Thoughts... (Survival?)

Joined
Mar 19, 2003
Messages
978
Hey guys...

I'm a bit intrigued by the survivalist thought process! The more hours I spend pondering the "time" spent living off the land the more I realize how unprepared I am if I was put in a position to do so!

I'm pondering, not so much by choice... but because its something thats been placed on my frontal lobe, gotta point up to the big guy for that one. I'm not particularly sure why, I just have a feeling I need to have an intimate understanding of roughing it, for the long term.

I've been thinking timelines:
1 month, No problem... if a home is available... piece of cake. Food, water... take a vacation.

2 months... 2 months for a semi-urban location to me means a mad max type envrionment. Those without the skills to surivive will simply "take."

1 year. Food? Water? Shelter? Tools wearing out... For sure a need to not be "Roughing it" but to be living through it.

Life time. Axes, Saws, Knives... metal bits... no way to stock a pantry for that long. More "nomadic" because the shear volume of wood... to keep warm in a home would strip the land bare for miles in a lifetimes worth of work!

I've been playing the what ifs... Without the background knowledge of the topics that I'm creating! I havent ever cut down a tree with an axe, nor dig a well with a shovel, raise a barn... milk a cow, or anything that would give me a foundation to feel prepared!

I do know, that in a survival situation, a garden will need to be tended to... without a tractor... or a horse. A hoe doesnt stay sharp forever... handles break, files wear out!

My "Consumption" lifestyle hasnt been pressed to need to be creative in these areas, My current line of thought being a to aquire the tools needed to get the job done. Probably brought on by my time spent under cars... but to a point that doesnt work in a survival type environment! You cant carry multiples of everything needed to farm, repair, rebuild... all on your person! You cant assume that you'll be near home, or that home is even there. You cant stockpile in one place alone... yet you may have no way to get to the outpost except by foot!

So many questions... So few to easily answer!

To get to the point! (Did I ramble at all?) I'm wondering what kind of "tools" do "we" need to survive, at a reasonably comfortable level... Our Founding Fathers did a great job without electricity. Many works of art were done without access to running water...

From what I can come up with:

A way to fell a tree: Axe (Saw may be hard to sharpen.)

To access water: A larger than normal well. One with both pipes for electrical pumps and manual.

To Garden: Shovels, Hoes ( Not that kind of hoes...) and rakes.

To mend: A way to spin cotton, or other fibrous plants into a thread... a way to weave cloth, MANY needles!

To protect: Firearms... need projectiles. Projectiles are like batteries, hard to aquire when needed! Swords... Dont think so. I think the best protection, is to not be noticed!

Clothing? Pioneers liked leather, hikers dont like cotton... hard to figure out!

I hope, to never need the skills I'm talking about... but if "we" ever do... we'll need them badly!

Food, Water, Shelter... easier said than done from what I can tell! TIME is the enemy! TIME wears the tools, the moral, and US out!

Thanks for listening to my rant... :D
 
A survival situation and being a "survivalist" is not the same. knowing how to survive if lost in the woods or an urban enviornment is not the same as someone who hordes supplies and lives in fear of armageddon.
 
Armageddon?

You mean the end of the world?

I dont see that happening, Christ has been here once, but not twice to my knowledge!

:D
 
The chances of you needing to 'live off the land' in the long term are vanishingly small. Thanks to our large population, I'm not sure it would even be possible, especially considering the fact that if you are doing it, there will be thousands more trying to do the same. I think the best thing to do if you're worried about the future is to live somewhere that you can be more self sufficient and learn to provide for yourself. My family and I moved from a large city to a small town of 4000 where I grew up.
The advantages are many assuming you have the means to make a living. Our crappy house sold for much more than it took to build a brand new house on 10 acres where we are now. I have the benefits of a secure, off-grid water supply, limitless fuel for heating and cooking, wild game of all sorts from mouse to moose, secluded location, etc etc... There's no need to have to 'rough it', and even if I do, living here confers many of the skills you'd need to do so as a byproduct of life in the woods...
 
