This article was originally written and published at BioPrepper.com.
Editor’s Comment: If doing it the hard way has any benefit, it means actually learning something. Experience is the best teacher; the modern world is filled with pseudo-experiences produced only through the electronic screen. But do it a few times in real life, and you’ll understood the pros and cons of each method, and learn to actually do things for yourself, instead of just transferring all your wealth and energy to a system of government that minimizes your value as a human.
By the way, if a critical mass of people reconnected with these kind of skills, or retook to self-sustaining, self-reliant ways, the power of the corrupt system would dwindle, and new associations would form… for a number of reasons, these are skills that could save your life.
25 Forgotten Survival Lessons From The Pioneers Worth Finding And Learning
by Bioprepper
Pioneer life has a special meaning in America. In less than 300 years, civilization spread across a vast continental wilderness.
From the first landings in Virginia and Massachusetts in the early 1600’s, American settlers kept pushing westward behind an ever moving frontier. Into wild country went hunters, trappers, fur traders, miners, frontier soldiers, surveyors, and pioneer farmers. The farmers tamed the land and made it productive.
Every part of America had its pioneers. Whatever their surroundings, the pioneers had to depend on themselves and on the land. Self-reliance was a frontier requirement. Game provided food and leather clothing. New settlers gathered wild fruits, nuts, and berries. For salt they boiled the water of saline springs. Maple sugar was made by tapping maple trees in early spring and boiling the sap until it thickened into a tasty sweetening. Substitutes for tea and coffee were provided by boiling sassafras root and brewing parched corn and barley. With an ax and adze for cutting tools, the pioneers made beds, tables, benches, and stools. They split logs into rails to make the zigzag fence that enclosed their clearings.
25 Forgotten Pioneer Survival Lessons Worth Finding And Learning
Soap Making
The pioneers used to make soap themselves using the copious amount of wood ashes, a natural result of their homesteading activities, with also a plentiful supply of animal fat from the butchering of the animals they used for food. Soap with some work and luck could be made for free. Soap making was performed as a yearly or semiannual event on the homesteads of the early settlers. As the butchering of animals took place in the fall, soap was made at that time on many homesteads and farms to utilize the large supply of tallow and lard that resulted. On the homes or farms where butchering was not done, soap was generally made in the spring using the ashes from the winter fires and the waste cooking grease, that had accumulated throughout the year. Soap making takes three basic steps.
- Making of the wood ash lye.
- Rendering or cleaning the fats.
- Mixing the fats and lye solution together and boiling the mixture to make the soap.
Food Preservation
The food preservation played a very important role in a pioneer’s life. Not having a refrigerator his only way to maintain the food edible was to preserve it. The most used process to preserve the meat was smoking. I’m going to share with you an old recipe for curing and smoking hams. The process of smoking is still used by a few die-hards, but most folks take a shorter route to preservation – canning, freezing or diluted methods using “smoked” chemicals applied directly to the meat.
Old-timer Everet Starcher of Sinking Springs gave his directions to smoking hams in 1976. He was in his 80s when he shared his recipe.
Put your hams on a table or flat surface where mice or nothing can get on them. Rub Morton Salt Sugar Cure liberally over the cut surface of the hams.
There is a place in the hams where you can put your finger in, so be sure that you fill that cavity with the sugar cure.
Let your hams “cure” on the flat surface for a month or month and a half.
For your smoke, use hickory, sassafras or corn cobs. Smoke about four days. Some people smoke them for up to two weeks.
You can tell how brown the hams are getting.
The fire is for smoke only, a very small fire. You might use an old iron pot placed inside another heavy metal surface so it doesn’t burn the floor.
All you want is a trail of smoke coming up toward the hams which will be hung by placing a heavy wire through the shank and securing the hams to a rafter or ceiling of your smoke house.
After you have finished smoking the hams, run them liberally with black pepper. Use plenty. Then wrap the hams in an old sheet or something and put each ham in something like a muslin bag or cotton feed sack.
Canning was also a very familiar preservation method. If you are familiar with canning fruits and vegetables then you’ll know how to can meat too. All you have to do is make sure that you take the meat’s temperature high enough to kill all bacteria before sealing the jars.
Cooking Over Open Fire
Cooking over open fire differs substantially from kitchen-based cooking, the most obvious difference being lack of an easily defined kitchen area. As a result, campers and backpackers have developed a significant body of techniques and specialized equipment for preparing food in outdoors environments. Such techniques have traditionally been associated with the Plains Indians and pioneers of North America, and have been carried down and refined in modern times for use during recreational outdoors pursuits. Closely associated with the American Old West, the Dutch oven of tradition is a heavy cast iron pot, traditionally made with three short legs and a concave cover for holding hot coals on top. While such pots are generally considered too heavy for backpackers, Dutch ovens are often used in group camp-outs and cookouts.
Dutch ovens were traditionally specially designed for camping, and such pots (often with legs and a handle, both for suspending the pot over a fire) are still widely available, though sometimes at a premium over flat-bottomed stove-top models. The oven is placed in a bed of hot coals, often from a keyhole fire with additional coals placed on top of the lid, which in camp ovens usually has a raised rim to keep the coals from falling off. Dutch ovens are convenient for cooking dishes that take a long time such as stews, joints of meat and baked goods. They are not the only option for baking on a campout as devices for baking on portable stoves exist and clay ovens can be constructed at longer encampments.
A pot hanging over the fire, although picturesque, may spill, and the rigging may be difficult to construct from found wood. Generally this is done with metal rigging, much of it identical to that historically used in home fireplaces before the invention of stoves. Two vertical iron bars with an iron cross-piece allow pots to be hung at various heights or over different temperatures of fire. Griddles, grills and skewers can also be hung over the fire. When working with wood, one may use two tripods, lashed with tripod lashings, but the rope will be liable to melt or burn. Dovetail joints are more secure, but difficult to carve.
Tracking
Our ancestors used many skills to survive. They used their tracking skills to find and hunt the animals used for food, clothing, and tools. They had to make the bows and arrows, traps and snares, clubs and tomahawks used in hunting. While hunting, they had to know what plants, or parts of plants, were edible and how to prepare them. They also knew what plants were used for medicinal purposes, and how to prepare the medicines. They knew how to find their way through forests, mountains, and unfamiliar terrain without the aid of compasses and maps.
Our ancestors had many skills essential to survival. We should never forget these skills or how to use them.
Tracking is identifying an animal by the footprints the animal left on the ground, by its scat, and by the environment surrounding those footprints. By identifying the animal in question, a person can know whether to pursue the animal or evade it. Such things as gait, along with the distance between prints, can tell you if the animal is running or walking. Becoming familiar with the footprints of an animal is just the beginning of understanding tracking. The size and depth of the print can help tell you the size of the animal.
