Story Nann

Griz3752

Retired, practising Curmudgeon
There is a plus to this little interlude. I just finished starting over and over again and now reading enduring on the lake . I just reread "Eidetic Sunshine" and "Trash to Treasure" - love Kathy's writing!


Yeah it's not like she doesn't have a huge catalogue spread around the web and there's pretty much something for everyone. I just started going through her contributions to the Resources section on TB2K; I have no idea how many recipes or processing procedures she's posted there.
 

Sammy55

Veteran Member
There is a plus to this little interlude. I just finished starting over and over again and now reading enduring on the lake . I just reread "Eidetic Sunshine" and "Trash to Treasure" - love Kathy's writing!


Yeah it's not like she doesn't have a huge catalogue spread around the web and there's pretty much something for everyone. I just started going through her contributions to the Resources section on TB2K; I have no idea how many recipes or processing procedures she's posted there.
Yes, her writing is amazing! Just like Pacs! And a few others (like moldy, et al). I love to go to the "old stories" and read them again and again. I always learn something new! I have done some, but I SHOULD be writing everything down that I have learned as I have a BIG gut feeling (not the feelz kind) that we are going to be needing all of this information sometime soon.

My sincerest, "happy dance," thanks-filled appreciation to Kathy and all of our amazing writers here at TB!!
 

9idrr

Veteran Member
I was just hopin' that I could convince her that, bein' as I'm just a tired ol' geezer, worn out 'n' busted up, could shuffle off this mortal coil at any moment, and am so deservin' of special treatment 'cause I'm so tired, 'n' so old, and so special 'n' all, (did I mention I might shuffle off this mortal coil at any moment) that I'd hate to never get to find out how it ends for Kay Lee or Syd and...
Think that's enough snivelin' that she'll take pity on me? Should I tell her I'm cringin' in the corner, suckin' my thumb? I could hold my breath 'til I turn blue.;)
 

Laurane

Canadian Loonie
I was just hopin' that I could convince her that, bein' as I'm just a tired ol' geezer, worn out 'n' busted up, could shuffle off this mortal coil at any moment, and am so deservin' of special treatment 'cause I'm so tired, 'n' so old, and so special 'n' all, (did I mention I might shuffle off this mortal coil at any moment) that I'd hate to never get to find out how it ends for Kay Lee or Syd and...
Think that's enough snivelin' that she'll take pity on me? Should I tell her I'm cringin' in the corner, suckin' my thumb? I could hold my breath 'til I turn blue.;)
Sounds like there are a few of us "mortal coil shufflers" hanging around.....
 

Siskiyoumom

Veteran Member
I just binge read Moms Journal of the Zombies. I first started reading it at Zombie Squad over a decade ago. I want moar, moar yes moar. Hee hee.
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Can't promise a chapter a day but hopefully we've got the workload managed if not completely under control

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Chapter 65

“I didn’t ‘let’ ‘em Mitch. I just didn’t have time to fight with the hens that were too good at hiding their nests in the barn and then before you know it, they’re out strutting their stuff with chicks in tow. I know you’ve been nice about saying stuff about all the work I did, but I’m going to be honest, for about a month after you left the dogs took care of me more than I took care of everything else. I hadn’t talked in so long at one point, when I did several of the goats fainted and I nearly did too.”

He laughed for a moment then slowly stopped as he notice I wasn’t. “Nann?”

“I was probably goofier than Turnbridge until the night those planes crashed and it shook me up enough to get me back going the right direction.” I shrugged. “There were no disasters but, as you can see, some stuff did get away from me. Have I ruined the chickens?” I asked in worry.

“No,” he said like the idea was ridiculous. “Might even be a godsend if the winter is bad. Younger chicks we would lose to the cold.” He shook his head. “That hay stacked up against the barn is going to have to act as insulation. Just need to make sure there is good ventilation so we don’t get condensation inside the barn. I’ll think on it and hopefully there will be time to do something about it.”