Hotrod said:
Armageddon?

You mean the end of the world?......

:D

I do not think so. More like if the sh!i hits the fan, the desctuction of order as we know it, the fall of governments, the rise of anarchy, etc. Being self sufficient is hard to imagine with all the luexery that surrounds us (wether you think you have is easy or not) wether we realize it or not. Electric and running water for example. How long do you thing you could go with out TV or a can or cold beer?

Hotrod, you have hit on the very fundemental of Survival......Does one have the suffecient knowledge and the 'tools' at his disposal to make it. Of course the answer in 'NO'. No man can live his whole life totaly on his own. That is why we have societies. Each member of that society has his/her own skills that are used for the benifiet of the community as a whole.

One man cannot know everything, or should be expected to. Neither should one man be able to make all the necessities of life.

So to get more or less to answer your questions:

Cut down a tree: No problem
Dig a well: Won't work. Live by a river, lake, etc
To Garden: A woman's job

To mend: A woman's job

To protect: Firearms... Swords... Just be perpared

Clothing: Again, a woman's job

Food, Water, Shelter: That is when your guns, knives, living by the water, and knowing how to make a tent will come in handy.

I guess in a way I am kinda like you. I think of a situation, and what would i do? The problem is, the more you think you know, the more you realize you don't know as much as you should. So its a continual thrist for knowledge. But, you can read as many books as you want to. But, actual experience is the mother of all teachers.

The only other things you will need is a community to belong and a woman who can do all the things described above :p

Good luck with your quest for knowledge, and keep the rest of us enlightened!
 
Balinut, that's about as close-minded an attitude as I've ever heard from a modern guy who's not joking. It's also the antithesis of the survival attitude. The survival attitude is "I must be capable of doing all primitive chores and tasks necessary to survive".

However, the survivalist (michigan militia style) is... "government and society as we know it will crumble so I'm gonna collect my family and friends that I like, live on the supplies I hoarded, and kill those I don't like if they come to my door for help".
 
Life time. Axes, Saws, Knives... metal bits... no way to stock a pantry for that long. More "nomadic" because the shear volume of wood... to keep warm in a home would strip the land bare for miles in a lifetimes worth of work
personally, i don't think a single person living in nature would strip land bare for miles around, even in two lifetime's of work.

I've been playing the what ifs... Without the background knowledge of the topics that I'm creating! I havent ever cut down a tree with an axe, nor dig a well with a shovel, raise a barn... milk a cow, or anything that would give me a foundation to feel prepared!
i imagine you'd have to do much digging and chopping, living in the wild, but i doubt you'd ever raise a barn or have a cow to put in it. LOL

I do know, that in a survival situation, a garden will need to be tended to... without a tractor... or a horse. A hoe doesnt stay sharp forever... handles break, files wear out!
a garden would be a good idea, if you could find a spot to cultivate one, and gather things you can find in a certain square-mile area to fill it with. it wouldn't have to be very large for a single person if you could get it to take off well. as for sharpening, you'd better find a nice rock for that. altho i imagine some butcher's steels will last you thru most of a lifetime of sharpening an assortment of tools.

You cant stockpile in one place alone... yet you may have no way to get to the outpost except by foot!
actually, you could basically stay in one place. while a couple other well protected places in your certain square-mile range would be a good idea, for storage and protection purposes, it wouldn't be necessary. plus, i don't know if i'd really be very motivated to move too far, too often. and i don't think a stock-pile would hold out very well either, unless it was winter, and you could keep things frozen. and you'd also better have a way to mark your way from stock-pile to stock-pile.
as for an outpost, i think you're thinking too big, in terms of the abilities you'll have to make things, or even be required to make in the first place.
but you're right about being ready to take a bigass walk. you may exhaust resources, you may find troublesome pests taking up your territory, you may need to relocate depending on season, etc.

