleared. Just about the time Larry swung his binocs back over to see the chopper lift off again, there was a blinding flash followed by a tremendous roar a second later. He almost dropped his binocs as the shock wave hit his group and he knew that the disappearance of the chopper from view was because it had been blown to bits, it having been a scant 100 yards from the detonation of the 200 ton bomb. Just then it occurred to him to yell "Take cover!" to the group and they all dove under vehicles as small bits of concrete and steel started raining down. As soon as the debris quit falling Larry told everyone, "We better head out. It won't be long they'll have a relief column up and they ain't gonna be happy."
As everyone else jumped in their vehicles and headed off, Mike noticed that Larry didn't seem to be in too much of a hurry and asked him what was up. Larry said he was gonna stick around a bit and drive back up to the scene on the surface roads to see if he could get a look at the damage. Mike said he'd like that too and Larry told him he'd have to hop on the back. Mike helped Larry get his dirt bike down off the trailer he was pulling behind his pickup and they both hopped on and headed down the off ramp to the surface road. As they came by the supply yard a mile from the site of the explosion, they noticed that the force of the blast had blown stacks of lumber and pipe all over the place and had stripped a lot of the tin off of the warehouse building. There was a thick pall of dust and smoke in the air as they got closer to the scene and it was a choking mess. When they got close enough to the scene to see what had happened, they couldn't have been more pleased. The blast had practically vaporized most of the railroad bridge and a comparable section of US 51 that sat next to it at the same level. The bridge section of the northbound lanes of I55 had been levelled as well and blown into the bridge of the southbound lanes. All the flying debris from the other bridges had blown nearly all the piles from under the southbound bridge and its deck was broken and buckled and wasn't likely to remain hanging there for long.
As they surveyed the massive damage, Larry turned to Mike and said, "Now that's what I call a Coon Ass Weapon of Mass Destruction!" To which Mike answered, "Damn straight!" With that Larry pointed the bike back north and toward their waiting vehicles, both as proud as brand new Papas over the blood they had drawn.
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We really need machines. Muscle power is simply not enough when there are so few of us. Randy and I go down to a couple of the vacant houses and yard out the water heaters. I sure hope no one saw us. Being a former absentee property owner and now a newcomer to full-time living here in this community I don't really know anyone around here and want to make any enemies. Ideally in the before time, I ought to have moved full time into the community and integrated myself, built up relationships with neighbors. The job market didn't see it that way, what with all the jobs being out on the coast in the big cities. Anyway there's not really anyone around here in any kind of position of visible authority of whom to ask permission and there's no hardware store of junk shop where we could try to swap for them. Randy and I get the water heaters back home and Peter starts cutting them up and reworking them. I had laid in a bunch of one inch and ¾ inch hard copper pipe to use in replumbing the place. Hate to lose it especially when I don't know when we will have the chance to replace it. But we need it more right now to build the producer gas generator. Without engines, without machines we simply can't get enough done in the few months of summer that we have up here in the Rockies. The Amish handle such things by having work parties. We could ask the neighbors for help, but I don't want them to find out too much about us yet.
We don't have an extra carburetor for the one ton truck so as to lash up a multi-fuel, gasoline / wood gas carburetor. So we duct as best we can from the wood gas generator directly into the throat of the existing carb. Since we have no way to regulate or throttle the wood gas independently we are not getting the full benefit and have to still burn gasoline. The wood gas is merely a fuel additive at this point. But we lean out the mixture so as to minimize the gasoline use as much as possible. It is workable but less than ideal. Peter has enough material left to make a smaller one to fuel the portable generator. Because that is a stationary engine and runs at a constant speed, the wood gas feed tube directly into the carb will do fine and once started off the gasoline, we can switch the gasoline off at the fuel tank valve and run off straight producer gas. So we now have a power source to make electricity and run electric tools and we have the use of the truck on a more frequent basis. It is all very Rube Goldbergian and vaguely dangerous looking. Basically it is a copy of Harry LaFontaine's gengas unit that he built in the 1940's in occupied Denmark to run trucks and busses and tractors. Anyway it works and that's the main thing. Now if I could only hash out why the electric winch on the front of the one ton won't work.
Despite having no fertilizer the plants in the raised beds are doing well. Not that the cows are failing to do their part in the fertilizer department, only that there's only 2 of them and it is not enough even with collecting it and making "tea". Human-nure requires lengthy composting, a period of a year to two years depending on the authority cited so that's not a practical solution for the time being. Even then you can't safely use it on food crops, only ornamentals and such. How many times have in the past have I read the catalog descriptions, like Lehman's or Backwoods Solar, about the non electric composting toilets. All the same like the cows we are such a small group that even if we had such a dingus our output would be insignifigant. So it's not much use to us at this time. The potatoes seem to be thriving so we strip the plastic sheeting off of them and rig up makeshift tunnel type covers and cloches using debarked saplings and branches for the hoops. . All the old hay in the barn's hayloft that is no longer fit to feed to the cows is thrown down and carted over to the garden to be used for mulch. We seem to have located the formerly elusive wild rabbits. Time to set those live traps I learned about from Buckshot's webpage and see about starting a rabbitry before the furry little vacuum cleaners eat us out of the vegetable business. Here kitty, kitty, kitty.
Injuns!
Ok, ok, I'm being melodramatic. Peter and Randy went out today to cut some more timber. They were up the west drainage a few miles and were sweating over the block and tackle getting the logs loaded into the flatbed trailer when they looked up and saw people on the ridge on horseback watching them. While they were deciding what to do the strangers rode down towards them.
"Sump'm we kin do fer you fellas?" called out Randy
"Naw, we're just taking a look around." Replied one of them.
They were dressed like anybody else, like us. But unlike us they had some beaded decorations on their vests and something like a sash or handkerchief tied around shirtsleeve on the upper part of one arm. One of them had some kind of necklace and another one actually had a feather behind one ear. And of course the requisite tractor hats with are the uniform head cover of the farmer. The reservation covers a several hundred square miles, straddling 2 counties, to the northwest of the farm. They were mostly wheat farmers like everybody else on the other side of the mountain. With the national economy collapsed there was no "market" in the old sense for wheat. And with the cities under quarantine and everything else going on in the world no one was coming down to their gambling casino and resort. The buildings were merely another collection of very large unheated concrete echo chambers. All done up in a garish resort style "teepee indian" motif, but empty and useless none the less. So like everybody else they were reverting to traditional ways. Which for them was hunter / gatherer. So they were out hunter / gatherer-ing.
"You fellas from around here?" asked Randy
"You know where Tensed is?" asked the one with the feather.
"Nosir, jes settled in here." Randy replied
"Well, over that way" he gestured, "about 15 miles. On the Res."
"Awful nice buck you fellas got there." Said Randy, nodding towards the fellow with the beaded vest, and who was trailing a pack horse with a deer tied across its back.
"Yeah we jumped him just over the ridge. Then we heard your chainsaw and thought we would come down and take a look. I thought they were all done logging out here."
"Ain't seen nobody. Cuttin' firewood fer winter." Randy answered.
"Well, nice seeing you." The feathered one said as they wheeled their horses around and rode off.
"I not hearing rifle, you?" asked Peter
"Nosir. Mebbe when we was runnin' the saw." Replied Randy.
"You think they what wanting something?" Peter continued.
"I ain't thinkin' nuthin'" drawled Randy, "My momma din't raise no chil'un to be makin' fool guesses fer some yankee cap'n."
"a shto?" queried Peter.
"Neva mind." answered Randy, "Say, where you from anyway?"
"Russia."
"Where in Russia?"
"Karaganda. Na yuzhnee, south"
"South, ya say?" grinned Randy
"Da, south." answered Peter quizzically.
"Well, cuzin gues you ain't no yankee after all."
And with that they went back to loading up the trailer with the logs they had cut and limbed. When they got back to the house they came clomping up the stairs a whoopin' and a hollerin' : "Woo woo woo" and clapping their hands over their mouths like vaudeville comics.
Back when the world ran on money you hardly ever saw anyone around here. Now that there's nowhere to jump in the car and rush off to the darned place is crawling with people. First a 21st century wagon train meanders through town, and now this, a hunting party of indians on horseback. Go figure. I swear, the next thing you know the US Cavalry will show up!
Will I ever learn?
A column of National Guard troops passed through today. Or maybe they were Army Reserve, or State Militia, I can't tell the difference. They all wear the same fatigues. They stopped down by the old abandoned road house for a while and then motored off. While I was down checking the trot lines I happened across one of the neighbors out fixing a section of his fence. We chatted a bit and I asked if he had noticed the National Guard coming through earlier.
"I saw 'em" he tersely replied
"What did they stop for, do you know?" I asked
"I don't know." He bit off
"Did you get a chance to talk to them?" I pressed
"Didn't want to." He answered, "Didn't like the look of them."
"Why, what was it?"
"Don't know. Just didn't like 'em zall."
We chatted some more. I tried to feel him out about the vacant homes in the area. He was not a fountain of information so far as words went. He was friendly enough and casual so long as the conversation was about trivial local things. Still his look and his manner and his obvious concern spoke volumes. There was something not right about those so-called National Guardsmen.
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Ch is in on the bed snoring, having a mid afternoon siesta. Bud is reading a book out of my library and Bonnie is mending some jeans of Buds. Its a lazy day and there isn't the sense of fear that permeitated everything a week or so ago. But that could be dangerous and we have to be careful to keep our guard up. I think we are 100 times more in danger from our own people than the invaders due to our location. But all motor traffic through the forest has come to a stop as of several days ago. That doesn't mean that there aren't others hunkered down out here too. Those who are, are the ones that I would like to hook up with. I don't relish turning a hungry family away. OTH we need some more people so that we can begin planning on how to survive and to cover the perimeters.
Just looked at the calendar. Its Memorial Day. HMMMMMMM! Just the thoughts of it are sooooooo overwhelming when one considers the millions that are probably dead from what few reports we have gotten. I think at dinner a special prayer needs to be sent up for all those killed, injured, on the run, fighting the war and hid out like we are.
Still nothing from Day Late. Hope he is down at Bass Lake with his folks. I understand they have a pretty good bug out place. Maybe he will show up later with some reports.
I asked Bud what the two bikers were doing when they weren't here eating or standing guard. He says they been perfecting their sling shot aim. They figure there are enough squirrels in the forest to last us all for years. I have never eaten it or dressed one out. Pre invasion I fed them in their own feeder. Bud said he ate a lot of squirrel when he was a kid. Lived on squirrel meat and corn bread. Said he was 10 years old before he learned that there were other kinds of bread other than corn bread. He asked me if I had ever stewed or cooked rabbit. I have and thats what he says needs to be done with squirrel. Says Bonnie can show me if the guys ever kill any. That conversation re the squirrels made me think of all the acorns around here. Literally tons of them with the massive oak trees in this forest. So now I need to look through some of my books and see how to make flour out of them. Sure glad I had the RV packed to live in before all this happened. Got a couple of buckets of wheat and corn and got my grinder. Should be able to do acorns too.
Well....guess I will take a little snooze too and then it will be time to start supper.
"Hello camp".........ya all around here some place? Its Cedric!.............
Taz
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After noon day 1.
Just after every body got back except Fred and Toby, all h3ll broke loose they are bombing Dobbins AFB, and Lockheed.
The neighbors from across the road ran over to see if we knew
what was going on. He's a self employed concreet man, she's
a school teacher. he hunts but i think she is a sheep well just
have to wait and see. Almost dark now stll no sign from Fred and Toby wait here they come ill be back.
.
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I've just got to stay quiet one more minute,just one more minute ...one more...one more .....ahhhh. they've gone past me ...(footsteps fading away ) .....Thank God there weren't any dogs ...my chest hurts bad from holding my breath like that ,better learn to ease up on that next time --if there is a next time ...easy does it , easy does it ....can't tell how far away they are ......that stupid Carlos , should have known after he joined them he'd rat on us...wonder what they;ll do to the girls ? ---God have mercy on them ,please....saw the guide and Mrs. Collins fall when the shooting began ..she wasn't the best teacher ,always giving me a hard time about assignments but still she had calmed the girls calmed down and got us this far...(Vicky was so hysterical)
Decided I'd better stay in this hole as uncomfortable as it is till they move out of the area ,doubt they are going to hang around here long ...when we were eavesdropping heard them mention going up #65 to Ft. knox....this is so unbelievable ,but the past few days have been just that ...the worst war movie and then some ..Red Dawn !!! sure we could beat them off with our back packs and cameras...