“I can’t believe how warm it is. I didn’t even need a jacket this morning when I went to gather the eggs.” I shook my head. “But the chickens know something. Only a couple are still laying. Just in the last couple of days production has really dropped.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Thanks for helping to get the butchering area set up. It ain’t time yet but, I don’t want it to catch me off guard either. If it gets cold enough end of this month, beginning of next, you think you can handle the kitchen if I slaughter the animals?”

“Depending on the weather we might as well do it all together. I found all those containers … plastic and metal … and at the first freeze we’ll start on the ice room as well.”

“The first freeze will probably be more frost than freeze. Some of those containers are deep and you’ll get a top crust of ice but it won’t freeze all the way through. Might only be able to put an inch or two of water in them to start with. The first ice in the ice room will melt before we can lower the temp in there enough to keep ice frozen. That insulation board will help but it air temperature still needs to drop significantly to make the idea work.”

Nodding I showed I understood. “If we are going to have to run the freezers to keep up with the butchering, we could might fill up the old pop bottles and stuff and get them frozen too. I know we planned to use them for the popcorn but I don’t know, maybe we should freeze them and try and get the ice room going instead. I can find other things to put the popcorn in.”

This time it was Mitch’s turn to nod. “Might be a good idea at that.” We watched the kids play with the dogs from the side yard where we were walking and talking plans out. Mitch snorted, noticing that Butch had figured out that Amy was weaker than Dan and therefore he couldn’t be as rough with her. “Smart dog.”

“Let’s hope the puppies are as smart. Especially if you are going to try and turn them into a hunting pack. Lord knows how I’m going to feed them over the winter.”

“They’ll get the offal from anything that I can bring in when I go hunting. And I’m definitely going to get some venison whether I have tags or not. They’ll strip the trees this winter if we aren’t careful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many. And I want to get them before they get lean and tough.”

I shook my head. “Dad and Dale both said things were so hunted over people were having to go to meatless menus whether they wanted to or not.”

“I’ve thought about that. Wish we could send them some to be honest. It would give me a reason to cull more than we can use. They’re coming down from the high ridge to feed. I hope that doesn’t mean they’ve stripped everything up there already. That’s not going to be good for erosion. You sure you’re going to be able to do something with whatever meat we can manage?”

We walked over to the well as Mitch was more and more convinced a windmill on it would be a boon even with the work involved. He was also trying to think of a way to get water down to the subcellar, or at least the cellar, for just in case.

“I’ve got a long list of recipes that I’ve already made sure I have all of the ingredients for. After that I have recipes that I might only be missing one or two things for that will be easy to substitute. If nothing else, I can raw pack it and just can it as-is and then use it to make other things with over time. What I’m worried about is the salt. We’re going to be using a lot … A LOT … to preserve the meat. And I don’t know about you, but after hearing Dad go on about the people where they are at having the same concerns I wish there was some way to get ahead of next year.”

“Might be a way.”

I gave him a look. “Not if it includes you being in danger. You’ve done more than your fair share and more than your fair share of suffering for it.”

He blinked and then tried to give me an innocent look that I wasn’t falling for. He eventually said, “Er … let me think on it some.”

“Uh huh. You think on it some all you want but we’re married now even if we aren’t taking advantage of all the perks. So on this I am being the wife and putting my foot down. You’ve bled enough. Let’s come up with something together that don’t cause you to have to bleed anymore. Instead of canning so much next year … we got the issue of the lids to think of anyway … I’ll just keep the dryhouse running. There’s herb mixes I can make for a salty-taste and I should probably start doing that now to save the table salt. We can smoke the jerky instead of marinating it in salt. As for the rest …”

“As for the rest … let me think on it,” Mitch told me. “I’m due some back pay, maybe I can parlay that into some things we’ll need instead of cash on the barrelhead.” Then he gave me a look and I knew he was determined to get some answers.

“I’ve heard enough of the stories about how that fighter jet took out the salvagers’ campfrom others, but now I want to hear it from you.”

