Wanted: Vital Skills Needed if TEOWAWKI Happens

man in concrete bunker

Nuclear meltdown, nuclear war, super volcanoes and man made or natural EMP are all ways our lives could be inextricably changed in an instant.

Were any of that to happen, possessing skills previous generations took for granted that would be foreign for anyone under the age of 55 would be critical to survival; here are three suggestions.

1. Your skill or the goods created must be something people want.

2. You must be able to practice the skill, or generate the goods, using resources only available from your homestead.

3. All operations must be done without power. The availability of power after a disaster is not guaranteed, even if you have an alternative power source.

4. Practice, practice, practice. By practicing the skill, you can iron out any difficult areas and learn how to perform it efficiently and reliably.
With these three requirements in mind, let’s look at some possible skills to learn.

1. Soap Making

Basically, making soap requires oils, fats and lye. All three of these must come from the homestead.

Manual oil presses can extract up to 1.5 quarts of oil from peanuts, almonds, sunflower seeds and other nuts or seeds. Therefore, one of these crops has to be grown on the homestead. Fats will come from animal fats, either from those on the homestead or from hunted game. Lye can be made from wood ashes.

Soap making without modern supplies is hard work, and it will take practice to efficiently generate the oils, fats, and lye needed, and to adapt them to soap making.

2. Candle Making

Candles are another commodity that will be in demand in a cold world without electricity.

Basically, candles consist of wax and a wick. Modern candle makers buy paraffin wax and wicks by the bulk over the Internet. Not you.

You’ll have to find substitutes for both wax and wick that are readily available.

Many substitutes for paraffin wax are available. If you have livestock, one option is tallow, which is a rendered fat from cattle, mutton, pigs or canines. Another option is bees’ wax if you have bees. Both have been used historically for candle making.

3. Firewood

For those of us who have produced enough firewood for heating a home all winter, we know just how much hard work it entails. And that’s with modern tools like chainsaws and splitters.

Now imagine life in the north after a disaster. There’s no electricity, and fuel for generators runs out; kerosene, propane and wood chips are gone after a few months.

People need firewood to heat their homes and to cook their meals.
In this scenario, there will be a great demand for firewood. Yes, some people will be able to hack out enough for their personal use, but it will be hard going once there’s no more gasoline for the chainsaws.

So if you live in an area with a sustainable amount of firewood, then consider supplying firewood to others.

I speak for everyone when I say I hope I never have to make a living providing firewood that I hand cut and chopped, but you just never know.

One major, catastrophic event and our lives could change forever and irredeemably.

To learn some other skills you should pick in just in case TEOWAWKI strikes, check out Off The Grid News.


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