Maybe Jess wasn't so unlucky to be killed in the rock fall after alll...That's when all this started Monday morning when we arrived here at Mammoth Cave for our annual field trip ..One of the first busses there wasn't a long line to wait ...It was so cool seeing the cave --I'd always heard a lot about them but was a bit scared , not that I'd let my best friend ,Jess, know !!!! Geez, he would have never let up on me ....he had a funny way of showing his friendship sometimes...Anyway he was with Jenny ,they had just started going to the movies and stuff so they sat together on the bus naturally but we had walked in the caves together , had started back towards the entrance when a rumbling noise began and the path shifted slightly --an earthquake !!!....the screaming from everyone was loud enough thought my ears would pop! The guide finally got everyone calmed down and we followed her light - the others had gone out --almost to the entrance ,could see the light when the rocks had fell catching Jess and a dozen others behind him ....Everyone literally ran over the guide getting outside ...stopping to catch our breath we smelled the smoke and looked around .......our group came to a halt and there was utter silence .....
It had taken some time to realize that something was seriously wrong ......not just an earthquake ......the parking lot which was now full of busses and cars was on fire ,people laying all over the place ....the admin and concession buidings blown apart ...looked like a bomb had hit the place (which later we found to be the truth)
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We tried unsucessfully to rescue the gang from behind the rock pile for three days but the stones simply too huge and wedged tight...Mrs.Collins finally convinced us we needed to get moving towards home,( Franklin ,Ky.) and finding someone to come back here with us ...Jenny had to be pulled away and dragged along by a couple other girls ...Still not knowing what was going on but maybe our teacher did have an inkling .We had eaten what food and drink we found in the ruins of the park buildings .I had a lot in my back pack the first day as I'm always hungry , mother says I have a hollow leg ....Oh mom,dad , I'll never complain again if I get out of here and back with you .!!!....just let me get home ...
Coming out of the park and in sight of #65 Carlos and I had been walking ahead of the others...down the hill we could see some trucks and army men sitting there ..well they were dressed in camo clothes , but for some reason they didn't look like ours,something different about them and insignia on doors...It was almost dusk and we went back and told the teacher what we saw....she thought we should keep quiet and watch for a while ...Later Carlos and I had sneaked closer and heard them discussing where they were headed --Ft.Knox---however they were speaking Spanish !!! Looked Mexican ,South American also... All of them ...Carlos thought he recognized a cousin and I had a hard time keeping him from jumping up and letting them know we were there....because they sure didn't sound friendly towards the U.S.A. from the talk ...then we heard them discuss the bombing with nukes and such on the U.S. ..we went back to our group and decided to sleep where we were and see what happened in the morning...at least now we knew what had happened in the park , maybe that wasn't an earthquake but vibrations from the bombing ....
It was coming light when I had an urge to move out in the trees and do my business...went rather far from the group so no one would hear me ....down the slope ...then the shots ...girls screaming .....too scared at first to move ...It was a good thing I had already 'went' because I certainly would have then !!! Crept up through the brush ,and there was Carlos with them pointing out who was who ... that rat!!!..he must have went down and brought the troops up here ..........Mrs.Collins and the guide were laying so awkward they must be dead with all the blood ....several boys also ...they rounded up all the girls , I couldn't tell just who , ransacked the packs for food and stuff and then walked back to the road and trucks taking the screaming ,crying girls along... ....Carlos laughing and chatting with them like old home week .....
our teacher had said in class that all the war news was nothing to worry about ....just governments bluffing one another -----and we were a super power so all we had to do was worry about our SAT"S test....yeah , right .................................................. ............................................. .................................................. .................................................. ... .........................................
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We really need machines. Muscle power is simply not enough when there are so few of us. Randy and I go down to a couple of the vacant houses and yard out the water heaters. I sure hope no one saw us. Being a former absentee property owner and now a newcomer to full-time living here in this community I don't really know anyone around here and want to make any enemies. Ideally in the before time, I ought to have moved full time into the community and integrated myself, built up relationships with neighbors. The job market didn't see it that way, what with all the jobs being out on the coast in the big cities. Anyway there's not really anyone around here in any kind of position of visible authority of whom to ask permission and there's no hardware store of junk shop where we could try to swap for them. Randy and I get the water heaters back home and Peter starts cutting them up and reworking them. I had laid in a bunch of one inch and ¾ inch hard copper pipe to use in replumbing the place. Hate to lose it especially when I don't know when we will have the chance to replace it. But we need it more right now to build the producer gas generator. Without engines, without machines we simply can't get enough done in the few months of summer that we have up here in the Rockies. The Amish handle such things by having work parties. We could ask the neighbors for help, but I don't want them to find out too much about us yet.
We don't have an extra carburetor for the one ton truck so as to lash up a multi-fuel, gasoline / wood gas carburetor. So we duct as best we can from the wood gas generator directly into the throat of the existing carb. Since we have no way to regulate or throttle the wood gas independently we are not getting the full benefit and have to still burn gasoline. The wood gas is merely a fuel additive at this point. But we lean out the mixture so as to minimize the gasoline use as much as possible. It is workable but less than ideal. Peter has enough material left to make a smaller one to fuel the portable generator. Because that is a stationary engine and runs at a constant speed, the wood gas feed tube directly into the carb will do fine and once started off the gasoline, we can switch the gasoline off at the fuel tank valve and run off straight producer gas. So we now have a power source to make electricity and run electric tools and we have the use of the truck on a more frequent basis. It is all very Rube Goldbergian and vaguely dangerous looking. Basically it is a copy of Harry LaFontaine's gengas unit that he built in the 1940's in occupied Denmark to run trucks and busses and tractors. Anyway it works and that's the main thing. Now if I could only hash out why the electric winch on the front of the one ton won't work.
Despite having no fertilizer the plants in the raised beds are doing well. Not that the cows are failing to do their part in the fertilizer department, only that there's only 2 of them and it is not enough even with collecting it and making "tea". Human-nure requires lengthy composting, a period of a year to two years depending on the authority cited so that's not a practical solution for the time being. Even then you can't safely use it on food crops, only ornamentals and such. How many times have in the past have I read the catalog descriptions, like Lehman's or Backwoods Solar, about the non electric composting toilets. All the same like the cows we are such a small group that even if we had such a dingus our output would be insignifigant. So it's not much use to us at this time. The potatoes seem to be thriving so we strip the plastic sheeting off of them and rig up makeshift tunnel type covers and cloches using debarked saplings and branches for the hoops. . All the old hay in the barn's hayloft that is no longer fit to feed to the cows is thrown down and carted over to the garden to be used for mulch. We seem to have located the formerly elusive wild rabbits. Time to set those live traps I learned about from Buckshot's webpage and see about starting a rabbitry before the furry little vacuum cleaners eat us out of the vegetable business. Here kitty, kitty, kitty.
Injuns!
Ok, ok, I'm being melodramatic. Peter and Randy went out today to cut some more timber. They were up the west drainage a few miles and were sweating over the block and tackle getting the logs loaded into the flatbed trailer when they looked up and saw people on the ridge on horseback watching them. While they were deciding what to do the strangers rode down towards them.
"Sump'm we kin do fer you fellas?" called out Randy
"Naw, we're just taking a look around." Replied one of them.
They were dressed like anybody else, like us. But unlike us they had some beaded decorations on their vests and something like a sash or handkerchief tied around shirtsleeve on the upper part of one arm. One of them had some kind of necklace and another one actually had a feather behind one ear. And of course the requisite tractor hats with are the uniform head cover of the farmer. The reservation covers a several hundred square miles, straddling 2 counties, to the northwest of the farm. They were mostly wheat farmers like everybody else on the other side of the mountain. With the national economy collapsed there was no "market" in the old sense for wheat. And with the cities under quarantine and everything else going on in the world no one was coming down to their gambling casino and resort. The buildings were merely another collection of very large unheated concrete echo chambers. All done up in a garish resort style "teepee indian" motif, but empty and useless none the less. So like everybody else they were reverting to traditional ways. Which for them was hunter / gatherer. So they were out hunter / gatherer-ing.
"You fellas from around here?" asked Randy
"You know where Tensed is?" asked the one with the feather.
"Nosir, jes settled in here." Randy replied
"Well, over that way" he gestured, "about 15 miles. On the Res."
"Awful nice buck you fellas got there." Said Randy, nodding towards the fellow with the beaded vest, and who was trailing a pack horse with a deer tied across its back.
"Yeah we jumped him just over the ridge. Then we heard your chainsaw and thought we would come down and take a look. I thought they were all done logging out here."
"Ain't seen nobody. Cuttin' firewood fer winter." Randy answered.
"Well, nice seeing you." The feathered one said as they wheeled their horses around and rode off.
"I not hearing rifle, you?" asked Peter
"Nosir. Mebbe when we was runnin' the saw." Replied Randy.
"You think they what wanting something?" Peter continued.
"I ain't thinkin' nuthin'" drawled Randy, "My momma din't raise no chil'un to be makin' fool guesses fer some yankee cap'n."
"a shto?" queried Peter.
"Neva mind." answered Randy, "Say, where you from anyway?"
"Russia."
"Where in Russia?"
"Karaganda. Na yuzhnee, south"
"South, ya say?" grinned Randy
"Da, south." answered Peter quizzically.
"Well, cuzin gues you ain't no yankee after all."
And with that they went back to loading up the trailer with the logs they had cut and limbed. When they got back to the house they came clomping up the stairs a whoopin' and a hollerin' : "Woo woo woo" and clapping their hands over their mouths like vaudeville comics.
Back when the world ran on money you hardly ever saw anyone around here. Now that there's nowhere to jump in the car and rush off to the darned place is crawling with people. First a 21st century wagon train meanders through town, and now this, a hunting party of indians on horseback. Go figure. I swear, the next thing you know the US Cavalry will show up!
Will I ever learn?
A column of National Guard troops passed through today. Or maybe they were Army Reserve, or State Militia, I can't tell the difference. They all wear the same fatigues. They stopped down by the old abandoned road house for a while and then motored off. While I was down checking the trot lines I happened across one of the neighbors out fixing a section of his fence. We chatted a bit and I asked if he had noticed the National Guard coming through earlier.
"I saw 'em" he tersely replied
"What did they stop for, do you know?" I asked
"I don't know." He bit off
"Did you get a chance to talk to them?" I pressed
"Didn't want to." He answered, "Didn't like the look of them."
"Why, what was it?"
"Don't know. Just didn't like 'em zall."
We chatted some more. I tried to feel him out about the vacant homes in the area. He was not a fountain of information so far as words went. He was friendly enough and casual so long as the conversation was about trivial local things. Still his look and his manner and his obvious concern spoke volumes. There was something not right about those so-called National Guardsmen.
-
It was a good day for dying. But not for me and mine. Russians and their ilk die well. It was a sale on Russians and they went fast. Over 150 of them. They tried sneaking through after dark and of course the idiots forgot that anything over one truck driving in a completely deserted area will draw the attention of even someone half awake.
I have no idea,well I do in a way,why they didnt go afoot. It would have been easy for them to do so. We were sitting about 6 miles south of the Mackinac Bridge as an early warning system. There had been some civilian traffic going southbound that day but at night everyone buttons up. Word out is that a lot of scumbandits are patrolling the roads looking for easy pickings.
I think the reason they didnt go afoot is that they were coordinating with the SB Soviets hitting the north end of the bridge and hit it at the same time.
About 8 miles north of St. Ignace (city on north end of bridge,is a state rd. 128. This is where the NG's had an OP set up. So,eight miles down to bridge, then another 6 miles to the south end of the bridge and Mackinac City. Then add the 6 more miles to where we were across from the north end of Paradise Lake and that gave us enough time to wind up into high gear at the bridge.
The mortars got all but two of the trucks. Seems how the Russians have a standard modus operandi. When they are attacked in convoy,the last of them turn around and split! At least that is what happened here just like the I-75/Auburn battle.