# # # # #

I had gotten nearly through the entire story when the kids came running and asking if they could have an apple. “I don’t see why not,” I told them. “But only one. I don’t think you want a bellyache.”

They both ran off again, happy, but I turned back to Mitch to find him just the opposite.

“Nannette …”

Trying to forestall what I thought was going to be a lecture I asked, “Would you have done any different?”

He stopped, trying to come up with something to say. I could tell he was trying to be careful which was a good sign.

“Not what I was going for,” he said. He surprised me by saying, “Not a lot of point in wishing things had happened differently when to be honest that was probably the best outcome that could have been hoped for. We don’t have to worry about the dregs of the group still working but … aw hell Nann, c’mere and at least let me hold you even if the kids can see. I never wanted you to have to deal with something like that. I can’t believe they just left you here without them at least trying to find the salvagers.”

“Guess you didn’t hear that part. They thought it was an enemy patrol, not salvagers. That there had been a lot of groups attacked at the same time all along the border. Salvagers never even came into their thinking. They just started firebombing the border.”

He hugged me anyway and then kept his arm around me. “Are you okay?”

“With what I did? Yes. With watching Donny Winters come to a bad end? Yes. With all of it? You coming home was the last piece of it so yes on that too. Do you think less of me for it?”

“No. I’m grateful. But that don’t stop me from wishing …”

“You know what Uncle Hy would have said about wishing.”

Mitch snorted. “Yeah. Wish in one hand and crap in the other and see which one weighs the most. Don’t change my feelings on the subject. And you sure that Major had all the art and other gewgaws hauled off?”

“And I suspect for his own gain. But I’m not sticking my nose in that. I’m just glad that Lt. Clark has been reassigned someplace else. She had started to get on my nerves.”

“I’ll check with Cahill if he gets assigned back here like the gossips say. He may not after the field promotion he got to Sergeant Major. He’s moved from company to battalion level authority.”

“And that’s a big deal?”

“It is for a man his age. And if I have to guess he’s being groomed to be a Command Sergeant Major. He’s good at what he does. Had a grasp on how to guide the troops whether they be enlisted or not. Damn good liaison between enlisted and officers and that’s a fact. Made my job easier and I learned a lot from him too. If some of the bigwigs would get out of the way and let more Sergeant Major’s have final say on the ground, we probably wouldn’t have had some of the pushes from the enemy that we’ve had.”

“The bigwigs sound like big heads.”

“Some maybe but its more that you have political officers and then you have fighting officers. Look at any war and you can tell the difference. The same could be said for peace time. Neither one is inherently bad but your healthy balance depends on the situation you are dealing with. Too many political officers and you wind up with more in-fighting than fighting the enemy because the officers are more interested in self-aggrandizement than fighting and getting the war over with. Political officers get too interconnected with what is called the war industry. They make money off it above and beyond their personal payroll. They want to keep it rolling along so they can keep making money but without the motivation to do what must be done to bring it to a close. Fighting officers? They can get myopic … you know, tunnel vision … and don’t always see the big picture outside of the war itself. That’s got it own set of problems. Not everything is a nail looking for a hammer. We had political officers in charge up to recently. There were some attempted assassinations I only found out while I was hospitalized. Suddenly the Whitehouse decides to change their game plan and put fighting generals in charge … like when Lincoln put Grant in charge after letting McClellan run the show for so long.”

“You are using the US Civil War as an example? Really?!”

“Yes. Really. If you don’t learn from history you are doomed to repeat it.”

“Whooo boy, you had too much time on your hands to think when you were in quarantine,” trying to fun him out of the mood he was sliding into.

Mitch grimaced. “You have no idea. But I tried to put it to good use. I just wish I’d had Dad’s library and files to work from.” Then he looked at me. “And I went along with you distracting me from the subject of Donny Winters and the rest of it only because I know there isn’t a thing I can do about it … except do my best you never have to face something like that again.”

