As John was bringing in wood this morning, I was making a list of what I had and where.  He really did need to know what our supplies were.

He looked at the first list I handed him.  This was the easy one for me since it was the long term storage.

“150 buckets????” he was shocked.

“Well, I know there could have been more, but the last two rows I put in I didn’t stack as high, so I had room for the ten cans of coffee.”  That caught his attention. He was right, too, I shouldn’t have been worried about our food supplies; not with a half-ton of wheat berries, and the same in rice; 500 pounds of beans, 200 pounds of sugar and a hundred pounds of salt.

I handed him the second list, then the third.  He looked up at me and smiled. “Any other surprises?” That’s when I handed him the ammo inventory, and he started to laugh. “What were you planning for,  Armageddon?”

“Isn’t that pretty much what we’re facing, John?” I asked in all sincerity.  That stopped him cold; the end of the world as we knew it is exactly where we were.

He looked back at the ammo list. “You have weapons for all this?”

“Except for the 308’s, that’s Jason’s,” I smiled. “What? You want to clean and oil the rifles now?”  He grinned.

For New Year’s Eve, John and I grilled a steak and three shrimp each.  I know that was excessive, but the fresh meat won’t last, even frozen, and the shell fish even less.  We split a potato, and then shared my only bottle of bubbly.  We were in bed and asleep by 11pm.

Fortunately I’m a very light sleeper, so I was awakened by the roar of the snowmobile.  Since I was now awake, I got up to use the bathroom and saw the flames!  I woke John as I hurriedly pulled on my clothes.

It looked like my barn was on fire!  I grabbed the fire extinguisher where I keep it for the stove and handed it to John.  We did take the few seconds to put on jackets, boots, hats, gloves; it was near zero outside.

Flames were licking up the sides.  A thought flashed thru my mind, connecting the snowmobile with the fire.  Someone tried to set my metal pole barn on fire!   John made short work of the flames with the extinguisher before I even got a shovel out to start tossing snow on the building. I could smell the gasoline on the ground in the fire heated slush. If that gas had reached the 4×4 wooden studs, it could have been disastrous: my car was in the barn, and that drum of gas!  I sank to my knees in the snow, shaking.  Who would do this to me? To us?

“Let’s get back inside,” John pulled me to standing and led me to the house.  The house!  If that gas had been thrown at the house instead…. My house, with T1-11 wood siding…. I started shaking even more.  “Stay here,” John commanded, “I’ll be right back.” And he grabbed an empty bucket.  I was more than happy to stay by the warm stove.  I forced myself to put another log on the fire.

A few minutes later, John came back in; in the bucket was snow and glass: the remnants of what had caused the fire: a Molotov cocktail.

I was definitely on someone’s list, and it wasn’t for being ‘naughty or nice’ … it was a hit list!