Learning new skills

[mcdaniel]

What skills do you think a person should be up on to thrive in a storm or other SHTF situation?

The obvious ones to me are marksmanship, fire building, building/finding shelters, and water location/purification.

What about y'all?

 

[Shrapnel762]

cleaning game

I'd like to know how to put together a raft that will last more than 10 minutes.

 

[thebrasilian]

cleaning game

I'd like to know how to put together a raft that will last more than 10 minutes.

Or one that fits thousands of animals 2 by 2 :lol:

 

[thebrasilian]

Advance first aid. Suturing, deep wound care, fishing, trapping, orienteering, reading maps (lots of kids don't know how to do this).

 

[tigerfan00]

i def think advanced first aid and orienteering are high on the list of necessary skills

 

[Enjay]

Hunting and gathering skills, food preservation skills, close combat, weapon retention, and lots of practical experience with jury-rigging.

 

[mcdaniel]

I've worked on my food preservation skills this week. Not that jams and butters are survival food, but I look at it as a chance to practice a skill and get good at it. The garden I am putting in this winter should provide a lot of canning fodder next year.

So far I have made "Apple Cider Butter" and "Carrot Cake Jam."

 

[Enjay]

Congratulations!
I find this site to be a fantastic resource for safe instructions and food preservation guidelines and recipes.
http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_home.html

So, what are you planning to grow?

 

[mcdaniel]

I am going towork on a list of easy to grow things that my family eats. Since its going to be a little garden I am thinking of doing a Sq. Foot Garden style and using a lot of trailing plants like butterbeans and tomatos. Not really set on much of anything, but I am going to start clearing the brush near the creek soon, I was waiting on cooler weather so it would be cooler (duh) and fewer snakes. I am also going to plant a couple or 3 fruit trees. Definitely a Peach and an Apple, but maybe more. If you know what would thrive in my area please tell. This is all going to be near my creek behind my fence so once the trees root they should get plenty of moisture.

 

[Enjay]

I'm not super familiar with planting fruit trees down here but I've been doing research into it. Fruit trees require something called chill hours, meaning the amount of time spent below a certain temperature. We have relatively low chill hours in SC so you'd want to look for low chill hour fruit trees. Usually I see people recommending golden delicious and gala apples here in the lowcountry. I think peach trees are self fruitful, and some apple varieties are too, but it's usually recommended that you have two trees each of a different variety to cross pollinate each other so you get a better fruit set. You do need to make sure that they're in blossom at the same time. I believe that there are ways of planting them in the same hole to save space, and of course you can get the "fruit salad" grafted trees but I personally think that's riskier, grafts can fail and if the tree gets sick or dies you have to start all over. Some apple trees can be pollinated by crab apples, if I remember correctly, which is an added bonus because crab apples are high in pectin which is used for setting jams and jellies and can get quite spendy at the store.

As for gardening, I used a half-way square foot method I have a box that I use, and I have a bed in the ground that I plant in a square foot method, but *shrug* sometimes I go for rows too. I wouldn't recommend allowing plants to sprawl, here in SC there are a lot of bacteria, fungi and blights that would LOVE your plants to be down on the ground where they'll stay warm and damp hours longer than if they're staked, and they don't get killed off during the winter. I found that out the hard way the first year I gardened, all of my tomato plants turned to black mush. The most reliable crop that I've had are good old southern peas. Once the soil gets warm pop them in the ground and they'll fight through weeds, creeping crud and a novice gardener (me) plus they have the added bonus of having pods that rise up from the plant looking like little alien antennae. Beans are great too, but I would either go for bush varieties or give them a trellis of sorts to climb on. They can be very large and aggressive plants but they're usually pretty prolific. I've been known to plant them along my chain link fence for a bit more privacy and as a gesture for sharing with my neighbors, whose dogs destroy everything they try to plant.
I am on a 1/3 acre urban plot and have a difficult time getting a significant amount of produce from my small garden for preserving and canning. However, I usually plant a wide variety of things every year. One of the things I'm looking at doing is focusing on a large planting of a few major crops and smaller plantings of thing we like better fresh (haven't figured out a way to preserve lettuce yet LOL) and hopefully getting enough of the major plantings to can up for a year or two. Next summer I'm planning it to be the year of the beans, southern peas,and peppers with probably only half a dozen tomato plants, some lettuce, a pumpkin or other squash vine, etc.

 

[biganimal]

AMMO RELOADING

 

[Tigerstripe]

ok we can melt lead and mold bullets, any thoughts on powder and primers, besides stocking up?
will the old, salt peter(potasium nitrate) sulfer and sugar or charcoal combo make anything like what could be used in a brass cartridge?

 

[Dirk Pitt]

Personally the biggest new skill that I personally want to learn, is more medical training.

 

[thebrasilian]

ok we can melt lead and mold bullets, any thoughts on powder and primers, besides stocking up
will the old, salt peter(potasium nitrate) sulfer and sugar or charcoal combo make anything like what could be used in a brass cartridge?

It's not as easy as mixing powder. You do need alcohol.

 

[Tigerstripe]

if i used alcohol while making powder there would be trouble

 

[Confed Sailor]

From the Grandmaster himself, "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." -RAH

 

[HOLY DIVER]

+1 on first aid! i think knowing how to dress out wild game is a good idea,but a year after tshf you be lucky if you can find a tree rat to shoot at.

 

[C_Carson]

I've been learning about herbal remedies, like how to make salves, tinctures, stop bleeding, infections, swelling, etc. It's really neat. I've also been learning how to make things like deodorant, toothpaste, lip balm, cologne/perfume, lotions, hand sanitizer, and making my own shampoo.

I don't consider myself to be the Earth commune hippy type, but I do like knowing what I'm putting on or in my body, and not absorbing dangerous chemicals. And it's great knowledge to have, SHTF or not. Although, if such a situation does happen, I won't have ready access to some of the more exotic ingredients That's the only down side so far.

 

[HOLY DIVER]

I've been learning about herbal remedies, like how to make salves, tinctures, stop bleeding, infections, swelling, etc. It's really neat. I've also been learning how to make things like deodorant, toothpaste, lip balm, cologne/perfume, lotions, hand sanitizer, and making my own shampoo.

I don't consider myself to be the Earth commune hippy type, but I do like knowing what I'm putting on or in my body, and not absorbing dangerous chemicals. And it's great knowledge to have, SHTF or not. Although, if such a situation does happen, I won't have ready access to some of the more exotic ingredients That's the only down side so far.

hey it would be great if you could post all your finding(herbal,anti biotics etc.) i'd sure like to know more about herbal med

 

[C_Carson]

I can create a new thread on the topic, to prevent side tracking this one, but it won't be til next week sometime.

Also, does anyone here do any sort of live stock or produce farming? That's something I want to learn more about.