Last week I posted my sons and I doing a bug out drill to see how well our plans did when faced with reality. You can read that here: http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=315423
Individually, we prepare for SHTF scenarios that we think are most likely. I tend to believe the scenarios I think of are extremely low probability but I still plan for them for the following 3 reasons:
(1) It is good, just as a matter of principle, to build skills and learn new things.
(2) If I spend thousands of dollars in my lifetime on fire insurance, something that is extremely unlikely to be used (the figure I read is 0.024% of people actually end up needing it in their lifetime) then it's certainly a little time and money to have a disaster plan.
(3) It's enjoyable.
But as a "Child of the 80s" who grew up in suburbia, my survival skills when I had kids were nil. I'm an electrical engineer by training. My existing skills come from knowing how to apply technology. But on firearms, wildnerness survival, human responses in an emergency, etc. these were things that had to be learned.
So without further delay, below are the 10 survival skills we think are important that we've learned and another 10 that we still need. I encourage others who are commenting to list theirs.
Just to emphasize: Buying supplies is only one piece of a larger plan. Learning skills is much more critical.
Skills we've learned:
#1 Solar Distiller. In my other thread, a commenter mistakenly thought I was trying to build a charcoal filter. What I was actually building was a solar distiller. The idea is to use plastic sheets and a bucket to let collected water evaporate and then collect in a bucket. It's slow but it requires virtually no supplies (other than the plastic sheets) and results in clean water. I had read about this but it took me some time to learn how to actually mechanically put it together (getting the top plastic sheet to stay in place).
#2 Solar Cooker. There was a thread about cooking meats and such with looters around. Anything that makes smoke can draw unwanted attention. It really just depends on how much civil order has come apart. A Solar cooker can cook food without any moving parts or supplies. You just need, essentially, a shiny metal box and the sun.
#3 Firearms. When we started, only my wife (who grew up with guns) knew much on this. It was a bitter bitter pill to swallow that the best firearms are often the least "Sexy". And I've bought a lot of expensive weapons that I like but are not ideal survival weapons (ACR for example). So becoming proficient with weapons whose ammunition and parts are likely to be readily available was an important lesson for us.
#4 Gardening. This was a real bitter lesson. You can't just "start a garden". Stuff may grow but it takes a couple of seasons for the soil to really become good (if you're starting from scratch and not buying the soil) and to learn what can and can't be grown in a given spot.
#5 Equipment Optimization. There's a great thread here about adding 1 item to a bug out bag. For years I've lurked here and didn't post because I felt I was too ignorant to contribute -- and I was. But I also learned that equipment optimization is something that many others could learn about too.
For example, my survival supplies (Bug out bag for example) has radically changed since I started. Learning what you actually NEED to carry with you (When every pound of weight matters) versus what you think you need are two different things. This is one of those things we had to practice to appreciate. It's amazing, for instance, how quickly tents disappeared as part of our supplies once we had to lug around a 50 pound bag a few miles in the woods in summer.
The more we practiced, the more we realized that specialty items were not ideal. A compass is important but we ditched the stand alone compass and instead started looking for equipment that had it built in (like a fold up shovel that has one). We started using more "unsexy" equipment like tarps and tarps and tarps and also tarps.
True story: You can pretty much build anything with tarps and duct tape. And once you start looking at things that way, you start to discard things from your pack. That poncho? Could it be used as a tarp?
My first bug out bag was very sexy. It had all kinds of great equipment in it. And in hindsight, I'm embarrassed by it. It's so obviously the product of an untested novice with too much disposable income on his hands.
My current bug out bag is still that of a novice but is certainly not sexy. Duct tape, tarps, plastic sheets, little shovel, etc.
PART 2: 5 key skills we haven't learned but need to
I realize to the hard core folks here that the things I haven't learned yet will probably seem horrifying.
#1 HUNTING. I've never hunted. And I'm going to include in this the related missing skills such as skinning, cleaning and preparing. That also means we haven't trapped animals. We've never set up traps using prepared items (which I have) or tried trapping anything using a sapling to create a snare. I just can't bring myself to kill animals for practice (I'm not a vegetarian, I'll happily eat venison and cows, I just have a hard time doing the deed myself).
#2 CANNING. I have a gasketless pressure cooker. However, I have never tried to use it. I chose gasketless because there's no moving parts and thus should last a very very long time. Similarly, I haven't canned anything. So this means that new food obtained in the wild cannot be properly stored. A pretty gigantic hole in a long term SHTF scenario. I'll add to this the need to learn how to make Pemican which I consider to be another key skill that I do not know.
#3 DEW TRAPS. In Michigan, where I live, it can often be very muggy. But there are times, even here, where there's no decent water sources near by. I have read on how to make evaporation traps (using the plastic sheets again you cover certain types of small plants which will catch the moisture and then feed it into a bucket. It's slow but if you have a reasonable amount of plastic and/or tarps and things to collect the water in, you can wake up with enough water for the day. In theory. I haven't tried this yet.
#4 SEWING. While my kit includes an emergency sewing kit, I have never actually used it. My wife can sew but I do not and I think this would be an important skill to learn for all kinds of reasons (wounds, mending, putting tarps together once the duct tape runs out <g>).
#5 EDIBLE PLANTS. If you're in the woods or grasslands, you're probably surrounded by food without realizing it. But the trick is knowing what you can and can't eat and under what circumstance. I've read a lot on how lots of common vegetation is edible IF you first boil it for a period of time. Similarly, there are many valuable home-made ingredients you can get by boiling something to extract material from plants. But I've never actually done it and I think this is a pretty critical skill for those of us who are near woods.
This is, by no means, a complete list. But if you managed to survive (no pun intended) this entire post, I'd love to hear your thoughts along with your own list.