To get to the point! (Did I ramble at all?) I'm wondering what kind of "tools" do "we" need to survive, at a reasonably comfortable level... Our Founding Fathers did a great job without electricity. Many works of art were done without access to running water...
as far as tools, i don't think you would need a whole lot. certain garden tools, knives, purification tablets, fire-starters, etc, can all be invaluable. but mankind lived without them a helluva lot longer than we lived with them, y'know? being in the situation is the best way to find out what you need. and you mostly need to center around your basic needs. you'll need tools to hunt, tools to cultivate, and tools to build.

A way to fell a tree: Axe (Saw may be hard to sharpen.)
tho the going can be slow, you'll always have plenty of wood and mud/sod to build with. and a hatchet or a small axe can take down large tree's with some determination. and what better determination is their than survival? sharpening can be done on a flat rock.

To access water: A larger than normal well. One with both pipes for electrical pumps and manual
you absolutely do not need a well. and electricity and pumps would sort of be contradictory to really living off the land in a survival situation. they would soften the shock greatly, and completely change the form of your survival. so let's find other ways to get water, just for the sake of this conversation.
lakes, streams, rivers, dew, rain, plants, etc. personally, i don't believe you would need to purify your water, altho many other ppl will disagree. so that covers lakes, streams, and rivers. you could also use a bucket (carved from wood if need be) to collect rain. learn what plants you can get water from in different geographic locations ('cause there aren't many, and you probly wont get much mileage off this), and you can set dew-traps (they collect water very slowly, but they're a convenient long-term help).

To Garden: Shovels, Hoes ( Not that kind of hoes...) and rakes
a shovel would be great, but you could always carve a digging stick. and i doubt you'd need a hoe or a rake tho (not saying you couldn't find use for them tho).

To mend: A way to spin cotton, or other fibrous plants into a thread... a way to weave cloth, MANY needles!
good luck with that. it's common for ppl to have a supply of thread and a few needles, but those exhaust fairly quickly in rough terrain.
some fabrics can be made and spun, but as to what, i couldn't help you out with that, sorry.

To protect: Firearms... need projectiles. Projectiles are like batteries, hard to aquire when needed! Swords... Dont think so. I think the best protection, is to not be noticed!
a firearm would be your best bet. but how much ammo do you have? think bow'n'arrow and spear, and dig-traps.
but keeping on your use of the word "projectiles", you can find many solutions. rocks would be #1, right?
if you're trained to use a sword/machete/khukri/etc, then it can indeed be an invaluable defense/hunting weapon. even a large knife. learn to use it tho. in the wild, you don't wanna have to learn the hard way.
to not be noticed is by far the best protection. but that'd be all but impossible sooner or later.

Clothing? Pioneers liked leather, hikers dont like cotton... hard to figure out!
leather/fur would be #1 options.
again, i can't tell you about any fabric/weaving. i need to learn myself.

i'm sorry if i made this sound easy, or if i come off kind of flat in my reply. i know how difficult it can be, living in Maine, 3-5 hours away from any large cities (3 hours to Quebec City, Quebec and 5 hours to Portland, Maine).

we have alot of uninhabited/protected forest compared to almost every other state in the US. we have huge problems with black flies. we have quite uncommon fluctuating temperatures (could be ABOVE 80ºF @ 3PM and UNDER 40ºF @ 3AM between May-June and the end of August-October. yeah, we don't have a very long summer up here), and we have brutally cold and snowy winters. last winter we were one of the snowiest area's in the US outside of a couple cities in California, Alaska, and NY. not to mention last winter we had almost 3 full weeks of -60ºF weather during a wind-storm/ice-storm (it was a warmer -30º to -15ºF without the wind-chill). these would be my biggest obstacles if i had to survive here (bears aren't even in the top 50 for the most part). i'd have to find a way to cope with the fluctuating temperatures, the black flies, and the winter. in fact, i'd assume i'd nearly die every winter. anything else, i'm pretty confident about.

Edit:
just have a recent example of the weather fluctuations. yesterday morning @ this time? it was 70ºF. right now? precisely 12 hours later? it's 39ºF!
 
I guess my idea was based around where I am now... lots of housing... lots of man made "Stuff."

