Chapter 28

Sunday

New Year’s Day

Outside, I watched six dogs frolicking, still playing the same game they began months ago. The temperature hovered near 40°F (4°C) at this pre-dawn hour, and the clouds promised rain today. Maybe the local weatherman would get it right for a change.

“A new year,” I thought to myself. “I wonder what opportunities and challenges are in store for us this year. And craziness,” I added. I laughed at myself for wondering if a New Year’s resolution not to add any more wives would work.

Despite the hectic pace of the last few months, I was pleased with what we had accomplished. Ryan and his crew from North Carolina returned home two weeks before Christmas, flush with cash. Along with Connor’s crew, they had worked forty-eight to fifty hours a week from day one, trying to complete everything as quickly as possible. We still needed more houses for the future, but everyone currently had a place of their own.

Most of Connor’s crew opted to take off until this coming Saturday to enjoy the holidays with their families. A few men, especially the more recent hires, still wanted to work and were currently framing houses when the weather permitted. When it rained, they worked inside houses that were far enough along to keep them out of the inclement weather.

The two jets quickly proved their worth, allowing us to reach our destinations much more quickly. The jet we purchased from the Navy was a Gulfstream IV, designed specifically for the military. Designated the C-20, it had a cargo hatch on the left side of the plane. We could configure the interior for three pallets and no passengers, two pallets and eight passengers, one pallet and fourteen passengers, or no pallets and twenty-six passengers. That plane was busy an average of twice a week delivering cargo for one of our deals. It even had a communications suite that supported secure voice and data communications.

I chuckled inwardly thinking about the times between deliveries when we received requests to borrow the Gulfstream. While not for emergencies, the Navy, and even the Army, asked politely if the Gulfstream were available for them to use. Since they never called when we had a delivery planned, I was pretty sure they ran the requests past Dieter first. We let them use it, as well as our pilots. Our pilots are on salary, paid whether they fly or not. Since we maintain the plane, all it costs the military is fuel plus food and quarters for the pilots. I’ve heard that the pilots are getting excellent food, much better than when they were in the service. The military obviously wants to keep them happy since we keep letting them borrow the plane at such a low cost.

I’m sure I could have asked for some sort of charter fee when we flew them around. However, considering how fast the government was filling my offshore account, I couldn’t see dickering over a few thousand dollars, or even a few hundred thousand dollars. The C-20 was so busy and useful that I had planned to order another from Gulfstream. Instead, the Navy offered us a second of their C-20s if we could wait until January 10. I got the impression that they enjoyed the savings from not having to keep a crew available and not having to maintain the plane.

The Citation X is a little rocket, getting us from place to place very quickly. The downside is that it carries a maximum of twelve passengers or a limited amount of carry-on cargo.

With all the pilots that we are getting from the military, both fixed wing and rotary, I had Ryan and company build a two-story underground barracks that houses twenty-four individuals. The single men and women live there so they are closer to the aircraft, as well as to my dining room. If they have family, they move into the housing we are constantly building.

I don’t think the government realized just how much competent help would increase the number of our “deliveries” and other things they have us doing. At first, we handled an average of four to five deals a week while they cleared the backlog. Evidently, the people we met to carry out the deals talked amongst themselves. When word spread that we were professional, competent, and honest, customers who had eschewed dealing with our predecessors began inquiring again. That earned us kudos from our higher-ups for reopening more lost paths to fix difficult diplomatic problems and to repair some diplomatic relations. We were also earning money hand-over-fist doing it.

All five of the planned greenhouses are fully set up, complete with electric heating and cooling, and enough lights to supplement the winter sun.

Juwanna has a better idea of what I do for the government than most of my employees since we talk openly in the house, as long as it’s not something classified. Knowing how well we were doing, she asked if we could build another greenhouse.

This one would be for our own use, to grow many of the same vegetables that we plant in our spring truck garden. I agreed readily, and the women had seedlings ready to transplant by the time it was finished. Not only does it provide us with fresh produce year-round, but it also reduces the amount the women have to can during the summer in order to ensure that we have an adequate supply until the next harvest.

At first, I wondered why they wanted such a large greenhouse garden, much larger than the one we normally plant in the spring. I found the answer when I saw that they planted two rows of citrus trees inside the north side of the greenhouse. Mostly the trees are orange and ever-bearing lemon trees, but there are grapefruit, tangerine, and even a couple of lime trees. The next two rows are banana trees. I’m happy about it because the women are happy about it. If the women are happy, the men are happy.

Our first tomatoes should be ready for market by mid-January, same for our first strawberries. Kroger is already happily selling our winter crop of summer squash and our mushrooms, as well as increasing the number of stores we supply with mushrooms as our volume grows. The Woodalls are surprised that our production each month already dwarfs what they used to produce. We’re already producing more than half of what the closest Kroger distribution center needs.

