Chapter 3

I spent the evening googling 'meat rabbits', reading through our pamphlet stash on raising chickens for meat as well as eggs, poultry parasites and diseases, rabbit parasites and diseases and getting depressed.

Crap. This was more than I could deal with. It was time to make like a boss and delegate, dammit.

Once the houses were built I figured that we could hire a family to help out. High school age kids could do chores and we could add to the family's income appropriately. Kids could plant our living hedge. It wasn't rocket science. It just took leather gloves, a measuring stick and a watering can.

I ran it by the team. We'd split up the farm into specialties and back each other up to keep us all out of trouble and honest.

I held the bank, was in charge of large capital outlay, was in charge of the machinery purchases and upkeep as well as general planning. Since I had the cash in two funds I was going to put myself in charge of some quality-of-life stuff too using the un-taxed funds.

Josh was the foreman in charge of field operations. He was the local farmer, the most in touch with the local ecology. He'd oversee the plowing, fertilizing, planting, watering, harvesting and some of the packing. He'd get the fruit and nut trees fertilized, planted and watered. He was willing to learn enough about grafting to play with apple variants too. We planned on raspberry and strawberry patches to go in later. I'd help do the ordering since I had the checkbook.

Anne was in charge of animal husbandry. She'd spent some time on a commercial farm helping with the books as well as helping out around the farm. She would be in charge of buying the stock as well as arranging for the feeding, doctoring and 'harvesting'. Upon taking over her 'domain' I was immediately informed that we'd need a cheese house and an egg processing barn put in. The plans and equipment list were to come. Eggs could be a real money maker. Everyone likes eggs and the prices were going through the roof. I realized that selling that old bread truck was a mistake. We could use it to transport salable food to market in NSF tubs, which would fit in the slide-ways. (The truck was fitted out with shelves from floor to ceiling on both sides of the payload space, sloped down towards to back so that taking a curve wouldn't throw product all over the floor.)

Wendy would take care of feeding us, keeping us in clean clothes and the managing of keeping the place clean. She had professional training in food preparation, conservation and sanitation: a degree in Hotel Restaurant Management and a certificate of completion from a commercial cooking school. She'd be in charge of the temporary kitchen and later our resident workers. Her job was to build up the on-site food supplies to support not only us but our periodic efforts to feed the hungry masses. She knew how to can and preserve food and was willing to build up a root cellar. Josh and I looked at each other and said almost at the same time "we missed building the damned root cellar." Well, we still had some tree-line left and a Cat D6 to dig it out. Nobody was going to run out of 2x12s soon. That was our next building project. We put it between the houses.

Josh dug out the root cellar while I ran into town to get the 2x12s, roofing felt and heavy visqueen to cover the place. Once we'd dug it out and screwed it together we covered it in 8 cubic yards of pea gravel then buried it in four feet of dirt except for a recessed doorway. It had doubled 2x12 shelves on both sides for a two foot depth, six shelves high and was thirty feet long. We floored it with pressure-treated 4x4s covered with marine plywood so that we could run a balloon-tired cart in and out to transport the ball jars and what not. The smell and humidity reminded me of a mushroom farm.

"Josh, I just got an idea..."

Josh liked mushrooms just fine. Wendy was grinning like a fool. Anne made a 'Hmmm' noise and whispered 'Pizza!'. We dug six more of those things, leaving out the floor and putting in short tunnels for access with doors at either end of the tunnel. Again, they went between the houses, back under the tree line where the shade would help keep them cool thruout the summer. Rotting oak and beech trees make great mushroom growing media. Once we were done building them and got a (relatively) sterile bed of growth media in place the two of us (the guys) wandered around some of our forest lands looking for more beech and oak trees that could be sacrificed from overgrown groves. We found a couple of oaks but no beeches. Chestnut trees would work and we found a couple but the nuts were too valuable to us. We did find the remains of an old apple orchard that had gone to hell fifty years ago or more. We cut down the trees we wanted, trimmed them out and wrapped the trunks in black visqueen to promote decomposition. We carefully charted the locations in a notebook. Josh noted to me that we may be able to use some of the apple suckers to graft into our orchard. The few apples that the old orchard still produced would attract deer in the fall, as well. We'd have to set up a blind before the frosts or soon after. We noted from the ground clutter which oak trees were putting out nuts. We wouldn't cut these either. The deer would reliably feed near them.

