10 Pound Bag Ch. 046-050

Authors note: This story is published elsewhere as a "Daily Serial" with a short chapter (1,000 ~ 2,000 words) released each morning.

**** Chapter Forty-six -- Shock and Awe ****

The dinner call came none to soon, cutting and trimming saplings is physically demanding work and the three of us needed a break. Naturally I had joined in on the work, standing around watching would have to wait until I was an old man; Brin took care of guard duty for me.

Harvesting saplings isn't as easy as it sounds, occasionally you'll find a large stand you can thin out but you can't take all of them and there are never enough of the size you need in a single stand. We ended up with piles of cut and trimmed saplings all up and down the near side of the creek.

We didn't use the chain saw in order to avoid un-necessary wear on the chains and battery, I only had one back up chain and a couple of batteries. All of our advanced technology had an End of Life somewhere in the near future with zero chance of replacement parts coming available anytime in the next two centuries. Mind numbing thought.

So the work was done with axe, hatchet and hand saw. As I looked around at some the the larger tree's I'd need to fall I ran my new favorite fantasy through my head: "If only I had known I was coming here, I would have bought such and such instead." It was a pointless and harmless mini-day dream but it was also the sort of day dream that had led me to purchase lottery tickets to begin with. I had never actually thought I would win the lottery, those tickets just gave me something to day dream about while I parked on the Southern California freeway every afternoon as part of my daily commute.

My logging arsenal was pretty sparse, I only had what you would need at a camp site or to remove a medium sized downed tree from a trail. I had a logging axe, a woodman's axe, several hatchets, a maul/sledge, a machete or two, a cant hook and a single man cross-cut saw. I'd figure out when and where to use the chainsaw going forward but I knew it was best saved for emergencies.

Dinner was a welcome break and the food was good as always, not as much meat as I would have liked but meat was fast becoming a luxury; our bacon wasn't going to be replenished from a magical bacon bush down by the creek and I couldn't see a sausage tree anywhere. Story time went to Esther and her version was entertaining as well; kids see everything from a different perspective and that came through in the story also. Holder was fascinated and even asked a few questions about these far off places, he was still a young man and hopefully not completely set in his ways.

School came next and this was a new one for Holder as also; watching him sit there and struggle with the alphabet was eye opening. We took literacy for granted in our future-past, this young man had a long way to go. As at the start of every learning session we reminded them that freedom came from knowledge and the more you knew the freer you were. Yup, philosophy type shit but the absolute truth was that the greatest treasure I had was that digital library; knowledge of unequaled proportions in that day and age.

The afternoon work started with a quick accounting of our new pole inventory; our harvesting had ranged down the near side of the creek and made it about a quarter of the way around the near treeline. We had managed about fifty good poles in our first pass out. Obviously this was the easy stuff, with easy access that didn't require us dragging a fresh cut sapling through fifty yards of forest or fording the creek.

I decided that we should collect and sort these for use in "Immediate Projects", things such as the roof of the root cellar and fence posts for the meadow. It was time for a little show of technology and I thought a truck might be just the thing.

Holder jumped when I fired up Michelle's truck, the idling diesel was a noise he had never heard before and he was a bit skittish. I let the engine warm up a bit while we sorted out some proper tow straps and then I put both him and Amos in the back of the truck and went out to collect our sapling poles. The look on Holder's face when I put it in gear and started moving was priceless; horseless carriages and locomotives existed in that day and age but they were very few and very far between. He may have heard some stories about them but a modern four-wheel drive diesel was an entirely new level.

I kept it slow and easy as we crept along picking up poles and stacking them in the bed, most of the poles were ten to fifteen foot in length and as long as we kept them strapped we didn't have a problem. Two trips was all it took to collect our first harvest. We took them back and built sorted piles next to the root cellar, it seemed as good as place as any other.

For fun I went through Michelle's CDs and cranked a little Blue Grass music, it seemed to fit the theme and fit right into my "Shock and Awe" campaign. That brought work to a halt for a few minutes while both of them looked on and listened in wonder; I could make music come or go and louder or softer just at the touch of a button. For the history record Amos and Holder seemed to really like Ricky Skaggs.

