Calamity in America (17 page)

When I saw how easy it was to make the jerky this way I used the quad that I still had a little gas for and shot a cow and dragged it home and jerked all that meat.  It was a big job but produced a very big pile of jerked meat that I stored in the many plastic containers that I had gathered.  I also gradually ate more and more wild plants.  There were so many things growing both in my little community and just outside of it that were very edible.  I learned that many ornamental plants that people planted for decoration were also edible.  Even trees like mulberry trees that were very popular down here as shade trees had both edible berries and edible leaves that could be cooked just like spinach.  I admit I was going to miss the salad dressings when they ran out though.

I was getting by fairly well.  Of course things don’t always go well.

Chapter 6

Once in a great while I would see another person.  Usually off in the distance.  I desired no contact and apparently most others did not either.  After that trip I had taken into the city I could understand the reluctance people would have in meeting strangers.  Most of the bodies that I had seen dead along the highway had died violently.

I always carried one of my handguns.  I had used some of my handgun ammunition to shoot small game and did not have many shells left for some of the handguns.  I never used it all though.  When I got down just a few shells left I stashed that handgun in one of my scattered RV’s.  I made sure I hid these guns very well so they could not be easily found and could then be used against me.

A few times I did see and talk to strangers that were just passing through the area.  Without exception these travelers were always in poor shape and just hanging on by a thread.  I had little food that I could share but I always gave these poor souls some jerky at least.  Depending on the time of year I sometimes gave out other foods also.  I sometimes schooled them a little on what wild plants were edible and what parts of those plants could be eaten.

It wasn’t all roses for me either.  That first two years was very tough.  The advantage during that time was that I still had a fair amount of ammunition so I could shoot wild critters (and once in awhile a cow) so I always at least had meat, either fresh or more often as jerky.  I had plenty of seeds and I had planted a garden but though I thought I watered it good enough it did not produce very much produce.  And even if it would have, I had no way to store fresh veggies.  I know that some farmers had in the past canned stuff in jars but I did not have the knowledge, materials, or the equipment to do any canning.  But like I said, that first year there was nothing to can from my garden anyway.

That first fall I had a lot of fruit to eat.  Many or maybe even most of the places in my community had some kind of fruit tree in the yard.  Some had one and some had more than one.  Apples were maybe the most common but there were several other kinds of fruit trees also though where I was it was just a little too high or too far north for citrus trees.  I ate a lot of fruit but most of it went to waste.  Again it was because I had no way to store it, but it was very good eating while the trees were producing.

That second winter saw me slimming down.  I was eating meat but very little else.  Wild plants just like regular garden plants do not produce in the winter.  There was always cactus and I did fry up cactus pads fairly often.  I had a little of the food that my wife and I had stored (though it was long since mostly gone) but I was saving that in case I got sick or hurt and could no longer forage for food.

I was very relieved when spring came around again.  I planted a garden again in the same spot but before I planted it I incorporated some potting soil and the small amount of fertilizer I found into the soil.  I had also done some reading about gardening and planted things a little different this year.  I also rigged up a sun shade for the garden so during the hottest months of summer I could shade the garden plants so they would not burn up.  I needed that garden to produce big and I did everything I could to make that need come true.

Way before any of my garden plants even came up, the wild plants were growing and some were blooming.  This was the time of plenty for foraging in the wild.  This was the first year that I started traveling to one of my RV’s everyday.  I would water down my garden really well in the morning and then leave and walk to one of my scattered RV’s where I would spend the night.  That way I covered a lot of ground foraging and did not use up all the wild plants in one area.

The next day I would make my way back to where I had my garden using a slightly different route, foraging all the way.  My garden got watered every other day and I hoped that would be enough.  I could walk to most of the RV’s very easily in one day and a couple I had to really hoof it to make it in just one day from my main “house.”  A few of my RV’s were too far away and I could not walk to them in one day no matter how fast I walked or how early I started from my main camp.  Those camps I skipped during the garden growing season.  Those camps could be reached in an easy day from other camps so when I did visit them I never had to sleep under the stars on the ground.

I had trouble a couple times with strangers.  Actually, not a year has gone by that I did not have trouble at least once or twice with strangers.  I lost track of how many people I had to kill over the years.  And no, I am not superman, and I carry many scars to prove it.  I’ve been shot with rifles, pistols, and bows, but obviously never a fatal hit.  And I have never been hurt so bad that I could not move around, though many times I could move only by enduring some pain.  My left arm is now totally healed up but it just does not have quite the strength that it used to have.  But at least that arm still works! 

After the first few years, the store-bought antibiotic creams and such that I had accumulated ran out, but by that time I had read up on natural plants that did about the same thing.

Sometimes I would find someone in one of my RV’s when I went to stay in them.  Not very often, but it did happen.  When it did, I would (from a distance) tell them that the RV was mine but they could stay for a day or two.  But I always told them to leave my stuff there when they left.

Twice the squatters did not leave on their own and I just set up at a distance and shot them when they came out of the RV in the morning.  Once a squatter made a mess in the RV and stole some of my stuff.  I tracked him down and shot him from a distance.  “Never take a chance if you don’t have too,” is my motto.  I see nothing wrong with dry gulching someone who has done me wrong.  They do not deserve a “fair fight,” and they do not get one from me.

When squatters would leave after a couple days of using one of my camps, and they did not take any of my stuff, I always let them go in peace.  Each one of these camps had a little food I left there readily available and if they used some of that food while they were staying that was fine.  It was neighborly to treat your guests to a meal or two.  I did always try to keep some food hidden where it could not be easily found.  Usually buried in a sealed container just barely under the dirt nearby.