Once the pole barns got moved I asked Josh to help me put in two granaries. One was for loose feed and the other for bagged feed. We built them out of ¾ inch plywood and covered the inside with galvanized steel. We didn't leave open butt joints. We covered the corners with bent flashing and screwed everything down. The door and sill got clad on both sides with galvanized sheet steel too. Even the door covering the grain chute for loose feed delivery got sheathed in sheet metal. That's how my uncle taught me how to build a granary. We were ready to fill it and buy some stock.

I didn't know shit about chickens. I didn't know shit about pigs. I just drove the damned truck. We rented a stock trailer and headed for an advertised stock auction. We bought sixteen sows guaranteed by the attending vet to be pregnant. They ate like—well—pigs. We kept the bar mower busy most of the summer feeding them salvaging what we could from the fallow fields that had self-seeded. We also kept 'em happy with a daily feeding of a hot mash consisting of corn meal, Purina pig chow and a can of Budweiser. We added the pig shit to the compost pile. We had to double the size of the pig yard once the piglets started really growing.

The ladies picked up four flats of peeps (hatched chickens). Some 1x2s and 2x4s were put next to the feeding and watering stations so that they could get to the food and water—short legs, you know. We kept the place warm with electric heaters and straw on the ground. Anne told me that we had to let them get a few months old before they were smart enough to come in from the cold and go back to the chicken houses at night so we kept them inside.

As soon as the roosters started running down the hens we'd catch them (if THAT wasn't a running sight gag the first few times until we figured on using a net) and shorten them a bit, process them and added them to the freezer or invite them to dinner as the guest of honor.

We'd have a few months until they'd begin to lay so we had time to build the egg house where the eggs were washed, crated and refrigerated until we could get them to the grocers. We didn't have to candle the eggs because we didn't keep any roosters. We'd want to record what chicken laid the most and least eggs to separate the laying stock from the meat stock. I was told that after a year we'd harvest all the marginal hens for meat, buy a rooster and let him loose among some of the good producing hens then let them brood to bring on the next generation; then a few more, then a few more. At 2-3 years old we'd process the older hens for meat as they'd have begun to decline in production. You had to feed a chicken a mixed grain nutrient to supplement what they found and provide crushed oyster shell so that they could make healthy egg bodies and eggshells.

By the time the eggs started rolling in we'd need more help. I told the group why I'd had four homes built instead of two. I figured that we'd need more on-site permanent employees to help with the animals and slow harvesting, such as tomatoes, lettuces and carrots. I got an 'attaboy' for thinking ahead. Once I saw the foundation for the cheese house go in I figured we'd need somewhere to put the poor guy so I had another house started.

I bought that damned bread truck back for 700 bucks. Fuel prices were prohibitive and they figured that they had a white elephant. I brought it back home and asked Josh to look into converting it to LP gas. We were all happy that we had an internet connection when it got down to figuring out how. Once we got the delivery truck running on LP gas as a test bed we converted all the gasoline and diesel engines to LP gas as well. Our fuel bills dove down fast. The only things left running on gas were the chainsaws and the chipper. We had to put in two more LP gas bulk tanks but our price of doing business had gone down. We didn't complain at all.

The women bought into a dozen mixed rabbit kits. We guys got hijacked into designing and building ground-sliding hutches that would let them feed on grass yet not get out. Rabbits meant a dramatic increase in meat production at the cost of some commercial rabbit food. Pigs eat rabbit guts too. Go figure.

I went back to preacher Henry. I told him we wanted two families with a couple of kids each, kids that were of an age to do chores that would take some of the burden off the adults. We'd give them permanent housing, feed them and pay them 30,000 a year a family. We needed people with a work ethic and had been around a farm. He'd get back to me on Sunday. We shook hands and he picked up another Benjamin. I had confidence in him. He did good work.

We had four pole barns located off our 'main street' and a fifth holding a very messy tool bench about a third of a mile away. We had to get our act together and set up our repair shop before we needed it.

