Forgotten Skills

Forgotten skills of self sufficiency

Lost Skills
Forgotten skills of a self-reliant life

Revive the lost skills of self sufficiency.
Regain the lost skills! Just some of the necessary back-to-basics
survival skills include butchering, composting, gardening, seed
saving, cooking from scratch and cellaring. Cultivate these
homesteading skills and embrace them because these are skills
at the heart of preparedness.

Look beyond to other homesteading skills such as tanning hides,
rendering lard, soapmaking, and more.

Regain the Lost Skills of Self Sufficiency
In The Forgotten Skills of Self-sufficiency of the Mormon Pioneers,
pictured immediate right, the necessary back-to-basics survival
skills include: home gardening; seed saving; growing pure seed;
extending the harvest; using garden boxes; growing perennial
vegetables; producing fruitful grapes and fruit trees; cellaring,
hen keeping and much more.

The book begins beautifully that the first fruit of the garden is
family, then knowledge, then vegetables. From this the author,
Caleb Warnock, imparts the idea that gardening is rooted in our
link to the past. It's a sweet book for the new prepper.

Lost skills that preppers

Forgotten skill #1: Cooking from Scratch.
At the most basic level, preppers should learn to cook with bulk
foods: bake bread, biscuits and tortillas, make pancakes from
scratch, and cook rice and beans. With so many instant rice
dishes on the market, it's a wonder people know how to cook bulk
rice at all, yet rice is a prepper staple food. And what happens
when the cans of beans run out and preppers must make beans
from the dried stash?

From Scratch cooking ~ easy recipes for traditionally
prepared whole-food dishes. Renew your enthusiasm for
nutrient dense cooking! Start with basic ingredients and find
them for a reasonable price with help from Shayne Elliott.
You'll organize your prepper's kitchen and prepare simple
and delicious dishes. Get From Scratch, pictured upper right.

Forgotten Skills of Cooking. Reconnect with the cooking skills
missed by a generation or two with the book by Darina Allen,
Forgotten Skills of Cooking. This book filled with 700 recipes
covers forgotten processes of cooking, such as curing bacon,
and making yogurt and butter. The book explains everything
in the simplest terms.

Moving on to more advanced levels, its important to know how to
make yogurt and butters; beer, wine, and even moonshine!
Preppers will also enjoy learning how to make pemmican and
jerky,

Forgotten skill #2: Gardening.
Home gardening; Seed saving; Growing pure seed; Extending the
harvest; Using garden boxes; Growing perennial vegetables;
Producing fruitful grapes and fruit trees; Cellaring
Growing food is both a science and an art. From knowing the
proper ph balance of the soil, to knowing what to plant each
season, selecting the right perinnieals, to saving seed for future,
there is much to know about gardening. You can become a home
agrarian on a porch! Learn the art of small container gardening
and become a home agrarian.

Forgotten skill #3: Canning and food preservation.
A prepper favorite is canning! Indeed canning is a lost art in our
modern civilization. Looking for an easy way to start canning? Try
dry canning (vacuum sealing dried foods into mason jars and
mylar bags)! Buy in bulk and have at it. Be sure to check out our
canning store if you want to get set up your kitchen canning
operation.

Forgotten skill # 4: Cellaring.
Root cellaring is a skill lost when victory gardens went out of
fashion. Setting up a root cellar is a must if you are growing
beets, cabbage carrots, onions, parsnips, potatoes, radishes,
rutabaga, or turnips. Cellaring requires no electricity and best of
all it's inexpensive and requires little maintenance. If you have
access to straw, all the better!

Another option is to m ake a Z e er pot. This is an evaporative
method of keeping perishables cool.

Forgotten skill #5: Composting.
Knowing how to recycle waste to create soil-nourishing compost
is an old idea with recent popularity. As an example, raising
chickens will help with composting: feed them scraps and their
rich manure will support your efforts. For advice for starting and
maintaining a composting system, building bins, and using
compost, consider Let it Rot: The Gardener's Guide to
Composting by Stu Campbell.

Forgotten skill #6: Herbal healing.
Preppers are turning to herbal therapies to heal what ails them in
the form of tinctures and essential oils. Herbal healing is the
practice of looking to nature for alternatives to traditional
medicines. Best of all the healing powers you can find in your
own backyard. In Forgotten Skills of Herbal Healing and Family
Health by Caleb Warnock and Kirsten Skirvin, teaches you to
harvest, dry, and store herbs that will keep you healthy.

