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@mountainwitch@kolektiva.socialIf someone gave you a spinning wheel, a loom and a sheep, you COULD make your own clothes. But it would probably take you years to teach yourself how and you would be freezing and in rags before you figured it out. However, if you were also friends with someone who knew how to look after the sheep, shear it's wool, clean, card and spin that wool, weave the threads on the loom and then show you how to cut and sew a garment, it would go much faster.
Now if you ALREADY had those skills when you had the leisure time, money and people/resources to learn, you would not only be way ahead of the game but you could sell or barter your product and your knowledge as the needs arise.
Think about all the things you have and use that you have no idea how they were produced or where they came from. Think about all the people in your community with different skills and talents that you could learn from or trade and barter from.
The point is, learn some primitive skills now. Find out what you have inherent talent in. Experiment. Look for local resources. Find your people. Learn all kinds of different ways to look after yourself and your family when things collapse. Our high tech world is fragile and not sustainable. People are going to be shocked at how fast things fall apart and break when the means to continually consume, replace or repair are interrupted.
@mountainwitch The other thing is, skills you learn can be carried anywhere you go, and given away to as many people who will learn from you. It's an ever growing resources (versus "stuff").
@mountainwitch I'm trying to get better at gardening. I also know how to raise chickens, but because of the Mountain lion that lives around here and of course Bird Flu, I don't have any chickens. I also know basic sewing, cooking from scratch, basic wood working and basic cabinetry, basic pottery (though I have to get my kiln & wheel repaired) and of course I'm an artist, writer & musician, but that's not survival skills.
@samhainnight @mountainwitch Wrt gardening I've sort of hindered myself by trying to work with very very minimal inputs and a lot of improvised materials, which is good practice for improv, but not always the best for production. I wish I could keep quail, I know they do well in this environment. Lots of handicraft, though.
I'd argue art, music, storytelling are survival skills if you're in it for the long haul. Try "surviving" four years without stories. Or raising kids. Bread, but roses too.
@samhainnight @mountainwitch Brain has been nattering for the past hour about how *every-thing* in life used to be handmade, and thus all but the most temporary items tended to feature some "pointless" artistic embellishments, and how we used to sing for *everything* we did, keeping time or rhythm or morale, and how even today almost all of us consume stories on a daily basis, the one habit we *didn't* kick with the industrial revolution.
Seriously foundational humaning, all that.
@cwicseolfor @mountainwitch :) There's lots of good tutorials for gardening on Youtube! I'm using empty gallon sized milk containers as mini greenhouses for lettuce and I'm going to try using cardboard boxes for growing Carrots and potatoes! I've also reclaimed soil from my creek that was silting in & I'm going to sift out the pebbles out with a makeshift sifter then augment it. I'm also building trellis' from downed redwood branches.
@samhainnight @mountainwitch Revitalizing soil and waterways at the same time sounds like the best plan (I wish I had a creek…! Smallish shaded lot.) I've been rehabbing the *extremely dead* very compacted soil here for a while and the color has transformed over most the space. I just wattled a bed out of bamboo - originally half-buried boxes and mounded earth around them, but too short - filled in with broken deadfall wood, then a couple feet of dead leaves, then compost & soil. Here's hoping!
@mountainwitch We dont need a collapse to create our own new destiny.
Semaphore flags and heliograph signals move at the same C (speed of light) as this fediverse reply does. maybe even a few Grace Hopper nanoseconds quicker in gossip.
Especially fun when i was an adolescent in the 1970s with a flashlight atop the old schoolhouse in Lahave. rolling by on our high handlebar and banana seat bikes the next morning watching the Mounties acting like they were chasing atomic spies:
priceless!
@mountainwitch 2/.. and for long lasting culture value; … as i and the Smith boy from the Corkums home up past Seaboyers made our way back to Dublin Shore . we were met by my Nanna blasting us like the Fort Pt Fog Horn! … and behind her, just out of eye contact, was my Poppy, beaming and bursting with pride :)
And yes, all those decades later, i passed these practical skill sets to my stepdaughter so she could pass on the stirring up of sh*t for generations to come :)
Thank you for emphasizing community here.
Since so many vital things are impossible to do alone - rather than just very difficult.
(Relatedly; thanks go to the local physician's assistant who cleaned out and stitched up my hand when I had an accident with a can opener last year.)
@mountainwitch Hm. That‘s exactly my approach. An idea: Why not form a community of like-minded, skilled people here on mastodon, keep it going as long as possible and answer questions? Everyone has a skill and a talent, I guess. One could share ideas, concepts, get to know new approaches, and adapt them. The more you know, the quicker you learn, right? #socialprepping #preparedness #prepper #prepping
@zerph
I'm trying to share what I can here. But the problem is no way to store files so after a few more posts, old posts are just lost in the weeds. I think an in-person community of people that share skills etc. is more valuable in the long term. Ultimately, those are the people that you will either need or will need you, so the more you spread what you know in your immediate area, the less drain there will be on aid and services when stuff happens. For instance, convincing people in your small area to take firefighting training so that they can be a helpful addition to fire service instead of a detriment. This is extremely relevant to my community.
@mountainwitch „Glocal“ or an open system — that‘s what I‘ve thought of. We connect directly with skilled people in our area while staying in contact with groups in other areas. As long as we have the possibility to share thoughts, skills, knowledge, discussions online, we should do so, I guess, because that provides us with different approaches, inspirations to the same problems we all face — plus outside views prevent the social bubble or echo chambers. (cont.)
@mountainwitch There’s the possibility to act in groups here — I‘ve looked it up: https://fedi.tips/how-to-use-groups-on-the-fediverse/ I‘ll do some research — maybe the connection is already there?
@mountainwitch I've been told that as an autistic expert in mechanical things I am unemployable in this economy yet could actually get rich after a collapse. I can pick up an entirely new technology from scratch to usability in just six months and real skill in two years.
If something in the village broke and nobody else could fix it, the job would come to me.
When you learn to fix your own and build your own, you soon find that with time you always have the best gear for things you really care about. This seems to be true even when money is tight.
Sometimes, "where it came from" is someone else's junk pile after it was made in a factory decades ago and it's first life used up. The mining doesn't have to be done again, and probably 90% of the device by weight it still good.
A computer is high-tech, a radio transmitting and receiving teletype is not and does the same job as a phone with text messaging. The latter I can build. Find a glass blower I could even make vacuum tubes (which predated transisters and which I have used in transmitters and guitar amps).
For that matter a lot of what we do with email and texting could be done with a fucking telegraph and/or radiotelegraph. Even the latter is a very simple device. Telegrams (the paper messages not the app) were store and forward capable after all...