Butchering
Raising an animal is one thing, butchering it is another. Few hunters even know how to properly butcher an animal, as most take them to a butcher for cutting up and packaging. Yet, an animal which is not properly cleaned and butchered can cause disease. You can also waste a lot of good meat by not doing it correctly. The pioneers knew how to butcher an animal the right way and never wasted anything. Every part of the animal had a use.
Tanning
This is the first step in tanning hides and making leather the old fashioned way. Sometimes called brain tan, smoke tan, Indian tan or home tan. Watch this demonstrator scrap the hair and grain from the hide.
Sewing
Sewing can seem like such and olden thing, but it’s really not! Being able to patch up holes in clothing and tarpaulin among many other things can useful in survival. It’s not a skill that should be left to the Grandmothers of the world it’s one that should be passed on down the generations.
We’ve just mentioned some of the obvious uses for sewing so far, being clothing and tarpaulin, but what if you need to sew up a wound? This may seem simple, but if you’ve never sewn before you having nothing to base this assumption on.
Weaving
In a post crisis world, not only will it be impossible to buy clothes, you may also find it just as hard to buy material, patterns, and tools for making your own clothes and shoes. As someone that learned how to knit, crochet, weave, and hand sew by the age of nine, I can safely say there is far more to good quality, long lasting clothes than what you see in the stores. Our ancestors readily turned cotton, wool, hemp, and other plant based goods into textiles by using spinning wheels and looms. By the same token, stretching and tanning animal hides (including brain tanning) also offers a source of fabric from just about any animal you take for food. When it comes to bugging out or preparing for a crisis, you will eventually realize that it does not make much sense to stockpile clothes. Even though modern fabrics are convenient, they can easily be replaced later on using materials that you grow or hunt.
Well Drilling
Having your own well on your property is a good idea even if you just want fresh, clean water that isn’t full of fluoride and chlorine like city water is. If SHTF, you’ll have one major problem already solved. Even if it doesn’t come to a survival scenario, having your own water supply means that you’re basically off the grid. You’re not dependent upon third parties and that’s awesome in my book. All these things considered, learning how to dig a well is a good lesson that every prepper should master.
Gardening
I’ve found that I increasingly prefer old fashioned gardening techniques (or at least those that I think of as “old fashioned”). I’m not saying they’re the best. I think my preference has something to do with my personality–but also that I’m gardening in a harsh subtropical environment where these techniques really work for me.
Some of these techniques are:
Set thin plants to the maximum recommended distances (or more) for good air circulation, increased drought tolerance.
Cultivate (with a good sharp hoe)to keep down weeds and improve water penetration
Rotate crops and leave a bed fallow every few seasons
Amend soils with finished compost
Level the planting area (a gardening book tip that I’ve learned the hard way and extremely important in sandy soil)
Basic Carpentry and Shelter Building
The pioneers were very good carpenters. On every new frontier the pioneers made homes for themselves, using what the wild land provided. In the great forests of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys the land provided timber. Here the pioneers’ essential tool was the ax. The ax would clear the forest for the plow. But its first task was to shape a pioneer shelter.
When a family of settlers arrived at the spot where they planned to make their home, they began chopping saplings and trimming poles to build a lean-to. Between two forked trees they laid a crosspole. With the help of oxen or horses they rolled up a log, which was banked with dirt to form a low back wall. Then they laid poles, slanted upward, from the back log to the crosspole. The sloping roof was covered with bark and branches. The ends of the lean-to were walled with shorter poles and pickets. This was the pioneers’ “half-faced camp.” It always faced south, away from wind and rain. In front of the open side they dug a fire pit. Logs smoldered there day and night, giving warmth and protection.
Trading
The concept of private barter and alternative economies has been so far removed from our daily existence here in America that the very idea of participating in commerce without the use of dollars seems almost outlandish to many people.
One thing is certain, though: in the aftermath of a widespread disaster or the collapse of civil society as we know it, you’ll want to have useful skills and items that you can barter or trade with. Once society collapses, bartering will become a business. Individuals will have items they can barter with, but in most cases, a person would not be able to afford to part with the items they do have. Anyone not prepared will have nothing to barter with, so looters will be active as well as desperate. Real trading will be based On ‘long term’ items. Seeds, not food. Arrows, not ammo. Tools, not filters. See, once the ‘short duration expendables’ are consumed, you won’t be re-supplying, you’ll be making your own or doing without. From turning your own arrow shafts, to cutting arrowheads from old license plates; from building filtration weirs to filter water, to needing copper tubing to make ‘wood-fired-water-heaters’. Knowledge and durable supplies (axes, hammers, spoke shaves, saw blades, etc.) will be the real money. He who has stocked dozens of saw blades will be king. He who sits on a case of toilet paper will be sad he didn’t learn how to replace it with what they used 200 years ago, instead (FYI, toilet paper is only about a 100-year old concept – ask yourself, what did they use before then, and get a real clue – because THAT is VERY valuable in the long term!)
So, forget stocking for that 2-week event, it’s not that difficult. The hard part is stocking for the total paradigm shift, that few remember how to do much of. You won’t be making your own saw blades anytime soon. Now, ask yourself, what else will you NOT be making, that you need to learn how to make, or replace with older technology, before you need it (or need to trade it)?
Navigation
Being able to read a compass and a map is maybe one of the most important skills that will make the difference between life and death. Imagine the pioneers that had to make huge journeys to the old west from Independence Missouri to Oregon City. They were able to orientate by the stars and by the sun. Nowadays is easier to use a GPS but if SHTF and the GPS won’t work no more the old ways will come handy.
Trapping
Having the skill of trapping small game for food will be a great advantage. Knowing how to set multiple types of traps for different animals will ensure your survival and the survival of your loved ones. Here’s a great article on trapping:
SIX PRIMITIVE TRAPS FOR CATCHING FOOD IN THE WOODS
Saving Seeds
Saving seeds is maybe a known skill but it is vitally important to the survival of your garden. By saving seeds you ensure the continuity of your food supply over the years. Start by saving your seeds and planting them in spring to practice this skill.
Start A Fire Without Matches
There’s a primal link between man and fire. Every prepper should know how to start a fire with the resources around them, even if that means creating fire without a match or lighter. This is an essential survival skill as you never know when you’ll find yourself in a situation where you’ll need a fire, but you don’t have matches. Maybe your single engine plane goes down while you’re flying over the Alaskan wilderness, like the kid in Hatchet. Or perhaps you’re out camping and you lose your pack. It need not be something as dramatic at these situations-even extremely windy or wet conditions can render matches virtually useless. And whether or not you ever need to call upon these skills, it’s nice to know you can start a fire, whenever and wherever you are.