We expect our mushroom production to continue increasing as we expand into more of the potential growing space in the tunnels, and hire and train more people. The training is the hardest part. Believe it or not, we must begin with a sterile growing medium, and the equipment we use needs to be sterile. When we finish harvesting, we sterilize the used growing medium again before mixing it back into our worm beds. Otherwise, the mycelium would start growing in the worm beds and would contaminate them with the various mushrooms. Who would have thought that we had to sterilize what we used to grow a fungus?

Contrary to popular opinion, growing mushrooms is difficult and exacting work. We have to regulate the temperature and humidity in the tunnels, and different varieties have different requirements. The substrate has to be sterilized to prevent naturally occurring bacteria, or other fungi and microscopic organisms from harming the mycelium.

We have four times as many compost piles and worm beds as we had in North Carolina, and each worm bed is twice the size. Every day, the people in charge of the worm beds work one of them. They dig a deep, wide trench down the middle and dump the bedding that they dig out on giant plywood tables in the adjacent barn-size building. The building’s clear plastic roof lets sunlight in, and they use quartz lights if the natural light isn’t intense enough.

The bedding is spread a foot thick on the tables and is left for an hour. After an hour, the top inch is gently raked into large plastic bins on wheels. Each hour, they rake off another inch until only four inches remain. Those four inches now hold nearly all the worms from the original twelve inches.

By the time they are down to the four inches, the trench they dug in the worm bed has been filled with new shredded organic material and the remaining four inches are spread over the top so the worms can devour what we just fed them. It takes about two weeks for them to turn mulch into worm castings (worm poop), probably the best natural fertilizer available. The secret is to make sure that everything is digested. If we use it too soon, the organic material that isn’t digested breaks down, pulling nitrogen out of the soil. That’s bad for our plants.

The Jefferson/Lucky J clinic opened a week before Christmas. It was immediately inundated with people who had put off seeking medical care because they couldn’t afford it. The opening made front-page news in the Meridian paper. Aside from the experienced doctors, we hired new doctors that just finished their residency. The experienced doctors supervise the new ones, even the dentists. The new doctors receive a reasonable salary, and we paid their student loan payments each month. If, after five years, they want to leave, we will lend them, at a sub-prime interest rate, the money to open a private practice.

I hired my attorney’s candidate, Margaret Whitcomb, to oversee the charity work, warning her to build a dependable staff because I had plans to do more ... much more ... and soon. I was even open to suggestions. My three priorities were Wounded Warriors, returning veterans, and children. My goal was to give people a hand up, not a handout.

“Poor people” didn’t excite me so much since far too many of them are responsible for their own predicament because of choices they made. If it affected children, I’d assist the family to help the children, but only by offering the adults a job with housing, whatever food we grew and raised, and medical benefits, just like all my other employees. Of the twenty-two families that initially accepted my offer of jobs, only five remain. The rest seemed to think that the government or someone else was supposed to do their work for them every day. They expected to be paid simply because I hired them. “What? You expect me to work, too?” seemed to be their attitude.

We did get a good CPA to work with Margaret. Andrew Lloyd was one of those who had accepted a job doing farm work. Despite having his MBA and being a CPA, he worked hard every day. His wife worked whenever the kids were in school. He showed up early to work each day and asked if he could work overtime. After two weeks, I offered him a job working with Margaret, overseeing what we already had and what I hoped to add in the near future. I thought he was going to cry when I told him how much the job paid. It was more than he had been making before the company he worked for downsized.

The cheaper electricity we are providing made front-page news last month when people noticed their electric bills drop slightly.

Our K-9 training facility is operational, and most of the handlers and two of the older teens are training new dogs for the military and for civilian law enforcement.

The security office is amazing. Anyone who is outside, anywhere on our property, is visible on at least one camera. The armories are complete and stocked, and each of the handlers has a favorite weapon they keep locked up at home. My favorite gun store made a small fortune off us. He’s also a good customer when we get confiscated weapons we don’t want or need. Our assortment of weapons has grown slightly with the addition of a few different weapons. Each of my wives is now proficient with both a Glock and either an AR-15 or an MP5/10. Remembering the day when they backed me up while I entered the tunnel to see what was there, many of the men who work for me learned to use one of the AR-15s, just in case.

We built a second pool, also Olympic-sized, and with a huge deck. The new one is near the employee housing where everyone there can use it. The original one is north of the main house, just off the patio. Both pools are enclosed, and heated when it cools off enough to warrant it. We also built two gyms. The larger one is next to the pool by the housing; the smaller one is near the vault and security office.