It was late May and fairly warm. I asked Josh to help me get a handle on our tool situation. We started with a big canvas tarp laid out on the pole barn floor. Wrenches went in one area, screw drivers in another, power tools in another, hammers, pliers, files, chisels, fencing pliers, hex wrenches, socket wrenches ... It was quite a list. Then we sorted each pile out and took inventory. We were missing sockets and wrenches from every set. Most screwdrivers would make great chisels or wedges. We threw out a lot of worn out tools.

Someone way back when was a woodworker. We had some fairly nice wood chisels, rasps, augers, bits and planes. The miter box had rusted solid, poor thing. The circular saw was only a few years old and in good shape. We found an impact drill still in its original box. The table saw was beyond salvaging but the drill press was in good shape. Someone had wiped it down with oil. There was a heavy anvil and a couple of good vises. The spindle on the grinder wobbled enough to put the fear of god into us. I wasn't going to spin that damned thing up! No way! I'd seen a grinding wheel explode like a claymore mine once before. Once was enough.

Freight cost so much now that the gas had hit 18 dollars a gallon that traveling 20 or 30 miles to pick something up made a lot of sense as long as you doubled up and filled the truck. We hopped into my big pickup and headed for a Harbor Freight tool store. First, we latched onto a multi-speed tool grinder. We bought English and metric socket sets sized for a tractor and a breaker bar to go with them. I found deep well case-hardened impact sockets. We bought four sets. I wanted another impact wrench and got the biggest they had. We needed a torque wrench for engine work. A high-quality table saw only cost 210 with a panel support. They had a name brand biscuit joiner for 40 bucks and a bag of 1000 biscuits was only 10 bucks. I hadn't seen any grease guns back at the shop so I bought two. A couple of four-gang florescent ceiling lights never hurt so I pitched them in along with two 12-packs of bulbs. I found a chain hoist stuck back in the corner of the store in a small shipping barrel and grabbed it. An oxyacetylene welding setup near the door caught my eye. I groaned and added to the pile. I bought welding gloves, a mask, brazing and steel welding rods. We got out of there for just under a thousand dollars and felt lucky doing it. I was really glad that they didn't have a wood planer because I didn't have time to do woodworking right now and REALLY wanted to dive into it.

I had a nasty thought sitting there in the parking lot. We'd be dependent on commercial refrigeration equipment with two, maybe three or four walk in coolers and freezers eventually. We needed a Freon recharging unit and bulk tanks of Freon. We trudged back into the store spend more money. I'd buy a spare compressor for each unit through the internet. It was something we had to have.

We bolted together a big, solid bench together and bolted it to the wall, then hung painted pegboard all over the wall behind it. Three sets of molded plastic shelving that would hold 300 pounds were set up to hold the power tools and boxed sets, such as the socket sets and impact sockets as well as boxes of screws and such. I asked our contractor friend to set up an overhead railroad rail with a traveling wheel assembly and heavy descending hook so that we could support heavy loads with the chain hoist. No problem! I like that guy. We greased everything that had a grease fitting and checked out the universal joints. A couple of dents got hammered out of the plow blades. All the tire pressures were checked. We were ready for harvest season.

The packing house was ready except for plumbing up the sluice tanks to clean the produce which we soon took care of. The ice maker was ready to go and the walk-in refrigerator worked when we tried it. All the 'bus tubs' got a scalding rinse with bleach and water.

I re-evaluated our funds. We had 120,000 in the credit union. I still had roughly 2.6 mil in gamma seal buckets.

We moved into our new houses. I liked mine, Josh liked his, and what made us sigh in relief was the women liked them as well. We stocked each place with two chest freezers per house, a gas range and furniture that we salvaged from the old clapboard farmhouse. Our friendly contractor wired in the electric, moved the phone and internet from the old house and made sure the sewer and water connections were done right. I treated the inside of our place with a heated mixture of boiled linseed oil mixed with lemon oil. The place glowed and smelled nice too.

I bought three thousand 16" potted shoots of hardy orange and three thousand eight-inch seedling pots of mentor barberry. We planted and watered every spare minute. It took most of a month to complete with two people working four to six hours a day. In the evenings and early mornings Josh and I took critter duty in the hunting blinds. We added to the smokehouse and chased away more than a few two-legged rascals with .410 shotgun rounds. The wild rabbits seemed to sniff around our rabbit pens. We took out quite a few there. They ended up in our freezer.

