For as long as I remember there has been mild discussion and lively debate in the survival circles between those who feel you need a lot of "stuff" to survive a disaster and those who say you need minimal stuff but will fare better with "skills". I am someone who does much better when I have time to ponder things and work out the details for myself, sans emotional rhetoric. I do this because once I reach what I feel is a well thought out conclusion, it is very hard to convince me otherwise... and I really don't like to be wrong.
Having read scores of true survival stores, dozens of "post apocalyptic" and "prepper fiction" books, and reviewing the events of a couple recent high profile disasters (Hurricane Sandy (US east coast 2012) and Typhoon Haiyan (Philippines 2013)) I have come to some conclusions about this subject. Unfortunately my conclusions don't settle the dispute for me. Let's talk about that.
The true survival stories I read and the recent disaster events I reviewed (none of which affected me, personally) are all short term, localized problems. The effects on different people ranged from some people being isolated and without power for a couple weeks to others losing their entire homes and all their possessions. If you were one who lost all of his possessions, then having "things" would not be a lick of help to you at all since all of your stuff is now destroyed, buried under a ton of mud, or floating somewhere in the ocean. If you were isolated and without power, then having a generator and stocked pantry ("things") made it so you could make it through with relative ease. Similarly, if you cannot go anywhere and are without power due to a heavy snow storm, having "stuff" will be of much more help than having "skills".
Let's switch gears from recent events to things much more widespread and theoretical: disaster fiction. A couple years ago I got on a kick of post apocalyptic fiction novels and have slowed down a bit, but am still going. The disaster initiators of these books ranges from nuclear war of the 50's (On the Beach and Alas, Babylon); massive comet strike from the 70's (Lucifer's Hammer); to modern power grid down, economic collapse, political upheaval, or even a combination (One Second After, Patriots, Lights Out, 299 Days). Now, don't discount the fiction genre as a place to learn some things. One of the reasons I started reading this type of book was because I was curious about some different possible scenarios and what others thought might occur during those scenarios.
A common theme throughout almost all of the books (certainly all of those listed above) was a sense of community. Specifically, organized communities of individuals existing to help each other instead of acting as lone survivalists. Many of the books went into detail about how the community was organized and how it was defended to keep others out who may threaten the resources of that community. As time went on several of these communities found themselves lacking in people with certain important skills. Five of the books (Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven, Patriots by James Wesley, Rawles, Lights Out by David Crawford, 299 Days series by Glen Tate, Deep Winter trilogy by Thomas Sherry) contain protected communities where individuals or families that are passing by and looking for a safe haven are interviewed in search of skills that will contribute to that community. Those possessing helpful or needed skills found a place to reside that offered protection from the evils and violence of the outside world.
A recent podcast: Doom and Bloom interview with Charley Hogwood author of MAGS
really helped cement the idea for me that useful skills are a necessity. Charley wrote a book about building Mutual Assistance Groups. I have not yet read his book (although I fully intend to do so very soon) but one of the ideas covered in the interview was building a group of people with complementary personalities and skills. In the book he discusses how to build groups pre-disaster and post-disaster; how to find people who will be a benefit to your group and avoid people who will merely be resource consumers.
There are a multitude of posts in the Prepper blogosphere about useful skills in addition to a website dedicated to just that: learning useful hard skills- http://www.13skills.com/
Think about it. If you have a solid community, are you going to let in a sluggard who offers nothing in return or, with your limited resources, are you going to be looking for someone with a skill that will benefit your group? If you had such a group, what kind of skills would you need? A few on my list are medical, auto repair, metal and wood worker, security expert, gardener/permaculturist, food forager, food preserver, and herbalist among others. If two people come to my group looking for a place to stay and I have the choice between a medic and someone who only knows how to cook microwave dinners but knows what happened on every episode of the MTV reality shows, which would I choose? Or a choice between an auto mechanic and someone who worked in "customer service" but never took the time to learn a solid skill? What about a lawyer or an older lady who spent years gardening and canning her surplus? Some skills may be out of reach for the average person (doctor, military trained security expert) but so many useful skills are learned by your average Joe over time.
My conclusion:
In a short term, more localized disaster, "stuff" is necessary. Choose your "stuff" carefully and always take into consideration what would happen if your "stuff" went away (burglary, house wiped out, etc).
In a long term problem, "stuff" will help you start, but you need "skills" to make it through.
So, both are necessary. Take into consideration where you reside, your bug-out location (if any) and what disasters are likely to befall you. If you haven't started prepping for survival during a disaster and don't know where to start, I'll offer some advice: pick something and do it. Yep... just choose something and get started. While you are growing your pantry or planting a garden or learning some herbal remedies read articles and blog posts from a variety of authors (don't get caught up in any given authors' biases). Maybe make it a goal to read one article or post each day to expand your view. Better yet, choose some "stuff" to gather (canned or dry food is a good place to start) and a skill to start learning. Frugal Squirrels and The Survival Podcast are both great forums to get help with skills.