Maintaining Proper Hygiene
Maintaining a proper hygiene one of your top priorities because sickness can and will cause you problems. After SHTF water will be scarce and showers may not work so people must take in consideration this aspect when prepping. Bathing on a regular basis is necessary to avoid illness due to bacteria building up on your skin and causing health problems. You should take in consideration sponge baths as an option.
Knowing Herbal Remedies
For medicines the pioneers had to provide for themselves. Women soon learned the use of herbs for healing. They used boneset for fever, pennyroyal to purify the blood, horehound for coughs, and ginseng for tonic. Syrups and salves were made from cherry root, horseradish, and witch hazel. Wild mustard, poplar root, and red sumac root went into teas, poultices, and powders. The standard cure for a chest cold was to rub the chest with goose grease and apply a mustard plaster.
Some frontier remedies were based more on superstition than science. Among these were potions of walnut bark “peeled upward,” boiled nettles, and “nanny tea,” made from sheep dung.
Foraging
From all the skills mentioned here, this is probably the most well known. However, we’ve seen that many people either focus on the ability to hunt, or the ability to forge. In order to give you the best chances of survival, knowledge of both skills is extremely necessary. Developing on from that you’ll also want to think about clothing, because those really nice winter jackets you’ve brought probably won’t last forever. Skills like skinning will come into their own here.
Making Alcohol From Fruits And Grains
Back in the old days making alcohol was a common thing amongst the pioneers. Alcohol is a great disinfectant, great for entertaining and a very valuable trade item. Knowing how to make alcohol will give the ability to trade both alcohol and the skill itself which will be in great demand. Here’s a great article on how to make alcohol at home:
Basic Firearm Repair
Back in the old west guns were something vital. Everybody had one. So the demand for this skill was very big and everyone knew the basics to repair their gun and had some basic spare parts around. I bet you think you got everything you’ll need, right? Covered all the basics didn’t you?
Bet you forgot one critical thing that will keep you alive more than a weapon or cleaning kit…
What is it? FIRST AID KIT for your primary weapons.
Yea I thought so. Firing pins, extractors, detents springs. Places won’t be around to get parts. They are small and don’t weigh much. Pass this on…
Raising Livestock
The ranchers went west to raise cattle. The open plains were ideal for grazing huge herds, and the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 made it possible to ship the cattle to market in large and profitable numbers. Cattle ranching was a tough business that gave the West its cowboys. Cowboys tended the herds while they were grazing, branded them when they were of age, fought off cattle thieves, and managed the long drives of thousands of cattle over hundreds of miles of open prairie to the railroads. They followed well-known trails, like the Chisholm Trail, that have become a part of the landscape of U.S. folklore.
Hunting
Hunting requires spending a lot of energy, and there’s a reason that settled humans moved from hunting to cultivation in the form of growing food and rearing livestock. The ability to grow fruits and vegetables not only saves you from having to hunt as much, but it also provides nutrients for your diet that you might not otherwise obtain, especially when attempting to survive in the longer term. There are illnesses that can be brought on simply by not getting enough nutrition like Scurvy. This is something avoidable. The rearing of livestock would be a harder task but not unimaginably so. This will not only yield food, but it’s also a good way of keeping busy especially if you’re trying to survive in an environment far from the general population
Blacksmithing
The mighty smith of folklore was the blacksmith, who worked with iron and steel and whose hammer wielded more force than his fellow craftsmen, the tinsmith and the whitesmith, who worked in lighter metals. The word “smith” derives its meaning from the word “smite,” transformed over time to mean “a man who strikes.” Blacksmiths were valuable in every frontier community because they could make tools: crowbars, axles, axes, plows, and other implements. They also produced fine metal parts like hinges, hoops for wooden barrels, nails, and pots. The blacksmith ranked with the cobbler as a rural philosopher, and his shop, with doors open during the summer and comfortably warm in the winter, offered men a receptive place for gathering and gossip. The craft was passed on from master blacksmiths to young apprentices, who were usually just boys when they began learning. Today many people associate blacksmithing with one who makes horseshoes, but those specialists are more properly known as farriers.
This article was originally published at BioPrepper.com.
H/t Alt-Market.com
The rich will not even know these things and the people in the city will not know these things.. it will be the poor people who are knowing how to make ends meet that will best be surviving when there is a crisis like if we lose all power. Some people are not even preparing for the worse.
When they run out of food, they will become the savages and killers and thieves , their money will not be no good.
The Amish know how to live off the grid..
All useful skills!
Here is a website with useful information.
How to Survive Hard Times
http://grandpappy.org/indexhar.htm
This website includes useful information about living in hard times
-Shelf stable food to buy on a tight budget
-Simple recipes
-Gardening
-Preserving food
-How-to make it or do it yourself
-How to make homemade soap
-How to smoke meat
-Charts of shelf life for canned and dry food and medicine
-Numerous firearm topics
MANY useful topics are covered here.
The Self-Reliance Manifesto: More Than 300 Resources to Guide You on the Path to Radical Freedom
“a collection of more than 300 resources to inspire you and teach you to be more self-reliant”
http://www.theorganicprepper.ca/the-self-reliance-manifesto-more-than-300-resources-to-guide-you-on-the-path-to-freedom-03022016
Hummmm I expected some exotic list of skills that I should think about. Only 2 I haven’t done much of are sewing and weaving; wife has 10,000 year supply of fabric and quilting stuff in basement.
Another good thing to have is the emp proof bullet drive from freedomslips.com it has over 900 survival documents including the poor mans james bond and the anerckisst cuukbuuk. For 50 bux it’s worth every penny!
Thanks for the links KYMom,
“The rich will not even know these things and the people in the city will not know these things.”
The rich will not have to know these things. They will have those things supplied by those that they hire/own, because they have bunkers full of food and seeds.
The ultra rich aren’t necessarily stupid about what is about to come upon the world. Anyone that thinks for one minute that they are not “learned” of the chaos and calamities that will be everywhere, is just not really getting the big picture.
Having said all that, there are hundreds of thousands of people that are wealthy, but are dumb as a box of rocks. They either just got lucky in life by hitting the family lottery with inheritance or good education that got them into big paying jobs with healthy retirement/pension/portfolios so they can go anywhere in the world, at anytime, and do whatever they so choose.
Also, there are just as many that have risen from the bonds of childhood poverty and found a niche in business that has provided them with millions. Will they be smart enough to prepare and make it in the collapse? That will be yet to be determined.
