Level two knowledge

Discussion in 'General Survival and Preparedness' started by duane, Nov 17, 2015.


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  1. duane

    duane Monkey+++

    I was raised on a farm and in the 1940's most of the farm equipment had sleeve bearings or bushings with grease zerks to reapply grease and not ball bearings. Some of the equipment still in use dated from the 1870's. We used to grease the equipment in the evening after milking and at dinner time. Being a typical 6 year old, I asked my granddad how long would it take to damage the bearings if we didn't grease them. His answer was a couple weeks. When I asked him why we greased it twice a day, he said we aren't greasing it, we are pushing out the dirt. It is like the old joke about the farmer putting every nail he pulls into a bucket. I am not saving nails, I am saving cows and tires. How many of your preps require a level of understanding that is beyond the obvious and listed in the book? A rifle that has not been fired by you and sighted in by you and magazines and ammo that have tested in that rifle are at best barter goods until you do as only God knows what will happen if on the "day" you pull them out of storage and try to use them to defend your life. My pressure cooker canning is till a work in progress after 10 years and I "discover" some new disease, fertilizer need, pump or timer failure, or just plain screw up in my greenhouse every year. Raising animals is even worse, there are dozens of books on chickens, so I guess it must be more than just throwing a little feed at them and letting them roost in a tree. Mine seem to die on me if I don't keep the water changed, everything, including the neighbors cat, wants to eat them, and when a friend gave me a pullet that he got tired of, the older hens killed it. That is "pecking order" run a muck. I know that the first set of food storage I made was 90% wasted in the long run. 5 years after I put it into storage, I had rancid vegetable oil, ended up making soap out of it, beans that would not cook up, out dated canned goods and mildewed toilet paper. Now I try to rotate or keep it in use.

    I guess my take on all of prepping for TSHTF after 77 years is that book learning, or level 1 knowledge, would probably kill you in either the short or long run. You have to have that second level of knowledge based on experience in order to survive. Thought goes back to the old custom of "guest towels", guest bed room, sheets, pillows, etc that we had in the 1940's, while it was done to be "polite", it also made darn sure that if they had "bugs" or any disease, they didn't give you a problem.

    God bless and keep you all.
     
  2. Dont

    Dont Just another old gray Jarhead Monkey

    Some very sage advice @duane That will benefit us all..
     
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