Agricultural: November 2007 Archives

[Written by Rebecca Lee Smith]

"Everybody got their gear? Flashlights? Boots? Rope? Gloves? Charges?"

Used to be a group would break into the enclave without hip-waders, Tyvek, or latex. Showing up at the hospital with a raging crypto or Salmonella infection was a dead giveaway, especially after a 'break' was announced, so they had to treat it themselves. Since they couldn't access the superdrugs without even more questions, they started losing people to the XDR strains. Procedure was changed, then, even if it took most of a day to paint those suits black.

The politicians thought the pipeline was the most sensible way to deal with transport from the enclave. After all, running electric through cables the length of Cayuga County had seemed wasteful, and required the plant staff to live in no-man's land. Therefore, it was only expeditious to build a manure pipeline, several, really, from the centralized barns to the methane digesters on the northern and southern edges of the dairy enclave that had been Cayuga County. That's where the population was, of course, not counting the immigrant dorms in the center. And power was necessary -- NiMo lost their primary source when the level of Lake Erie dropped below the Falls, after the Midwest Corn Irrigation Plan.

After all, they said, one good pipe deserves another.

What hadn't been considered was the possibility of a pipeline as an ideal terrorist target. (People forget their history so quickly....) There were plenty of dispossessed former residents, angry at the use of eminent domain for private business, willing to take part in commando raids like tonight.

The target: a conflagrance of pipes that was, for a change, not within the lake's watershed.

[By Angelika St.Laurent]

"Really? No, that can't be true!"

Kailee let herself sink on the bench. Her eyes wandered over the field of bright red flowers swinging gently in the wind, stretching from the garden down to the creek. Just five minutes ago the poppies had seemed a bright assurance of the farm's prosperity. But now?

"Not the Count," she protested.

"I just heard it on the radio," answered Ethan, slumping beside her on the bench. "I mean he was old, ninety-three. Not even Count Sam can live forever."

"I know," whispered Kailee, staring at the red field in front of her. "It's just that he's always been here."

Always wasn't quite true. She had been six, back in 2018, when Sam Bear had been elected Governor for the first time. She still remembered her father cursing that day, swearing that that drug-trading liberal gangster would wreck the state within a year. He had loaded his hunting rifle that night and placed it under the bed. It had sat there, loaded, until Mom got cancer and only the state health fund saved them from having to sell the farm.

That spring, Dad had applied for his first concession to grow poppies, and the gun had wandered back into the shed, coming out only in deer season. Governor Bear, always re-elected, had long since been called Count Sam.

Kailee had always loved the bountiful red fields full of the poppies they were allowed to grow every four years. She had never missed the chance to apply for a poppy license since she and Ethan took over the farm. Sure, hemp was good cash too, less trouble to grow, but it just didn't have the grace of poppy.

"With the Count gone, will we be able to sell the crop?" Kailee wondered, "with Billie going off to college next year and all?"

"I think so," nodded Ethan slowly. "Without comfort crops, there wouldn't be many public services left in New York."

The old root cellar had to be the most comfortable place we had slept in weeks. The cellar was dark, true, but when you're sleeping, that's a good thing. It was a surprise finding it - Dave tripped over some bricks and landed on the door. Nothing seemed to live there. It was dry enough, a reasonable temperature, and the broken shelving only covered a little bit of the space. We took the shelving outside and put it in a pile, ready to use for cooking dinner and the night's fine. Damp wood was better than the wet wood all around us.

The sheep were roaming as usual, with the collies and llamas keeping them as orderly as they could manage. There might be a few coyotes around, but we were ready for them, and hadn't lost a healthy sheep in a month or so. The dogs were good for company, too, since we hadn't seen another human in a couple of weeks, and think he might have been a thief anyway.

We'd have to move on in the morning, though, to get to the Elmira shearing by Tuesday. The beginning of our wanderings is always fun, but somehow the end of it is always a mad rush - lose track of time, then have to make up for it and more. If you're not careful, the sheep lose weight on the way in, and you won't get as much money for mutton.

The last shearing was pretty much a disaster, since my good horse had broken a leg in an old house foundation and I had to ride our aging pack horse. We got to the shearing just as the gates were closing, and missed all the fun as we scrambled to get set up. This time we'll be earlier, with time left over to raise a ruckus.