The Journal: Cracked Earth (34 page)

As a parting gift, and because he needed his
own weapon, I let Eric take the AR-15. If he ever went back to
Florida, he would have to leave it behind anyway, so it was more of
a loan. He also took the Smith & Wesson .357 revolver as a
personal weapon. I prefer an automatic anyway. John had become very
attached to the Mini-14 and it suited him.

When Jason and Jacob arrived for our pizza
dinner, Jason had a surprise for us.

“You won’t believe what I found in the
basement!” Jason exclaimed. He set two six packs of beer on the
table. “Thank you Uncle Don!”

John’s eyes lit up, and Eric reached for a
bottle opener. Even I had one.

I woke at my usual 7am. I wonder how long the
batteries in the clocks will last before I have to dig out the Big
Ben wind-up clock from the drawer. From electric to batteries to
manual, all in one easy step: a disaster, coming to a town near
you. I put on my robe, smiling at the still sleeping John, and
tiptoed out of the bedroom.

I knocked down the ashes in the stove and
restarted the fire while a pot of water heated on the gas range.
From this point on, any flame needed for the day would be taken
from the cook-stove to preserve the limited supply of matches. I
had thousands, yes, but if I couldn’t restock, it made them
limited. I wonder if at some point, leaving a candle always burning
would be our source of fire. That’s a scary thought. Then I
remembered I had several iron and flint type fire starters hanging
in pouch behind the stove. I never got proficient at using them, so
left them there. Learning to use them might make a good project for
the kids.

I made coffee with the French press, and
transferred the steamy, dark liquid to a different pot and set it
on the stove to stay warm. I poured myself a mug full just as John
came down the hall. I handed him my cup, but he set it down on the
table and pulled me into a hug, nuzzling his sleepy face into my
neck. Ah, this was the warm gentle hug like we would share after
his massages on Eagle Beach. Those hugs always seemed to have an
underlying, unspoken hunger. It seemed like a hundred years ago. He
pulled back without letting go and kissed me. So many times I had
yearned for that kiss in the past. I returned his kiss and deepened
it with a sigh. The desire quickly grew, and without a word, we
retreated to the bedroom.

* * *

A half an hour later, I rolled toward his
warmth. “I think your coffee is getting cold,” I said with a smile.
He laughed, gave me a quick kiss, and we both got up and dressed
for the day.

John poured us both a fresh cup of coffee,
and then dumped his cold cup back into the pot to reheat. We no
longer wasted anything. I set the griddle on the hot stove to fix
toast, and started slicing bread while he opened the blinds on the
glass door. Years ago I had Jason install the cell-style blinds on
all the windows and the glass door. The cell forms an air barrier
against the glass, keeping the hot air out in the summer, and the
cold out in the winter. It was one of the most energy efficient
things I’ve done for the house. Closing them at night is a must
when it’s so cold out.

“Houston, I think we have a problem,” he
muttered.

Problems we don’t need, not after all we’ve
been through. I moved to stand beside him, slipping my arm around
his waist with my free hand and stared at the falling snow. I could
barely see the barn through the veil of big, fluffy flakes falling
straight down.

“I’ve seen snow like this only once before,
back in March of 2002. It snowed for two days and then the wind
blew for another two. Thirty-eight inches of snow brought Marquette
County to a standstill.” The memories of that time marched across
my mind, and all that happened, some good, some not. “Come on, we
need to plan our day.”

We sat down at the table, toast forgotten
until it started to burn. John turned it while I dug out two pads
of paper and a couple of pens. He was buttering the toast and had
the jam on the table when I came back from another quick errand, a
trip to the cold pantry for batteries and the NOAA alert radio. I
have no excuse for why I had forgotten we had this radio.

“Thank you, Marie,” I said under my breath. I
fed the AA batteries into the radio and turned it on.