By mid-June we were selling flats of fresh eggs and frozen rabbit carcasses for good money. I wondered if we should pour a heated floor into a section of one of the pole barns to keep a few rabbit does and bucks alive over the winter. It might be worth it to keep our best meat-producing lines alive. Anne agreed so we figured on buying extra feed and breeding rabbits through the winter on a scaled back basis. I began looking real hard for a windrow rake and a square baler.

Josh and I waded through our woods looking for trees to salvage, clearing out the leaning stuff and over-dense stands. We thinned out the trees and brush behind our houses so we could get a glimpse of the water from our back porches or the soaking pools in our bathrooms. The downed trees and brush went into the chipper, then into the compost pile. We'd filled the thing. Every month we'd have to turn it now.

The mushrooms had inoculated well and were growing like hell at the cost of misting the growth media with water once a day. We sold white buttons and big meaty creminis. We sold a dozen saddles of smoked venison for top dollar too.

I looked out over that great big lake and realized that we'd missed the boat on another income source. Fish. I asked Josh where I could get some calcium carbide and a few big nets. We'd need some flat-bottomed Jon-boats too. He remembered my story from the bar. He grinned big and wide. "Plan on doin' a little fishin?" "Yep. Around midnight or so. Like smoked fish?"

"Love it!"

With the wire racks rather than hooks in our smokehouse, smoking the fish would be easy.

Wendy was collecting mason jars and canning wax like a fiend. She made sure that I bought a big professional sausage grinder and a boatload of skins. She invested in big stoneware crocks. A hell of a lot of 'em. I had no idea what the hell she was planning but I knew she wouldn't screw us over. I went along with it.

I asked Wendy for a few real small mason jars with screw tops. She acted real protective of her stock until I told her why I wanted them. I got a half dozen with her blessings. She walked away mumbling something about 'pickled fish'.

We borrowed four Jon boats with oars. I bought a half dozen big minnow nets. It was a calm night.

We took everything down to the water's edge. I opened two mason jars as big as my fist and half-filled them with river rock. I used a dock spike to poke a couple of holes in each lid, had everyone get down, poured about 2 ounces of carbide in each one, screwed 'em tight and heaved them out into the water at different places, as hard as I could. I ducked.

"WHAP!" The water fountained in the moonlight, soaking us all with river water. Soon white things came to the surface. Fish. We shoved off and got busy netting the fish into the boats before they came out of their stun. We caught a hell of a lot of fish including some really big cats and carp.

We had the kids empty the smokehouse into the produce cooler using food tubs and wheeled carts while we started getting the fish guts into wheelbarrows and carcasses into plastic tubs. We cut the big ones into reasonably sized slabs for smoking. The pigs had no trouble with fresh fish guts. We filled that smokehouse past what was reasonable and started a long hot-smoke fire with corncob the length of the aisle. We deep-smoked all that fish until it didn't need refrigeration. We ate fish morning, noon and night for a while; boiled, baked and fried. Wendy did manage to boil and pickle about 70 pounds of whitefish before all was said and done. It was a huge lake so I figure we didn't impact it much, as long as we didn't do it every week. Maybe every month or two...

Jim had come up with the tables, chairs, dressers, chests-of-drawers, highboys and clothes presses I'd wanted. It was nothing fancy like Chippendale, but sturdy and well-made, like Shaker. He also came up with a couple china cupboards! My man! We sat him down and fed him fresh eggs, rabbit, biscuits and sawmill gravy until he damned near died.

"Do you know how few and far between good meals are nowadays? Now us, we've got a dairy and beef operation that has been around for over 120 years. We're set. However, most folks are starving a little at a time. If you want to hold out a hand to anyone you know, this is the time to do it."

I remembered Annie Shelton from Judy's. She was a friend and I was going to go check up on her.

I let Josh, Anne and Wendy know where I was going and what I was doing. I caught no flack.