Common sense is not always something that goes hand in hand with having lots of money. Everyday, somewhere in the world, someone dies with hundreds of thousands, or millions in accounts and real estate, but didn’t have enough common sense to prepare their soul. There will plenty of those to go around when SHTF and they didn’t prepare for what all is coming “spiritually” along with the collapse.
The minds of people from every walk of life will be going limp as a 105 year old mans pecker.
They won’t be able to figure out if they need to wind their ass or scratch their watch.
The whole world will be in some degree of turmoil…except for those that have prepared their souls and their ability to live like it is 1855 again.
In 1855, my Great grandpappy X 3, Moses _______, fathered his last child, # 12, that we know of, from four different wives.
She was a beautiful child that would make a big mark on livelihoods of people, and influence many. Her biggest impact would come from her adult job as a medicine woman and midwife among the Cherokee people. She herself was half Cherokee by her mother and half Caucasian blood of English descent from grandpappy and his grandpappas before him to the first one that came here in 1635.
Oh, what skills those early settlers had. If graves could talk, we could learn a lot from those early pioneers.
My great aunt x 3, Pocohontas (one of her names), had nine sons like stairsteps. When they were old enough, the land situation at that time was vast tracts that had no deeds to ownership. To claim the land, a person needed only the manpower and barbed wire to completely encircle whatever they wanted.
She and her husband, with the muscle of those boys, fenced in 1000 acres, more or less. I have walked and fished on it. I have felt their spirits running through the earth, water, and air, at that place.
Times are changing. There will be some tough times ahead for those that are clueless.
I made a bold prediction last year around September, that in a year the world, especially the USSAG, would be different than what it was then.
We will soon see just how drastic that change will be or if it changes at all.
Do you really think they could even find someone to help them… not likely They caused it so l doubt if they will be forgiven… They will die like the poor who were not prepared , the Bible said they would
They will have people, helping people, and finding whatever they need.
To get even a small amount of food for starving children, people will sell their souls to the devil to acquire some.
I probably wouldn’t got that far, but there are plenty that will.
Finding starving people to do deeds of any kind for a loaf of bread and a bag of dried beans, will not be a problem for the rich that have bunkers stocked full.
Just saying.
PS, the mindset that all the rich will somehow die off and make the world right again is not biblical.
Many have a hate for wealthy people, especially if they aren’t satisfied with what they themselves have.
Having lots of money is not a sin, it is what one does with it and if their “love” of it corrupts their soul.
Are all those Cherokees in hell because they didn’t know jesus?
A simple yes or no please.
it’s not that simple.
Can you explain?
please remember that this land WAS theirs and WE invaded,yes I would fight like a savage if my homeland is invaded.To force others to ACCEPT your religion (jesus) or die is just wrong.
The savage killers will wind up being killed themselves–for being savage killers.
The Amish trade with the “English” everyday.
People will have to take Johnny Cash’s advice and “Get tough or die!”
Everyone who has a well should have a well bucket. When the lights go out, you will have a difficult time getting the pipe out of the well, but when thats done your well bucket will save your life.
I’ve become more aware of these skill sets lately, and delved into a few- although I think blacksmithing will always be a little past me. It is Dewberry season here and the wild berries are turning black, so I may go out for some today. This is the summer to learn about natural edibles and tend my first garden patch. Tomatoes are bigger than the okra plants at this point.
Gardens are always fun, definitely can be frustrating though, my biggest problem with my garden is time, i seem to run out of it. Guess that would need to change though if things go south.
spent the last two days out in the yard and garden. only came in to go to bed.
life is soooooooo good in my back yard.
till humidity and skeeters come out.
Prepper Tip of the Day
(hat tip Survivalblog)
An Ounce of Prevention Is Worth a Pound of Cure- Part 1, by L.W.
ht tps://survivalblog.com/an-ounce-of-prevention-is-worth-a-pound-of-cure-part-1-by-l-w/
in a major TSHTF situation
a LOT of people are gonna die simply due to lack of sanitation
it’s not a glamorous “prepper” topic like discussing the merits of the newest gun out
but it is just as important if not more so
those little beasties that you can’t see
can and WILL kill you
#1 SURVIVAL LESSON: If you are living in a metro hellhole toxic cesspool in the collapsing psychopath controlled Globalist Fascist Police State hell on earth known as America-YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD, DRUNK, PILL POPPING, DEPRESSED, DISEASE RIDDEN, AND A COMPLETE TOXIC DUMP, SO NO NEED TO EVEN WORRY ABOUT ANY OTHER SURVIVAL SKILLS.
example of a localized TSHTF situation
A warning for parched China: a city runs out of water
h ttp://peakoil.com/enviroment/a-warning-for-parched-china-a-city-runs-out-of-water
locally
the population here has grown so much that we were pumping too much water out of our main aquifer,to the point that salt water intrusion was happening
now we are having to pump out of another aquifer with poorer quality water
monthly water bills have more than doubled
what do we do when this aquifer runs dry ???
Satori
collect rainwater and use water carefully, reuse where you can.
That sounds like the case here in the islands.
Water is one of my biggest concerns, am installing a metal roof on our house exactly for this reason, to collect water.
I though everyone in our neck of the woods had metal roofs and catch water from it. It is our only water source in many cases.
Before I junk anything, I remove all the bolts, nuts and screws I can and save any flat pieces of steel for later use.
I have a scrap lumber pile that I am constantly picking through and using.
I’m not sure whether I’m prepping or maybe I’m just a grumpy old Malthusian Luddite…
I have a half dozen old injector hypodermics that I use to inject cure into pork bellies and hams. I think maybe it is safer because it gets the cure into all the deeper meat and joints where spoilage could start.
regards
JRS
I agree with 100% on the Hypo’s. I believe that they work much better. I also use Pecan, Apple and Cherry smoke.
Sgt.
Hello Dale.
Although I have done some bacon and hams, I haven’t done enough to know too much about curing or the taste difference in types of wood. I have only used hickory wood since that is what was easily available here in the woods.
A lot of locals smoke turkey or jerky, but I am not a big fan of turkey and my choppers have seen better days as far as sliced jerky goes. I do make ground jerky with cure in it, however.
regards
JRS
Jerky of all types make better tasting soups and stews than fresh meat.
Almost any kind of OAK wood is good for smoking meat.
Especially really super dried red oak. Not green/unseasoned.
White Oak is my choice of the oaks, because it is usually milder and seasons out easier, and more thoroughly.
There is a reason why deer will walk right through red oak and chestnut oak acorns, that are completely covering the ground, to get to just handfuls of white oak acorns.
Never use wild cherry for smoking meats. It puts off a toxic fume, even just cutting into it with a saw or ax. The bark of it and black walnut is toxic to horses, and humans. Our neighbors that are over educated idiots, have raised horses for decades. After fencing in a new pasture years ago, they left a small grove of wild cherry. The horse they left in there decided he wanted to strip the bark off them and chew it. i think it caused some permanent brain damage, because that horse never did act like he had any sense, and took spells of acting wild.