Poles collected and sorted it was time to put the truck away, we wouldn't be using it like this often but "Shock and Awe" was really necessary. Just for fun I took one pass up and down the field road at a fairly high speed with them in the bed and the music blaring, we hit almost fifty miles an hour in that short stretch; most importantly it was faster than a horse and faster than they'd ever gone.

We still had time left to finish the root cellar, with the poles sorted out all we had to do is place a few logs on top of the walls and then add a layer of poles and follow on with sod. I decided that the chain saw was our friend for this bit of work and after we axe felled four small trees I quickly cut them to length.

Now it was tractor time, more "Shock and Awe" technology on display. Amos loved the tractor almost as much as I did, he was thrilled to help do the pre-op maintenance while Holder simply stood and stared. We strapped the tree trunks together and to the backhoe bucket, I then lifted them and gently placed them on the cellar walls. We used sod to set them in place and ended up with four sturdy rafters to build the roof on. I then lifted a bundle of sapling poles and placed them perpendicular to the rafters; from there it was simple work to spread them out and branch them over after than. We filled the bucket with trimmed foliage from the saplings and layered them on the poles. Then we filled the bucket with sod and lifted it up to roof, as we laid out the sod our silly looking fort type structure suddenly became a root cellar.

The women came over to watch as we finished it up, the cellar still needed time to sit and stabilize before use; it would also need a real door but for the present we would make do with a door made of overlapping canvas panels. Inside it was dark and cool; again it needed some clean up work but it was a good start. Eventually we would begin to make clay bricks and brick in the interior walls and we would need to install posts to shore up the rafters but this would do for a least a year.

We had our first building.

**** Chapter Forty-Seven -- A Night at the Movies ****

Chores and supper and then a movie, that was my plan. Chores had to be done, the drone had to scout and the movie was to continue to amaze Holder, supper would be over the top again as well. My goal was to increase his desire to be here rather than any place else; food, entertainment and a vastly improved lifestyle were the key components to that end.

After supper was standard business, clean the dishes, start the wood stoves, etc. and so on. I flew the drone while all of that went on around me and then it was movie time. We decided to stick with Disney for now, advanced movies would simply confuse people while Aladin or Lion King would make them laugh. Sonya had a serious Disney crush so we had a pretty decent collection to choose from, Snow White was the choice. Popcorn was a requirement as well so I got busy on that.

Holder was reeling at this point from technology exposure overload, I think he fell in love with Snow White. He definitely fell in love with parmesan-butter popcorn, I even gave him a craft beer; the young man was definitely getting a baptism by fire.

I ran an FLIR scan of our area while the movie played, I had to swap out the batteries twice but I was able to observe a much larger area. We seemed to still be secluded but I knew that wouldn't last for long, I would have a long talk with Holder and Amos tomorrow about how they came here and what they saw. We needed a much better understanding of the world around us. I had a lot of planning to do.

The end of the movie gave us two sleepy kids and one young man who could barely keep his eyes open, I sent them off to bed. Brin accompanied Holder again and Michelle and I closed down the camp.

**** ****

Sleepy sex is good but it's nothing to write home about either, it's just comfortable and gentle fun at the end of a long day.

**** ****

Morning came cloudy and overcast, I had a feeling that spring showers were on their way to visit; combined with the upstream melt the rain was about to eliminate any chance of fording the Nemaha river with the Missouri becoming a serious flood threat. Our creek could become a problem also and our corn field and orchard were on the opposite side, the drive over being washed away when this all started.

A very hardy breakfast of potatoes, sausage and mushrooms came after morning chores and the after breakfast coffee was well appreciated. Story time had returned to me and I told the entire core story over again; Holder hadn't heard all the points of view yet and he needed to hear it a couple times through. How much he bought it would help us understand how to use it in the future.

