What basic skills do you need to learn?

Need to learn..

Edible wild plants. I have a couple of books, just need to take them off the shelves and use them.
Other means of cooking food.
Making clothing. I really don't want to learn to sew but, I do think it is a good skill to have.

 

Last year, I planted my first garden. The harvest was bountiful beyond all expectations and I learned a lot through trial and error, from various forums (including SM) and from talking to neighbors, folks at the nurseries and local old-timers. The greatest skill set I learned last year was canning and preserving the food I grew.

This year I've doubled the size of my garden and will be experimenting with some new crops. My red beans were so successful, that I'm going to add black eyes peas this year. My potatoes are planted as of last week and my onions are already sprouting.

My new goal for this year is rabbits!

Last year, after the harvest, my fodder shocks from the corn (after serving as Halloween decorations) ended up in my mulch pile. Among them were some immature and damaged ears of corn and I noticed lots of rabbit droppings in and around the mulch pile in late October and November. My neighbors all have dogs, so the bunnies focused their attention on my yard and they were certainly fat and happy.

This year, I plan to research traps and building a hutch to raise those critters. I have an out-building with electricity I can heat next winter to keep them warm and there will be plenty of garden leftovers to fatten them up. So, learning trapping methods, identification, raising and butchering brier rabbit is on my to-do list for this year. Fresh meat is always good for the menu, I know several ways to prepare hearty hare dishes and my past experience with rabbits as pets taught me that they are self-perpetuating once they get started.

I'm guessing from my research that rabbits are easier to raise than either chickens or honey bees, which are also on my want-to-do list. With the local population of wild bunnies, I figure my start-up costs will be negligible compared to chickens or bees and even if they turn out to be culls, I can purchase some breeding stock once I have the means to keep them. Learning about selective breeding has already proved to be fascinating. I'm taking each new project one step at a time with the ultimate goal of become self-sustaining.

 

Bee Keeping. Because honey is just one of those things you can't go wrong with, from a dietary and medicinal standpoint - and beeswax is also extremely versatile, from candle making to bullet lubing. Those little fellas are real workhorses with few drawbacks.

IR

 

The bunnies will do fine in a hutch without heat unless you live in a really cold area. I would not trap wild rabbits to raise as they are generally much smaller and leaner that domestic rabbits. Easter is coming and three weeks after there will be a lot of free bunnies to a good home once they find out they are non interactive pets. A friend raises them in hutches off the ground with no catch tray. Raking up the dropping rather than cleaning trays.

I have chickens and they are low maintenance once the coop was built. Breeding is not all that hard but requires a rooster and collecting warming wetting and turning the eggs. The chickens can feed in the yard and will return to the coop,the bunnies will run if left out.

 

Reloading. I have neither the gear nor the experience yet.

 

Many years ago many folks from sites got together in Ga. We liked it so well that we rented a 4-H shooting sports camp in south central NC for a local get together. That was @ 12 yrs ago and we have been doing it twice yearly in Ap/Oct. We cover a myriad of survival/self reliance/pioneering skills/foraging/shooting/knife handling/sharpening/ gardening/ preserving/long term storage / reloading /etc etc etc. If you want to share what you know, learn from others, and grow friendships with like minded folks then start having a regular get together. If you are within "striking distance" of NC/SC then please come to ours Ap 15-17. If interested in starting yours then please PM and will try to help. We have fun, learn lots, and experience things that you do not learn from the "boob tube".

 

If many books and movies are correct, sooner or later the "haves" would meet the "have nots" who want what they have.
So IMO, one skill a group would need to learn is how to set up a defensive perimeter correctly.

 

Preserving food and hunting/dressing animals. I also am going to experiment this year with growing flax for linen so I need to know how to harvest/process it.

 

So, Melbo... What are your thoughts on how/where one acquires knife sharpening skills? Other than asking someone who seems to be successful at sharpening a knife, I really don't know where to turn to on this one.

Tim Suggs
Birmingham, AL. USA!

 

The more you know ,the more you don't know.
To night I just successfully made some char cloth /rope. Works perfectly.
Now it's getting a coal using a bow drill, I know all/ many of the requirements, it's getting the technique down.

 

I think the most valuable skill I have acquired is my BS detector. It is a dangerous two-edged sword and can cut both ways so must be handled judiciously. Life begins a learning process that never ends, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure that the shoe he learned to tie has infinite other applications.

 

@Seacowboys that is a very good skill. Its funny that you say that. I was reading an article the other day on body language and the 20 and under crowd apparently can't read body language and are ignorant of reading people. The study was showing why it wasn't good to let your kids have smart phones as they spend more time on them they become less aware of how to read the people around them.