I hugged him to show I wasn’t irredeemably broken and when I heard his stomach growl I knew it was time to move on to more constructive activities. There were things in this life you just couldn’t change and then there were things that you could. For now I could change hungry bellies into full ones, I just hope that stayed true.
 

Sammy55

Veteran Member
I agree! A fantastically nice surprise!

I just started rereading "Starting Over and Over and Over" again, for the third time! I love your books and never get tired of reading them over and over. And I always learn something new! Thanks bunches for the great writing and stories!!
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Chapter 66

I put some dried apples in a bag and tucked them inside Dan’s backpack and tried to do it without drowning in the tears that wanted to swamp me inside. Everything was so quiet outside I could hear the rocker squeaking as the woman rocked Amy, holding on so tight you would think she was worried the little girl would float away. Dan’s hands were holding onto the older man’s hands like he was the one that was worried the man and woman were going to disappear like that first bit of snow we’d gotten.

Mitch was outside talking to the woman from the ROF program. ROF stands for Reuniting Our Families. Part of me admires them people and part of me right now just doesn’t want to think on what it means to me personally. In addition to the dried apples I slid in a wedge of cheese and some homemade crackers. In Amy’s bag I secured the Barbie she’d finally started saying was “hers” and a bag of dog kibble from the bottom of the trash can to hopefully hold Mutt over until they could get back to the train that would take them back across the border.

Two days ago I was fighting with the mud that boots kept carrying up to the front porch. I’d grown used to the occasional soldier traipsing across the yard looking for Mitch or taking a short cut. The kids had too. Mitch didn’t like it, but he tolerated it because he knew that Cahill and those under his command weren’t indiscriminate about their travel. They were trying hard to leave as little trace as possible because drones were still occasionally flying through the area. So I’m hanging laundry on the porch line … small clothes mostly like socks and such … and sweeping off wet mud when I hear the dogs. Oh Lord, I think, who is this now.

I put my hand in my pocket to feel the gun that I always kept there and look down the lane and I see Mitch yanking on the collars of Butch and Pretty. They like strangers even less now than they had before the war. Dan and Amy are upstairs playing but I hear them clambering down the stairs and I tell them to stay inside until I figure out what is going on. “And stay away from the windows Dan. I mean it.”

I hear both of them change direction and go back up the stairs and I can feel a lecture coming on. I know they are heading up to the attic to look out the cupola up there. It isn’t technically a window so I was trying to figure out how to explain that it isn’t just the words of an order, but the spirit of it that needed to be obeyed. Their mom’s family had let them run a little wild and though they were good kids, rules were still something they occasionally seemed to consider optional.

I saw a guy named Harkness come from the other side of the jeep and as the dogs know him and like him I saw Mitch turn the dogs over to him for a work out. Harkness comes from a family of dog trainers and one look at the puppies and the grown dogs and it had been love at first sight. Silly but that’s the way some people are. Most guys have pin ups or pictures of their girlfriend in their personal stuff. Harkness has pictures of dogs.

Every minute he has Harkness is over wanting to work with the dogs. Since Mitch also likes Harkness it isn’t a problem and privately Mitch told me, it’s probably saving Harkness from PTSD. He’s the kinda person that medical should have removed during basic, he’s not mentally strong enough for what’s being asked of him. Cahill is trying to get him reassigned but it hasn’t happened yet. And had it been possible I suspect Harkness would adopt one of the puppies. He was especially attached to the little female that was brown like her father except for a blonde saddle that was Pretty’s color. She also had curly fur on her ears, a throwback to one of the mongrels in her breeding line.

All that passed through my mind in less than a second. Then the woman got out of the jeep and Mitch brought her over to the porch. His face was blank but I could see he was troubled by the storm behind his eyes.

“This is my wife. She’s the one that found the kids.”

Immediately I wanted to start growling the same way the dogs had.

The woman said, “My name is Tabitha Johnson and I am authorized to pay the ransom for the children.”

“Ransom? What ransom? And who are you?”