Judy's was closed. Some of the windows were knocked out. I walked around the building and found a little trailer behind it. I knocked. I head a stirring inside but no answer. I opened the door. I hope I never see the likes of it again. Someone had beaten the hell out of Annie and broken her arms, then raped her. She was in a hell of a shape. I got her up onto the bed and got some water into her. She was severely, I mean severely dehydrated. I pried a piece of clapboard off the bar building and cut it into splints, then splinted her arms. There wasn't anything there to eat and she looked emaciated. I got as much water as I could into her and drove her back home. It's a good thing no cop got in my way. The ladies took her out of my arms and that's the last I saw of her for almost four days. They had me making chicken stock, then chicken stock with potato flakes, then the same with some ghee and dumplings.

I didn't know it then but I'd saved my second wife.

Our good reverend came through with a family for our compound. He found a red-haired curly-topped guy that looked like the quintessential hillbilly. He was made out of whipcord and muscle. He had an intense stare and a direct way about him. His name was Michael—not Mike--Taylor. He was married to a big hard-bitten woman named Audrey that showed her years in the fields. They had two daughters that, I swear to god, exuded sex and lust. They were thirteen and fourteen—Julie and Sandy. They were full-figured, had gorgeous, soft-looking lips and bright green sloe eyes under curly brown hair They both had heart-shaped faces. They were walking time bombs. I looked over Michael's family and shook his hand. "Any man that can keep those two under control is a better man than I. Besides, the preacher said you were a good guy. You're hired."

"What you want me to do?"

"Farm, mostly. We need help with a big egg operation, help with the running of a big truck garden, help with shooting critters in the morning and evening and help us make this a good place to live."

He slowly nodded. "I'm with y'all." We shook on it.

I showed them one of the houses I'd set aside. "Here's a new-built house for you and yours for as long as you care to stay. We raise rabbit and chicken for meat for now. We haven't butchered the pigs yet, but will when it hard frosts. We'll need a bigger smokehouse for 'em, I know. We've got over a hundred ten young ones out of sixteen sows. We've been going crazy feeding 'em but the towns around here will really need the meat. They're getting desperate."

He nodded. "I know a few tricks. We'll fatten 'em up for ya real nice. We've got a few months to work with yet."

They needed beds, bedding, towels, pots, pans china, flatware, toilet paper, soap—the works. There was still a lot left in Carpenter's house. They got the bedroom and kitchen furniture we'd discarded when Jim came up with his load. We stripped that old house bare and still went out to buy linens and towels. They got a couple of new chest freezers too. We started filling them with game. Squirrel was easy. Rabbit was easy. Deer was a challenge. We didn't expect the beef. I was in town with the bread van delivering eggs and rabbit. A yearling steer was running down the street, raising hell, running people down. I rammed it head-on with the truck which stunned it, then ran out with a belt knife and slit its throat. I used a come-along to get it inside the truck then took off before anyone realized that I'd just made off with over 1900 pounds of pot roast.

"I do believe that I feel right welcome about now."

Hell, I would too with over 1400 pounds of beef in my freezer.

"Y'know, we're lookin' for men and women that aren't afraid to work and know how a farm does its business. It wouldn't hurt a bit if they had a couple young bucks to keep us old bulls out of trouble, either. " I flashed my eyes at his daughters, sitting at the kitchen table with mom having their morning coffee.

He slowly nodded. "I do believe I've been given the answer by a higher power. I need to do a little visit'n.

I tossed him my truck keys. "Bring it back in one piece." I walked away.

Trust or trust not. If you live with someone, trust or trust not—no half way measures. I was determined to treat Michael as I'd want to be treated. He was back in two weeks.

After my scare with Annie I took a trip into town for no trespassing signs, ten pump shotguns and two cases of buckshot. I visited a locksmith that provided me with eighteen big padlocks and eighteen keys. All the keys were the same and would open any of the locks. We needed to get serious about security. I didn't want to get clubbed behind the ear, knifed or shot walking into a barn or garage. I spent a couple of hours pulling the plugs out of the shotgun magazines to increase their capacities.

I let the preacher know that Michael was looking for the other family we wanted.

"He's a good man, Paul. He's had some trouble with the law and he has a hard head but he'll help a friend to the bitter end. That's the way he was raised, back in the hills."

