While they were waiting, Pow got out of the Hummer so he could see all angles better. He was scanning everyone, looking for sketchy people and any trouble. He felt like it would be more polite to stay in the Hummer and make small talk with Lisa, but he had a job to do. They’d have days or weeks or whatever to talk back at the cabin. Lisa was quiet, sitting in the passenger side trying not to make eye contact with people.
It was finally their turn at the pump. The handwritten sign said, “Pre Pay Inside. Cash.” This created a dilemma. Would Pow go in and leave Lisa and the stuff, including the AR, there? Or would Lisa have to go in with the cash? Pow decided that they would both go in. He motioned for her to follow him. He made sure the Hummer was locked.
They went into the store where an Arabic man said, “Cash. $15 a gallon. What pump number?” Lisa got out the almost $200 she had and said, “Fill up on pump…”
Pow finished the sentence, “Three.” Lisa put all that money on the counter. It looked weird paying that much for a half tank of gas.
They left quickly, because Pow wanted to be back with his AR. He thought about how gas was $10 a gallon yesterday and $15 today. This wasn’t good. The gas station owner thought he was a brilliant businessman for selling gas at $15 a gallon.
Pow and Lisa filled up as quickly as they could. Their money got them about twelve gallons; enough to get Pow to almost full. They zoomed out of there. Pow felt so much better with that gas gauge needle near “F.” He navigated his way back to the rendezvous gas station. It was 11:10 a.m. They had a while to wait. He got on the CB and told the others where he was and that he could help them, if necessary. Except that he didn’t know how to get where they were. He made a mental note that if they went into town again, or anywhere else, they would need to have someone in each vehicle who knew their way around. There was no doubt that getting lost could get someone killed.
Chapter 83
Picking Up Chicks
(May 8)
Mary Anne and Bobby went to the farm supply store. She went there a few times a year. It was owned by a nice family.
The parking lot was full, and there were plenty of people there, but everyone was polite. There were no armed guards. Bobby saw a few of the shoppers with revolvers tucked in their belts, only semi-concealed. The farm store seemed much safer than the grocery store and gas stations Bobby had been to in Olympia on the previous milk runs.
Mary Anne hoped the farm supply store would have canning supplies and seeds. Sure enough, they had some. Lots, in fact.
She started with the canning supplies. She had a Presto canner from Wal-Mart and it was OK, but she knew she’d be canning large quantities this summer and fall. Lots of salmon, clams, and oysters and then fruits and vegetables.
She couldn’t believe they still had pressure cookers. She got two of the All Americans, the twenty-one quart ones without a rubber gasket, so they would last a lifetime. They weren’t cheap, but this was no time to save cash…which would probably be worthless pretty soon, anyway.
She had some canning jars at home, but not nearly enough, so she got three cases of quart jars and five cases of pint jars, which was about half of what they had in stock.
Mary Anne realized how important canning lids were so she got 200 of each size lid. She remembered that Mrs. Roth, an elderly lady in Pierce Point, had a bunch of canning supplies that she never used. She would go see Mrs. Roth later and ask to have the lids in exchange for some of the canned food they made.
“Do you have any more of these?” Mary Anne asked the clerk.
“There’s a limit on items per person,” she said. Mary Anne vaguely recognized her as one of the owners’ daughters.
The clerk thought a while. No one was really buying the canning supplies. Most of the customers at the farm supply store already had canning supplies. She figured Mary Anne could have about half of what they had in stock. “You’re OK with the stuff you have,” she said.
On to the seeds. The best selection of seeds was available a few months earlier, but it was early May and they still had plenty to choose from.
“These are heirlooms, right?” Mary Anne asked the clerk.
“Most of them are,” she said. “The non-heirlooms are marked on the packages as ‘hybrid.’”
Mary Anne knew heirloom seeds were the kind to get, as they would produce fertile seeds in the next crop, and the seeds would continue to produce with seeds for the next season, and then the next. Non-heirloom seeds were good for only one season. Hybrids were better than nothing, but not the sustainability Mary Anne wanted.
Mary Anne started putting lots of seeds in her cart. She would get “calorie crops,” things that grew the maximum calories. There would be no fancy gourmet crops this year. The years of gourmet meals were over in America, at least for most people. She picked out lima beans and crowder-type shelling peas.
While not “calorie crops,” she got plenty of tomatoes and onions. She even got lettuce, although it might not grow very well in Western Washington. It would probably do OK, it just wouldn’t be a staple like the next thing on her list, which was potatoes.
They had seed potatoes. Russets and red Pontiacs. Mary Anne noted the irony of her Irish ancestors escaping a potato diet in Ireland 150 years ago and now that might be what would be feeding her and her neighbors.
She realized that she’d need seed for crops to grow in the cooler season and “root cellar crops” that would store well. She got cabbage, squash (which she hated, but others might like), and carrots. Lots and lots of carrot seed.
The clerk saw this and said, “There’s a limit on seed purchases per person.”
Mary Anne was a little embarrassed. Was she hoarding? She wanted all the seeds, but didn’t want to be seen as a “hoarder.”
“What’s the limit?” she asked.
“We kind of decide it based on each customer,” the clerk admitted. “Pick out what you’d like and then we’ll see,” she said. Normally a varying limit would be unfair, but Mary Anne trusted the store to be fair.
Mary Anne saw they had chainsaws. John had a large one and a small one, both Stihls. She knew the kind of oil to get for them. She bought a case of it. They could have all the gas in the world but without that oil to mix in it, the saws wouldn’t work. She remembered the blade lengths of John’s saws and got a spare chain for each one.
Mary Anne heard some chickens. That’s what they needed. The store had a bunch of chicks and chickens. She got twenty chicks, a few hens, and a rooster. That would supply roughly an egg a day, and the rooster and hens would produce fryers once in a while. They didn’t have a chicken coop, but John could build one. Chickens didn’t eat much and sure produced tasty protein.
Mary Anne rounded out the shopping trip with chicken feed and fertilizer.
Bobby noticed that they were attracting attention with their cases of canning supplies and huge load of seeds. People were starting to look at them like hoarders. “This is probably enough,” Bobby said to Mary Anne. “We should get going.”
Mary Anne wanted to keep getting things; she might not get a chance to come back for a while, or ever. But, she looked around, noticed it was silent in the store and that everyone was looking at them. Yep, it was time to go.
“I think I have everything on my list,” Mary Anne said.
They paid for their items. Prices hadn’t gone up there. Mary Anne thought that if she had extra seeds she’d bring them back to the store, if she could get there, and let them sell them to someone else. There was an honor system at the farm supply store. Besides, the family who owned the store had their own farm, and were largely self-sufficient. They didn’t need to rip people off to survive, so they didn’t.