“Sure, and maybe, if they have children, there is hope for our own kids, when they grow up. They won’t be alone. They’ll have others out there.” Paadi said, her voice thoughtful.
Paadi was turning into a wonderful mother. He liked that about her, she had endless patience with the children and a childlike joy.
“We’ll raise them to be strong and with the ability to survive this new life.” BJ said. He grinned when she reached over and patted his shoulder. He drove the secondary road and they pulled into the parking area. BJ saw Brian and Emma working on the insulated storage shed. They were putting tongue and grove pine siding along the sides. The shed looked good. The shelves he built would hold a hell of a lot of canning jars. It would also keep foods cool in there. They’d started storing the eggs in there. They’d built up quite a batch of eggs. The surplus of eggs helped supplement the dog’s food.
They still had plenty of dog food, but since Daisy got pregnant, they gave her a little bit more. They wanted healthy pups. Brian and Emma stopped working and the kids came running around the house. Everyone looked forward to unloading the truck. There was always something new. BJ grinned when Dillan ran behind, a determined look on his face. He’d started calling BJ daddy and it had melted his heart. He caught Dillan in his arms as the boy launched himself. He lifted the child above him, laughing, then brought him in for a hug.
“We just met our neighbors, nice folks.” BJ said, putting Dillan on his shoulders as he began to pull bags out of the back of the truck.
“Do we? Tell all.” Brian smiled.
“Apparently, out the backway, a couple miles down the road, they have a farm. They were on horseback. They said they’d met another group about six miles away, east of us.” BJ said.
“Seemed like good folks then?” Emma asked, coming up behind.
“Yeah, got a real good feeling about them. They said the other folks were good people as well. Like us, they seemed like they got together to survive. I’m glad we’re not totally alone.” Paadi said, Hailey glued to her side.
BJ smiled at her comment, he knew it bothered her quite a bit, to think they were all alone and so isolated. He too worried about it, but not for himself. For the children. In twenty years, these children would be grown, and with so few people left in the world, he’d hate to think of them so isolated. Now, knowing there were other good people close by, that was a blessing. It eased his heart and his mind. He swung Dillan up to his shoulders, the child squealed in delight.
“Wow, this is a nice haul. Thanks for getting all the material.” Emma chirped happily, carrying several bolts of cloth in her arms.
“I tried to get a variety and also heavy cottons. There are a few light weight cotton fabric, figured those would be good for summer. I also picked up some simple patterns, figured we could teach each other how to make clothing.” Paadi grinned.
“You’re not going to let Paadi near a pair of scissors, are you? Isn’t that dangerous?” BJ laughed and that earned him a punch in the arm from Paadi.
“You’re lucky you got Dillan on your shoulders. I don’t need a pair of scissors to be dangerous, young man.” She said in mock threat, a wide smile spread across her face.
“Looks like we’re going to have to dig a root cellar after all BJ. The temp inside the cool storage is at about fifty-five. If we want to store smoked meat, we’re going to have to have it cooler than that. For the canned foods, it’s fine. But I think we’ll want something a lot cooler.” Brian said, carrying a box of DVDs to the house.
“I was afraid of that. I’d really hopped we could get away with it.” BJ said, he didn’t look forward to digging.
“I have an idea. I saw it in one of the videos before everything completely died. Some people were digging on the north side of their homes, up against their home. They dug it deep enough to put a chest freezer in. Then, they drilled vent holes, and put PVC pipe in the holes. Sealed it and then put a tight mesh over the PVC so mice and things couldn’t get into the freezer chest. We can then cover it with a heavy plastic sheeting along with bundles of rigid insulation. That way, it stays watertight and the top has insulation. We can store our meat in there.” Brian said.
“Wow, that sounds a hell of a lot easier than trying to build a structure underground. I think we have a run back to Lowes, tomorrow. That’s a great idea.” BJ laughed, relieved that they could actually build several modified root cellars behind the building.
“You know, if we get a couple of chest freezers, we could use one to store meat and the other to store vegetables, like the cabbages, carrots and potatoes.” Emma said, excitement in her voice. “I’ve been reading one of my food preservations books, and we can keep a lot of the root vegetables in the ground. We just have to put some kind of insulating on top of them, like straw. One method suggested filling big black bags with leaf litter. Place those bags over the root veggies you don’t want to dig up yet. Even if it snows, the veggies will be safe underground. We can keep potatoes in the chest freezer, but a lot, we can keep in the ground.”
“That’s a great idea. We have a ton of potatoes; I was kind of worried that a lot of them would rot