I know dried applewood is good, but never have tried peach or pear.
Black walnut husks make an excellent dye/stain. Will also help tan leather. Walnut Tree roots are toxic to most Garden plants. You indicated you worked for Roadway, once upon a time, can you tell us what really happened to them?
Paranoid
mulberry trees and wolf berry shrubs make good barrier plants between a walnut and a garden. They tolerate juglone and protect other plants. Pecans have juglone too, but always removed the leaves from vegetables.
Here you go, a nice recipe: http://www.bioprepper.com/2016/04/01/old-fashioned-preserving-grandpas-recipe-cured-smoked-ham/
MAC
Thanks for the article. This is why I’m here. I hate arguing with people, because it isn’t about surviving the Hell that is coming. Again thanks.
One thing I’m blessed with is I was taught to Witch Water by one of my older family members. The deepest we ever had to go is around 5 to 6 feet deep. There are trees like the Weeping Willow that is also something to look for when you are witching water. I use a steel coat hanger. I strip the paint, and make them in a shape of an “L” both being the same length. I spin them in my hands about 12 times very fast. And away I go.
As I was reading the article. I found that I have a pretty good grasp on things. What I’m happiest about is our group that I’m in. There is not one thing in the article that our group can’t do. There is at least one or two people with these skills. What a Blessing. And we have already agreed to teach each other when the time is right. So these arts will not be lost.
Again MAC thank!!!!!!
Sgt.
The good thing about my area is that you don’t have to find the water. It’s everywhere. You just find a convenient place to site your well. The water is down there.
Even though my area is on a county water system, I still have a well, and my neighbor has a well. I also have the drill point, weight, etc. to drill another well if necessary.
When I was in high school physics, the teacher was telling us about water witching. Most people don’t believe, and I’m doubtful, but the teacher said that a few years previously, he took a class out to the local waterworks. He taught them to use the sticks and gave them the task of mapping the underground water pipes. He had a site map and said that the students’ maps corresponded remarkably well with the actual pipe locations.
It is easy. Sarge is right, coat hangers will work.
I used rods for acetylene torch welding. It is fun to follow where an underground water pipe runs.
Almost anybody can witch a well with 2 glass soda bottles and 2 welding rods or coat hangers. You have to be a little more in tune with nature to do it with a green “Y” stick. Actually I think you either can or can’t with a green stick.
Either way, it is a good thing to know how to do.
Yeppers and fer sure. I was taught to use two “L” shaped coat-hangers (cut off with tin snips). “Spin” them (counter-spinning actually) a few times and let them hang loosely in my hands with my fingers touching. They will rise up and cross (which defies gravity!) when you are over water, or that’s how it is for me. Can’t use anything else that I’m aware of. Weird but true…
If you don’t need the bottles you can use the green stick.
Cut a 1/4 inch thick, Y shaped oak limb around 2′ long. Hold the top of the Y in your fist.
put your hands up in front of you and the Y straight out in front of you. Start walking around, the bottom of the stick will start pulling down the closer you get to water. When you are directly over the ideal place to install your well, the limb will be pointing straight down. Your hands will still be in the same position. Not everybody can do the green limb. If you can, you can find water when others can’t.
Realistically, if things get so bad that humanity “bottlenecks” again then all bets on survival are off. If you need to “witch” for water, you may not have planned well enough in the first place. I know all skills are assets, but really? How about an article on people skills? Surviving contact with other humans. Humans that don’t really like us. How to transit the ‘hood without getting snuffed.
I can think of one commenter that could use that article topic. He’s always negative about us boomers that have most if not all the skills listed in this article and probably couldn’t beg his way into being taught.
Observer
short primer
calling women whores is not a good relatedness tactic
saying you want to kill everyone you disagree with is going to get you killed
calling any group filthy names will get you killed
Telling people you see them as a food source will get you expelled or hung
Just the basics!
Seriously, the biggest disservice of a nanny state is that it lessens our direct dependence on each other. Direct dependence on your group or team means you learn to keep some of your nastier opinions to yourself. Once called manners or civilized behavior… now called PC and derided. PC is a false version of civilized behavior simply because although we depend more on others than ever before, it is so removed we don’t see it.
When I was young and poor, I lived in a poor Barrio in Dallas. I darn sure learned to speak Spanish and cook Mexican food, skills that work in the southwest where prickly pear, dry corn, beans, tomatillo, and tomatoes grow. I lived fairly well protected there because of it, because I was not an arrogant a**. Even now, when I live in a middle class white community, at work I can speak Spanish and make enough extra sales to be top in numbers.
What I just noticed is that my current community is possibly too white middle class for trading skills and such. They are all so entwined in the corporate machine they can’t see any other way to get goods and services. They will buy everything, even as it gets harder for them. They are still very detached from each other. That is why I worry about divulging my garden… they are well armed but where are their skills?
“O”
Believe me I have plenty of water purification equipment to last a long time. I also know how to build them. There are two major water ways with-in less than a mile on is only about 50 feet away from my house. Witching Water wasn’t mentioned in the article, so I just mentioned it. I know that there are other things not mentioned that people know how to do. I was hoping that other people would bring them up.
Your last four sentences bring up so good article in the future.
Sgt.
Sarge, I should have worded it better. Who is this Rebecca, and has she lost her mind?
“O”
I’ve done the same thing. No problem.
Rebecca is a gal that has some very good ideas at times. But when it comes to all the things she stated above I don’t know. I don’t know where she got all these points. I don’t remember you saying these things. If you did maybe you should clear them up on why you did. Now if you didn’t maybe she MIXED you up with some one else.
As far as my garden. I will share it with anyone.
Sgt.
She harbors words from other too much.
I can understand being upset for hearing the whore or cunt words from folks in person, but on an internet site, from strangers?
Maybe we should all grow a little thicker skin sometimes and not be so touchy, or poor me baby.
I think maybe Nels set her off. I think he has an ongoing issue with the community fag. Sorry AE, I just call it like i see it.
And, btw, how are you doing with that abstinence thing and moving closer to God? Just wondering.
The last sentence was directed at AE/Eisen cruz, not sarge.
What exactly, is wrong with whores?
Sarge, Your right, I never mentioned any of the stuff she has listed. Must have me confused with someone else. Keep up the good work. I’m between you and the Windy City.
