“Hey Emma, can you and Paadi come over and help us with the freezer? We’re ready to lower one of them.”
“Sure, but lunch is almost ready, so once we do that, why don’t you two take a break and come eat.” She called back.
“Sound like a fine idea.” BJ yelled from behind the building.
“Of course, it does, cause you’re a walking gut.” Paadi laughed, coming around the building. She’d been in the house.
“Hey, that hurt. I’m a hard-working man.” BJ grouched good naturedly.
“You’re a no good lazy lay about. You should have been done with that hole two days ago.” Paadi laughed.
“Never satisfied.” BJ laughed.
It took a bit of maneuvering, but with the wide moving straps, they were able to lower the freezer into the hole. Brian checked to make sure the vent pipes weren’t moved. He’d used silicon to seal them.
“What do you think?” He asked Emma.
“It looks great. We’ll have to lay on our bellies to get things out, but I’m okay with that.” She smiled.
“Yeah, we’ll also have to keep a couple of cinderblocks on it, or keep it locked, so none of the little ones open it and fall in.” Brian said, looking down.
“Shit, good idea.” Paadi said, all humor gone.
“Let me go ahead and lock it, while we eat lunch.” BJ said, and Brian could see that the thought also disturbed him as well. It was a good job and one down. He figured they’d be finished with it all by that afternoon.
“Why don’t we head out tomorrow morning, early. See if we can’t get us a pig?” Brian grinned at BJ.
“Yeah, that would be nice. That will be nice to have, bacon, pork chops, Boston butt.” BJ grinned, the last aimed at Paadi. She turned and gave him a look over her glasses, her dark block brow raising in a threat. Brian sniggered beside him. That boy was going to get clobbered; he’d moved a few steps away from BJ, he didn’t want to be in swinging distance.
TWELVE
Flynn walked the field with Cliff. He was amazed that so much food was in front of him. Well, not food, but biofuel, as well as feed for the animals. Cliff’s farm was a self-sustaining island in a world that would be losing everything. He knew in less than five years; whatever population was left would again perish by more than half. Perhaps the Amish, this farm and other places where people pulled together would survive. Those, like Casper, were doomed to die if they stayed in the city.
“How many acres do you have in corn, sir?” Flynn asked, the corn was now up to his chest.
“The farm is seven hundred acres; we have two hundred acres in corn right now, some of that would have been shipped out for biofuel, you know, to make ethanol, we use some to make our own biodiesel. Now, we’ll cut back, and keep it up for our own use. You see those silos off in the distance? That is for our cattle, our animals. We store our grain there.”
“I have to say; this is all amazing to me. I never knew what goes into a farm.” Flynn shook his head.
“We’ll take our wheat to Claus; he has a mill. He usually grinds our flour for us. The rest of the wheat is sent to market, but now, there is no market. We’ll end up planting less of everything now. Except of ours our garden that we eat from. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Fear speared through Flynn, was he and Xandra going to be turned out, because the farm would no longer grow as many crops and so they didn’t need the extra farm hand, nor mouths?
“Yes sir?” Was all he could manage. His heart was beating fast in his chest and his ears began to ring.
“Beth is a veterinarian. She is, rather, a large animal vet. She’s pregnant and to be honest, I’m not happy about her being around all those animals. Son, I’d like you to apprentice with her. Begin doing everything she does. She’ll be with you and teach you, but I want you to take over care of all our stock.”
Flynn was stunned into silence; he was shocked and could say nothing for a few moments. He’d never worked with animals, never been around them. But now, he was being given a chance at a vital and important job. He swallowed hard.
“I’d…I’d be honored to, sir. I mean that. I don’t have a clue, but I’ll do my very best and I won’t let you down.” Flynn sputtered.
“Good, that’s good. Since we have no doctor around, my Sarah and I talked about it, Beth can be a people doctor. She has more training than anyone I know. She can attend to all of our needs and you, can attend to our animals. My daughter-in-law is only a couple months along, but I’m hoping you’ll be capable of most things, by the time it begins to get too risky for her to be around the animals.” Cliff said, scratching his jaw and looking out over the fields, he was turning in a circle.
“Might I suggest Cliff, that at some point, you go to the nearest veterinary clinic and hospital and pick up all the supplies you can? I suspect that the supplies are just sitting there and at some point, I think you and your family and the farm might well need them.” Flynn suggested.
Cliff turned and looked at Flynn for a long moment, and Flynn held his breath. Cliff reminded him of his own father, stern but fair. A smile creaked onto the older man’s face and he