Mad Max? Well... Depends on the situation...

Thanks for the responses!

A few questions:

A digging stick, Is this anything but a stick with a point to loosen the soil?

Axes... there are lots of them out there, any brands I might be wise to purchase?

Forged shovels... just in case yall havent seen em, they last longer than stamped sheetmetal, they normally say they are forged. I havent ever replaced a handle on a shovel... need to I guess!

What do yall think about a below the ground answer to survival type questions? How to keep it from flooding in the rainy season? Maybe just finding a hill, and building up, so its at ground level at the floor... but still has the insulating properties of dirt?

Leather/fur... leather as in bomber jacket? leather as in vest?

Boots... I'm thinking Redwings, I havent ever owned a pair... but they seam to have the biggest following in a manufacturing arena. I havent a clue if they are decent in mud! I need to stash a couple grand for "try this product" testing... :D

Any books that are worth checking out? A step further towards homesteading than an Army Survival manual... or Angiers Survival manual... :D

Thanks again! (I found another hobby... :eek: )
 
I'm starting a compilation of stuff... an online database of links... which will be this post. :D I have a heck of a time keeping my favorites in check...

The thoughts that spurred my brain... http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/clay55.html

Fuel (Thanks Rok Jok!)
http://www.alpharubicon.com/altenergy/gasstoretg.htm
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/.../sb/5/o/fpart/4
http://www.chevron.com/prodserv/fue...gterm_gasoline/
http://www.priproducts.com/tests.htm (gasoline info at bottom of page, most of page is diesel info)
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/warner43.html
http://www.survivalunlimited.com/fu...ge/howworks.htm
http://www.houscan.com/generator.html (electrical generator & fuel info)
http://www.adlersantiqueautos.com/a...terstorage.html (automobile storage info)


Clothing
Darning wool mitten/socks: http://www.hjsstudio.com/darn.html

Darning not-wool socks: http://www.ehow.com/how_648_darn-sock.html

Desert Clothing selection (GREAT!) - http://www.survival.com/deployment.htm

Hide tanning basics - http://www.publicbookshelf.com/publ...dia_of_General_Information/historyof_cff.html


Gardening and animal rasing

Storing seeds (PDF) - http://eesc.orst.edu/agcomwebfile/edmat/FS220.pdf

Storing seeds, not as complete - http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/seedsave/2002084108030849.html

Saving tomato seeds - http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/seedsave/2002084456024410.html

Cow Basics - http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/thibodeau36.html

Buying sheep - http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/evangelista32.html

Chrohet how to (weaving yarn into stuff...) - http://www.crochet.org/lessons/lessonr/lessonr.html

Making Vinegar - http://www.vinegarman.com/VinegarMaking.shtml

Making Vinegar (slightly more in depth... circa 1881) - http://www.publicbookshelf.com/publ...edia_of_General_Information/howtomak_bjc.html


Storing apples for nearly forever (havent tried it...) http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/fallick41.html

Home made fertilizer (might be hard to find 10-10-10 in another great depression) http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/nyerges44.html

Long lasting high calorie goodies - http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/rohdenburg81a.html

Storing fruit/veggies for a LONG time - http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/gist82.html


Canning butter - http://www.endtimesreport.com/canning_butter.html



Saving seeds - http://www.endtimesreport.com/saving_seeds.html

Making soap - http://www.christianhomekeeper.com/newsoap.html

Making butter - http://www.christianhomekeeper.com/butter1.html



Pemmican Recipes - http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/pemmican.html

Water
Water Treatment methods - http://www.bagelhole.org/article.php/Sanitation/78/

Interesting reading (part 1) - http://www.bagelhole.org/article.php/Sanitation/69/
Part 2 - http://www.bagelhole.org/article.php/Sanitation/70/

Health

Laundry soap - http://www.christianhomekeeper.com/laundrysoap.shtml


Dental emergencies... http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/arnet75b.html


Housing

Straw buildings! (kind of odd... R value of R-55!)
http://www.skillful-means.com/menupages/buildinghome.html
http://www.skillful-means.com/strawbale/papers/strafaq.htm