This time only two of the trucks with about 25-30 troops got turned around and started heading right back into us.
With only 10 of us we didnt want a head on battle,but we sure could harass the hell out of them on the way through.
We stretched out along about a 1/2 mile of 75.
We heard them roaring way before they got to us. Course roaring in a military truck is only about 45MPH.
They were like two dogs getting ready to introduce each other. One had his nose up the others exhaust pipe.
I was third of the ten waiting. By now,we had the auto AK's and had fired them enough to stay pretty good on target. Had to lead them about like a slow duck. Ducks can fly up to about 60MPH!
The three of us fired almost at the same time trying for the cab of the lead truck.One or more of us got em.
The lead truck did a little wiggle and then made a hard left into the median. As soon as his front tires hit the soft wet ground they jerked hard even more to the left and the truck started rolling over and over. Bodies were flying out all over the place!
The second truck did a fancy dance and avoided the first one,but had to slam on his brakes and slow down to about 20MPH. Good enough for the rest of us in line to start firing into the front and the back of the truck.
Some of us had tracers and it was a grand sight to see them disappear into the truck,front and back. Now,keep in mind,there is a full moon and with even my not so good eyesight,everything was all quite plain.
I let the second truck go into the rest of the gang further on and turned to what was the scene of the first truck laying on its side in the median.
Dang! It hadnt burst into flame like those Hollywood trucks do. It just laid there like a lump. Until.........Several tracers and probably a few incinderary rounds hit one of the fuel tanks. Still no boom. But still a nice satisfying fire started spreading on and down to the ground. A few of the soldiers were crawling for the edge of the road and hoping they would get to the woods. Well as my good departed FIL used to say,and say often,"you can wish in one hand and shit in the other,and guess which one fills up first?"
Fraid they got the shitty hand. Or is that the fickle finger of fate?
Whatever. None lived across the cement. The roll over had killed all but seven of them anyway and it was short work for 3 of us on auto to put them away. Tracers really help in a night fire fight.
The other truck had pulled off the road and down through the ditch trying to avoid the fire being put down by the rest of our guys. At least ten of the soldiers in that truck got out and were laying down a pretty heavy fire into our guys,and gals,in the opposite ditch. Letting the bodies lay around the first truck without moving for about 3 minutes,the 3 of us snuck down past it and across the road to the same side as the soldiers firing.
We went on into the woods of hardwoods and pines and started getting closer to them. I had passed out the grenades to our group earlier and between the 3 of us I was the only one with any. The other seven had the rest of them. The tossing range was just a little too far for the guys and it didnt help that the soldiers were firing auto and tossing grenades themselves.
Surprise had to be on our side. We got up to within 30 yards of them undiscovered. We spread out but was careful that friendly fire wouldnt take us out and when we opened fire that we wouldnt hit our buddies on the other side of the expressway.
I let the two other guys,on either side of me start firing first. As soon as they started,I got off two grenades in a hurry. One landed short and didnt do anything but make a lot of noise. The second one was right in there like a strike across the plate. I had four more grenades. I moved from where I had been as the other two guys did also. Still being in the trees made it a little harder to toss the grenades,but I threw two more. One rolled right under the rear of the truck and when the blast went off,I know at least three of the soldiers got it. My last grenade was down into the ditch and away from the truck. I had no idea if I got anybody or not.
Because we had flanked the Sovs,they really couldnt shoot and move. We had em boxed and they knew it. We could hear them start shouting to us to stop firing,"surrender,surrender" they were yelling. I could see two of them and they were trying to raise their arms while they were lying down. Two more were yelling but still had their guns pointed towards the other guys.
The three of us all fired at the same time. The pointers quit pointing. They would never point again. The other two are now screaming so high we could hardly understand them.
We shot them. They quit screaming.
We got a lot of guns and ammo that night out of the two trucks.
Plus some grenades that are launched with a rifle.
It may seem cold blooded to the reader of this that we killed two of them that were surrendering. Maybe. But it boils down to practical. We cant take prisoners. Where do we keep them? Or send them? And I know no one was ready to let them just leave.
We had talked about this as a group earlier that day. I wont say it was easy to kill those two,but this is a very different world now. Prisoner taking is a luxury we dont have. And never will again. What the hell,we werent soldiers anyway,so the Geneva Convention didnt fit.
We ended up burning the trucks with the soldiers in it. At least help keep down disease that way. Plus neither truck would run again.
Practical. Everything has to be practical.
None of us wanted to haul the stuff back to the RV, so one other guy and me walked back and drove the RV back to the site.
Even full moons are practical. Didnt get lost walking back.
All of us were exhausted and two of the group had been wounded slightly, but we headed up to the bridge. Actually,we got into the city limits of Mackinaw City,found a hidey hole in a parking lot up next to a burned out store and crashed. Glad it wasnt my turn to pull sentry duty. We could hear and see the flashes of the battle going on at the north end of the bridge.
We knew we wanted to wait until daylight to approach the NG's and the rest of our troop at the foot of the south end of the bridge.
That is very practical.
-
We took a day off and loafed. The next week was spent building single shots on SR191 and the southern and northern entrances to our community. We had decided to defend three places. The SAWS would be set up on SR191 and the other two would each have a M-16. It was the best we could do. Two men would man each placement 7/24. This really taxed our man power.
I was planning on doing some scouting down by Payson. I have or did have friends there. George, Steve and ol' Roy and his family. I would go as far as I felt safe with my bike and then approach the area on foot. The trip would probably take about two weeks.
The house would be self sufficient for the two weeks I was gone. Everyone had been briefed as to what had to be done and when! Still, I had built the water and power systems and knew them better than anyone else.
I would take minimal provisions with me and try to forage when possible. I'm taking a small hand pump water filter and some Aerobic 7. I planned on taking one of our four remaining bottles of Amoxicillin, 500 mg, 100 tabs and some garlic capsules. They might be needed in Payson by my friends!
I tried to leave the next morning. The unexpected always happens!!!! An old friend, Bruce walked onto the farm about 5:45 am today. He looked really beat and was filthy dirty!!! I mixed up some gatorade power in some cold water as he tried to get hold of himself. He was sunburnt and dried out. He let out a huge sigh of relief after getting a drink! He said that he had walked the last forty miles without water. His bike and truck where out of gas and stashed in some bush. He carried his Ithica 1911 and a large bowie and of course his empty canteen!!!
I loaded up the International with two 5 gal gas cans and we started back to where his truck was. With any luck, we would be back in two hours and sitting under a shade tree drinking lemonade!!!
It was about 9 o'clock when we got to his truck. Everything appeared untouched. We put the ten gallons of gas in his truck and it started on the second try. We primed it the second time. I told Bruce to kill the motor, quick!!!! I had heard another engine start up right after his!!! We grabbed our rifles and headed into some brush and rocks. The truck rolled up into the clearing with our vehicles. Four rough looking men climbed out. I motioned for Bruce to wait. Sure enough two more came up a minute later. Always hedging their bets. You can count on it!!! When all six where on the same side of their truck making their plans, we opened fire!!!! Four went down right away!!! Two got behind their truck. I put ten rounds from my MAK-90 into the same place on the truck. The guy on the other side caught the tenth round, Bruce took out the other one with a headshot as he popped up one too many times!
We started our trucks and gathered up what guns and ammo could be found. Bruce syphoned out what gas he could from their truck. We left after about five minutes. We headed for home!!!
-
Day five.
All most exhausted been busyer than a one arm paper hanger
put Fred to digging a fall out shelter the day after ,Toby to
cutting logs for the roof they didn't mind too much after
hearing the emergency broadcast. The trip to the drug store
was great except some body had already toted away most
of the pain pills that we were surely going to need. But thats
what happens when your late but still got plenty antibotics,ivs
and some injectables.
The rock quary was better than expected 24 cases of dynomite,
200 yards of detcord and 200 caps.
The welding store provided 10 tanks of acyetlene and 12 of
oxygen and a case of thermite welding powder.
Fred and Toby came back with 40 small propane tanks the kind
that were in the racks for exchange.
I was like a kid in a candy store in the chemical warehouse.
Have got to go to the hardware store while there is something
left mabey try home depot. It's not too far and they stand a better chance of having the materials.
My sister and brother in law showed up day 2 boy was she glad
i talked her in to stocking up after 9-11. Got most of the women
orginizing the food and meds. The wind picked up from the west
south west which was good to blow the dust from the Dobbins
and Lockheed away. The stuff was still thick in the air in Marrietta. Broke out the rad. meter still close to normal, if it
changes we'll have to start taking the blockers don't have
enough for every one will have to make most of the others stay
inside.
Chatter on the cb is bad the naitves are getting restless the
hoards in atlanta are in a bad way. All those high rise appartments and no electricty are real ovens, with no running
water the city is getting ripe.
With most of the bridges out over the Mississippi, and Tennessee
rivers food shipments are almost nonexestitant. May have to
remove the bridges over the Chattahoochee, the NG is having a
hard time holding them. May have to do some long range recon
soon.
I can't belive this after 3 days the home depot is still open!
The manager has put a couple generators to work powereing
some lights and two cash regesters this guy is hard core!!
Even had his own armed guards cash only too! Of course the
prices were slightly increased to cover the inconvience.
Oh well most of the stuff i need is here so if you wait ya gotta
pay the price.
So far travel around here in the day light has been uneventful.
Still rural enough so most folks are semi cordual so far. I expect
this to change real soon though.
Charles and Rob are building a water wheel to operate the pump
down at the creek don't have a well and it's a looong way to the
creek, the 1 inch pipe was one of the hdpt items that was very important.
Better run the satelite signal is starting to fade it will be a while
before one of the other survivors will be in range.
-
This is getting to be just like police work. That is,about 95 percent sheer boredom where you think you've died and went to hell and 5 percent sheer terror and you know you went to hell.
We got gutsy today and ran our flag up a makeshift flagpole next to the RV.
We are parked about 100 yards up and onto the approach of the south end of the Mackinac Bridge. Beautiful day. In the low 70s with a west wind blowing off the water. We parked the RV sideways on the bridge with the door opened to the south. We even put the awning down and the two wounded and DW and I are sitting out and drinking coffee and relaxing. I get up about every 15 minutes or so and walk around the RV with the binoculars and check the compass points.
The other 34 of us went on a scavenger hunt into Mackinaw City.
Didnt expect to find much but you can never tell. They went in strength and were going to stick together while in town. They left about 9AM. This time not only do I check all around,I climb on the roof of the RV and check things south especially. Its 9PM and the party is not back yet. There is still plenty of daylight left so I'm worried without going into a panic. The dogs are lying down under the awning and I know if anything goes down,the dogs will let us know. The Jack Russell and the old kinda Golden both hate and fear thunder. And they arent really wild about gun fire either.
I know they react to both thunder and far off guns. The wind isnt helping any. The town is due south of us and with the west wind it plays havoc with sound carry.
Fort Michlimackinac is almost right due west of us. We can see down into it. The NG used it for their place of residence (hah!) since they had got there. It made a lot of sense. Its right next to I-75 and is on the water as well. The town kinda crowds it to the south but with scouts out,its quite safe.
The NG are gone now. They headed up in strength to help defend the north end NG's and maybe even kick some major butt to the Russians coming down from the Sault. They will be a surprise to the Sovs I am sure. It will almost double the strength of the NG up there and they may break the Sovs back. We can hear what sounds like dull thunder from that way. The NG brought some artillery pieces from Camp Grayling when this all started. They have limited ammo for them but if the Russians have any tanks,etc those guns will make short work of them. I am surprised of the lack of helicopters. For both sides. I dont think that the force in the Sault is that big nor is this a major offensive. They probably thought they wouldnt need anything huge. Until they ran into the NG at the bridge that is.
If we could just take back the Soo Locks. Eventually that will have to happen. No real urgency because the shipping that goes through there is for iron ore. Hopefully the USA will be back into the steel business when we kick the collective ass that is trying to destroy us.
On the roof,I glance over at the flag. Tears come to my eyes as I think of what we were and what we could have been. And I pray we will have even a chance to be strong and free again.
God Bless America!
