Free Countdown to Armageddon by Darrell Maloney Page A

half wide. Then we’ll plow the next ten inches and repeat the process all over again. It’ll be tedious and time consuming, but in the end we’ll have twice the crop yield.”
         Joyce was impressed.
         “How did you find out so much about farming?”
         He laughed.
         “The internet.”
         “Okay, Mister Farmer, you mentioned wheat, sorghum and corn. Why those three crops?”
         “Three different crops, so that we can alternate the types of nutrients we pull from the ground each year. Farmers who plant the same crop in the same ground year after year eventually see a dramatic drop in their yield. They simply pull the nutrients from the soil faster than Mother Nature can replace them.
         “Different crops pull different types of nutrients from the soil. So the first year, we’ll plant a corn crop. We’ll grow as much as we can, and then we’ll store it in 55 gallon drums. We’ll grow sweet corn. It’ll be good enough for us to eat as corn, or we can make corn meal from it. Or corn bread or tortillas, or breading for meats. We can use it a hundred different ways. It will also yield several gallons of corn oil for cooking. And as a pinch, it can be used as cattle feed. And the pigs will love the cobs. It’s like candy to them.
         “The second year we’ll grow sorghum. Cattle feed. By the second year, our initial stock of hay bales will be pretty much gone. So we’ll try to grow enough sorghum for three to four years. We’ll bag it into fifty pound sacks and stack it in one of the barns. And we’ll use it for winter feed, when the snow is too thick and the grass too sparse for the cattle to graze.
         “The third year we’ll grow wheat. And again, we’ll grow as much as we can in the hopes that we can stretch it for three years until we plant another wheat crop.
         “The fourth year we swing back to corn again.”
         “What happens if we don’t grow enough of something and run out?”
         “Then we learn a valuable lesson. It won’t be the end of the world. I mean, if we run low on something, we’ll make modifications. During the off-season, between harvest and planting, we can expand our growing field. Make it larger. Or we can plant it earlier in the season and see if we can grow a second crop before cold weather sets in.
         “In other words, we do what farmers have been doing for thousands of years. We adjust.”
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    -12 -
     
         Scott left the compound early enough to beat the boys home from school. Zachary’s bus was running late, as usual, and Jordan beat him home.
         “Hi, Dad.”
         “Hi, pal. How was school?”
         “It sucks. As usual. I can’t wait to graduate. My life will be sooooo much easier.”
         Scott couldn’t help but chuckle. If his son only knew.
         “You understand, don’t you, son, that high school is the fun time in your life? When you get out, you either go to college, where the work is much harder. Or you go to work where you have a boss who rides your ass all day long.
         “And whichever way you go, you have bills to pay, checkbooks to balance, responsibilities to others.”
         “Great! Thanks for reminding me that after high school my life is over. What would I do without you, Dad?”
         “Don’t forget that when your mom and I get old it’s going to be your responsibility to take care of us.”
         Jordan’s jaw dropped.
         “You never told me that before.”
         “Sure. When we get too old to take care of ourselves, you’ll have to do it for us. You can’t just abandon us on somebody’s doorstep, you know. You’ll have to feed us with a spoon when our teeth fall out and we can’t move so much anymore. Change our diapers…”
         Jordan interrupted him.