Middle America's Worldview

Nailing down the top 5 best skills sites for the prepper is difficult. There are a plethora of information given in multiple platforms. How does one identify one distinct site for providing the skills to survive and thrive?

I will attempt to do so in this article.
When I consider the basic skills to live off-grid, couple of common things come in mind.
1) Gardening to replenish your vitamen food source
2) Alternative health, to not rely on popping the pill bottle
3) Livestock to replenish the protein food source
4) How did our forefathers thrive without Google, the lost knowledge of craft

Gardening
Let’s look at gardening. When I think of gardening, I am looking for the method to produce an abundant amount of food as efficiently as possible. My wife would lean toward aesthetic. In my search for site(s) on the who too aspect, I tried to weed out the flowers and sellers. Admittedly, there are some sellers that have good articles on how to garden.
I came across a really good YouTube channel by Gary Pilarchik: His websiteis dedicated to Vegetable gardening. Gary’s site along with Growing Your Greens you should be covered.
Personally, I like the videos over articles, since I am a visual learner.

Alternative health
My first instinct is to look to The Patriot Nurse She has awesome content with health and how to combat issues, in a grid down scenario.
But what about those herbs our grand or great-grandparents used? There is an interesting site called Self Healing Herbs providing old remedies our ancestors used.
I would also point out Herbal Transitions has a good list of common name herbs and their uses. You should check them out as well.

Spiritual hoodoo aside, Harmonic Arts Botanical Dispensary provides interesting educating videos covering medicinal herbs.
Livestock
While we can buy freeze dried or box supplies of food, a replenishment of healthy livestock is more ideal. Depending on your available landscape, the kind of livestock will vary. I will focus on the smaller livestock, for those urban dwellers desiring to acquire home grown protein.

The top three contenders are
• Chickens
• Rabbits
• Goats

Chickens
Chickens can be raised solely for their egg production, as meat, or both.
Backyard Chickens is a good site covering the chicken information as well as Alamanac.com.
Country Farm also has a really good page covering chickens.

Rabbits

Rabbits have become a staple for the homesteader, due to it being simple, require little attention and provide meat. I would also add Rabbit manure is great for your garden.
A good primer can be found here.

Goats
I have noticed those raising goats for meat have a larger area of landscape, where those in smaller areas raise them for milk.
Free Range Life has a good guide in goat breeds. Goat World is a full blown site dedicated in everything about goats.

Lost Skills
“History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new.”     Ecclesiastes 1:9 New Living Translation

As we read this article on the WEB, it is difficult to consider the first website went online in December 1990. Less than 26 years ago.

While we can acquire pretty much any knowledge online, we have lost are abilities in how to cope life without electricity, and the benefits of electronics.

“The SHTF we all prep for is what folks 150 years ago called daily life.” Claude Davis.

Before the grid goes down, I suggest the Survivor Library site. It provides a good arsenal of free files online covering everything from accounting, embalming to wood-carving and welding.
Need a list of skills to look into?

Ancestry provides 11 skills our grandparents had in their daily life.
Those 11 skills mentioned are:
Courting
Hunting, Fishing, Foraging
Butchering
Bartering
Haggling
Darning and Mending
Corresponding by Mail
Lighting a fire without matches
Diapering with a cloth
Writing with a fountain pen

Other lost skills mentioned in other articles are knitting, using a compass, and handwriting.

Recall in 2013 with the discussion of public schools no longer teaching our kids to write in cursive.

I suggest checking out The Modern Farmer and The City Edition article on country skills.

Final Thoughts

While I couldn’t really find five specific sites to encompass everything I was thinking, there is a slew of information out there to be had. I highly suggest getting that information now, while it remains available. Acquire it, print it out, and make your own personal library.

Hopefully this article provides some links you either wasn’t aware of, or guides you to what you are looking for.

#ThePlexusPrepper

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