In that tinny, computer generated voice, the
announcement came:
“The National Weather Service in Marquette
has issued a Severe Blizzard Warning for the entire Lake Superior
coastline of the Upper Peninsula from six o’clock A.M. until
further notice; from Copper Harbor to Grand Marias to Whitefish
Point; West winds will increase to twenty miles per hour and shift
to the North by noon; winds will shift again to the North Northeast
by six o’clock P.M.; Expect snowfall at the rate of up to two
inches or more per hour, with wind gusts up to fifty miles per
hour.”
This was followed by the alert blast, and it started to
repeat.

“Those North Northeast winds will dump us
with lake effect snow, John. And I have never heard them say a
warning was in effect until further notice! Never.”

“Maybe they don’t know how long it will
last,” he concluded.

“That’s what worries me.”

“We’re okay, though, right?” He seemed
worried.

“Absolutely! But there are a few things we
have to do, and quickly.” I, took a sip of coffee, then a bite of
toast. I was starting to like my own jam. John picked wild
raspberry this time. “If this storm lasts a long time, and by the
sounds of it, it will, we need to do all we normally would do over
the next four to five days, in less than a day—today!” My mind was
reeling with lists.

“Okay, tell me what to do.” He had his pen
ready to make his own list.

“Water is critical. I’ll need you to gas up
the gennie, and then refill the three five-gallon gas cans. One of
them will go to Jason’s, depending on what Don had left for gas,
which I don’t think was much, if any. After you do that, get the
gennie going and fill the four five-gallon water containers, and
the four big cooking pots that are out in the small shed. That
should give us enough for several days.” He nodded and jotted
things down. “Once the water jugs are full, we’ll need to do all
the laundry.” My mind was racing. “And flush both toilets and keep
them flushed while the gennie is on.”

“The chickens will need tending,” John added.
“I’ll fill their water full, and the feeder. Will that last them a
couple of days?”

“Yes, it should, thank you.”

“I’ll bring in extra wood and kindling, too.
There’s room behind the stove for about four days’ worth if I stack
it right,” he said half to himself. I could see he understood the
urgency.

“I’m going to start a double batch of bread,
then go to the office while it’s rising. The boys will need both
loaves and I’ll make ours later.” He frowned. “Why are you risking
going into town?”

“Tomorrow is Food Bank day. I’m going to get
ours early and make sure Anna knows about the storm. I’ll get the
boys’ share, and David’s too.” His frown persisted. “Don’t worry,”
I said, touching his hand, “it looks about six inches out there. My
car can handle it no problem. I’ll only be gone a half hour. I
promise.”

While I put the bread together and spent ten
minutes kneading it, we continued to talk, and John took all the
notes.

“We’ll need the snowshoes from the barn. They
can stay in the pantry out of the way until we need them. Oh, and I
might as well pre-grind some more wheat while the gennie is running
all day, so the big electric grinder will have to come in from the
shed too, but that can wait until I come back.” I covered the bowl
full of dough with a cloth and set it near the stove to rise. What
else? What else? What am I missing? What am I forgetting?

* * *

The snow was deeper than six inches once I
got out onto the main road, and I could see the plow coming in my
direction. I pulled over and stopped, waiting until it was past. I
wouldn’t be able to see a thing in the cloud of snow it was kicking
up anyway. It was hard enough to see through the falling snow.

* * *

“I didn’t expect to see you here, Allexa,”
Anna said, already in the conference room filling food boxes while
several people waited. I smiled at the few who had thought enough
ahead to get their food early.

“I’m thinking like these folks and picking up
early.”

I helped Anna fill the last of the boxes, and
soon the room was empty except for us. That’s when I told her I
needed four boxes for two people. She raised her eyebrows, but when
I explained who I was picking up for, she nodded and pulled out
more boxes.

“I managed to get a NOAA report this morning,
Anna,” I was trying hard to impress how grave this could be. “We’re
under a blizzard warning, no totals predicted, and no time frame on
when it might end. I’ve never heard of that.”

“I heard it too. It has me worried, but the
town has come through everything that has been thrown at it so far.
I have confidence we’ll get through this, too.” She helped me load
the four boxes in my car. “Please try not to give into the
temptation of going across the road to see your boys while it’s
still snowing, you might get lost!” She paused for a moment. “It’s
been said you can lose your way in ten feet during a bad
blizzard.”