Maybe together we can come up with skills we've never even thought of that we absolutely must have.
Cheers!
Individually, we prepare for SHTF scenarios that we think are most likely. I tend to believe the scenarios I think of are extremely low probability but I still plan for them for the following 3 reasons:
(1) It is good, just as a matter of principle, to build skills and learn new things.
(2) If I spend thousands of dollars in my lifetime on fire insurance, something that is extremely unlikely to be used (the figure I read is 0.024% of people actually end up needing it in their lifetime) then it's certainly a little time and money to have a disaster plan.
(3) It's enjoyable.
But as a "Child of the 80s" who grew up in suburbia, my survival skills when I had kids were nil. I'm an electrical engineer by training. My existing skills come from knowing how to apply technology. But on firearms, wildnerness survival, human responses in an emergency, etc. these were things that had to be learned.
So without further delay, below are the 10 survival skills we think are important that we've learned and another 10 that we still need. I encourage others who are commenting to list theirs.
Just to emphasize: Buying supplies is only one piece of a larger plan. Learning skills is much more critical.
Skills we've learned:
#1 Solar Distiller. In my other thread, a commenter mistakenly thought I was trying to build a charcoal filter. What I was actually building was a solar distiller. The idea is to use plastic sheets and a bucket to let collected water evaporate and then collect in a bucket. It's slow but it requires virtually no supplies (other than the plastic sheets) and results in clean water. I had read about this but it took me some time to learn how to actually mechanically put it together (getting the top plastic sheet to stay in place).
#2 Solar Cooker. There was a thread about cooking meats and such with looters around. Anything that makes smoke can draw unwanted attention. It really just depends on how much civil order has come apart. A Solar cooker can cook food without any moving parts or supplies. You just need, essentially, a shiny metal box and the sun.
#3 Firearms. When we started, only my wife (who grew up with guns) knew much on this. It was a bitter bitter pill to swallow that the best firearms are often the least "Sexy". And I've bought a lot of expensive weapons that I like but are not ideal survival weapons (ACR for example). So becoming proficient with weapons whose ammunition and parts are likely to be readily available was an important lesson for us.
#4 Gardening. This was a real bitter lesson. You can't just "start a garden". Stuff may grow but it takes a couple of seasons for the soil to really become good (if you're starting from scratch and not buying the soil) and to learn what can and can't be grown in a given spot.
#5 Equipment Optimization. There's a great thread here about adding 1 item to a bug out bag. For years I've lurked here and didn't post because I felt I was too ignorant to contribute -- and I was. But I also learned that equipment optimization is something that many others could learn about too.
For example, my survival supplies (Bug out bag for example) has radically changed since I started. Learning what you actually NEED to carry with you (When every pound of weight matters) versus what you think you need are two different things. This is one of those things we had to practice to appreciate. It's amazing, for instance, how quickly tents disappeared as part of our supplies once we had to lug around a 50 pound bag a few miles in the woods in summer.
The more we practiced, the more we realized that specialty items were not ideal. A compass is important but we ditched the stand alone compass and instead started looking for equipment that had it built in (like a fold up shovel that has one). We started using more "unsexy" equipment like tarps and tarps and tarps and also tarps.
True story: You can pretty much build anything with tarps and duct tape. And once you start looking at things that way, you start to discard things from your pack. That poncho? Could it be used as a tarp?
My first bug out bag was very sexy. It had all kinds of great equipment in it. And in hindsight, I'm embarrassed by it. It's so obviously the product of an untested novice with too much disposable income on his hands.
My current bug out bag is still that of a novice but is certainly not sexy. Duct tape, tarps, plastic sheets, little shovel, etc.
PART 2: 5 key skills we haven't learned but need to
I realize to the hard core folks here that the things I haven't learned yet will probably seem horrifying.
#1 HUNTING. I've never hunted. And I'm going to include in this the related missing skills such as skinning, cleaning and preparing. That also means we haven't trapped animals. We've never set up traps using prepared items (which I have) or tried trapping anything using a sapling to create a snare. I just can't bring myself to kill animals for practice (I'm not a vegetarian, I'll happily eat venison and cows, I just have a hard time doing the deed myself).
#2 CANNING. I have a gasketless pressure cooker. However, I have never tried to use it. I chose gasketless because there's no moving parts and thus should last a very very long time. Similarly, I haven't canned anything. So this means that new food obtained in the wild cannot be properly stored. A pretty gigantic hole in a long term SHTF scenario. I'll add to this the need to learn how to make Pemican which I consider to be another key skill that I do not know.
#3 DEW TRAPS. In Michigan, where I live, it can often be very muggy. But there are times, even here, where there's no decent water sources near by. I have read on how to make evaporation traps (using the plastic sheets again you cover certain types of small plants which will catch the moisture and then feed it into a bucket. It's slow but if you have a reasonable amount of plastic and/or tarps and things to collect the water in, you can wake up with enough water for the day. In theory. I haven't tried this yet.
#4 SEWING. While my kit includes an emergency sewing kit, I have never actually used it. My wife can sew but I do not and I think this would be an important skill to learn for all kinds of reasons (wounds, mending, putting tarps together once the duct tape runs out <g>).
#5 EDIBLE PLANTS. If you're in the woods or grasslands, you're probably surrounded by food without realizing it. But the trick is knowing what you can and can't eat and under what circumstance. I've read a lot on how lots of common vegetation is edible IF you first boil it for a period of time. Similarly, there are many valuable home-made ingredients you can get by boiling something to extract material from plants. But I've never actually done it and I think this is a pretty critical skill for those of us who are near woods.
This is, by no means, a complete list. But if you managed to survive (no pun intended) this entire post, I'd love to hear your thoughts along with your own list.
Maybe together we can come up with skills we've never even thought of that we absolutely must have.
Cheers!