Getting Back to Basics

Over the years, I’ve learned a lot of skills, including some that are comparatively rare these days. Some I learned some in response to necessity, even to emergencies, but most of them I learned because they were interesting or a challenge, or because I thought they would improve my life in some way.

There are probably skills I’ve completely forgotten about but that would take just a little practice to get up to speed if they entered my life again. Sort of like riding a bicycle for the first time in years. And an important thing about many skills is that they carry over and can be generalized to help us learn new skills in new situations. So the more skills you have in more areas, the more likely it is that if you bump up against something new and unfamiliar, you’ll be able to handle it.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to make a list of what I’d learned. I’m sure there’s more, but I think I can feel pretty optimistic about my ability to be moderately self-sufficient if the apocalypse showed up.

• Cooking from scratch, including ethnic dishes
• Baking bread — focaccia, anyone?
• Making jams and jellies — often from fruits gathered from the wild
• Canning and freezing — homemade peach pie for Thanksgiving. Yum.
• Gardening — growing vegetables and herbs, propagating new plants by division, cuttings, air layering, seeds
• Raising and butchering chickens — got old after a while, but store-bought can’t compare
• Electrical and plumbing repairs — rewiring lamps and outlets, replacing plastic pipe and faucets — fun occupation: crawling under a single wide trailer in the dead of winter to repair frozen pipes
• Drywall repairs and minor carpentry
• Crafts — crochet, knitting, macrame, needlepoint, quilting, and probably a bunch more
• Sewing — making clothes from scratch, repairs, and alterations

What are you waiting for? Go find something useful to learn.

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