Thats where MaxVelocitys website comes in, contact wont be pleasant
Skills are great. This idea that rich means helpless and dumb is not my experience. Rich have access to things which are denied to poor people. I say this because prosperity begins with a positive mind set. “Think and grow rich.”; is the title of a book by Dale Carnegie worth reading. Getting rich is a skill. And not a bad one to have. Someone I know put together the skills of several friends. A master plumber and carpenter. A master electrician. Don’t know what it’s called but these guys were certified to remove lead and hazardous materials. Roofers and general laborers. Together they could build a home or whatever. They knew welding and iron work and probably could build a sky scraper. Anyway. They helped rebuild our aging home at much less than the going rate. Some of them work with a Real Estate Agent and make a living buying old homes and remodeling them. Some are sold. The rest are rented out for cash flow.
The point I’m making is that having skills helps now. It makes you more valuable in the present. Should our system crumble, these skills will be even more important. Just don’t think of every rich person as spoiled and stupid. Most just work hard and work smart which is something we can all do.
Good comments.
B from CA
Your definition of rich is my definition of middle class. Most of whom have good skill sets like leadership and overview. For me, even Trump is middle class. Those who are destroying our country are massively rich… such that Romney with his $250 billion crawls on his knees to them. There are competent people who make money in creative endeavors. There are mega rich who control governments. Some of them are massive corporations run by hired hands… a slightly different take on the megarich. The megarich do not like national borders, are buying minions to force a NWO, for their own convenience, because local and national laws are an inconvenience to them. I see it as a former of greed and control… their assets span the planet and local expertise is a big expense for them.. NWO is a big expense to individuals. I worked as a lowly paralegal in a global lawfirm, they did a lot of work on one portion of this aspect for those at the top. It slows the Bigs down and they hate it.
Yes and no
I know wealthy who can do and have done it because of smarts and i know wealthy who are dumber than a bag of hammers and inherited their wealth or made it because they were good at something that most likely will be useless in a SHTF scenario
Rebecca and Kula:
I agree with both of you. The thing is, I have been in the middle of several riot/civil unrest episodes. I fear the people who resent anyone who has something they don’t.
If having 250 billion makes you middle class, I’ll settle for being middle class.
Agreed,
I got nothing, not to the standards of the keepin up with the Joneses crowd anyway, but what i do have is far far more useful in almost any scenario. To people who have 0 im a target, the thing is those with 0 will be many.
B from CA
I know what you are saying, I was only clarifying what I personally believe when I mention the uber rich that want a NWO. I should just call them the 62. I admire those who create businesses and make a fair chunk of change, although that would not be an only requirement. Oligarchs who buy the government… no. I live in a poor state and am considered well off and may have to worry about the same thing. The top has risen so high that billionaires are completely outclassed. Most millionaires identify with the top, but the top does not identify with the lower classes!
I consider myself poor, but have too many assets to qualify. A lot more poor people these days. I have 5 acres, a truck, and no debt. Income, stocks and such, but none of that may survive the coming trouble.
I thought Mitt was worth about $500 million. Quite rich, but a far cry from $250 BILLION.
Mac.
Excellent article. Thanks.
Lashing. Splicing and knot tying.
Get a Boy Scout handbook for information on these skills. I learned a lot while my son was in scouting–including things like lashing and splicing. Interestingly, I already knew some knots because of having learned things like crochet and macrame. (Some were impressed until I told them where I learned it. LOL)
Awesome article Mac. Thank you. I have some of these skills and need more!
Ditto on the thanks Mac,,
More please!
Off subject question, If the maggots are constantly spraying chemicals in the sky… Is anything organic anymore ?
Hi COF
Depends on what they are spraying. Most plants already have systems to filter Aluminum out. We do not. We can breathe or drink aluminum and get sick… but a detox will put youright again. Atrazine from corn fields… bad news. It comes down in rain and very little can be very bad for you. The feminization of males is a bad side affect as is infertility… Missouri is very bad with health problems from endocrine disrupters like Atrazine. Jet fuels rain down on us and are in mother’s breast milk onthe whole planet. All I have to say is if you grow an organic garden, you are a step ahead… unless you live in Arlington Texas where they chemical bombed during WWII. I went to university there and did a paper on it. In the South, if you have land that was formerly cotton, you likely have arsenic, which doesn’t degrade. It has to be remediated out by plants that are arsenic accumulators… like rice. You should burn the accumulator until the soil is clean; however, a lot of rice with arsenic has been sold and has caused deaths. Farmers now reported that soil testing shows less arsenic! Duh… they accumulated it in rice and sold it to Americans. I did an arsenic remediation on my 14 acres in Texas. In other words… not likely to finds truly clean food anymore. We do what we can.
Yes, that egg came from my chick. I opened the door to let them out, did not see it happen, but there it was. I reached to the ground and picked it up. It was very warm to the touch. I wasn’t expecting that. Put it in the egg carton. Eating that fresh egg occurred to me but taking it from the fridge still is engrained into my psyche. Some adjustments are easier when taken gradually. I will be a terrible failure as a cannibal. Ha. Let you know how goes it with the birds. I bought some plastic containers. Going to see if they work for nests. Probably not. We’ll see.
OK. Only the brave survive. I cracked it open and that egg went into a banana smoothie.
B from CA
laughing at your chicken trials. I put mine in the fridge first! I know the pros steal the eggs and hatch them, but I hope to have more natural chicken moms one day.
I spent a summer on my great uncle and aunt’s farm when I was 10 y.o. Auntie showed my how to feed the chickens so they were busy while I collected the eggs. She also showed me how to find the hens that decided to nest outside the hen house and collect those eggs without getting my foot pecked (did that only once–it hurt) because it wasn’t time for hens to be setting eggs. Also learned how to candle eggs for market so any bad ones were taken out.
I learned a quite a bit that summer. (even some about milk cows and pigs.)
Hello Mac. This is James Cole, The author of the article above.Thank you very much for re-posting my article. It is always a pleasure reading yours. Regards, James
James, thanks for your note! I sent over an email earlier.
Great stuff from your web site BioPrepper.com !
Mac:
Thank you for this article and for your work. I do appreciate.
Would be nice if schools brought back wood shop and Home Economics (sewing and cooking).
The above list of skills would engage those bored Junior High and High School kids. Bet there wouldn’t be any drop outs in a hunting class.
I think Home Ec also taught budgeting for the home–something desperately needed by many.
I explained the basics of home finances to my son at a somewhat young age. It’s not a hard concept when taught young and they get a kick out of finding bargains in the store. I began with small things like purchasing fabric for shirts or summer shorts for him. He would have his “budget” and then have to figure out things like whether to spend more on buttons or fabric. He also learned to coordinate his clothing and was often asked by his friends where he had gotten some things. 😀
Excellent article!
I am well versed in a few of the categories, but lack in others.