And I instantly knew what I’d been
forgetting! I stopped at Fram’s before heading home, and caught Joe
as he was locking the doors to go home to ride out the storm.

“Joe, I’ll only be a minute.” I headed back
to the hardware department, past all the empty food shelves that
stood like sentinels and reminders of more prosperous days.
Thankfully I found what I needed and was back at the counter in
less than two minutes.

He looked at my purchase with questioning
eyes. “I’ll put those on your tab. Now get out of here and go
home!”

* * *

I was gone only forty-five minutes.
Thankfully the plow had been by when it had, there was now almost
as much snow on the road as before in that very short time. It was
snowing hard and it was a struggle getting into the driveway
through what felt like a foot of snow. Still grasping the steering
wheel, I put my head on my hands after I had backed into the barn,
and gave a sigh of relief. John tapped on the side window,
startling me.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m really glad to be home. The roads are
getting worse.”

“You were late, and I was waiting to help
with the boxes.” He gave me that smile that always melts my
insides. He had the sled ready, but it still took two trips to get
it all in the house.

I did the next step on the bread, setting the
dough into the loaf pans to rise again. The gennie was still
running and John was almost done with the slow process of filling
the water jugs. With so much to carry back in, we both went to the
small shed to retrieve the cooking kettles, and get the electric
grain grinder. The grinder could make five times the flour in half
the time as a hand crank, which I did have, though rarely used.
Right now, time was
not
on our side. While in the shed, I
spotted the shower bucket I made and grabbed that too, just in
case. John carried the box with the heavy grinder, and I carried
the rest, five empty buckets and pots. It wouldn’t be long and that
storage shed would be inaccessible without a lot of digging, so I
went back out while John continued with the water, and got an extra
storage bucket of wheat berries and one of Basmati rice.

John still needed to bring in the wood, so I
finished filling the four kettles we had brought in, with water and
setting two of them on the stove to heat. Finally, I filled a
bucket and was on my way out to the coop, when John called out from
the wood shed, “The chickens are taken care of!”

I nodded and went back into the house. The
full bucket could go to one of the bathrooms. When John came in
with that load of wood, I suggested we go over the notes.

“Let’s see what’s been done and what still
needs doing, so we’re not duplicating our efforts,” I said, while
we both sipped fresh cups of coffee.

Just then, Tufts decided to make an
appearance, rubbing against first my legs then John’s. After a
scratch on the head, he went to see what offerings we had left for
him in his feeding spot. I made a quick note. John raised an
eyebrow in question.

I grinned. “I need to clean the litter
box.”

“All the water is done, so we start laundry
now, right?” he asked. “I filled the gennie first, then all three
gas cans, took water to the chickens and filled their auto-feeder
full. On my way back I grabbed our snowshoes off the wall. The
chicks left us six eggs by the way,” he said.

Maybe I’ll include some eggs with David and
Jane’s food box. We owe them a lot.

“Before the storm gets worse, I need to get
the box next door,” I said. I slipped the bread into the oven and
set the timer. John wasn’t happy about the thirty minutes or so it
would take me to walk there, deliver and walk back. Neither was I,
but it had to be done before dark. I promised to take a compass
with me. “When I get back, we need to do something else…”

“What?”

“Lifelines. We need to run ropes between here
and the boys, and here to the barn. I don’t think we need it for
the wood shed, since it’s less than six feet from the edge of the
house to the shed,” I said, thinking of Anna’s ten feet
comment.

“Do we have that much rope?”

“I stopped at Fram’s while in town and bought
five hundred feet of clothesline. That should get from here to the
boys. Maybe. I’ve never thought to measure it. Plus there’s another
three hundred feet in the barn that I stored last summer. We start
with a line to the boys.” I had thought there may come a time I
would need to do a line to the barn, but it never occurred to me to
run one across the road. In times past when this happened, we all
would hunker down and wait out the storm.