Hopefully I have planted a seed in your mind about how you will make it through a disaster. Now... What Will You Do?
Showing posts with label prepping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prepping. Show all posts
Monday, November 25, 2013
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Useful Skills in a Collapsed Society
Imagine a classic post-collapse society:
-Electricity flow is erratic at best.
-Gas and diesel are rare to find.
-Medical facilities no longer function.
-Food shipments cease.
-Merchandise shipments cease.
The world never really goes back to the middle ages because modern knowledge is out there. It's stored in books and on millions of computers. It's only a matter of time before groups of people independently rebuild local infrastructure and neighborhoods start trading between themselves.
This is one vision. There are more extreme versions and there are lesser versions out there. The truth being no one knows what it will look like; the situation depends upon too many factors. But... taking a middle case collapse, let's discuss a couple of professions or skills that would make you useful in such a situation. I know I can't hit them all and I guarantee I'll think of "one more" as soon as I publish this article, but here are a few in no particular order with my opinion of why they will be useful:
Doctor/Nurse
-This one really doesn't need much in the way of discussion. Medical professionals have been highly regarded throughout history in all civilizations.
Carpenter
-When things start falling apart, someone has to fix them. Nearly everyone can Mickey Mouse their way to fixing a broken table or wood chair, but someone skilled in woodworking can do it right, make it look good, and can correctly repair larger things (say... a house after an earthquake).
Blacksmith
-A rare breed in modern times where everything metal is made by machines. Like the carpenter, it takes someone with skill to do effective repairs. This guy's job is thougher: there are fewer of them and it's harder to repair metal. A beginning blacksmith, however, can make tools and that will be important for the other professions as items wear out.
Gardener
-Distinct from the farmer in that I am defining a farm as a large monocropping operation and a garden as a small plot of land with multiple different items growing in it. Without fuel, a million acres of corn will be useless except to those in the immediate vicinity. It can't be harvested by machine, nor can it be shipped around the country. A garden, however, requires only local inputs and can be tended by hand... as long as you have the seeds to get it started. A local experienced gardener is skilled at balancing all of the things necessary for a successful harvest.
Electrician
-Wait... what? So many people have generators and solar powered things, but with an intermittent power grid, someone with knowledge is needed to set up or repair a system the right way to keep it running. You can run your laptop and other items off a car battery, but if it's not set up right, things will go horribly wrong.
Cook
-Not a New York City chef and not someone who can do up a box of Hamburger Helper; but a real, old time cook. Someone who can make a pot of those rice and beans you have been storing edible for the 5th night in a row. Someone who knows what to do with all those funny things that come out of the garden. One of the best examples of what I mean is Clara whose family has a YouTube channel: DepressionCooking . This is a 90some year old lady who talks about cooking during the Depression of the 1930s.
I suppose that's enough for now. Maybe I'll do a second post on this. Or maybe I'll convince my cohort to do a follow up post with some more opinions. Either way, here is this gist of what I'm getting at - nearly every profession on this list is a skill that we call can learn and get fairly proficient at over time. You don't need to be a world class anything to have useful, barter-able skills during hard times. Learn a hard skill- take one up as a hobby if you want- but keep making yourself better and more useful to your family and those around you.
So... what useful skills can you come up with? What useful skills do you have already that you can teach others? What new useful skill are you going to learn?
-Electricity flow is erratic at best.
-Gas and diesel are rare to find.
-Medical facilities no longer function.
-Food shipments cease.
-Merchandise shipments cease.
The world never really goes back to the middle ages because modern knowledge is out there. It's stored in books and on millions of computers. It's only a matter of time before groups of people independently rebuild local infrastructure and neighborhoods start trading between themselves.
This is one vision. There are more extreme versions and there are lesser versions out there. The truth being no one knows what it will look like; the situation depends upon too many factors. But... taking a middle case collapse, let's discuss a couple of professions or skills that would make you useful in such a situation. I know I can't hit them all and I guarantee I'll think of "one more" as soon as I publish this article, but here are a few in no particular order with my opinion of why they will be useful:
Doctor/Nurse
-This one really doesn't need much in the way of discussion. Medical professionals have been highly regarded throughout history in all civilizations.
Carpenter
-When things start falling apart, someone has to fix them. Nearly everyone can Mickey Mouse their way to fixing a broken table or wood chair, but someone skilled in woodworking can do it right, make it look good, and can correctly repair larger things (say... a house after an earthquake).
