Friday, November 11, 11:00 PM. Brewer.

We have a big problem. I think I know what’s happening to the cars. But I don’t know how to fix it. And the problem may be even bigger than it looks.

A few weeks ago some of the cars had trouble starting. Then we found that almost all the cars were sputtering and dying on us. The propane truck had no trouble. A few of the cars were fine. I went around to different parts of Dallas and started up various cars. Almost all of them had the same problems. But not all.

Our Lexus was one of the cars that ran fine. But then it ran out of gas. When I refilled it, it had the same problems as the other cars. So then I knew it was something with the fuel.

I tried pulling gas from all over Dallas: from random cars, gas trucks, and the underground tanks at gas stations. It’s mostly all the same result. But there are two exceptions. A few gas stations sell ethanol-free gas, and that seems to be okay. And diesel vehicles, like our tanker, are having no trouble.

Ethanol gasoline seems to be going bad everywhere, like old milk. It’s just not burning as well.

It never occurred to me that gasoline would go stale. I’d forgotten all about stabilizer. I wouldn’t have believed it could go off this quickly.

Once I realized that this is the problem, I knew that fuel stabilizer is the answer. Honestly, I never really understood what it was for. I figured it was for guys with hot rods. I suppose if I’d had a dad growing up he might of taught me some of these things.

I tried adding stabilizer to some of the cars with problems. It didn’t help: they still ran rough or wouldn’t start. I tried other additives and nothing made a difference.

So the bad gas is bad and the cars can’t run it anymore.

The silver lining is that it’s only the ethanol gas so far.

Maybe non-ethanol gas never goes off. Maybe that’s one of the reasons they add ethanol to gas, to force it to go bad so that people have to buy more. Planned obsolescence and all that. Maybe the gas and diesel that don’t have ethanol will last forever.

I’m not taking any chances. My idea now is that if I can find enough stabilizer I can dump a bunch of it into the tanks at a few of the gas stations, the ones that don’t have ethanol. I don’t know how long stabilized gas or diesel will last, but it’s bound to give us more time.

How long will it be before propane goes off? Do our propane tanks need stabilizer? I’ve combed through the stores that handle propane and haven’t seen anything like that.

I’m trying not to let anybody know, but the fact is I’m terrified.

I had it in my mind that we would have gas and propane for years, maybe decades. We’d have easy transport all around the city, all around the country. We’d have gas to run the tractors for plowing and harvesting. We’d have propane to run our generators and heat our house. I was envisioning us living in relative luxury for a decade or two. We’d have to study the Almanac, the farming books, learn agriculture. We’d have to prepare ourselves for the day when easy sources of electricity had all broken down. A day would come when we’d need to grow all our own food. But we had time to build those habits and skills before we really needed them.

Now it looks like we’re going to need them a lot sooner than expected. I just pray the propane lasts us through the winter.

I’ve got to work harder to get the family ready to run this farm.

I’ll tell you this: our horses just got a whole lot more important.