-
"Hello Camp...its Cedric...are ya here?" I moved like a rocket, I had my little 410 in one hand and was throwing CH his gun with a scope on it with the other hand. By the time I got out of the trailer, Bud and Bonnie were both in their practiced positions. CH and I are the only two that know Cedric and CH can but hobble from one seat to the next. So that left me. I took out of camp opposite from the way the yell came from and circled around to the west. Crossed 3 trails and saw no fresh foot prints or tire tracks so kept with the circle. Suddenly there were track on the next run. I followed the run back toward camp and came up on them suddenly. I dived into the palmetto and prayed that I hadn't made too much noise. Finally I worked my way up close enuff too see Cedric, his wife and two little kids. With them were two other black guys and i figured they were Cedric's brothers. I was just about to let them know my position when I relized that one of the fellows had a gun on Cedric's wife and baby. Sh....!! Now what do I do. Our camp is straight ahead and if I shoot and miss I could hit our camp. I am going to have to work my way around until I get back to the side of them so I can take out thise two characters. Its only 50 feet but takes me about 15 minutes to get into position. I know that Ch and Bud have a clear bead on them too but are afraid of hitting Cedric or family. Finally I the two guys move together and sort of away to talk so they can't be heard. This was my chance and I took it. One shot with the 410 just about decapitated them both. Before their heads even jerked into the air, slugs hit both of them in the chest.
The family froze...I stepped out of the palmettos and said, "hello Cedric, what can we do for you." If you have ever seen a black man turn white, this was it. We were but 50 yds from camp and so when we got them all back into camp and under the camoflage netting they started to stop shaking. Bonnie quickly dug into the hard candy bucket and brought out some halloween suckers for the two kids. A strong cup of coffee helped the rest of us. We were as glad to see Cedric and he was to see us. There aren't too many camps he could walk into out here in the forest due to his being black and his wife white. This is still Klan country. We put the kids down for a nap in the trailer where it was quite and settled down to hear Cedric's story. We hadn't heard from him since that first night he had left for the armoury where he was in charge. Bonnie came out of her trailer with a big skillet of corn bread and grape jelly. Wow! Guess I wasn't thinking that these people might me hungry. I poured more coffee and dug out some beans that had been cooking in the bush box and let them eat in peace. Whatever they have to tell us will hopefully keep until later this evening.
Taz
-
At last things were starting to become clearer for the Captain/Colonel. The recons that had been compleated showed him that the Cubans were indeed still on the western edge of the Oclawaha River. But they seemed to be massing just northwest of the forest. Plainly they wanted to move eastward. There could be only two reasons. First, that would bring them to the back door of the Space Center and whatever exotic toys they had over there. Second, it would split the resistance in the state,leaving the southern forces with no hope of relief or resupply.
Fine, that just means contacting the people in the northern part of "Free Florida" even more important. Now that his forces had regrouped, the Captain/Colonel could plan what to do next. He finally decided to send a small force of three trios to Camp Blanding. One trio would be on point. The other two would flank the first team and follow a little behind them. Once they got there, try to find the ranking officer, find out if they could get help, or might be required to lend it, and find out where the rest of the country stood.
It was nessessary for him to return to base when Mac had been killed. What He hadn't been expecting was for everyone to demand him to take Macs' place.
"Trust Me folks. If you want things to go from bad to worse, put me in Macs' place."
"Doesn't look that way to us Captain. You've been doing a good job keeping the cubans out of here. Seems to us that you are just the man to take the job."
"Who are you kidding? Sure we stopped their attacks, but I'm no civil administrator. If you want Me to continue fighting them, sure I'll do it. BUT THERE IS NO WAY YOU WILL STICK ME WITH THE JOB OF MAYOR, or whatever you want to call it. NO NO NO!!!"
It was during this time that he had sent Shane and Steve, his brother, to check in with Taz. At least they had met with Her before and so were less likely to get shot. Then He set about reorganizing the guard routine, only to find that Mac had already gotten it running smoothly, and the bandit that had killed him was indeed a freak occurance. Nobody had ever seen him before, or had any idea who he might have been. He had no I.D. Just one more displaced person. Unfortunetly he had chosen the wrong way and place to try to get by. Chances were that he wouldn't be the last. He did warn the guardsmen to be on the lookout for more of them. Shoot ONLY if nessessary.
Now it was time to see what he could learn from the other side of the river. Two trios were sent across the river, each with a spanish speaker.
-
Looking towards the porch where Lucy was sitting in the rocker I saw her take it from her pocket and look at it once more ........she's about worn it through from handling it so much but she'll forget in time .....feel bitter about it myself at times ---a month or so earlier what we couldn't have done with that ; bought more preps at least ; ...but with all the excitement would we? ....no point in looking back ...that's all changed and gone forever...
Leaning on my shovel I look at the work before me ...Charlie too is taking a breather down in the hole ...only 5 ' down but with the high water table shouldn't have to go past 20' for water ...pa didn't ...glad Charlie is here to help with the bracing and digging , Lucy would have helped otherwise ...after working in the store all our lives this physical work is giving us pains in parts of our bodies we didn't know existed....
Wonder if it is worth all this work anyway? The garden pretty much gone after the frost hit it and with this crazy weather who knows if the next seeds will mature ? At least the work keeps us from thinking too much about the problems facing us ...
On the porch Lucy looks at it another moment and slowly folds it to put back in her pocket ...they had received it the morning the invasion had started ...had just got back in the driveway in fact , from the store where they had picked up this check for $67 million ----the winnning powerball ticket .....
A smile crossed her lips and she thought of the verse
" do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth ,where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal..." Matthew 6:19
-
The plot clots
Tuesday - dawn
As white blood cells slowly converge on a bacterial invader, slowing and hopefully eventually consuming it, the Florida resistance is beginning to come together in an organized way to resist our own invasion of foreign bodies. In the last week I've been from the southern end of the Ocala National Forest to the town of McClenny east of Lake City and the I-10 & I-75 interchange on I-10 to Live Oak west of the interchange on I-10, a brief respite at DunHagan, and then back to our operational area in Northern Alachua county. It was exhausting but successful.
Six of us made the run in DaddyGator. Enough of us well armed enough to discourage highwaymen (almost) yet not so many as to draw too terribly much attention. Left out of base for Lake Butler in Union County to find a woman I used to work with. Took some time as she had left her home to move in with her mother several miles out of town after the war started. She knew several in the McClenny area she thought would know who the resistance folks were in the area we'd heard rumors of. Had to trade her some hand-tools to get her to go but she agreed to go. Ran into a group of highwaymen on the way up just as they opened an ambush on a Baker county sheriff's deputy's patrol car coming from the opposite direction. He took a couple of survivable wounds and his car was totaled but did manage to hit one of them. John and the M60 killed two. The remaining two unwounded surrendered. The deputy gave an additional entrée' into McClenny where we handed him and the surviving bandits over. The highwaymen were hanged the next day. Made contact with the local resistance that night. Once we were sure of each other we gave them one of JimmyJohn's tight beam antennas and a code book, different from the Ocala group. They agreed to send a couple of men to a meeting we'll be having this week to coordinate our efforts.
While there we heard of another resistance group in the Live Oak area and another still further west close to Tallahassee. The captain had given me discretion in who I spoke with so we sent word via coded phrases on the CB telegraph that we were extending our mission and moved out Saturday night. Saw a spectacular fireball moving west to east along about midnight. Didn't occur to me to wonder if it might have been man made until sometime later. Every body with the ability is probably shooting everybody else's satellites out of the sky. Or it might have just been a meteor. Sure lit the place up for a few seconds though.
The I-10 & I-75 interchange with its large garrison is between Live Oak and McClenny so we were forced to detour well to the north to get around, nearly into Georgia and still had to hide out much of Saturday when several gunships overflew the area. By the time we finally made Live Oak Sunday morning we found we were expected as word had reached them from McClenny. I didn't have another antenna to give them but they did agree to send senior people to our coordination meeting. Cuban patrolling was very heavy west of Live Oak so we could not go that way to look for the other group but the Live Oak group said they'd try to make contact.
Being west of I-75 at this point and wanting to stay well clear of the Interstate with its increased level of patrolling we came down through west Alachua county and stopped at the house. Damn, it was *good* to be home, even if for only a day. Things were looking up. Still hadn't received any rain but they were all getting much better at making use of the water we had by making it serve at least two, sometimes three purposes before they were done with it. When it couldn't be used for anything else it was carefully carried to some planting or other for irrigation. Very little was just poured out. The garden was twice as big as it had been before I left, heavily mulched and intensively cultivated. Little satellite gardens were everywhere. I'd swear things were greener too. Part of this may have been from the wood ashes they were fertilizing with. We have LPG to cook with but they'd decided that with our abundance of wood to use that and conserve fuel. Wood fires mean wood ashes which in turn were spread where they'd do some good. Can't do much about the pasture but the chickens are making out OK.
Best of all was the pump! Uncle Wayne had traded one of my rifles (ouch!) and a case of ammunition (ouch!) but had gotten a working deep well handpump. It needed rebuilding and they were going to have to cobble together the linkages but it looked like we would one day no longer be dependant on an electric pump. Real, tangible wealth.
Libby is morning sick every day so I guess she really is pregnant. She was mad as hops that Andy wasn't with me and didn't really believe me when I told her that I was *not* in command and couldn't just tell Andy where to go. I took him off with me and I should have brought him back! Well, I ducked and dodged as best I could because I've learned one does not successfully argue with a pregnant woman.
I'd swear the baby has grown an inch already. She certainly talks more clearly, probably with all the new people. We're trading eggs for things we can't/don't produce and more importantly, water for those people without for gasoline to run the gen-set with. Could be better I suppose but could be a damn sight worse too.
Hated to do it but we left out Monday night, feeling much refreshed (and I'd refreshed the wife too!). Took some time of carefully reconning the Interstate underpass before we took DaddyGator through. Made it back just now.
Charley has been steadily evolving in his convoy tactics so we've been having to evolve with him. He's gotten much, much better at carefully examining the roadsides for our little tricks. We put the word out on the CB telegraph that the resistance was looking for all the remote control toys it could get its hands on which JimmyJohn and his technoguerrillas then converted into remotely activated command detonated boobytraps. As long as we could see the area we could be hundreds of yards away, push a button and set them off just as the convoy would pass. This worked for a time then Charley began to routinely jam all the frequencies used by such commercially made toys. Jimmy then jiggered the frequencies outside of those ranges and they started jamming those too. Went back to hardwiring and got some more. The Cubans have also begun to periodically jam all CB, FRS, and two meter frequencies as well. Doesn't do it full time though and I don't know why. Jimmy thinks they've got some sort of aircraft that is doing this and it may not be able to stay airborne full time.
He's also beginning to set up regular guard and refuel stations along the Interstates at distances close enough that one can come to the assistance of another if attacked. This complicates our planning but doesn't make it impossible. He's also brought in some sort of ground attack aircraft other than helicopters. Haven't seen one myself yet. CB says the group down to Plant City took one down with a missile.
Sure would like to know what's what with the government. We get stations that sound genuine claiming to be Voice of America and then there are other stations claiming to be VOA as well with conflicting news. No way for us to tell which one is really our government and which one is Russian/Chinese/whatever disinformation. Peterson says they're working on that but not what it is they're going to do.
Major shouting about a spectacular nightime raid on the port of Maracaibo in Venezuela. Had to have been one of our carriers. Apparently nailed a ship full of munitions and several fuel storage facilities and the place just blew into orbit. Jimmy said details are still confused for more than that.
Clausewitz once said that "in war everything is very simple but the simplest things are very difficult." I think we might just be about to start showing Fidel how difficult it can be.
…………Alan.
-
-
Cedric and wife LIz didn't even finish their meal when they fell asleep in the chairs. We woke them up and put them to bed on the bed daveno in the trailer. It looks like morning before we are going to get any info out of them. But they weren't the only guests that arrived this day. Just got them settled and asleep when the camp was hailed again. It was Steve and Shane. Day Late had sent them down to see what info that they could gather from our area. So...after they ate and bedded down, we ate some left overs.