Tools
Jackleg fencing - http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/geissal45.html

Homesteading tools (I like backwoodshome.com :D ) http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/ballou74.html

Carpentry hand tools - http://www.endtimesreport.com/carpentry.html

Hand tool protection - http://www.endtimesreport.com/preservationoils.html

basics of sharpening garden tools - http://www.gardenadvice.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/basics.detail/basicsId/106449/catId/31258
Hoes and spades - http://www.gardenadvice.com/index.c...E7758AAACE9,x,x&CFID=5036143&CFTOKEN=46050691
Repairing tools, broken... dried out handles, rusted etc.
http://www.gardenadvice.com/index.c...E7758AAACE9,x,x&CFID=5036143&CFTOKEN=46050691

Wood cutting, chopping tools etc - http://www.endtimesreport.com/woodcutting.html

Sharpening axes - http://www.gransfors.com/htm_eng/yxboken/bok17.htm

Technical
How many acres of wood http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/How_much_land_for_a_living.html

The sites I have come across that I have liked thus far:

www.christianhomekeeper.com
www.backwoodshome.com
http://www.bagelhole.org/
http://www.alpharubicon.com/
http://www.oldjimbo.com/survival/ (good bit on axes!)
www.equipped.org (of course!)
http://outdoors-magazine.com/s_summary.php
www.survivalforum.com
http://www.online-orienteering.net/ (Orienteering basics)

Household Cyclopedia... cirica 1881 - http://www.publicbookshelf.com/public_html/The_Household_Cyclopedia_of_General_Information/


Various preparedness bits...

http://www.justpeace.org/nuggets10.htm#EGG STORAGE

To be continued
:D
 
Dude, you ae going to be in a survival situation soon enough, just as soon as you realise that you spent all you money on knives and gadgets :D

Seriously, a good idea may be to take a carpentry course in at a local college (night school) followed by a blacksmithing or metal working one. I think this would give you a better idea of the things you can and can not do with a few tools.

Things will wear out, but it not like they will be fully servicable one day and totally useless the next, unless you break it beyond repair. So you would have time to look for, or make a replacement.

Take a few courses in Primitive Living and get a better insight into what you would be up against if totally un-prepared, then prepare accordingly.

You can only do so much, but you do have a brain and hands, if you dont survive then its because of Mr. Darwin ;)
 
Does anyone here, responding to the survival thread wanna get found, and get back to civilization, or living in the woods is pretty much all there is?
 
I, am thinking slightly beyond the scope of a survival (Car broke down in the woods...) I want to have the tools (Brain and otherwise...) To live through a depression, to make it when theres no one looking for me.

I'd like to think that its easy to "live" in a survival type period... Its not that far from impossible. If minimum wage is driven to 10 dollars an hour, health care socialized... Oil prices skyrocketed... and the cost of energy more than what the common man can afford, I believe America will struggle. When America struggles, the world struggles.

Am I wrong in this line of thinking? The value of US labor is not any different than the value of labor anywhere else... either the rest of the world goes up... or we go crashing down. There is only one pie, and we consume way to much of it... The average in some third world countries per month of wages... is less than 80 dollars (US.) The cost of living isnt different, the living standards are!
 
Oh...

Does anyone know how well lye based soaps clean? Are they capable of killing viruses and bacteria?

That being asked... ANYONE who has a really cool website, or book recomendation... PLEASE add it to the thread!

Thanks yall!

:cool:
 
Hotrod said:
I've been thinking timelines:
  • 1 month, No problem... if a home is available... piece of cake. Food, water... take a vacation.
  • 2 months... 2 months for a semi-urban location to me means a mad max type envrionment. Those without the skills to surivive will simply "take."
  • 1 year. Food? Water? Shelter? Tools wearing out...
  • Life time. Axes, Saws, Knives... metal bits... no way to stock a pantry for that long. More "nomadic" because the shear volume of wood... to keep warm in a home would strip the land bare for miles in a lifetimes worth of work!