Forgotten skill #7: Hunting and gathering.
Did you know that hunter gatherers worked about 20-40 hours a
week? Think of this! According to Psychology Today, "During the
10,000 years since the onset of agriculture and then industry, we
have developed countless laborsaving devices, but we haven't
reduced our labor." Hunter-gatherers were also more playful.

Forgotten skill #8: Butchering and rendering lard.
Butchering meat and poultry and carving it up is a lost skill gone
wayside with the family farm. Add rendering lard and tanning
hides to the list.

Forgotten skill #9: Making pemmican and beef jerky.
Pemmican is a basic meat and fruit bar made for travelling and
hunting that was first created by Native Americans. It was one of
the original survival foods.

Forgotten skill #10: Seed Saving.
Heirloom seeds are non-GMO, which means you have the
opportunity for seed saving and can plant them again.

Forgotten Skill: Soap making.
The importance of soap in preparedness is something that can't
be understated. Soap making is a basic skill that has slipped
away from our past. Learn the art of soapmaking! Be sure also
stockpile enough of your favorites.

Forgotten skill #7: Shoemaking.
In a long-term off grid scenario, such as an EMP or long-term
economic collapse, such as the Great Depression, you will find
shoemaking a necessity as is shoe repair, discussed at the
bottom of the page. It's virtually impossible to find a book on
crafting sandals and shoes on a small scale, but we found it in
"The fundamentals of shoemaking" by Sharon Raymond. Pictured
at the top right of the page, this book includes clever illustrations
to give you a headstart to the craft of shoemaking.

Forgotten skill #8 Sewing, knitting and crocheting.
Mending and creating new clothing is a homesteading skill that
few today really know how to do well.

Awl for heavy fabric sewing. An awl sews a lock-stitch like a
machine for heavy duty materials. Rothco also makes a tool
for sewing or repairing outdoor camping equipment, athletic
equipment, sails and mooring covers, saddles and harnesses
and much more. Awl for Awl is an American made awl, also
pictured immediate right.

Fabric Cement Kit. Give up on sewing? You can repair and
reinforce on all types of canvas with Attwood Fabric Cement,
pictured at the bottom of the page.

Forgotten Skill #9: Navigating by compass.
Learn how to navigate by compass. The tutorial by Trail Magazine
is less than two minutes and gets to point about how to align
your compass to a map and start walking in the right direction.
Granted, there is so much more to learn about a compass, it's a
good start. Magnetic variation will require you learn to set the
compass to the right bearing. Take a few minutes right now to
learn how to use a compass and a map.

Forgotten skill #10: Gardening, harvesting seeds and
seed saving.
According to the book The Forgottens Skills of Self-sufficiency of
the Mormon Pioneers, top left of the page, the necessary back-to-
basics survival skills include:

Home gardening
Seed saving
Growing pure seed
Extending the harvest
Using garden boxes
Growing perennial vegetables
Producing fruitful grapes and fruit trees
Cellaring
Planting long keepers of heirloom vegetables
Growing early vegetables
Making a sourdough starter (pioneer yeast)
Raising a backyard flock for fresh eggs
Cooking pancakes, breads, omelets and more.

Forgotten skill #11: Fixing things!
Take action in self reliance and do what it takes to fix something.

Shutting off water heater tank How to turn off water
heater. Your hot water heater is a supplemental source of
water, but you'll want to know how to shut off incoming
water to avoid contaminated water to mix the safe water.
Watch this short video on how to stop a leaking water
heater, intended for helping deal with a plumbing problem.
This information is good prepper knowledge.

Dental repair (Dental Kit / Braces Emergency Kit. Pictured
immediate right, this special tool includes toothed-end
nippers for clipping off dangerous wire braces when they
snap under. Fixing something temporarily will help you avoid
emergency off hour dentist fees. See also our d ental first aid
kits.

Eletrical repair kit. Become your own electrical engineer.
You'll need to learn how to solder too!

Eyeglass repair. Eyeglass repair will be essential to many
individuals and if you're handy, it's not all that difficult. As
you age, your eyeglasses will need repair. The prescription
will change as well, but that's a problem resolved by

Eyeglass repair kit. The eyeglass repair kit, pictured
immediate right, includes the correct-sized screwdriver,
replacement nose piece, and replacement screws to fix
your glasses, and more. With a magnifier, 4 comfort
nose pads, 2 plastic nose pads, 9 screws, 2 plastic
starters, 1 lens cloth, and 3 appropriately-sized
screwdrivers all tucked inside, you'll be glad to own this
inexpensive prep.