No doubt that morning is going to be an interesting brainstorm session as Shane and Steve need info and I am sure that Cedric has all the info re what the resistence is in the Ocala area. In the meantime, I took a walk over to the Biker's camp to see what those two were up to. Mike was happy for some company and eager to meet the guests at our camp. When I got there he were dressing out a deer that one of them had gotten with his sling shot. Nailed it with a small rock just behind the ear. It was enough to drop it and give Mike time to slit its throat. So I came home with a nice haunch of deer meat. We need it. I didn't prep for the whole forest so we are going to have to relook at our preps and perhaps make some changes. Well...Bud just went out on sentry duty and I am going to bed. CH still is weak and still hobbling about. Moaning and groaning because he can't do more. I told him if he didn't shut up I was going to crack him across the shin on the other leg. Sheesh!
Taz
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Keep on truckin...
Thursday - dawn
Due to both shortages of fuel and better off road capability some of us have gone to horseback travel. With the ducking and dodging we're having to do now it's not that much slower on a horse than it was to drive and we can more easily leave the road. On the other hand, I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to walk right again. I haven't done this much riding since I was in high school and I'm damn sure ain't fifteen anymore! Somewhere around here there's got to be pantyhose to fit a 6 ft tall, 220 lb (and declining) man. Glad I've always had a preference for boots.
The Cubans are steadily evolving their tactics to cope with our harass and delay attacks on their convoys. These last two days or so they've been using air dropped minelets along side the Interstate in likely ambush locations. They're not very powerful but they'll take a foot or leg off if you're unlucky enough to step on one as four casualties have already discovered - two of whom were children. May God have mercy on the souls of those who are sowing these mines because if ever we manage to take any alive we won't.
We took one killed, four wounded but managed to capture a large convoy last night. It was right at dark just as a series of thunderstorms were making their way through the area. We estimated the wind to be over 50 mph at the peak with lightning and heavy rain so circumstances worked for once in our favor as the trucks rolled through. The gunships were unable to stay with them because of the violent wind and lightning so they had no air cover. We sprayed the front two APCs and one gun truck with jelled gasoline from one-shots. This eliminated the gunner from the truck, reduced visibility and force the APCs to stay buttoned up. Seconds later we then hit them with captured RPGs to take them out.
The two APCs and two gun trucks in the rear attempted to deploy but were surprised when the two rearmost semi's suddenly went into reverse ramming one of the APC's and a gun truck. The remaining APC and gun truck went over onto the shoulder to get around them and ran over our command detonated mines. The two that had been rammed were taken with RPG's. There was an APC and a gun truck in the midst of the trucks that we were slow to come down on which produced the casualties but eventually were took them with an RPG to the armor and gun fire on truck. Several of the trucks had Cuban soldiers driving them and there were a number of hostages, several of which had been badly abused. We crucified the surviving soldiers along side the road but for one whom several of the hostages said had given them food and tried to shelter them from the worst of the abuses. Him we took prisoner. He's only their equivalent of a private so probably doesn't know much but we decided we'd let him live and put his story out in the hopes that our hostages would receive better treatment in the future. He said many of the drivers and convoy guards were horrified at the fates of captured Cubans at the hands of the resistance so perhaps this is a condition we can exploit. Reckon I'm going to Hell anyways, may as well get some good out of it.
All of the semi's but for one was still drivable so we quickly unloaded its load amongst the others as much as we could and our own trucks that we'd brought forward before burning it. They're still inventorying the take but it looks pretty good. We still don't have any armor or air capability but we're better able to protect ourselves from either now.
Had a new group of volunteers come in from Columbia, Dixie and Gilchrist counties. One them is the quarry manager for Anderson Columbia's limestone quarry up near to the Itchknetucknee river. He came in driving a flatbed Ford and brought nearly a hundred cases of dynamite they used in the mine and caps along with two fellows trained in demolition work in the military before going to work for him.
Our area organizational meeting is tonight with representatives coming in from every resistance group we could find out about. Ought to start being able to coordinate our attacks soon. We're getting large enough too that Parker is breaking us up into units and moving everyone out from base which we will soon abandon. Sooner or later Charley is going to discover it and we don't want to be here when he does. Spreading out like this is a major pain in the ass, but if we get attacked we won't lose everything by having it all in one place. With the compartmentalization that he's instituting one person being captured can only do just so much damage. The very, very few that know a lot about everything will not be sent on missions.
It's beginning to look like what I'm becoming is the finder and organizer of grass roots resistance groups.
Well, we also serve who only ride and ride and ride…
………Alan.
-
Morning came again. How many since this began? He had stopped counting. It no longer mattered. Whatever the outcome of this war, life would never return to "normal" again.
At least he had made the point about not being the new leader of their growing group. As expected, the promotion to Colonel had been carried by the people the evening before, and along with it the command of their milita forces. He knew that it was too early for any of the patrols to be back, since they had only left yesterday. That was why the Colonel was suprised to learn that one of the patrols from the west side of the river was asking for permisson to return.
"Whats wrong?"
"Nothing exactly is wrong Cap...Colonel. It's just that we found some people that you might want to talk to."
"Prisoners?"
"No Sir, they are our folks. I really don't want to say to much right now."
"O.K. I'll tell you what to do. Take them to the place you crossed the river and send them across, alone. We'll have someone to meet them. Then you continue with the mission."
The Colonel looked at the sky. wishing that he could turn on the weather channel. For the past day or two, the clouds had been acting strangely. In the back of his mind an ugly picture was forming. The one thing that they didn't need right now was what he was begining to suspect. Hurricane. It was the begining of the season. How something like that would affect the war was unclear at best, but one thing was certain, it would certainly change the way the war was going. The enemy wouldn't be able to land any re-enforcements or supplies for a few days at least. And maybe, just maybe that would be just what they needed to turn this thing around.
Of course, they would be limited in what they could do as well, but being on their home ground and taking everything from the Cubans that they needed wouldn't change their situation too much. Just hunker down while the worst of the storm was hitting them, and then strike at the Cubans when it started to ease up. Take them by suprise that way.
Maybe, if, possibly. What he wouldn't give for the Weather Channel right about now.
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Thursday the 23rd
The phones have been spotty and I doubt we'll be able to count on them much longer. For most of us, life is settling into a routine of sentry-duty, patrolling the dirt road that makes the "crescent," and clearing land. We've had one more incident of deer intrusion in our lower garden - another case of Sage spooking them off as they approached. I think the upper gardens have been safe because I... well, how do I put it delicately - I "marked my territory" the other night. I'll do it again tonight before I turn in, too.
I've got enough gas to get to Winnfield and check on family and gather the remains of our preps there, but certain other things have kept me here.
Robbin called Tuesday morning. Our families have gotten to know each other through a medieval recreation group - just the sort of people we need now. Earlier this year, we had been talking about our gardens and such - not real preps-oriented talk - and Robbin said, "Rebecca, if there's ever a holocaust, we're coming to your house!"
I looked at her and Jack and said, "Y'all are welcome to come, just be sure you bring the horses." They have four beautiful horses, which Robbin shows in various competitions. One of them even tilts - that's like jousting against targets rather than an opponent. The discussion had devolved quickly into one about cultures that ate horse-meat, but the seed had been planted.
So Robbin called and said they were about out of everything and asked could they move out here with us. It took a whole tenth of a second to deliberate and tell them to come on out. I warned them about the guardpost at the head of the road and told them I'd let the sentry know they were coming and we'd get a hole made for them.
Robbin said they had been packing for days, trying to pare themselves down to what they actually needed and what they'd never need again. I imagine there were a lot of electronics gone into that pile, stuff that cost a small fortune a month ago but that was now worthless. She said Jack was still trying to finish up in his shop - a nicely-stocked one where he made furniture for fun. I told her that if he couldn't get everything in one trip, I was sure we could arrange a return trip with enough vehicles to move anything he considered necessary or worth bringing.
I used one of the liberated ATVs to get to our blockade and we dragged the "gate" truck out of its hole with a come-along to let Jack and Robbin through. Turns out Jack knew the guy who had pulled guard-duty so they chatted for a minute with the promise of a visit once they were ready to settle in.
They even managed to bring their own house with them - a circular teepee-looking tent called a yurt. It was something like 15 feet in diameter, maybe a little more. We'd have to clear a place for them to set it up and a place to paddock the horses. Thanks to the goats, though, it wouldn't take nearly as long and would involve mostly dropping some trees. Horse droppings make good fertilizer and we had planned to go get a pickup-load of it, but TS hit TF before we could do so. Amazingly, the poop had come to us.
For the time being, we decided to set them up in the "bus turnaround" just off the road below our driveway. That way, they'd have plenty of room for their tent and truck parking on one side of the road and for tying out the horses on the other side. So far, no one had heard hide nor hair of the folks who had supposedly bought the property in the drain-bottom across the road from us. I needed to call Mr. Harper again and ask about them - they had started some clearing several weeks ago, but we hadn't seen them recently.
Jack had some more gear he would like to get, if we could spare the manpower to move it. Seems their neighborhood had gotten dicey as people started running out of food. We made the run in my truck with Morgan's trailer hitched on behind and a car full of helpers. We worked hard and fast - I could see where things were starting to go downhill in the neighborhood, but things stayed calm while we were there.
One of the major saves I made at Jack's place was a giant "dinner-bell" they had hanging in the yard. It'll make a great emergency alert device. I also made sure he loaded up the catapult - it might not be in great shape, but we could always use it as a pattern to make more.
Wednesday morning found our phone service to be very spotty. If we make the weekend, I'll be surprised. Several people have taken to calling me "Captain," and I'm afraid it's gonna stick. I spent most of the day helping Jack and Robbin get set up and settled in.
Today I spent going around checking on everyone from our little community on out to the highway and was thankful for the uneventfulness of the last two days.
-
Another wagon train came in and pulled up at the old abandoned road house while we were talking and the old man said he had to go. His brother and some cousins came down from the city to stay for a while. Later that afternoon and evening we could faintly hear music coming from down that way. A mixture of bluegrass and old timey gospel singing. My favorites. Wish I knew them better, I would have liked to have been invited. Got my father's old violin around here somewhere. I keep it for sentimental reasons. Bought a balalika on a whim once long ago and it's around here gathering dust somewhere as well. Wish I had some musical talent. If I didn't feel so embarrassed about everybody listening as I abuse the catgut with my earnest scrapings I just might dig them out. Got the time now. Despite hundreds of dollars and hundreds of manhours I still cannot shuffle out a simple boxstep, nor despite hearing in my inner ear each chord and phrase of the Sleeping Beauty Waltz as clearly and brightly as it was written, I am hopelessly unable to reproduce a single note. It is one of the enduring regrets of my life that I am so musically inept.
The girls had a visitor today. While Peter and Randy and I were out cutting logs it seems that the wife of that old man I had been talking to down at the creek the other day, the ones that were doing all the fiddle playing and gospel singing, came up to visit. Charming lady based on what Bonnie and Nadia said. She brought a jar of homemade huckleberry jam and some honey and they all sat around and had tea and and had a good long chinwag like old friends. We're invited to the next camp meeting.
The other thing that came out as a result of the visit was the news that an informal farmer's market had been organized on weekends up at the county seat in the parking lot of the boarded up grocery store. The hardware store and feed store were open on those market days also. With things as quiet and peaceful we all decide to take a day off and make the drive up. Now that we have the producer gas generator working, more or less, it is not so great an expense.
Wasn't all that much of interest from my point of view. Knickknacks, some fruits and vegetables, worn out furniture and beat up and cheap quality tools that looked like their warranty expired before I was born. It looked a lot to me like a rummage sale. Peter did get some boots for himself and Nadia found some things for the children, but no winter shoes or clothes. Randy and Bonnie wandered around enjoying some ice cream and holding hands. I went over to the feed store. They did have one bag of caustic lye, but no mineral blocks for the cows, and so I went over to the hardware store. They wouldn't take anything in trade that I had so I didn't get the chicken wire and ¾ inch galvanized steel pipe I wanted. Everybody was still having a good time so out of boredom I wandered over towards the Laundromat. There used to be some sort of used car lot back behind there and for a time last year I had seen a Mercedes UniMog parked over there. Boy, what I wouldn't give for a combat engineer model of the UniMog 406, with the Schaeff front loader and HT-11A backhoe attachments. Those were decommissioned German and Swiss military units with canvas tops. Always said that one day I would have a convertible Mercedes! Alas, no sign of the Mog.
