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Skills to collect

October 22, 2008 by Pamela Parker Caird 6 Comments

Making sugar from sugar cane. Rounding up hogs. Making clothes out of flour sacks. These are some of the skills that helped my father’s family through the Great Depression on their ranch in TX. One of my favorite things to do is ask him about those days, and hear about how self-reliant the family was, back in the day. Not to be a gloom-and-doomer, but it’s struck me that there are a few skills I’d like to polish (or pick up) so I can feel more confident in advance of the coming depression/end of oil/global food crisis/zombie apocalypse, etc.

  1. Growing organic food.
  2. Animal husbandry.
  3. Baking bread. (Been working on this one lately.)
  4. Sewing.
  5. Knitting. (Or maybe I should leave this one to my husband.)
  6. Making cheese.
  7. Canning.
  8. Salting meat.

Any other ideas?

UPDATE: To add to the list — butchery!

UPDATE: More on keeping old skills alive from Simple Mom.

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Food & Drink, Fun & Games, Kitchen Gardening, Nature

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Justin

    October 22, 2008 at 4:32 pm

    Operating firearms? Or maybe you already have that down?

    Reply
  2. Justin

    October 22, 2008 at 8:32 am

    Operating firearms? Or maybe you already have that down?

    Reply
  3. Pamela

    October 22, 2008 at 4:44 pm

    Awesome suggestion, Justin. Growing up in TX, I do have some residual firearms experience, but brushing up never hurts. 🙂

    Reply
  4. Pamela

    October 22, 2008 at 8:44 am

    Awesome suggestion, Justin. Growing up in TX, I do have some residual firearms experience, but brushing up never hurts. 🙂

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Free Range » Sweet Juniper on the Automakers Bailout says:
    November 19, 2008 at 3:29 pm

    […] the satisfaction of making things yourself, which is sort of what I was getting at in my “skills to collect” post a little while back. It’s hard to say where we, as a country, should be focusing […]

    Reply
  2. Food Preservation: Yellow Squash Edition says:
    June 15, 2011 at 5:07 am

    […] in these parts), I would expect canning to be experiencing a resurgence. I even put it on my list of skills to acquire, way back in 2008. What could be cooler and hipper than growing your own organic vegetables and […]

    Reply

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