Blacksmith
-A rare breed in modern times where everything metal is made by machines. Like the carpenter, it takes someone with skill to do effective repairs. This guy's job is thougher: there are fewer of them and it's harder to repair metal. A beginning blacksmith, however, can make tools and that will be important for the other professions as items wear out.
Gardener
-Distinct from the farmer in that I am defining a farm as a large monocropping operation and a garden as a small plot of land with multiple different items growing in it. Without fuel, a million acres of corn will be useless except to those in the immediate vicinity. It can't be harvested by machine, nor can it be shipped around the country. A garden, however, requires only local inputs and can be tended by hand... as long as you have the seeds to get it started. A local experienced gardener is skilled at balancing all of the things necessary for a successful harvest.
Electrician
-Wait... what? So many people have generators and solar powered things, but with an intermittent power grid, someone with knowledge is needed to set up or repair a system the right way to keep it running. You can run your laptop and other items off a car battery, but if it's not set up right, things will go horribly wrong.
Cook
-Not a New York City chef and not someone who can do up a box of Hamburger Helper; but a real, old time cook. Someone who can make a pot of those rice and beans you have been storing edible for the 5th night in a row. Someone who knows what to do with all those funny things that come out of the garden. One of the best examples of what I mean is Clara whose family has a YouTube channel: DepressionCooking . This is a 90some year old lady who talks about cooking during the Depression of the 1930s.
I suppose that's enough for now. Maybe I'll do a second post on this. Or maybe I'll convince my cohort to do a follow up post with some more opinions. Either way, here is this gist of what I'm getting at - nearly every profession on this list is a skill that we call can learn and get fairly proficient at over time. You don't need to be a world class anything to have useful, barter-able skills during hard times. Learn a hard skill- take one up as a hobby if you want- but keep making yourself better and more useful to your family and those around you.
So... what useful skills can you come up with? What useful skills do you have already that you can teach others? What new useful skill are you going to learn?
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Where To Get Prepping Supplies 2
...continuing my previous post on where to find prepping supplies:
Food for long term storage: restaurant supply chains, bulk food, and carefully selected sale items.
No pictures here, sorry. For stocking up on rice, beans, flour, sugar, spices and the like, you just can't been the restaurant supply stores. 25 and 50lb sacks of all these things exist for much less that the 5 or 10 lb grocery store buys. In addition, if you have friends or do dehydrating, canning, etc, they also carry large bags and boxes of potatoes, onions, peppers, garlic, meats, and other things. Some of the items, I noticed, aren't priced better than normal sale costs, but a 50 lb bag of red potatoes for $5.78 is hard to pass up. Keep harvest seasons in mind for the best prices.
Books (fiction, non-fiction, classics, knowledge base): used book stores and second hand stores.
I love used book stores. Larger towns always have a couple of good ones, don't they? In addition to book stores, second hand shops usually have at least a small bookcase full of random tomes. Prepper fiction is hot right now, so the newer novels are hard to find, but the older ones (Lucifer's Hammer, Alas Babylon, etc) I have seen go by multiple times. The best buys I have come across from used book stores have been garden guides, cooking, outdoors and woodworking. The best buys from general second hand stores have been medical and drug guides, car repair manuals (don't you buy one when you buy a "new to you" car?), and other random books that strike me as interesting. I have found that second hand stores usually have "paperbacks for 25 cent" signs whereas used book stores usually sell as a set fraction of the original cost (50% around here). I have more guides and how-to manuals that I will ever read, but for 25 cents to 2 dollars depending upon the book, I am happy to have the knowledge base to refer to if I ever do need them.
Books (internet): As a side note to books, I mention the internet. I don't just mean Amazon. If you know how to search, there are tens of thousands of books available for free as .pdf downloads; everything from old cooking methods, ship building, animal care and husbandry, to older, classic fiction. Google has a huge library of free "out of copyright" books online or you can use the Google search engine by typing in the title or subject then filetype:pdf . This will return .pdf documents and will shorten your time spent searching immensely. Download it onto a flash drive for safe keeping, print off the pertinent parts, or read what you need and let it go. In addition to books, I have found pretty much any instruction manual I have ever needed this way; everything from a slide rule to rototiller to pressure canner. If you are looking for it, someone has probably posted it. I should probably mention about being sure the pdf isn't a copyright violation before you download and distribute it to friends.
Final Thoughts:
-Keep a list with you of things you think you need or would like to have. I know I constantly walk into a place trying to remember the list of stuff I am keeping an eye out for. If you regularly eye prepping supplies you get a feel for the going price. Then you know when you see something for a really good deal. That's the time to go for it.
