The Adventures of Walt and Sparky: Hunkering Down

Description

The Adventures os Walt and Sparky - Hunkering Down is the story of a retired Army veteran who moved to the mountains, bought some forest land, and built a homestead. They say that trouble comes in threes but for Walt and Sparky, trouble came in fours, fives, and sixes. With very little help Walt built a nice log cabin, a woodshed, woodshop, and a garage. Walt was an avid ham radio operator, webmaster, amateur prospector, and a die hard prepper whose motto was "Be Prepared." Living in the mountains, he was ready and to deal with the usual hardships like cold heavy snowfall, cold weather, downed trees, high winds, lightning storms, power outages, and forest fires, flooding, and dangerous animals. But one year Walt and Sparky had to face a hard winter with a nearby volcanic eruption, live months without sunshine, cope with three inches of volcanic ash on the ground, experience a large earthquake just south of town, extended power outages, road and bridge closures, down cell phone towers, food and gas shortages, and a federal government shutdown, and well armed home invaders. As crime in the area increases, Walt designs out-of-the-box ways to enhance his home security and defense while preparing for trouble on his homestead. Living alone with Sparky he knows that he lives too far from town to count on any help from police in an emergency. He organizes a group of likeminded neighbors who talk with each other using citizens band radios and help each other and to combat local crime. He meets a new neighbor who is both a ham radio operator and a deputy sheriff who joins the CB radio group and is both helpful and sympathetic to the plight of rural residents trying to survive the natural disasters a local crime wave, and food shortages, without the modern conveniences we all depend on. Living without power is hard enough for a few days or a week but when the power is off for months, life's problems start to snowball. You can get by without refrigeration in the winter but no power means no hot water, and since rural residents depend on water wells, no water at all. Well houses and water lines can freeze without power, Ovens, stoves, and microwaves cannot work without power. Most phones, computers, internet modems, battery chargers, electric lights, cannot operate without power as well. Road closures mean that you cannot get to town to buy food, gas, or propane. A federal government shut down means that many people must go without social security or retirement checks. Food and supply shortages mean the stores either aren't open, or do not have anything to sell. When people get hungry, it is not surprising that they quickly get desperate. Law and order breaks down when people must struggle to just to survive. The rule of law becomes the rule of the lawless, and people must protect themselves. When this happens, all that people can do then is to hunker down, shelter in place, and hope that things get better soon. When things do get better, people understand that they need to do a better job of being prepared, because the unexpected is the rule and not the exception.

Stephen met his wife Cindy while serving in the Army in Augsburg, Germany. Soon after that they were married and moved to Ft. Collins, Colorado where they lived for two years. When they got the chance they moved to the mountains of North Idaho where they bought some land in the mountains and began building a log cabin, where they still live today. Neither had any building experience but, this didn't stop them. They moved back to the land with almost no money, no experience, a willingness to sacrifice, lots of youthful energy., and a stack of Mother Earth News magazines to inspire their back to the land adventure. Over the years they brought in power, built a wood shop, developed a homestead, and began making wooden toys that they sold at area craft fairs for twenty years. When gasoline prices began to skyrocket and it got expensive to travel to art shows, Steve taught himself to be a webmaster so that he could spend more time at home. Little by little they kept working on their homestead and making improvements as time and money allowed. Their property is mostly covered in evergreen trees so they spent a lot of time cutting trees and clearing the land. Now Steve is mostly retired and Cindy grows lots of food in her greenhouse and garden. They enjoy being at home, and only go to town once a week. Steve enjoys his ham radio hobby and they both try to play a few games of pool everyday in a carport that they converted into a billiards room. Years ago they wrote several books about marketing artwork and craft products and hadn't thought anymore about writing for years. But when Steve turned 70 years old, he began thinking of writing again. At age 70 he knew that his best days were behind him and he decided to write his first novel. The Adventures of Walt and Sparky - Hunkering Down is his first book in the series. Hopefully the second book in the series will be available early in 2023.