I am anxious to get my indoor veggie starts outside. I usually wait until Mother’s Day to transplant, but I am noticing MANY volunteer mammoth sunflower sprouts that seem to be thriving, even with 40+ degree lows.
I germinated plenty, and am going to put a few of everything outside, and keep frost blankets handy. If I fail, I will have duplicates to recover with.
Asparagus has been super delicious, and I am cheating Kroger out of some money every other day. I will harvest another 15 days, and then let the rest fern out.
After researching raising chickens, I have decided to peruse the list of talents in the article, and try to learning something different. I don’t think my property will support a paddock system, but will attempt a hobby coop.
Blacksmithing and metal working interests me, and I would love to have a well in my back yard.
Thanks for the ideas, and link to BioPrepper.
Ben, I have 4 chickens and use a ‘tractor’ coop. It’s about 4 x 4 x 8 feet long and has no bottom and wheels on one end to move it around the yard so the birds have fresh earth/grass to scratch. We get about 3-1/2 eggs a day from the 4 birds. I just had an egg sammich. 🙂
It is the easiest thing I’ve ever done to produce food, including gardening, hunting and yes… shopping (I HATE shopping).
Even if you’re in the burbs you should have a couple of chickens. You only need 30 or 40 square feet. More is obviously better but if you don’t have the room, you don’t need it!
Chickens. Period. 🙂
TY Billy Hill.
Your words encourage me. I have read up on the chicken tractors and paddock systems.
I think a couple chickens would qualify as a hobby coup.
Many of the things I have taught myself were motivated by being very tight with a dollar.
I would see a product I loved, and would learn how to make it WAY cheaper, and most times better.
I learned to work with leather and sewing because I was to cheap to pay big money for other peoples’ holsters, quivers, and possibles bags.
I learned indian beadwork to adorn leather items I made.
I will enjoy figuring out how much I can cheat Kroger out a little egg money. I currently pay about 14 cents per egg.
We consume about 12 eggs per week.
I remember when Archie Bunker told Edith he wasn’t going to eat anything that came out of a cow’s mouth, and when she asked him what he’d rather have, he told her to make him some eggs.
That’s awesome, but don’t kid yourself. Your first home-grown egg breakfast will likely cost you hundreds of FIAT dollars (the coup will be the most expensive (less if you make your own), the food, the electricity to heat the chicks until they get feathers, etc).
I don’t spend as much on food for them because I have an acre and free range them almost daily so the stuff I buy lasts for quite a while.
Not sure where you live but most chickens are fairly quiet. They like to brag when they lay an egg but that’s usually it. Mine are very different, as they are used to being let out every day and when they’re not, they tell you about it.
Billy Hill
I agree that you can spend a lot on chicken stuff. No matter what you do for self-sufficiency, corporations do their best to eat your money. I have 3 egg layers and buy nothing for them. I bought an older place with a couple outbuildings and junk laying around. I improvised. I feed them a lot of wild stuff and vegetable scraps. I started a worm bin and in the winter feed them self-replicating worms since they don’t get out so much. This year I will have barley and teff. Do I have it down? Not yet. But chickens were raised for centuries without the corporate milk, they surely can be again and that is my goal. I aim to be able to feed a full self-replicating flock without corporate input. It is one reason animals were butchered in the fall… no overwintering.
Basically learn to be a woodsman ( called bushcrafting these days ) and you will be fine. If you got no clue wth i am talking about. Look into John “Lofty” Wiseman. Or my personal fav Richard Proenneke. For younger people you may like Creek Stewart. You will know true freedom. Great Site is Bushcraftusa. Great group of people there. At the site there is a forum called bushclass USA. Dive in teach yourself something new.
Brain tanning a hide, especially a large one (elk/buffalo will take a long time in which you will be stationary for a couple of weeks. Deer hide is do-able and can be rolled up and transported during the process. Most fur traders in the early to mid 1800’s bartered from the natives for cured hides or buckskin clothing. One reason why the “Rendezvous” was such a big shindig to attend. Drinking, gambling, fighting, marksmanship, bartering and the other sins you could find there. I sure as shit was born way too late. As far as the liquor (shine) being made during a mad max scenario, can’t help you. I do though have a good salt cured ham recipe given to me by one of my customers about ten years back. The guys that he used to have help him butcher hogs pretty much are too old or long gone. I used to go down in his basement and service his oil fired boiler. He’d have hams wrapped in muslin cloth and hanging from the joists as well as slabs of bacon. All were just salt cured.
http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/acquire-prep-items-quickly-inexpensively-2/
This is a great article on reminding us “older” preppers about things we’ve forgotton,or set aside during our regular scheduled lives.many of us here have been preppin and collectin for years,and have amassed considerable amounts of “stuff”. Shtf doesnt have to be a dramatic widespread occerance.sometimes its very personal.being “prepared” for small hiccups in life is how we live and comfort ourselves.but….word to the wise; be mentally and fiscally prepared to be used,targeted,and robbed.and yes,im fully aware of small circles and op-sec,and security.yet it did NOT stop the blitz move of a few “yet unknown” ppl that took advantage of my lifestyle.i lost almost everything of value.long term food storage,power equipment,hand and power,air tools.most of my guns,ammo,archery,trapping,fishing items.batterys,small solar setup,all the smaller propane tanks,tv,computer,alot of books and info,even my bike and woodstove.i am left with little,and insurance doesnt cover it.im pissed.but im alive,kinda..ive now lost my trust of even my small circle.all this happened while i was headed home,from being terminated from my 15yr machinist career. So long story short,prepare yourselves with caches,and the mental fortitude to carry on,after a crisis that could change your living standards.i personally hope someone here in upstate ny is happy with their haul.i WILL rebuild my life.albeit,stronger,and more secure this time around.stay safe all.
I heard a old guy state once. No one can be so big that they cannot be taken down overnite. We had a housefire and lost everything in the home. That was a tough mental time. its hard to lose everything and keep your chin up.
It will take a certain state of mental fortitude to be able to cope with the new different and rapidly changing lifestyle. Learning to do without certain comforts will not be easy. Having to continual live a root hawg or die existence will be mentally difficult. Having to be on guard to possible danger will be trying. Just the loos of a job sends some over the edge. What will they do when they lose almost everything?
Old Guy
Movies seem to think most will perish or go catatonic when it all goes down. I am less sure, maybe so. People have not survived all this time by being all that fragile, though. Seven billion is a problem the mega rich plan to solve, but who knows how? The survivors of the solution may not be the smartest or best prepared, but just someone who has a natural resistance to a particular virus. We are all weakened by poor food, pesticides, industrial toxins, and even poor education.