"That's what I figured when I saw him and heard him talk. You don't find many really honest men anymore. I'll bet his word is his bond, just like his pappy's and his grandpappy's before that."

"I'm sure you're right."

I picked up a few reams of paper, a few binders and a spare toner cartridge for my printer. I had the first five Foxfire books in electronic form. I wanted to get them printed off so everyone could look through them. Michael was touched when I laid the first print copy in his hands. "Some of this should be familiar to you. These are stories about how people did things on the old farms in the smokies, round about the depression and before. These books were written up by high school students not far from here." We sat at the kitchen table as he paged through the first one. He paused over the pictures and stroked a few as if bringing alive memories by touch and feel.

"These are the kind of hill folk that I was raised around. We didn't have much but we had a fine time. Audrey! Here, come look at these! Remember Miss Bessie? Her daughter Cherise? Look here." Her face softened as she smiled, turning through the pages. "These brings back memories." She looked Michael in the eyes. "We're a long way from there, aren't we hon?" "Yep, but we'll make do now that we have a place to hold our heads up. We'll do. We'll do."

I made my way out the door as they talked and hugged. The girls stopped me on the porch.

"Are ma and pa all right?"

"Yup. I figure they're more right than they've been in quite a while. We all figure that this'll be your home for a long time. You settlin' in all right?"

"Ya, except for there ain't much way in company, if you know what I mean." She smiled at me, making me feel like a side of beef.

I shook my head back and forth while looking at them. "Don't go getting' your hopes up now. I've got to stay above everything to keep this place together. What would your folks say if they caught us sparkin'?" They looked more than a little disappointed, sitting with hunched shoulders. I put a hand on each of their shoulders and said in a low tone of voice "all Y'all ever thought about keepin' each other company, just to take the edge off? It'd make things around here go a lot smoother if you two would stop trollin' with live bait." They both blushed bright red then took each other's hand and strolled off. I didn't know if I did good or bad, but something had to be done. They were like cats in heat and drop-dead gorgeous to boot.

I distributed the shotguns, ammo and keys. We all walked around locking each and every building and garage. We thought about locking the gas and diesel tanks too. Instead I gradually fed over thirty pounds of styrofoam into each tank. We had ready tanks of napalm, not gasoline. Everyone was taking this as seriously as I was. It was a relief not to have a liberal among 'em.

The first of July saw us harvesting lettuce, carrots and onions. The tomatoes were green but coming in like gangbusters. I saw a lot of work ahead of us. We'd put some rings of pig fence up for the squash, melons and cucumbers to climb on. The summer squash was coming along fine and we'd have some to harvest soon. We left Wendy in charge of marketing. It's not that the grocers didn't want to buy our produce, it was at what price point we could set to keep us afloat and yet not gouge anyone.

We sold more smoked fish, rabbit and chicken than vegetables but the grocers were happy. People wanted protein.

I bought ten cases of wild turkey 101. I figured that it would be a long, long harvest. Boy, was I right.

I was told by the ladies to ask around for where to buy milk cows. The milking parlor, milk house and the cheese house were finished and furnished. A little research on the web told me that Jerseys was the highest butterfat producing breed and a milking shorthorn a pretty good runner-up that was also valuable source of meat. We had some pasture to check for fencing before we got too anxious to buy.

The girls had the job of driving the small tractor around every morning and watering the fence line, then shifting over to the big tractor and watering the truck garden three times a week. It was getting warm during the day. The chickens seemed to be keeping the bugs under control. The new clover crop for wintering-over the rabbits was coming along nicely.

Wendy thought that it would be more efficient to buy one of the portable kitchens and permanently mount it on blocks. We could use it for canning as well as group food preparation. We were tending towards group weekend meals as it was and it was cramping the women in the individual kitchens. I bought a huge one with six ovens, twelve burners and a three-by-four foot nickeltop, just like you've seen in a diner. It had a walk-in freezer at one end and a walk-in cooler at the other. It was the size of an oversized semi trailer. We mounted it with a ramp to move carts of food in and out. She asked me to purchase fifty 20-gallon stock pots with lids. I never ask a cook why they want something. I just do it.