It was the second or third summer that I learned how to build my first solar dehydrator.  Learning that likely saved my life.  With the dehydrator I could now dry and store many different things to eat much later.  It turned out to be very simple and easy.  And thanks to the bright, hot Arizona sun, the dehydrators (I built several) worked great. And they still do. 

I did have a little trouble with ants in the dehydrators but there are many ways around that problem.  I set the legs of the dehydrators in cans of water and that stopped them, but the water had to be replaced daily.  When I used oil instead of water it solved the problem permanently (at least until it rained and overflowed the cans).

The dehydrators worked on some garden produce and some wild edibles but they really shined when I used them to dry fruit.  I had so much fruit that went to waste before, but with the dehydrators I could dry it all and never waste any, or at least hardly any.  The dried fruit and other items were easy to store and easy to carry when I was walking.  And many of the dried items were easy to throw in a pot with a little meat to make a thin stew or soup.

Through the years I ran out of many of the things we had always taken for granted.  Some things I found local, native replacements for, and others I did not.  And it was not just food items that I ran out of either.  No more Kleenexes.  No more paper towels or napkins.  Or toilet paper.  When my supply of something started running low I would sometimes just save the remaining items for emergencies.  I never knew when I might become very sick or incapacitated in some way.  

Some things were easy to do without or to just replace with something else.   Kleenexes were easy because I just started using handkerchiefs that could be easily washed.  I am still using paper products like newspaper, magazines, catalogs, advertisements, and other paper trash in place of regular toilet paper.  I am not really looking forward to the time when those paper items run out. 

There are so many things that would be so nice to have again that I really miss now that they are gone.  The list of items is almost endless, but as each year passes the items get harder and harder to remember.  Some things like shampoo I think about almost every time that I wash my hair using the make-shift soap that I have to make for myself out of wild plants.

Many things now are almost whimsical when I do happen to think about them.   Things like going out to a restaurant and sitting down and ordering anything I want from a large menu of different foods.  Of course I don’t have lobster or shrimp but in the summer I do catch crawdads that I do cook and eat.

I don’t have a wide selection of salad dressings to choose from to put on my salad.  I often eat salads now but I have no salad dressings.  I have tried different things on my salads though.  Like when the prickly pear cacti have the ripe fruits on them and I use the squeezed juice on my salads.  You just have to make do with what you have.  In the old days that was what caused a lot of trouble for people.  They just were not happy making do and instead they always wanted the best of everything.

Chapter 7

Through the years I ended up with less and less garden plants.  That first year that I planted a garden I wasted many of the seeds I had.  I did not have a clue what I was doing and the garden that year was very poor.  I always tried to save seeds from the plants each year but it just did not always work out.  And sometimes I would plant the seeds and nothing would ever come up.  I do still grow a few things like watermelons that grow well here and it is easy to harvest the seeds from them.  The trouble is while they are a treat to eat when they are ripe I cannot store them at all.  I actually have an excess of seeds for watermelons and I plant them near springs here and there in the countryside.  I am kinda hoping for them to “go native” and reproduce on their own.

I miss having potatoes but I do eat tubers from several local plants.  Even the roots from thistles can be eaten.  And I think it is widely known that cattail roots can be eaten.  And yes even here in the desert there are spots that grow cattails.  Besides the roots, young leaf shoots can be eaten along with the actual “cat tail” before it gets too old. 

I have learned to eat so many different things.  But meat is still and always will be the mainstay of my diet.  I use a bow and arrow to harvest most game now.  I have even made several bows myself even though I did find a rather nice laminated recurve bow in a house here.  I have bows and homemade arrows stashed at or near some of my other camps.  Sometimes things happen that are beyond my control and it pays to spread things out and be as prepared for catastrophe as you can be, so I do not keep all my supplies in just one location.

I guess I should tell you about the one gun that I still have plenty of ammunition for.  It is an old antique Colt revolver that my grandfather had and he passed down to my dad.  I am not sure if Grandpa bought the gun new or if it was his father’s or how Grandpa came to own it.  Anyway, I had that gun and I had hidden it so when the government searched my house it was not there to be found.  I had some ammunition stored for this revolver but not very much.

Then, when I searched all the abandoned and vacant homes here in my community I found a house (actually in the garage) that had no loaded ammunition but a lot of reloading supplies for that caliber.  I searched hard but I could not find any guns in that place, so either the government took them or the owner hid them so well that neither I nor the government could find them. 

This guy had participated in something called Cowboy Action Shooting.  He had a lot of information about it at his house.  Apparently these guys used old guns (or new reproduction guns that looked just like the old ones) and they shot these guns in competitions.  Each of the competitions required many shots to be fired so it sounded like it was common for these competitors to reload all their own ammunition.  This guy also casted his own bullets for this caliber.

All of his equipment and supplies were there and intact.  The government had apparently taken all of the guns and loaded ammunition but they just left everything else.  He had a bunch of cast bullets and a lot of lead to make more.  He had used an electric contraption to melt the lead and cast the bullets but I have since cast them using an old pot over a hot wood fire.  Just like the real cowboys did over a hundred years ago I bet.

There were plenty of empty cartridge cases and thousands of primers.  Also there was quite a lot of black powder.  Reading the material I found at his place (I read everything I find everywhere) I learned that there were basically two kinds of gun powder.  Black powder was the old fashioned kind that had been made for hundreds of years, and the newer kind (called “smokeless powder”) that had only been made for about a hundred years.  It sounded like at these competitions, or some of them anyway, all the shooters were required to only use and shoot black powder cartridges.