Calamity in America by Pete Thorsen Page B

to do so with all we have on hand already.  We have worked hard all summer to get to this point.”
    “I know everyone around here has worked hard and maybe that is why now I don’t feel right just relaxing.”
    “There is always work that needs doing.  This week we will take the pickup and trailer over and get a load of old manure to put on the garden and then till it in so the garden can be ready for spring planting.  After the manure is tilled into the soil I will water the garden several times to use up all the water in the big tank so it won’t freeze over winter.
      There seems to always be mending we can do on our work clothes though that is a good project for during the winter months.  I will shoot at least one more deer at some point and we will then make that into more jerky to help tide us over the spring and summer months.  We will render some of the fat and tallow from the deer and make some lye soap.”
    “I am curious about making our own soap.  I have talked with some of the other women about it but only one had ever done it before and she said that was long time ago when she was just a kid helping her mom.  I never knew you could even make your own soap.”
    “That’s why all the books I have are so important.  There are many things that were done by most people in the past that have been lost and all but forgotten because we have all been so spoiled because we could always just go to the store day or night and buy anything we would need and we have had to make nothing for ourselves.”
    “I just feel like we should be doing more.”
    “We were quite busy this summer and fall and in the spring we will be so busy we will wish for more time.  But we are farmers now and there is a reason farmers take their vacations in the winter.  It is the slow time.  Even though it is not winter yet we have pretty much caught up and have done what was needed to be done.  Just wait until this winter when there really is very little to do.”
    “Everything you say is true I know but it is just this feeling that I can’t shake.  I feel I should be working or doing more.”
    “Maybe you would feel better if you came over here and sat in my lap?”
    Beth looked at me and smiled then a moment later she was sitting in my lap.  Soon after I think she forgot about everything else except us.
    We did have work to do and over the next many days we stayed pretty busy.  We got the manure hauled back to our place and one load was plenty and did not use too much of our fuel supply.  Next we unloaded and spread the manure using just hand tools onto our garden plot.  Then it was tilling the garden to incorporate the manure into the soil.  I had hauled way more manure than we needed on purpose so I could put it in a pile for next years use.  Over the next few days we drained what water remained in the big water storage tank onto the garden to help start breaking down the manure.  Plus the water had to be drained out before winter anyway.
    We spent some time pruning and cutting back some of the trees and brush that surrounded the home place.  This had to be done every year or soon we would have no yard and be living in the middle of a woods.  By keeping everything cut back it made a fire break around all the homestead’s buildings.  With the way things are now it also gave us a better field of fire if we were attacked.
    I spent some time working on the old chicken coop getting it ready to receive chickens in the spring.  Beth helped with everything and scoffed at me saying it was man’s work.  She made it very plain to me that there was only work and no such things as woman’s work or man’s work.  I did not bring up the subject again.
    We still gathered more firewood but we had so much on hand that we did not work very hard at that project.  We did gather all the dead wood we found that was large enough to be worth bringing back home.  Years ago we had made a large two wheeled open front cart that