One thing ive noticed about those who have college degrees. they seem to think that some how they are smarter and have a higher IQ than those who haven’t a lot of formal education. And the only type of job those college idiots can seem to keep are parasite government jobs. The cant take and keep a producing job where whoever they work for has to derive a profit from their presence on the pay roll. Public and mainstream education is way over rated. Many of them pay thousands of dollars for a almost worthless scrap of paper that as common as tree leaves? and the go into debt to do that? When the great culling begins the barely able to read street urchin who has the counstitioun of Rasputin will be far ahead. a vaccinated and indoctorinated fat children will die like flies.
I’m curious, does anyone else notice that all these doomsday scenarios never mention that as soon as the dust from whatever disaster has settled, folks will immediately try to get things up and running, like water pressure, stringing wire for electricity, paper mills for TP and newspaper, etc. It’s not like we’re all going to sit on our hands and go duh, guess we’ll all go back to doing things like in 1850. Comments?
Tatooed Ball.
Very good point. I probably have way too much stuff on hand but in the event of the grid going down we will simply shift gears. Electricity for a year or more and time to make diesel and prolong that. We and a lot of others can build and repair shit. I don’t consider a closet full of Dinty Moore stew and 10 weapons prepped.. Good to know you are out there.
In order for their to be anything rebuilt there has to be enough demand for someone to make a profit providing the item. If there is a 90% die off the power will never be restored. All the leaps in technology becoming available to the common citizens came about in the after math of wars. and with the finiancial backing of the government. I think if there is a 90% die off there will not be even a 1800,s lifestyle. It will be a stone age existence. I have electric motors. if they become overloaded they will shut down. If you push the red (Reset ) button they resume working like nothing happened. Their will not be any (Reset) It will be a regression. The whole country and likely the whole world is in a regression at the present . Consuming has outstripped production. Every year we have a new normal and its a decline from the previous new normal. So if and when SHTF for you. If your have piped water and electricity you will be the one who is producing it.
Old Guy,
I agree with you… if there is massive die off. Europe declined massively after the plagues killed a large percentage of the population, no where close to 90 percent. The social structure changed and it basically freed the peasants from harsh aristocratic rule. It set the stage for a more egalitarian society… and aristocrats lost servants to run their old lifestyles. They still have tours just to keep the old estates running.
If there is 90 percent die off, there will be no power because those things require constant maintenance and you would have to spend time scavenging over a wide area for things like that. Too dangerous and attracts marauders unless you have a small army.
If this only one of the endless financial collapses that have been engineered by greed and bad management, many will starve to death, and prepping will be important for personal stability as well as social stability. Those collapses have never killed off 90 percent, but have caused mass migrations.
My guess is that tptb will implement a mass die off because they neither need so many people nor want us. This type of genocide has happened endless times in history. The form of it has been starvation like in the Ukraine and Ireland. It caused huge migrations. This time there may be nowhere to go. Where will the Japanese go after Fukushima? But a nuclear holocaust is not in anyone’s best interest, even the elite don’t want that. Chem trails could be weather manipulation… or mass die off from heavy metals. Easy in a way because the wealthy can get chelation and be unaffected. Aluminum causes a severe dumbing down of the population. I upped my intake of cilantro etc. I bought enough seed to eat it endlessly.
That is the kicker… will there be a normal crash with great suffering… or will there be a genocide?
People complain that there is no jobs. But there is I see signs all over the area now hiring. People some how think this work is beneath them because they have a degree. If working for a living is beneath them then they won’t be cooking over a fire washing clothes by hand or butchering animals. They will cry to the gov.
Asshat
When my company shut down I couldn’t find a comparable job and was willing to work any job. I couldn’t get an interview most of the time. When I finally got an interview it was why would you work for nothing? All the 800 reasons. Bottom line, though, driving 60 miles a day for 9 bucks wasn’t going to cut it. Reviewed my financials and retired. It is less scary now than last year. I have no car wear, no gas/oil, no clothing expense, etc. I am putting in a much larger garden and working on some other things. If I drove into town for ridiculous pay, I would lose money. Am I too good to work any job? No, not in the sense you mean it. Is it worth it? No. While retooling for a job, I worked part time at Home Depot… I lost money every week for 3 months. I shifted to sales, made numbers, and got a better job. The place shut down for lack of sales. How long could I work part time for nothing and lose money?
The Indians survived in the “untamed wilderness” for thousands of years, and very well–until the Whites showed up to “tame” it (and messed it up as we now see it). Though the Indians did cultivate some crops and certainly made things they needed or could use, just as even animals (whom the Indians thought of as merely fellow, though foreign, tribes) do to some extent when they can, the Indians did have a trust in Nature (the Creator) to provide for them the things to make what they needed. They thus thanked and respected Nature as their Provider. The whites abhor and fear Nature and seek to replace Nature with THEIR synthetic abberations–the thing that has created all of their problems. The Indians only failed in not first doing to the whites what the whites did to them. Finding and turning to the “Red” way of the Indians is the assimilation that Whites must do if they expect to survive ans sustain their survival. In that way, the Reds will save the Whites who seek to truly assimilate to the Red way.
The Indians where not the great in harmony with nature people think. The required vast amounts of territory to survive. The killed all the game and fouled a area and moved to a new area and did the same. A superstitious lot. A warror society of thieves & murderes. They fought amoung themselves long before any white men came along. they fed dogs during times of plenty. and ate the dogs and each other during times of lean.The arrival of the Spanish and the Horse improved the Indians lifestyle. Its the white race who built every thing modern. The white guys engineered and invented. The Indians where stone age warrors with the intellect of little children before the arrival of white men. now the white race is mostly land wales and crooked politicians.
A good archive of books from the 1800’s to the early 1900’s on various skills when they were still in use: http://www.survivorlibrary.com/?page_id=1014
The navigation one always perplexes me. Especially when I run into someone who can correctly find Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper, but not Polaris. It’s like, you’ve already done the hard part! It’s right there, smack between those two! They’re circumpolar constellations, no matter what time of the year, Polaris will always be between them. Then they look at me like I’m crazy for even caring. *sigh*
Plan twice
The real hero of all those movies.
Thank you.
Garden Nut
Thanks for the resource!
Weaving hmmm, I think I am safe knowing 24 of 25.
When the British pulled out of India a lot of infrastructure collapsed. Oil and coal became expensive and scarce. Those that could, reengineered gasoline engines into steam engines that ran on wood to handle plowing, water pumping, drive generators, and machine tools.
Being a resourceful scrounged that can reengineer failing technology and keep it working – golden!
In every apocalyptic movie I’ve ever seen, a significant subplot surounded the guy who could keep stuff running to give one group a technological advantage over another. Winning wars and revolutions is often a technology race. The smartest quickest often win.