Plumbing repair kit. Pull up your pants and learn the art of
do it yourself plumbing. Start with the do-it-yourself tools: a
5 piece tool set for clogs, leaks and drips, pictured directly
below. You'll also need flat and beveled washers, screws,
faucet packing, fiber washers and hose washers to repair and
replace seals in faucets, toilets, sinks and drain, pictured
below.

Repairing Bikes. Get bike tutoring help at bicyletutor.com
where you'll learn how to tune up your bike, how to
straighten a bent disc brake rotor and more.

Root Cellaring. Set up your own natural cold storage of
fruits and vegetables with help from the book, pictured
immediate left.

Shoe repair. The Great Depression lasted ten years.
During that time people had to make do with what they had
and rely on their skills, such as repairing shoes. Knowing
how to repair shoes will save your family money and add a
valuable prepper skill. Pictured above left, is an invaluable
reproduction of the original book "How to Repair Shoes" by
Frank L. West, first published in 1912. More tools for shoe
repair on this page include:

Shoe Goo repairs all leather, vinyl rubber and canvas
shoes.
How to make tire sandals from recycled materials.
Not so pretty, but surely functional and effective foot
protection. Best of all, your sandals will come with a
70,000 mile warranty!

Watch repair. Today, if you're lucky, you can head to a fine
jeweler or department store and get a watch repaired. As
many people rely on their cell phones, fewer are wearing
wrist watches, yet owning an old-fashioned wrist watch
could prove essential in planning your day on the
homestead. Armed with tools and instruction, you're halfway
ready to repair a watch! At the bottom of the page is a good
book on Beginning Watchmaking, which you may like to pick
up as a hobby.

Of foremost importance, consider the skills of the pioneers who
forged the American Frontier, but consider also learning from
people who survived the Great Depression to discover more
modern self-sufficiency lessons, including the art of repair.

------------------------------------------------- Revised 02/01/2021
(C) Copyright 2012-2021 by HappyPreppers.com. All rights reserved. The site happily targets concerned
citizens who are self-reliant survivalists, preppers and homesteaders with original content on survival following
societal collapse. You may link to our site, but you may NOT reproduce any part of our content, or store our
content in any retrieval system to represent it as your own. Further, you may not transmit content in any other
form or by any means, including (but not limited to) electronic, photocopy, mechanical, or recording without
written consent. HappyPreppers.com makes no warranties.

HappyPreppers.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising
program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com,
amazonsupply.com, or myhabit.com. Amazon is a great place to buy emergency supplies. In other words, we
recommend prepping gear sold on Amazon. It's a great place to shop.

Get prepared! Read more e mergency preparedness information on our home page.

This article on the skills in self reliance was archived by waybackmachine.org and saved 14 times between April
4, 2014 and June 3, 2019. This helps protect our copyright.

Do NOT copy. Linking is okay

sitemap
privacy policy

Watch Repair Book

Beginner Watchmaking

Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage

From Scratch Recipes

Happy Preppers site for survivalists + preppers

Prepper Deal Alerts Check
our daily deals for prepping
gear and food storage.

Best used prepping books on to buy on Amazon

Emergency heat sources that don't require electricity

Ten nuke supplies to own ~ supplies necessary to survive nuclear fallout

Katadyn is the water filter trusted by the U.S. Military

Toilet paper tabs and the many uses for preppers

How to use body language to see if someone is lying

Forgotten Skills of Self-Sufficiency

Forgotten Skills of Backyard Herbal Healing and Family Health

More Forgotten Skills of Self-Sufficiency

Happy endings...
Enjoy prepping with your family. Think of it as hobby. Self
sufficiency begins one project at a time. Project by project you
can begin to feel more self-reliant and satisfy all your basic
needs, starting with a minimal reliance on the grid and a small
garden and later moving towards going completely off the grid
and having a full-scale production of food with livestock and
produce coming from your own backyard and the wilderness that
surrounds you.

Take a deep breath because there's much to absorb in
responsibility and commitment. For now you can take pride in
being emotionally and intellectually independent, one project at a
time.

Related articles...