Chapter 17
When we got back to camp Jan was about to start unloading and I stopped her.
“I think we should move into one of those houses near here. We know they are all empty and apparently squatting in empty houses is the new normal. It would make our lives much easier living indoors and we will have to do it before winter anyway.”
“OK you talked me into it. Let’s go pick one out right now so it’s done.”
We drove the already loaded pickup down to where the four houses were located and parked it on the road in the middle of the bunch. We looked at all four houses before making up our minds as to which one we wanted. All of them had been broken into so we could just walk in with no problem. All of them had power (until the rolling blackout) and so all had running water too.
When we had made our choice I drove the pickup in and backed up near the house door and we unloaded everything. It turns out we would not have had to fill all those water containers after all but better safe than sorry. We took the truck back to camp and loaded everything else we had (after taking down the tents) into the two trucks and drove back to our new house where we unloaded everything.
There was an empty two car garage so I put both pickups inside and out of sight. The house we picked did have a wood stove and there was a big pile of wood outside but if the electric stayed on we could heat mainly with the electric baseboard heaters. There was an electric range and a microwave for cooking when the power was on and in a pinch we could cook on top of the wood stove in the winter.
Food had been taken from the house of course but those that broke in to steal the food apparently wanted only easy fix food. Things like flour, sugar, and other baking supplies that just about everyone has some of in their house remained in this one. Seeing that I went to the other three houses and found about the same supply of baking supplies and brought them all to our new house over the next couple days.
It was like staying in a mansion after camping for so long. We had talked about using a vacant house on several occasions but that was all we did was talk about it. When we both found out that it was now a more acceptable act in this crisis that we all faced we no longer hesitated and had moved in the same day we heard that it was now common practice. It still did not seem right to us to live in someone else’s house but we did accept that it was necessary.
Staying in the house was just like using the baking supplies in the houses here; better to use them rather than just let them go to waste. I did repair the doors in all four houses the best I could so the houses could be closed up tight and keep the vermin out.
With us moving into this vacant house our standard of living took a major boost. We are now living about the same as we were before this crash happened (and before we ever met). We found a hair clipper in the house we now called home and Jan used that and a scissors to cut my hair. I also shaved and now I looked like my old self again which I think Janet appreciated.
In one of the houses I found a small chest freezer which I transferred to the house where we are staying. Soon I will shoot a deer or elk and then we will have a steady source of quality meat. I found little freezer paper to wrap the meat but did find a large quantity of plastic wrap and almost countless zip lock bags of various sizes that we can use to put the meat in for freezing.
I also gathered many books from the other houses for us to read and study on many different subjects. There were several cook books and Jan said we could easily turn much of the meat into jerky. This would be a good idea as we would have no loss from spoilage if the power went out for an extended length of time, something I was concerned about. With that decided I wasted no time and two days later I shot a nice doe deer which I gutted, skun-out, and then with Jan’s help we de-boned all the meat.
Jan had made a simple dip using a recipe she found in one of the cook books that we used on the thinly sliced venison. Then we used all four ovens in the four houses to turn the fresh meat into jerky. That way all the meat we wanted to jerk was done in one day. Some of the meat was frozen to be used later and that night we had fresh venison chops for supper.
The jerky turned out very good and was handy to take with on extended hikes. With the freezer available I also shot a couple of the local wild turkeys. They made a nice change from the venison and rabbit that we had been eating. Janet tried cooking and baking many different things using what food stuffs we had on hand. Many recipes were limited due to the fact we had no eggs as they were called for in many recipes. We also had no milk, cheese, or butter.
We did have various cooking oils and a large supply of many different spices from what we bought and we found in the four houses. I must admit I thought Jan did a great job cooking using what we had available. Naturally I told her so on several occasions.
The one food we had plenty of and was fairly easy to replace was meat. So meat was a major component of our diet. We had planned for that when we were shopping for food and did have a fair supply of other foods. We had bought a lot of dried soup mixes and always bolstered those mixes with added meat from our stocks. When the venison from that first deer was running low I managed to shoot a large cow elk. This provided a much larger quantity of meat than the deer.
Again we jerked some of the meat and froze the rest of it. The jerky could be used in cooking just as well as the fresh or frozen could. The jerky had the benefit of not requiring refrigeration which was still a worry with both of us though the nights now often went below freezing temps. Soon we would be able to keep anything frozen outside by just keeping it in the shade.
With the colder temps we used the electric heat in our new house. We kept it fairly cool in the house and we had closed off the unused rooms and did not heat them. It had snowed several times now but so far there was no build up on the ground. We both thought that snow covering was coming though neither of us knew how much snow to expect during the winter.
While we were not getting fat and sassy and had kept up our training sessions and hikes we both felt very secure here. When nothing happens for a long while people always get lax in the jobs they do or are supposed to do. This also happened to us. Seeing no one and feeling so secure I let our security lapse.