Free The Shelter: Book 1, The Beginning by Ira Tabankin Page A

up companies to install the fire suppression system, security bars, solar panels and the windmills. Three new wells have already been dug and plumbed. The windmills are going to be installed the week of March 23. I can’t forget Fred laughing when I told him we got the bank to accept $650,000 to pay off the mortgage on his farm. Lacy and I now owned Fred’s farm, he said he now had the best lender in the country. Fred told us his, and now our neighbors might be interested in doing a similar arrangement with us. I told him we’d to look into it sometime after we moved into our new home. I thought it might make sense to increase the size of the farm. The next day the EU officially died when the United Kingdom announced on Valentine’s Day they were leaving the Union. The Euro will cease to be a traded currency on March 2. Since the UK’s announcement, the dollar has increased in value by 30%. Gold is currently trading at $2,895 an ounce and with the average cost of our gold at $1,670, means we’ve made $1,225 per ounce! I requested the agents to convert our holdings into gold coins and send them to us. We agreed to purchase an additional $100,000 of gold coins and $200,000 of US Silver Eagles. The sales agent was so happy, he gave us a discount on the new purchase. Due to the quantity and high value of our purchases the agent kept trying to get us to leave our coins on deposit with them. We declined, demanding all of our coins be delivered to our new address. The dealer agreed and suggested that they send our coins in an armored truck. Lacy and I decided to purchase a couple of safes, ones we’ll have bolted and then cemented to a secret sub- basement we had dug. It takes six people to manhandle the safes into the sub-basement.
     
    Winter held on with a late winter storm that dumped nine inches of snow on us just as we finished loading our townhouse. The unexpected snowstorm delaying our exit from Northern Virginia for a couple of days. Interstate 81 runs through the mountains and the moving truck driver didn’t think it was safe to continue the journey. We hung out at a Hampton Motel for a couple of days waiting for the roads to clear. We spent the time looking at the pictures Fred sent us, spring had arrived in Nashville. Fred started his spring planting which hopefully should yield us a good crop of peas, corn, soybeans, green beans, tomatoes, and peppers.
     
    The moving van driver said it will take him two days to reach our new home. He laughed saying, it could have been done in one day. However, the new government regulations limited them to drive only six hours a day. Lacy and I drove without stopping for the night. We arrived in time to take Fred, Cheri, Mark and Ryan to dinner. Fred and Cheri brought us up to date on the work that was done on our house and their farm the previous three weeks. After dinner we checked into a local Hampton Inn, the Atlas Van Lines driver called to inform us he’ll be at our home the next morning at 9:00 AM. He estimated he will have us unloaded in four hours. I agreed since we sold or gave away most of our furniture before moving. We figure we’ll buy most of our furnishings new. We spoke with a furniture store manager who agreed to open early for us. We met him at 7:00 AM, he agreed to show us what they have in stock and what they can get in a very short time.
     
    We ordered two sets of bunk beds for our young grandkids, two king bedroom sets, one each for Sammi and Shells, couches, love seats, a kitchen table and chairs, coffee tables, and lamps. We finished at 8:30 AM when we had to rush to meet the movers at our house. Pulling up, we were surprised to see the movers were waiting for us, as was Verizon and Best Buy. The Verizon installer asked us which number was going to be our prime and where we wanted the WiFi modem installed. The Best Buy installers wanted to get the large screen TV’s wall mounted before the movers brought the furniture in. The first couple of hours