From what I can come up with:
  • A way to fell a tree: Axe (Saw may be hard to sharpen.)
  • To access water: A larger than normal well. One with both pipes for electrical pumps and manual.
  • To Garden: Shovels, Hoes ( Not that kind of hoes...) and rakes.
  • To mend: A way to spin cotton, or other fibrous plants into a thread... a way to weave cloth, MANY needles!
  • To protect: Firearms... need projectiles. Projectiles are like batteries, hard to aquire when needed! Swords... Dont think so. I think the best protection, is to not be noticed!
  • Clothing? Pioneers liked leather, hikers dont like cotton... hard to figure out!

Food, Water, Shelter... easier said than done from what I can tell! TIME is the enemy! TIME wears the tools, the moral, and US out!
Hotrod, Here's a couple quick thoughts that come to my mind:

#1: rethink (shorten) your timelines considerably, especially for a no-electricity urban Mad Max scenario.

If electricity goes out for more than a few days or water supplies become unusable, those around you will become scavenging animals in much less than 2 months. Like a day or two. The speed of social deterioration will depend on the severity of the situation's implications for mass consequence, the availability of law enforcement personnel to strong-arm the populace into subservience, and the populace's cultural social conditioning to obey authority figures (which is very weak in America).

You need only consider the population density in cities and the relatively thin veneer of "just in time" supply lines currently supporting all those people to understand how instantly the available urban resources will disappear. Consider the rush to acquire food, water, and plywood in the hurricane scenarios in Florida and other Gulf Coast locales. When the storms come, the shelves get bare. Now consider a situation where the resource supply lines don't have the buffering of a warning period (as with hurricanes) before the doo-doo comes crashing down. The available resources will disappear instantly.

One of the big lessons in the thread linked further down is that those living in rural areas do better than urban dwellers during breakdown scenarios. Why?? Because their environment (both physical, psychological, and social/economic) have already conditioned them to more efficiently "make do" with less, to prioritize their resources toward necessities of life rather than squandering them on ostentatious consumer status displays, and because they have both the land area and the knowledge needed to feed themselves from that land. After all, up until breakdown they were feeding not only themselves off that land, but the urban-dwellers as well.

There's an old saying, "No country is more than three meals away from a revolution." The basis being, a populace may miss a meal or two without too much ruckus. But when the realization hits home that they are in a tough spot for a longer haul, they go to the streets to either demonstrate or riot, or organize underground in an attempt to get their needs met.

Regarding how people react to breakdown situations, some very interesting comments are made by a Red Cross worker with third-world experience in the thread linked below.
http://www.swampratknifeworks.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=000821

#2 Time is not only the enemy, it's also your friend. You have time now to study, learn, plan, test, re-evaluate & adjust the plan, retest, and Practice, Practice, Practice to get ready. Everybody gets 24 hours in each day. What they do with those hours differentiates how their lives turn out.

Most urban dwellers have ZERO emergency or survival plan because their "head in the sand" ostrich syndrome refuses to acknowledge that sh!+ could ever possibly happen to THEM. :eek: They have placed their trust in The System to provide for them, just as it always has up to this point in their life. Their belief is that their history is their future.

By recognizing your knowledge deficit of the subject and your willingness to research and practice, you have not only taken the first step toward your own self-sufficience, but have also placed yourself in a position miles ahead of most urban dwellers in terms of being prepared for possible glitches in the infrastructure or social fabric.

#3 The more you know, the less you need to have. Knowledge replaces equipment needs. As someone else pointed out, hands-on experience is the best teacher. Lessons learned experientially stick with you the longest and the best.

#4 Don't view survival as a "I Am So Unprepared I Will Have To Learn Everything All At Once" situation. It's too daunting that way.

Instead break it down into smaller, more managable chunks. Pick one area (water or food gathering/storage, firemaking, etc) and practice that skill until you feel comfortable with it, then move on to the next skill. Be sure to occasionally revisit the skills though, to keep yourself sharp in all of them. However, the timeline for refreshing a skill is much shorter than the timeline for learning it in the first instance.