But of all the goofy unexpected aspects of this technicolor apocalypse the sight that greeted me through the window of the Laundromat had to take the cake; the tv was on!
Now I haven't watched tv since the Reagan administration. Back in the before times when I lived over on the coast near Seattle, the little town I lived in was situated behind a great big mountain that blocked television over the air broadcasts from Seattle. I was too cheap to pay the cable mafia so I never had tv. Here in East Tree Stump, in the middle of global collapse, I find a working tv. And in a scene right out of the pre holocaust, all of the mother's had left their kids to be pacified while they rummaged around the tables and booths. There was a "clicker war" going on between the kids over which channel to watch. As usual. Flipping through the few channels that had something besides static I could see that nothing had changed since the last time I had watched television. You got your chase scene featuring girls with dangerously oversized breasts carrying swords. You got your slow motion pseudo-intellectual chase scene in the city featuring girls with no discernible breasts carrying briefcases. You got your bald girls desperately in need of cosmetic surgery, wearing skin tight pajamas showing off their breasts and shooting phaser weapons out in space. You got your G.I. Jane girls who can out-kickbox men and who are constantly working up a sweat fighting steroid poisoned Mr. Universe contenders leaving their uniform blouses unbuttoned to show off their breasts. And you got your navel gazing talking head girls who even now seem unable to find anything at all in the world to talk about except their breasts. And then there are the other cartoon shows. Don't get me wrong here. Like every healthy male between 12 and rigor mortis it is impossible for me to look a woman in the face without deliberately thinking about doing so. But come on! Is there nothing else of interest to put on the talking lamp? I ambled back to the rummage sale. It was less boring.
I didn't see anybody pay for anything in junk silver or gold. It doesn't mean they weren't, only that I didn't see any such transactions. Some people were even taking regular paper currency, federal notes and coins just like before. Most however were swapping goods for goods. Straight barter. Saw some labor for goods barter going on between folks who obviously knew each other. I don't think that very many people acquired and hoarded junk silver and gold back before when things were different and the world functioned on a debt and credit economy. Nobody ever really believed it would end. Nobody ever really believed that this could happen. Including most of the doomsday crowd. Things like this just don't happen outside of movie theaters. I'm not sure how much I believed it. In spite of all my preparations. We all of us wake up every morning and tell ourselves a story. The career story. The church on Sunday story. The family vacation and summer home story. The vote for elected officials and banking and tv evening news story. No matter how many times we get our noses rubbed in it, those we believe in. We walk around in our self-assigned roles and play out our parts. From time to time we rewrite our little one man, one woman revues. The divorce and remarriage story. The new job and move to a new town story. We sometimes reflect on a given chapter, sometimes doubt the validity of this or that scene, but we never actually question the fundamental assumptions of our story. Always we assume that we determine the plot and have control over how the story ends. Everyday is another episode of Chesterton's "the Man who was Thursday" for each of us. So in spite of waking up one fine spring morning and finding that the fundamental shapes and organization of the world we live in had changed beyond all recognition, here we were at what for all appearances looked like any other Sunday's community garage sale with people acting in all the usual and expected ways subject only to slight variations in mode and manner imposed by circumstance. The show, as always, goes on. The scheduled program having been interrupted, we were now in reruns.
-
Come together…
Friday - dawn
Had our organizational meeting last night. Representatives of resistance groups came from as far as southern Sumter county to the south to Valdosta, Georgia to the north and west to Madison, which is just this side of Tallahassee. Two Army spec ops officers showed as well, orchestrated by Sgt. Peterson. They brought radios to distribute to each group along with code books. We worked out call signs, set up message relays and generally got the feel for one another. Since it seems to have fallen to me to act as resistance liaison and coordinator I made a special point to meet and speak with all of the group representatives.
The Army proposed a plan which would enable us to begin to deny the I-75 corridor to the Cubans. The timing and coordination between the groups is trickier than I like but if everyone doesn't show up to the party on time we can still do some real damage and pull our people out before the Cubans are able to do real damage to us. They also brought along a load of weaponry, almost all anti-armor and anti-air missiles which indicates to me how badly they want us to succeed here since they have to be in critically short supply for the regular forces. Even between what they brought and what we've captured we still don't have much but it should be enough to make Charley's pilots and tank commanders nervous and keep them from getting too bold.
We haven't heard of any resistance groups from west of Tallahassee. The Cubans have quite a lot of manpower in the western panhandle, most especially around Milton and Pensacola where the Interstate crosses the bays. The Interstate and Highway 90 bridges in that area are critical to his logistical lifeline and it's believe he air dropped a full regimental combat team onto it the first night out and has now reinforced it heavily with air defenses. With the front so far to the north there's just not much our military can do about them right now.
As our meeting was going down we blew the I-75 Santa Fe river bridge, thanks to Ed Dykes, the mine manager who brought us the dynamite. Taking out six lanes of a fair sized Interstate highway bridge was more of a job than we could handle with the limited amount of explosives that we had before. Our new combat engineers did it in one go. With the drought and all the Santa Fe is little more than a creek now but it's not something you can just run a truck across either. Charley will now have to detour through Fort White or Worthington Springs, either of which improves our harass and delay chances.
Pete has six of the ballistas completed and has trained a man for each to act as a "gunner" for his piece to lay and aim it. With two men as gunner's assistants to work the winches necessary to cock them we now have a ballista battery. They're mounted on balloon tires for ease of access over rough ground. Says they are beginning to reliably drop a liquid filled three liter wine bottle on target out to 450 yards with a high angle of trajectory so we'll be able to use them for indirect fire. He's working on more but is having to scrounge for more suitable truck leaf springs.
Several tanks made the convoy run today. Parker says they're of a design that was obsolete over twenty years ago relative to our main battle tanks but they're still tanks right enough. This complicates planning but if we can get more anti-armor missiles it's not an impossible situation. He ran more choppers as well. Our last convoy hit must have hurt them pretty bad for them to be expending the resources he is on convoy duty.
Finally starting to get some shortwave reception from Europe. Hard to tell what is for real, what is disinformation and what is just speculation. Sounds like the U.K., and Germany were hit hard, with France and Italy hit to a lesser extent. The Russians have either made deep incursions into western Europe or they've been repulsed with heavy casualties. Who knows? Major forces building on the Israeli border so we may get to see more nuke detonations if they make Israel too nervous. China has been very silent since we nuked her river dams but the West Coast invasion front seems to be continuing. Russia definitely seems to be devolving into an internal war with several of her midcontinent "republics" in revolt and mutinies in her second and third tier combat units. Supposed to be hard fighting in Texas but we can't tell from here if we're winning or losing there. The Mississippi Valley front is supposedly days or a few weeks from joining which would split the country in twain but other sources say that we've stopped them and are about to start a counter offensive. Peterson says he can't get good info either. The Plant City group has been out of contact today and didn't come up on the CB telegraph when they normally do.
The radiation people at the hospital says that the background count for the area has been steadily climbing for days now so I suppose the really fine dust blown into the upper atmosphere by the various detonations worldwide has had time to distribute itself. We're at about three and a half times normal background now and steadily climbing. Just part of the new facts of life that we're all going to have to learn to live with. I'll worry about my increased cancer risk *if* I survive the war!
……….Alan.
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Friday the 31st
The last week has been crazy. The phones died on Friday and haven't been back on since. Saturday morning I was clearing more land, dropping small trees with my bow-saw, when my FRS came on and Rebecca told me the guardpost at the highway was calling for me. I hotfooted it up to the house to find out there was a group of people at the barricade, trying to get through to me. They wouldn't identify themselves, but were insistent that they be let through. I took an ATV and circled around one of the backroads to come out on the highway so as to not come into an ambush. When I got into view of our barricade, I saw an 18-wheeler parked on the side of the road. A quick scan w/ the binocs confirmed it was another family of our friends. Geez, I've turned into a refugee-magnet! I eased on down until I got to the barricade and my gate-guard and the newcomer both started talking at once. Hearing the gate-guard call me "Captain" sure didn't hurt things when I told Richard that no one was allowed through unless they were vouched-for to me in person and were escorted from the gate to where they were heading.
Richard had his wife and their two kids in the truck. Unfortunately, the trailer was filled just with their possessions - he'd been empty when everything crumbled and had headed home immediately. I'd hoped it was filled with generators or something useful. Richard was an LPN/Surgical Technician, so having them here would be a great boon to our medical service. The only problem was where to put them. For now, we broke out tents and tarps to house them.
Attendance at church-service Sunday morning was something in the range of 70 people. We *really* needed a building to meet in should it ever decide to rain on us, so I decided I'd go up the road to the church camp and talk to them about using their facilities. You could tell by the looks of the "pot-luck" that folks were starting to run low in their supplies - tuna casseroles seemed to be the theme of the day. Rebecca made four loaves of wheat bread and a "shepherd's pie" of hamburger meat and veg-all with a bisquit-dough crust.
Sunday night brought a blessing of much-needed rain and so we sat in the dark, listening to it pour down.
Monday morning Rebecca and I loaded up a couple of trucks and trailers and headed for Winnfield. I had a lot of stuff stored in one of dad's storage trailers that we needed to get - something like a dozen buckets of food stores, assuming bugs hadn't already eaten it all plus books and tools and medical supplies. Plus, we needed to check on my family folks down there. Not that I could do much for them, mind you.
I tapped Richard and his son Chris to ride as extra muscle and trigger fingers, so they'd earn their keep. Jack was getting his woodshop set up and I didn't want to slow *that* project down at all. Bec and I decided we needed to stay on the backroads as much as possible and avoid all the little towns and villages we could. We studied my Louisiana gazetter hard, figuring out the best ways to go. We also opted to take our FRS radios in addition to the cb's.
The trip took a minor forever, since we were taking the less-than-direct route on roads I wasn't familiar with, but we got there with no untoward adventures. Bec did find a stand of echinacia plants growing in the ditch alongside the road, so we stopped on the side of the road and dug several of them for transplanting.
No one knew for sure where dad was - consensus held that he had gone to OKC to see mom the Friday before *IT* happened. That was over two weeks ago. I have no idea at all what happened up thataway, but with a major airbase, the state capitol, and a major international airport - plus its potential for use as a "backup DC," I'm sure it was on at least *one* of the hit-lists. And, if Governor Keating survived, I'm sure he locked the place up tighter than a drum - assuming there was anything *left* to lock up. Mom is dependent on modern medicine to stay alive, so I doubt very seriously she is still alive. I just hope she didn't suffer. For now, I have to push that to the back of my brain and keep going - too many people depending on me now.
Aunt Charlotte's husband has been home sick with hepatitius C. I'd been wondering on the trip down if he'd ended up caught offshore somewhere. The first week of *IT*, he stayed drunk - until he ran out of alcohol to drink. Seems he left in a desperate rage and hasn't been seen since. I talk Aunt Charlotte out of my inheritance - a Johnson M1941 rifle in pristine condition, chambered in .30-06. They'd promised it to me ages ago if something ever happened to Randy. I could go home right now and call the trip worthwhile. But there are the trailers on dad's place to deal with.
We pass dad's house and Bec spots several garlic plants in full bloom, so we pull in and start digging. Wow - the place is wrapped up in escapist garlic! We'd dug some a year or two ago and I guess we were the only ones who did. We've got plenty for replanting at our place now. His house is pretty much bare of anything usable - some stuff in the pantry but not a whole lot. TEA!!! Yes, God *is* looking out for me, because there are three boxes of tea-bags in the pantry. Lots of books - I find his copy of "Back to Basics" and put it in the truck - family pictures go in, too. His 12-gauge and ammo for it an a .22 that he never got around to buying go into the truck. There's a small tv/vcr combo - not 12-volt, but small enough to be easy on juice. Keera will get to watch a movie from time to time, now.
The storage trailer was *filthy*! Bugs had eaten my bags of treated wheat and left behind nothing but powder. Rats or some other form of large rodent have gotten up inside the trailer and torn up all sorts of stuff to make their nests. We set to work cleaning it all out so I can sort out the useful from the ruined. I've got 10 buckets of storage food - 2 wheat, 1 flour, 3 rice, 3 corn, and 1 of hickory nuts. They were all packed in '99 and stashed here, when we thought we'd be moving onto dad's place. I can't tell if there are any bugs or bug-damage inside the buckets with a quick glance. If there is, we can at least use the "damaged" buckets as seed. We managed to almost totally load my truck with just our stuff - foodstuffs, books, toys, camping gear, the remains of a chemistry set, a pressure canner, etc.