Matilda brought out a bag of pea seeds a bag of what looked like squash seeds, the peas were easily recognizable the squash wasn't quite as clear and I didn't feel like asking. I knew what the ladies were going to do with their morning, our corn field was about to get an upgrade.

Myself and the guys had a pasture to fence and then a bridge to build. The pasture would come first so off we went with Brin, the dog cart and whatever work gloves I could find. We cut and placed posts all morning long trying to encircle the entire pasture before we started running wire, post hole digging is dirty hard work even with the three of us taking turns and we were about half finished when the call to dinner came out.

The fellas and I trooped wearily back to camp to clean up and get some fuel into us, none of us were used to working like this and it was taking it's toll while our bodies adjusted. It gave me an entirely new understanding of what "pioneer" really meant. Story time was at Michelle and Holder watched her speak intently, she was a fine woman to look at and she had a soothing voice. I hoped that wasn't a sign of trouble.

Back at fencing again I grilled Holder on the route they had taken to find us. He told me that they had forded the Nemaha up near Canada Creek where the river was wide and shallow and that they'd only had to swim the horses across a very small part of it. Amos had told me pretty much the same thing sans horses and the ability to build a fire to warm up, it was a wonder those kids had made it.

Canada Creek was just down the hill from us to the northwest and was something we'd have to keep an eye on after the spring floods passed. With the floods in mind the heavens decided to open up on us at that moment.

Grabbing our tools we made tracks for the camp site and barely beat the girls there, we buttoned up the site against the downpour as best we could and stoked the fire up high hoping to keep the coals alive. I felt sorry for the livestock and a makeshift barn of some sort would be on the list for next week.

The humans and dogs hid under the awning and just watched the rain and lightning have their way with our little slice of the world. It was impressive.

Sonya made hot drinks for everyone on the stove in the camper, it was the first propane we'd used since arriving in this now.

Once the rain lightened a little bit I asked Holder to tell us his story, he reflected that he'd have to think about it for a bit and organize it in his head for decent telling. Amos made a mad dash for some coals and got the wood stove in the camper going and the women all retreated inside, Matilda put them to work.

I fetched a bottle and a couple of beers and sat with the guys watching the rain come down.

A nice glass of bourbon in I shared my concern about the amount of corn and tomoatoes we had, from what the almanac told me we should get at least 10,000 ears per acre out of the corn field and I was pretty sure we had no way to effectively store it. Holder became a hero to me in that moment when he spoke up and offered that we could just turn it into whiskey.

If he could do that then the young man definitely had a place here on our homestead.

**** Chapter Forty-Eight -- Baby needs new shoes! ****

The kids needed new shoes. Michelle passed that on to me from Matilda; no I don't know how, but I was tasked with going out and getting us some leather. I had a sneaking suspiscion that this wasn't going to be difficult, without a doubt the deer had already found our corn field and keeping them out of it was going to be my bigger problem.

First step was to build a small bridge across the creek, this we could do in a day. So down to the creek us for guys went; myself, Holder, Amos, and Brin with logging tools in hand to harvest some lengths of birch logs. We figured we could get the basic job done with a dozen or so logs of about twenty foot in length, as long as we could get the dog cart across it would do the job.

With two grown men chopping and one teenager trimming it went pretty fast, the logs were all down and trimmed before dinner. It didn't take more than about ten minutes to drop a suitable birch once you got used to doing it. We decided to wait until after dinner to bring the tractor down and lay the logs across the creek gully. We then planned to bind them together with some rope and we'd have a basic bridge for horses and people.

Dinner routine and then next thing you know we're laying down clay on top of our bridge to keep people and animals from turning their ankles. We'd add planks later on but splitting logs into planks was time consuming and would have to wait. Amos and Brin raced back and forth over it a few times showing off their youthful exuberance, I merely stood back and smiled. The London Bridge it was not but it was my first bridge and I felt pretty damned good about it.

By the time we'd cleaned and put away all the tools supper was being prepared. We did our chores, cleaned ourselves up and sat down to partake.