Also, you can escalate the severity of the practice situation. Try turning your own electricity off at the power panel for an evening to see how you handle that loss of infrastructure. Then try no electricity for a day or two. See what the consequences are and how you'd like to address those consequences. (Note: the food in your freezer will likely be a casualty. ;) ) Try not using any water from your water supply for a day, just what you have on hand in your home or available from "natural" sources.

#5 Skills practiced beforehand diminish the stress of survival situations IMMENSELY!! Both the resources you've acquired through your plan & testing and (perhaps most importantly) the confidence you've gained that you can handle "out of the ordinary" situations steady your psychological state massively when infrastructure and circumstantial burps happen. When the situation hits, you become the person focused on what you already know needs to be done. You are not the frantic person trying to decide/grab what you think will be useful. You are likewise not the despondant crushed figure waiting for a government or other agency to provide you support. You are support for yourself and for your family.

In my experience, it takes very little equipment and not a lot of knowledge to deal with most situations. If you are into camping and backpacking, you already have much of what you need. And the knowledge is the most important part.

(edited to add) Here are some soap making links:
http://www.bagelhole.org/article.php/Miscellaneous/222/
http://www.bagelhole.org/article.php/Miscellaneous/191/
http://ziggurat.org/soap/ (linked from http://www.wildernessdrum.com/html/web_sites.html)
http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/abcdefg200/survlib/soapmake.htm (Warning: Angelfire page so you get idiot pop-ups)
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/clay62.html
http://www.icomm.ca/survival/310.don/laundrys.htm

A page of links to soapmaking articles:
http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-one-category.tcl?topic=Countryside&category=Soap Making
 
1) I suggest you *practice* soapmaking....of all the potential survival skills, it is perhaps second only to heat-treating steel for potential failure. Some people manage it right away, but some have inordinate difficulty with the task. And yes, basic lye soap is every bit as effective as "antibacterial" soap for tasks of daily living.

2) despite our modern disposable culture, good tools can be made to last not only for your lifetime but for generations. minimums for the long run include a good knife and steel- remember that a wide blade lends itself to repeated sharpening, and that steeling a knife when possible rather than going straight to the hone will prolong its life even further. Having a carbon-steel striker for firestarting will also help spare your blade. A good axe and hatchet would be next, followed by saw blades. anything else you might need could be made with these tools, but a couple pieces of cast-iron cookware and a spade or two would go a long way to making life easier. synthetic handles are acceptable, as long as you know how to replace them with wooden ones when they fail.

3) again in the long run, slings and arrows are much better than firearms becasue both the weapons and the projectles are readily improvised with some practice, and materials will be readily available in the city or in the bush.

3) for a basic book on minimalist living, i'd suggest Mors Kochanski's Bushcraft. Simple, straightforward, and includes many of the skills needed for establishing yourself.

4) another important skill to know will be wilderness medicine (even in the city, medical supplies will disappear rapidly, so you need to know how to improvise). This starts with first aid and goes on from there.
 
How about rust prevention on metal tools? Would animal fat (heavy oils...) do it?

Dumb question... How the heck do ya make vegetable oil? I was just pondering that... mainly because I've heard that some chefs use olive oil to protect their blades from rust! It hit me upside the head... that I dont have a clue as to how ya extract oil from produce!

:eek:
 
Edit: Snopes says that doesnt work...

Asprin, no coughing to stop a heart attack. :footinmou
 
Keep all your kit clean and dry, there shouldnt be a real need for 'Rust prevention' per se. If your life depended on an item of kit, I'm quite sure it wouldnt be carelessly thrown into the shed, garage or whatever. It would be carefully wiped and cleaned and stored in a proper location.

I think Ultrlight backpacking would be a good way to see how you manage your resourses and see how you would fare.
 
I've thought about that... and bike packing... :D

Does anyone know where I can find the laws reguarding the amount of gasoline you can store on site... kind of like packing for handgun laws... are there any out there for storage laws on flamables? :eek:
 
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