We run out of daylight long before we finish in the storage trailer, so we'll crash in Mammaw's floor for the night. I sure am glad dad didn't let her fill in the old well - we can draw water for baths. I make sure everyone who worked inside the trailer drinks some colloidal silver to head off any problems from hanta virus, since we were definitely disturbing rodent nests and wading thru rodent offal.
We had brought stuff for our breakfast, eggs and pancake mix, and cooked it outside on our little charchoal grill. Then we started on the medical supplies - trach-tubes, butterfly closures, scalpel blades, iv starters, an autoclave, a centrifuge...unbelievable.
I hesitate over the model train boxes but decide to leave them here. The 2-man crosscut saw goes in the truck, as do several other tools.
I look in dad's shop trailer and am again amazed at what all he stored. Not so much of the food is left - he'd been feeding the families since 2000. We load up what's left and start trying to organize all the tools for travel - cutting torch, MiG welding rig, mechanic's tools, blacksmith's forge, table saw, lumber, t-posts, fence wire...
I thought I'd have to break into the office trailer, since the only known key to it is on the keyring in his pocket. But a quick trip back up to his house turns up another key that fits - halleujiah! I could almost hook a truck onto it and pull it home just like it is. It is chock full of hazmat and rescue gear - airpacks, respirators, monitoring instruments, rope, stretchers, slings, harnesses, chemical suits...you name it and it's in there. I must have said something out loud, because Richard reminds me that he *is* a truck driver. Problem is that I have no idea which trucks run. I leave that to Richard to figure out.
We had to spend another night. I siphoned all the gas and deisel I could out of his collection of antique trucks and loaded the 55-gallon drum of gas. We were loaded to the gills. Bec and the baby had walked up the road and she came back excited for having found another medicinal herb growing on the side of the road on national forest land. A good bit of it got dug up for transport, too.
It was late wednesday when we got back to Sandy Ridge. The trip wasn't quite so uneventful this time. Quite a few trees were felled across the roads, so we would detour around them, rather than trying to move them - no telling if there was an ambush or not. We had a couple of incidents of rock-throwing, one shotgun attack from a desperate-looking guy, and a running gunfight with a pickup filled with gun-toting idiots. They were doing their best to hit just the tires and drivers so as to not damage the loot. My crew didn't have any such constraints, so we won in short order. We didn't stop to check them over when their truck finally veered off into a ditch - I'm sure someone will come along and salvage their guns and gas if none of them survive to do it.
Joy of joys - as we pass one of the local dumpsters, I spot a couple of old water heaters and we load them on top of everything. We can use those for making a solar water-heater or something.
While we were gone, one of the trailers around behind us caught fire and burnt to the ground. There's no trace of survivors from either family - the remaining trailer is standing wide open to the world. I think that's what we'll do with our refugee families - put Richard's crew in the remaining trailer and set Jack and Robbin up in the other area. I feel sorry for the folks that got killed in a vague sort of way - but I never knew them personally and one of them had tried to put up a tree-stand on my property last fall. Even after Bec and Curtis moved it, the guy cleared on *my* side of the property line and scattered corn! Not real neighborly actions, if you ask me. They never did come to church services or anything, so I can't really mourn them.
Jack is a prince among men. One of his tools he almost left behind - would have, if I hadn't gone back for a second load - is a chainsaw and an attachment to use it as a sawmill. All the trees we have to cut down to clear for crops or livestock can be turned into building material. Maybe I'll get that roofover after all! Jack gets one of the generators that we've salvaged so he can run his wood-shop. Granted, he's planning to do as much as he can without power to save gas and oil, but sometimes we are just going to need power for something like the tablesaw. The smaller tools can run off the inverter, too.
I ask Jack if there's a way to rig a tablesaw to run off treadle or pedal power and he gives me a funny look. Now I've given him a problem to solve.
We've been working all day yesterday and today to unload, sort, organize, clean, weed through, and just generally figure out exactly what all we now have. I feel like a sheep in wolf's clothing - I have so many of the right tools and such, but I barely know enough to help someone *else* use them properly...
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"Eeeeyowww!"
"What is it?" everyone said all at once as they rushed into the room.
"I gobba bro 'n toof." I garbled
Years ago I had had a back molar break. Seems I'm one of those people prone to grinding my teeth while I sleep. Dr. Painless darn near had to sit on me with a knee on my chest to cut and pull the pieces out of my jaw. Now an old filing had come out and left me with a ragged chunk of stubborn enamel firmly rooted in place. I washed out my mouth with hydrogen peroxide and cracked open the emergency dental gunk. Do it yourself dentistry is not an easy thing, nor is it a replacement for good dentistry. It's not even a replacement for mediocre dentistry. But it was all we had. That and some clove oil. I wish I had some super glue. It wouldn't fix the problem. It wouldn't replace the need for a real dentist. But it would seal up the cavity even in the presence of saliva and make me a whole lot more comfortable until I could get to a dentist. It also works in the presence of blood and so makes a good suture replacement for small wounds. Heart surgeons use a pharmaceutical grade of the stuff for vascular suturing. Sure wish I had some of the stuff right about now. Owww!
It took me an hour trying every dentist in the phone book to find one that still answered the ring. He had a smallish hobby farm just outside of town on the way to the county seat and a smallish practice in a guest house type of office at his home. He agreed to take a bottle of sour mash in trade and I made an appointment for the next day. My teeth are like the rest of me; stubborn and unwilling to yield until sufficiently convinced or motivated. So I'm not sure it would have done any good, but I wish someone had set me down when I was still in short pants and impressed upon me the importance of taking better care of my teeth and my feet. And I wish someone would have explained to me at that tender age the Rule of 72. Had I understood the power of compound interest early enough in life to have had the magic work in my favor I might have had this farm much better fitted out and self-sustaining at this point. Maybe some 100 watt solar panels and a box full of Trojan batteries. Or not. There were quite a few in the last couple of years who had to sell their "summer retreats" when their Dot.Com investments went bust. Almost wish I had dentures so that I could let this tooth throb in a glass of water instead of in my mouth. I think I'll go rub it with some of Peter's homemade pain(t) remover.
Thinking about solar panels tickles a node in some dusty memory bank and called to mind the old hot air boxes and solar water heating panels from the "Back to the Land" movement of the 70's. Spring and summer here in the Rocky mountains the weather typically runs to 70 to 80F days and nights ranging from the upper 30's to bath water warm. Winters however cold or snowy tend to feature brilliantly clear and sunny days. We have no great need of such things now, but every little boost we could get out of them come winter would a blessing.
The wagon trains became a semi regular feature of life, coming and going once or twice a month. When I got back to the farm from my visit with the tooth mechanic I was greeted by an odd sight. I thought that Randy and Bonnie had just spent the day at the town rummage market walking around sightseeing and what not. But someone had painted all the crossbucks at the corners of our fences, the "X" braces that stiffened the fences wherever there was a corner, a lovely shade of baby blue. With white stars. I knew a fellow once who kept a working double barreled stagecoach gun over his mantel. He had teenage daughters. A way of marking his territory as it were. Randy was raising the Saint Andrews Cross. I knew better than to ask. And I wasn't sure I wanted to know anyway. One thing I've learned in life is that a lot of things don't need to be solved if you let them be. Too often I've seen people drive themselves to distraction with a solution desperately in search of a problem. Seemed to me that this was one of those times. If he develops a sudden interest in pillow cases and bedsheets I'll look into it.
While I was up getting my tooth fixed I hunted around and managed to locate another carburetor for the one ton. Had peter weld up the modified twin carb setup and rejet to use an alchohol laced gasoline mixture. Now it starts on the gas / alchohol mix and is then switched to pure wood gas for running. I guesstimate it has probably 90% of its full power and we are getting a fuel economy of about 1 pound of dried 1-2 inch sized blocks of wood per mile. Managed to also pickup another bag of caustic lye to make some bio-diesel fuel. Which we can also use in kerosene lamps - smells like a fast food joint when it burns. But it burns. And that's all that matters.
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Things are certainly changeing. The northern patrols had returned, with a radio and a code book no less. Even though He still hadn't made direct contact, the Colonel was certain that Alan was involved with the resistance in the north.
Then there were the people that the patrol had sent back from the west side of the river. An actual doctor and his wife/nurse. An answer to a prayer are those two. They told how the Cubans had been impressing anyone with medical training to serve their needs, as well as anybody with skills they might need. Fortunetly this Dr. was a fairly good machanic as well from working on a collection of cars that he had owned before the war. So instead of being locked up at night with other medical personnel, he was allowed to return home to spend the night. It had taken a while, but he had managed to finally get himself and his wife free. During the time he had been in the garage working, he had learned enough from gossip among the Cubans to know that if he crossed the river, they would be free again.
Between what the Dr. had to say, and the patrols, when they returned, the Colonel knew that their actions had really been effective against the Cubans. They were now calling the Ocala Forest, the "Forest of Death". Well that was reasonable. Everyone they sent out to the forest, was still there. Just not breathing. More important, something really was going on up north. The Cubans had pulled so many men out of the city of Ocala area that there remained little more than a token force to hold the city, and little inbetween Silver Springs, just east of Ocala, and the forest its'self. This gave the Colonel an idea.
After a breif and heavily coded conversation with their northern friends, the colonel had lead a large force across the river at night. They moved to within a few miles of Ocala before halting for the day. After resting and doing a little work, they moved to within a few hundred yards of the Ocala airport.
The damage from the attack that had been carried out by someone before them had been mostly cleared up, and the airport was loaded with more aircraft. That suited him just fine.
They waited for the night to come, and finished preperations.
They waited untill a little after 10 p.m. before starting. In order, the five trebuchets would fire a barrel filled with oil, or some other flammable liquid, that had numerous detenators placed on the outside. Apon striking earth, they would burst open and ignite. In minutes the airport was in flames. Everything from the terminal to the control tower was burning merrily, and there no longer were any serviceable aircraft anywhere on the field. On top of that, with the damage done to the runways, nothing would be useing them untill they had been compleatly rebuilt.
While this was going on the assault force moved up and began to either steal, or destroy everything with wheels that they could find. Their orders have been simple enough. If they could take it, they did. If it wouldn't start, burn it.
Twenty minutes after the start of the action, the Colonel gave the order to burn the trebuchets, since they couldn't take them back, being too large and heavy to easily disassemble. The stolen trucks and cars pulled up and the force piled in and off they went. Not all the way back to the forest, but they stopped several miles west of it, where the vehicles were promptly hidden, and a base camp set up.
As far as they knew, it was the first time in Florida that any ground had been retaken from the enemy. They wouldn't give it up again.
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I got my friend Bruce patched up and showed him around. Our little two acre farm now consisted of about 20 acres, two trailers, our house and four outbuildings. Six adults and three children. Our power supply was constant. One wind generator, four solar panels, and Shakey's static electricity collector. Our eight Trojans were kept topped off and in great shape! Our biggest problem was gasoline. We were down to less then a hundred gallons of stored fuel with no more in sight!!! I still had one wind generator in reserve and two solar panels. All of my travels were done by motorcycle. One gets about 50 miles per gallon and the other one gets about 80 mpg!!
Our wood for this winter has already been cut and split and is ready for the woodburners. We have five woodburners, three large boxes, one homemade for the chicken coop and one mil type for use in tents as a reserve. I hope our twenty cords of wood will be enough, if not we'll all be living in the main house this winter.
The main house consists of two semi-buried concrete domes of 25 ft diameter. Only the fronts of the domes are expossed to the heat and cold. The house seems to stay around 65 degrees most of the time.
After a couple of days, I explained to everyone again why I had to go down to Payson and see who was still alive. Bruce begged to go, but I told him "next trip". He just wasn't in good enough shape to go. He was very worried about ol' Roy and his family!