“I said my name …”

“I heard your name Ms. Johnson, I mean who are you? What are you doing here?”

“I am Mr. and Mrs. Clark’s representative.”

“And who the heck …” I stop and draw breath to calm myself because I was overflowing with worry and bad feelings. “Beg your pardon. And who are these Clarks you say you represent.”

“If you are playing for more money …”

I scratched my chin and looked at Mitch. “Do you know what is going on?”

“I suspect.”

“Can you explain it to me. I’ve been doing laundry all morning in this weather and I’m not … I don’t think I’m in the right frame of mind to play twenty questions.”

Ms. Johnson just kept looking at us suspiciously. Then the clatter starts up again and I just barely catch Dan and Amy before they come flying out the door.

“Miss Tabby!”

The woman looks like she’s going to pull a gun and Mitch blocks her sending my adrenaline in to overdrive.

“Dan! Look at me!” He stops in shock. “Do you know that person?”

“That’s Daddy’s friend! That’s Miss Tabby!”

“Fine. But we are going to use our manners and our indoor voices until we get this figured out. ‘K?”

# # # # #

It was dark. And felt colder than it actually was in the ktichen. But Mitch was holding me so the world wasn’t going to come to an end even if it did feel crackly around the edges.

He kissed the top of my head and asked, “You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah,” I answered quietly, trying my best not to sound like an elephant with a clogged trunk.

“Nann …”

“Don’t. We both know that it wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t in The Plan. Right now I’m just not understanding The Plan as much as I thought I was. And I’m a little angry.” I heard him sigh. “It’s okay. Because I’m also … grateful. Not for myself but for Dan and Amy. Their father might be in bad shape but at least he is alive and there’s a chance. It’s more than they had not that long ago.”

I can hear his own sorrow and anger despite him trying to be strong for me when he said, “But to say the kids weren’t going to be allowed to write letters just to let you know how they were. That’s just mean Nann. It made me angry the way that ROF woman said it.”

“Psychobabble. They might be right. Maybe they aren’t. But you saw how happy the kids were to see their grandparents. And … they seem good people. Maybe not our kinda people but still good people. I … guess that Ms. Johnson is alright too. She fought her way through all the red tape, not really knowing what she’d find when she got here. And she did it for Dan and Amy’s father. That’s plain as the nose on her face. The fact their grandmother wouldn’t be left behind tells you she’s probably a lot stronger than she looks too. And I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen Amy quite so calm and quiet.”

“Still …”

“Still nothing. I’m just aggravated at how long it took for them to believe that we weren’t using the kids as slave labor, that we weren’t the ones that asked for the ransom or whatever the heck is going on.”

“You and me both Sugar.”

“Not sugar … salt. That woman brought salt to ransom the kids with. What sense does that make?”

“Probably more than you’d think. It’s worth a lot on the open market … assuming you have ration points for it. Mr. Clark has that business … refining salt … so it might not seem like much if you look at it that way, but they had other stuff they were going to add to it. As for how personal the information was, that likely means that their uncle is still alive. The fact that the Johnson woman checked things with the military and then ran across the address here …” I felt him shake his head. “From what little the kids have said she is lucky she gave her rescue attempt a try here rather than the other address she had. I convinced her to turn that over to Cahill for the military to check out. The woman sounded like she was going to investigate the other on her own. Hope she drops it.”

“They’ll all get a good talking to for crossing the border before their permit had been activated. That woman from ROF smoothed things over but she seems like she’ll impress on them that they didn’t do other families any favors by jumping the gun like that.” I kept my tears under control but it was a near thing.

That’s when Mitch said, “They’ll have a different kind of bringing up than we could give them. I suppose … I suppose that’s a good thing.”

I snorted and nearly gag, but with more confidence than I’ve felt in almost 72 hours I said, “No. It’s just a different kind of thing. I suspect if the world keeps on this way, a lot of people are going to be moving our direction for a way of doing things, including how they’re gonna raise kids.” Then I couldn’t help it and I cried a bit more.
 
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