-Small, useful, low-tech items are good to stock for barter in case of TEOTWAWKI. They are also useful in regular daily living. If you have a supply of nails, screws, nuts/bolts/washers, tools or misc construction pieces that you can loan or give to a neighbor, you are establishing some useful good will.
-Haunting local second hand stores and pawn shops gets you to know some useful local people... if you talk to them. If they are selling tools for $2, you know they paid less for them. Where do they get their stock- auctions, estate auctions, consignment? If you talk to them and/or occasionally offer to help with something you are getting to know some good, hardworking people. If, after a while, you let them know what you are looking for, I'd bet they can give some good ideas on where to find stuff or will give you a heads up on an upcoming sale or auction they know about. If they do consignment, they will probably be willing to take some items in that you are asking about, even if they wouldn't normally stock that "thing".
-If you don't need "pretty" and are willing to put in some effort, you can get items for next to nothing. $6 for 3 cast iron pans because one needed elbow grease. A 20-something dollar wrench for $3 because it needed cleaning.
Do you have any other places were you have found a good deal on prepping items?
Food for long term storage: restaurant supply chains, bulk food, and carefully selected sale items.
No pictures here, sorry. For stocking up on rice, beans, flour, sugar, spices and the like, you just can't been the restaurant supply stores. 25 and 50lb sacks of all these things exist for much less that the 5 or 10 lb grocery store buys. In addition, if you have friends or do dehydrating, canning, etc, they also carry large bags and boxes of potatoes, onions, peppers, garlic, meats, and other things. Some of the items, I noticed, aren't priced better than normal sale costs, but a 50 lb bag of red potatoes for $5.78 is hard to pass up. Keep harvest seasons in mind for the best prices.
Books (fiction, non-fiction, classics, knowledge base): used book stores and second hand stores.
I love used book stores. Larger towns always have a couple of good ones, don't they? In addition to book stores, second hand shops usually have at least a small bookcase full of random tomes. Prepper fiction is hot right now, so the newer novels are hard to find, but the older ones (Lucifer's Hammer, Alas Babylon, etc) I have seen go by multiple times. The best buys I have come across from used book stores have been garden guides, cooking, outdoors and woodworking. The best buys from general second hand stores have been medical and drug guides, car repair manuals (don't you buy one when you buy a "new to you" car?), and other random books that strike me as interesting. I have found that second hand stores usually have "paperbacks for 25 cent" signs whereas used book stores usually sell as a set fraction of the original cost (50% around here). I have more guides and how-to manuals that I will ever read, but for 25 cents to 2 dollars depending upon the book, I am happy to have the knowledge base to refer to if I ever do need them.
Books (internet): As a side note to books, I mention the internet. I don't just mean Amazon. If you know how to search, there are tens of thousands of books available for free as .pdf downloads; everything from old cooking methods, ship building, animal care and husbandry, to older, classic fiction. Google has a huge library of free "out of copyright" books online or you can use the Google search engine by typing in the title or subject then filetype:pdf . This will return .pdf documents and will shorten your time spent searching immensely. Download it onto a flash drive for safe keeping, print off the pertinent parts, or read what you need and let it go. In addition to books, I have found pretty much any instruction manual I have ever needed this way; everything from a slide rule to rototiller to pressure canner. If you are looking for it, someone has probably posted it. I should probably mention about being sure the pdf isn't a copyright violation before you download and distribute it to friends.
Final Thoughts:
-Keep a list with you of things you think you need or would like to have. I know I constantly walk into a place trying to remember the list of stuff I am keeping an eye out for. If you regularly eye prepping supplies you get a feel for the going price. Then you know when you see something for a really good deal. That's the time to go for it.
-Small, useful, low-tech items are good to stock for barter in case of TEOTWAWKI. They are also useful in regular daily living. If you have a supply of nails, screws, nuts/bolts/washers, tools or misc construction pieces that you can loan or give to a neighbor, you are establishing some useful good will.
-Haunting local second hand stores and pawn shops gets you to know some useful local people... if you talk to them. If they are selling tools for $2, you know they paid less for them. Where do they get their stock- auctions, estate auctions, consignment? If you talk to them and/or occasionally offer to help with something you are getting to know some good, hardworking people. If, after a while, you let them know what you are looking for, I'd bet they can give some good ideas on where to find stuff or will give you a heads up on an upcoming sale or auction they know about. If they do consignment, they will probably be willing to take some items in that you are asking about, even if they wouldn't normally stock that "thing".
-If you don't need "pretty" and are willing to put in some effort, you can get items for next to nothing. $6 for 3 cast iron pans because one needed elbow grease. A 20-something dollar wrench for $3 because it needed cleaning.
Do you have any other places were you have found a good deal on prepping items?
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