After supper was time for indoor work, we resharpened out axes and knives, discussed plans for the next day and generally unwound. We had a reading every night, usually a fable or fairy tale. I ran my nightly scan and did some research on the area. All of that data I had pulled when I was contemplating investing in Oscar's farm was coming in very handy these days.

I cleaned and oiled my 30.06, I had some hunting to do early the next morning.

**** ****

Up before the dawn, that was me. The air was chilly and moist and the coffee seemed to take forever to get going. Surprisingly Holder was up with me, I welcomed the company and he saddled our horses and pack mule while I ran a quick IR pass over our area. Just as I'd hoped there was a herd of deer at the back edge of the cornfield destroying our tasty young corn.

I zoomed in until I could identify a good young buck and we rode out quietly just as the eastern edge of the sky began to lighten. Brin came with us and heel'd up as commanded, he was like a black ghost keeping watch over us.

The buck was still there eating away at my future whiskey when we got in range, the corn was still short enough that I had a clear shot from the kneeling at 300 yards. The morning air was still and the sky had grown light enough that I could clearly make him out. There were five or six does nearby and I didn't want to injure any over them with a missed shot so I waited, thirty seconds later the shot was clear and I released the round.

When I tried out for the division rifle team back in my Marine Corps days, I had a very good coach and one of the things he taught me was to "release" the round rather than "shoot" the round. The passive term seemed to improve accuracy over the aggressiveness of shooting; I wasn't good enough to make the team but I learned a lot from that coach.

My round took the buck directly in the spine at the base of his neck and he simply stopped for a moment and then collapsed; the retort of the big gun echoed through the early morning air and the rest of the herd was instantly gone. Holder slapped me on the back and had a big smile on his face. Three hundred yards was an extreme range in the days of black powder rifles but it was practically point-blank for a modern hunting rifle; it was still a pretty good shot by my personal standards. I ran the bolt and chambered a new round, re-engaging the safety.

I returned his smile and said, "It's a really good rifle."

I grabbed my expended brass then we mounted up and rode over to fetch our dinner and the new shoes for the kids. I let Holder take over and he loaded the buck onto the pack mule in far less time than it would have taken me, this was obviously something he had experience at.

The good news was that we'd be back in time for breakfast. We rode back silently enjoying the spring morning air, I was still wary of this guy but he was starting to grow on me. As we crossed our makeshift bridge I asked Holder if he would be willing to share his story at supper tonight, he agreed to do so and didn't seem to feel pressured by the request.

We hung the buck, put up our horses and sat down for more coffee; the camp was bustling with morning life but the two mighty hunters got to sit back, drink coffee and relax. Our talk turned to butchering the deer and preserving the hide, Holder knew exactly what we needed to do so I resolved to take the back seat and learn. This was something I'd done occasionally in life as a hobby, he'd obviously done it to survive most of his life.

Matilda fed us fresh deer liver for breakfast, it was extraordinarily good.

**** ****

The entire deer went into the game freezer, everything but it's skin and the contents of it's digestive tract. I showed Holder how to hang the deer in the game freezer, he was suitably impressed by the freezer with its overhead rack.

Holder and Matilda then moved onto tanning the deer skin. They cut several small saplings and stripped the bark from them and formed them into a frame. They used the bark strips to tie frame solid and mounted the deer pelt on it using twine, with the pelt hung they started to stretch it and work it. I walked away at that point, other things needed to be done and those two had the task well in hand. They had Esther for an audience if they felt the need for a fan club, I went and found Michelle.

Michelle was busy working with Amos on the horses so I simply saddled up Lunch and went to check and see exactly how much damage the deer had done to our corn. I feared that it was going to be a battle to the death with those damn deer.

I spent an hour down in the small orchard checking on our fruit. It wasn't much of an orchard with just 6 apple trees and a couple of pear, plums and cherry's added in but it would be enough for us. I also had to keep in mind that each fully grown apply tree could deliver up to 45 bushels of apples, hard cider anyone?