Once again I got my gear together and mounted on the BMW. As planned before, I would get as close as possible and then walk in. This time I decided to take my sniper rifle and ghillie suit and avoid all contact if possible. Only George, Steve and ol' Roy would ever know I was there, if they were still alive that is!!!!
I set out the next morning at 5:00 am. It was about 50 degrees out and the wind had already started up. I got to the outskirts of Payson and stashed the bike by 8 o'clock. I stopped to eat a couple of corn dodgers and refill my canteen at a stream. I hiked first toward Washington Park and George's place. Before all of this happened, George and his dad had moved to their house in the mountains. They had built most of it themselves and it was worth about 300,000 $. One beautiful place!!!
I reached the base of the mountain that their house was built on by noon. It took me another four hours to climb up the mountain. I was nearly exhausted by the time I saw the house. It had been burnt to the ground!!!! I was pissed!!! I went down the road until I reached their nearest neighbor, Dorothy. I yelled out "hello the house" as was the custom. No reply! Dorothy's collie wasn't around either! I shouted again. This time I heard "hold it right there" in reply. I knew Dorothy, but not her son! I held up and waited for what seemed like an eternity!!! Finally, A voice said "it's okay, I know him"!!!
What a relief, it was George!!! George came out on homemade crutches. He had taken a bullet in the leg and was still healing up.
I asked George what had happened to his house? He told me to come in and get something to eat and he would tell me the story.
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bump
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This is the way we wash our clothes! Wash our clothes! Wash our clothes!
Remember that old song? I dont. Thats the only part I remember. And as I help wash our clothes this keeps going round and round in my head. Talk to the Corgi just to get it out of my head. She dont say much but she's a good listener. Will stick her big dark eyes on me and those big pointy ears at full attention and just listen. I wont start singing this phrase cause I'm afraid she'll bite me. Want to bite myself to stop singing it.
How do we wash our clothes? Well,we bought one of those little white cranky thingies before and at first we tried using that. Found it was good for 4 pairs of underwear or one pair of blue jeans. If thats all we did all day,it was a good washer.
Now, we use the bathtub in the RV. It isnt full size so everything stays under the plunger better. And I plunge and to myself sing THIS is the WAY we WASH our CLOTHES,wash OUR clothes,WASH our CLOTHES! And in that rhythm. It helps pass the time.
We are so fortunate to have the RV. We still have plenty of propane for cooking and the hot water heater. At least for now.
Water is kind of a pain. The gray water we run off a ways from the RV. Wont hurt anything and sure wont be someone to yell at us. The black water (just the toilet) is being dumped into the sewer. That is only about 5 gallons a week or so. I only use the toilet for my "number two" (remember that one? And no I dont sing to that!) I have a designated tree when I'm around the RV for my "number one".
Problem is there are now anywhere from 15-20 RVers here on the shore (actually the parking lot) of the Straits of Mackinac.
The number changes as people come into town and then some move on.
We are a fort in the wilderness. Literally.
The NG troops are back from the north end of the bridge. They didnt rout the Sovs but they sure bloodied his nose. And blacked their eyes. And their testicles are swollen as well. They skulked (acutally screamed) back up to Sault Ste. Marie. Left a lot of stuff that they couldnt get back on their trucks. And now,neener neener we got it. Quite a bit of food supplies for what its worth. And a lot of ammo,explosives,and even some artillery.
The fort. An honest to goodness,wall all the way around it fort.
This fort had been totally reconstructed from the war of 1812 and earlier.Complete with all the buildings inside. Blacksmith,store,barracks and even a couple of private homes.
It was wired for the modern sense and the NG have a humongous generator that more than does the job. What NGs dont fit in the fort they have taken up residence in the nearby downtown area. There are patrols going out of the fort all the time. And thats good. They have a multi-purpose. One is to go out to all the OP's in the area. We have a good size one sitting on 1-75 about 15-20 miles south of us. They are there in case the Sovs try another run at us from Detroit area. Of course they are not a static post in themselves. They far range the side roads east and west of themselves to watch as well.
There are also the same kind of posts on 23 along Lake Huron and another on 31 that is west of 75 and nearer Lake Michigan.
Logistacally it is a very defensible area.
We even have a few surface to air missile sites in case the Sov airboys get near us.
Our lake patrol is small and civilian. Just one power boat and the rest are sailboats. They are all radio equipped and they only report,no battle plans for them.
The RVs. We have made a circle down near the shore but east of 75 whereas the fort is west of 75. We cant see the fort,but we can hear the vehicles coming and going. We rigged up the town siren for our warning signal. And yes,it does remind you of a circle of old covered wagons in the old west. A few differences. Most of us have found steel plate that we have hung from the sides of the RVs and also covered the tires. It would probably only stop small arms fire,but we sleep a lot better with it in place. Several of us that have been here the longest have taken old ice shanties and placed them on the roofs of the RVs. We can still move around with them in place,just not very fast. Course dont want to move too fast anyway to conserve gas. Thank goodness it has been warm. I rarely run the genny anymore. We are into lanterns and candles and such. Most of the time,by dark we have hit the hay anyway.
The shanties on top of the RVs help our sentries to keep an eye out in a bigger area. We never let our guard down even with our outposts in place.
The guys (and some gals) with military experience coordinate with the NG here as the militia. All of us will be needed if there is a concerted effort to move on us.
We are all scroungers. Everything could be valuable. There are scrounge parties out all day long. Whatever,dont matter what, it is valuable. Who knows when anything will be made again,if ever.
In the scrounging,we work together. There are collection spots,like warehouses and old lumber yards that we inventory and store the things we scrounge.
There are walking civilian patrols out day and night. The slugs and thugs and loners killing and looting are a danger. Once in awhile we have had groups of 10 to 20 trying to raid the outskirts. They cause damage and death,but we have beat them back or hung them all as an example. Quite a sight to see them hanging along the outskirts of town on the major highways. Should make others think twice before raiding us.
Gardens have been started and are looking pretty good for this far north. Wood being cut for this winter. I would like to stay in the RV this winter but I still have to come up with a heater. Propane isnt going to last forever and we need it for more important things.
We are a city of about 1500 to 2000 right now. We need every one of us if we are to survive.
And I want to survive.
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Well, the sun was high in the sky before Cedric, wife and kids ever made a move to wake up. I left them to come to on their own. Went outside into our "patio" between the two RVs and Steven and Shane were both sawing logs. I figured that none of then had had a good meal and restful night for a long time. They knew they didn't have to sleep with one ear open. Finally about noon everyone was up and had had some sort of a bath, a couple of cups of coffee and some grits and eggs. Now we were ready to sit and talk. Or rather Bud, CH and the guys were ready to talk.
I took Liz aside as I had a very real concern about the kids making noise. She said not to worry as they were well trained and tested. They had been hiding out in the woods along the river for over two weeks and the kids knew not to speak except in a whisper. She said if they hadn't realized that on their own they would have all been deal long ago. I guess she and the kids have had it pretty bad. Cedric, being in the NG had to leave his family and had been out on I 75 south of Ocala doing a lot of convoy attacks. In the meantime, some rowdy jerks had come through and had gotten off the rode far enuff to spot their house. There were 5 men and all drunk per LIz. She grabbed the kids and headed out the back door, around the horse barn and into the woods. Before it was over, they had burned the house to the ground and shot all the horses. The family shepherd was with her and the kids. During the night Liz would steal out and go to the house and dig out the stuff that was still useable. She got a lot of kitchen stuff like cast iron pans and some silver ware and even some food as the entire kitchen hadn't burned. She didn't know where the guys had gone to and was not about to move back into the open. One night when the rain and the lightening was so bad, she and the kids slept in the barn with the dog on guard. She did have a 410 with her and one box of ammo. She vowed if she could ever come up on those guys she would get them all. But they had left and never returned. I suspect that they are the same 5 that are swinging from a large oak limb up by the corner of SR 40 and 314-A. I heard that some guys tried to attack one of the militai groups up there.
Well....from my evesdropping of the conversation going on outside the trailer, it seems that Cedric not only has a lot of information for the militia but has stashed away a humvee and its full of communications and some kind of arsenal that he feels needs to be taken north. He and Steve and Shane are going to hike down to the river tonight and then float on down toward Silver Springs where the humvee is stashed out in the State Preserve. They hope to be back here by morning, have another day of food and rest and then head out to try and catch up with Day Late and then onto Alan.
CH is bitching 'cause he can't go with them, but he can hardly get in and out of the trailer yet and certainly has no endurance. And Bud sure can't go off with his handicap. He does well enuff right around here and doing his turn at century duty. With Liz and the kids here now, we are going to have to inventory the food situation and start making up some menus rather than, "whatta ya want to eat tonight". Two things we have a lot of are rice and beans and we also have corn and wheat/ Seems to me that even though Liz's kids are but 4 and 10 that they can do some of the chores. Certainly TJ can as he is a bright as a new penny and has always had a lot of motor skill and brains.
Bonnie and Liz are going down to the swamp where it swings in under some dense trees and they are going to do some laundry. They will take the kids too as they are all filthy. I give her two big towels and a bar of soap. I also get into my box of preps for hygiene and give her some toothpaste and tooth brushes. You would have thought I had given her the world. How ones values change in so short of time. But they will all feel so much better being clean again.
While they are gone, Bud goes out on sentry duty and I begin getting things ready for supper. The two bikers will be here too and I will also need to send a meal out to Bud. As per usual there is something cooking in the bush box. Thats the first thing I do in the morning is decide what is for dinner and get it going in the bush box. Tonight its a big roast of venison and some carrots, potatos all canned by Walmrt and then a qt of canned onions that I did before TSHTF. The next thing I do each morning is get the batteries out of the flash lights and get them into the charger and out into the sun. Now I am rady for this days project which is to inventory all supplies, especially food. We will have more mouths to feed, but Liz can sure help make up for CH and can give Bud a hand with sentry duty and things that need to be done around here. I decide that I need some corn ground and I show TJ how to do it and me makes short shift of it. His mother says he knows how to cook it pretty well and that he knows how to fix limas, black eyed peas, collard and turnip greens. Alas....I didn't prep with any of those things. Bu will let bake the corn bread tonite with a little supervision. Now its time to start on the inventory while its light and there is room to set stuff out on the ground. Will try and give a further accounting tomorrow. WIll have to stay up late and get food packets and some thing for water for the 3 heading out to meet up with Alan. Since they have the Humvee they will be able to carry some jugs of water with them.
I have to go to bed. CH can wait up for them to get back with the Humbee.
Taz
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Even though the raid on the Ocala airport had gone well, the Colonels mood was like the clouds over head. Getting darker by the hour. After they had gotten off the road near the junction of s.r. 40 and 314, and had hidden everything well, it didn't take long before the sentries pulled in a couple of civilians that were running from the Ocala/Silver Springs area.
With the airport now useless to them and their aircraft destroyed, not to mention several vehicles missing, some loaded with supplies headed for the northern area of the forest, the Cubans had gone crazy. They had lost some 20 men in the raid. They had either hung or shot 200 in reprisal. Also major portions of the city were burning, with no hope of putting out the flames.
As they questioned the refugees, two things became clear. Most of the people of Ocala were overjoyed to see someone hitting the enemy hard, reguardless of the cost. Secondly, the people of that area were ready to rise up and fight back, if they could get the much needed support.
The Colonel wanted to give that support, but it was simply impossible at this time. Instead, He began to run through the men he had available and soon came up with a short list of men that he knew could get into town without being caught, and could begin to show the people there how it was done. It wasn't much, but it was all he could do for now.
He then began to set about finding the answer to the next problem. The Army wanted to deny the use of I-75 to the Cubans. Well that was fine, except in his location on the east side of the river it left him with a long way to go to get to the party when it started. Now that they were on the west side, He needed to know where the Cubans were massing. It wouldn't do any good to have all these men here and then stumble into a force larger than their own. Once again recon patrols went out, with orders to avoid contact at all costs. He knew the enemy was north of him so two patrols were sent that way, flanking each side of 314. At the first sign of the enemy, they were to fall back and move in slowly at night, in order to try to get as much intell as possible and still make it back.
Again, He looked at the sky. If this wasn't a major weather front moving in, then things would get most interesting. If it were a hurricane, He really didn't want to have his men caught in the open when it hit. He began checking into the best way to shelter them.