People really should avert their gaze from the modern survival thinking for just a bit and also look at how the guys who wandered the west 150 or so years ago did it.
1.Community – We were not meant to survive in isolation forever. There are many skills we can learn from one another. Nothing will help people survive more than a tight knit community that cares for its members. In this community, you will find different skills, access to different resources, and a psychological morale improvement. Finding others with the same mindset will help you survive long-term, and make the situation far more bearable than braving the dark times alone.
Turns out the popular image of the Old West as a place where manly men solved their differences by shooting themselves in the face simply isn’t true. People were more likely to cooperate than fight – in a harsh and lawless world, it was better to side with your neighbor for mutual benefit than start shooting. One estimate places the number of bank robberies at about a dozen for the entire frontier period.
2.Many small towns in the Texas Hill Country have a secret. Beneath our town’s main street are old tunnels that were built to protect settlers in case of Indian raids. That makes me feel a little safer next time I shop for pickles knowing that if a nuclear bomb goes off my family can go underground. Build or have in mind a hideout in your BOL or better said a hideout in your hideout.
3.“We don’t dial 911” – there won’t be any. Every type of gun known to man is here to protect their family and property. A good rule is to honk first when driving up unexpectedly to a ranch so as not to spook anyone. Watching those old cowboy movies gave me a good idea: use both hands when shooting guns.
4.Shooting your dinner. Or shooting to protect yourself. Learn to hit something with a bullet and you’ll be better fed and it may even keep you and your family alive.
5.Repairing guns and reusing ammo. Limited or no ammo availability for my SHTF Guns meant the brass has to last as long as possible. Semi-auto rifles are harder on brass than bolt, falling block or other type’s rifles. With semi-autos, you have brass elongation; you need to trim your brass frequently, full-length size on every load. And after a few reloads, you basically run out of brass life (Read more about: SHTF Guns and Ammo)
A broken gunstock could be repaired with rawhide. The wet, pliable hide would be stretched over the broken pieces at the break, then either laced or nailed in place. As the rawhide dried it shrank, holding the broken stock together as effectively as if it had been replaced.
6.Stockpiling Wood and keeping warm was a chore in winter. About the only thing folks had to burn was wood. There was a woodpile or a woodshed associated with just about every house. There were no iron stoves in early Texas – they didn’t start coming in until late in the Republic period. Heat came from a fireplace, & it generally wasn’t very effective. Along the Rio Grande, especially in the poorer regions, there were no fireplaces in houses. That’s because Spain & later Mexico taxed chimneys. Those people cooked out-of-doors. Because they mostly built of adobe, their house – walls were very thick, so even a small fire indoors would keep the place fairly warm. In summer going into a properly – built adobe house is like walking into a cave. They stay fairly cool even on the hottest days.
7.Brain Tanning Leather – learning the process of skinning a deer, fleshing, stretching, drying, scraping, soaking, brain tanning, and then smoking the hide to waterproof. Deer hides, horse hides, coon hides – was used for just about everything, & rawhide was very useful. It used to be called ‘Mexican iron.’ The stuff is stiff as a plank, but if you put it in boiling water for a while, it becomes pliable. You can then use it in place of nails to tie a corral’s stringers to the posts. As it dried it would shrink, holding the stringers as effectively as nails.
8.Mostly, clothing was hand-made on the frontier. Almost any source of cloth could be used to make shirts or dresses. One of the reasons flour sacks, for many years, were made of patterned cloth, was the fact that women collected them to make shirts or dresses, for themselves, their husbands, & their children. I can remember when I was a kid, farm ladies using white flour sacks to make children’s underwear.
9.Blacksmithing. Being able to make something useful like a horseshoe, tool, or cooking utensil from scrap metal could come in very handy. This is a skill people will barter for. Blacksmith work does require a good deal of practice and some special equipment, but it’s a skill worth learning and the learning curve is cut a bit if you already know how to weld or do other metal work.
10.Preserving food without a fridge. Many people have forgotten this old method of preserving food, especially meet. Here is one of the easiest methods available and doesn’t take much time. You will need fresh pork, pickling salt, brown sugar, and crocks or jars for storage.
First, cut the pork into slabs. Generally, four- to six-inch slabs work best. Mix 1/2 pound of pickling salt with 1/4 cup of brown sugar. This is enough to cover twelve pounds of pork. Liberally cover the pork with this mixture. Next, pack the meat into sterilized crocks or jars. You should make sure it is tightly packed. Cover the meat with cheesecloth.
Using the temperature chart of your house, determine where to store your crocks. You need to keep the meat in an area that is about 36°F – no higher than 38°F. You also do not want an area that could see freezing temperatures. Leave the meat in this cool storage for at least one month. After that time, you can wrap the meat in plastic or moisture-proof paper and leave it stored all winter. You now have salt-cured pork for any occasion.
Many older people remember having a smokehouse on their land when they were young. Meat would be salted and hung to cure in these cool, dry areas. You could build a storage room for handing meat without too much work. The room should have excellent air circulation and stay cool without freezing.
Canned Meat – If you are familiar with canning fruits and vegetables, you should know that you can also can meat. You have to make sure you get the temperature of the meat high enough to kill bacteria before it seals. Chicken and beef are good options for canning, as are fish. You can cook the meat before you can and seal it. For example, you could make beef stew and preserve it in cans. Stewed chicken also cans and preserves well. Raw packing is another option you can try as well.
11.Navigation and Orientation – basic compass, map, landmarks; preparation for traveling outdoors; reading nature signs, stars, and sun to navigate through wilderness; knowing the best routes and time to travel.
Whether someone is going to bug in or bug out to somewhere safer, they need to know where they plan to take a stand and stay. Transportation is a very important issue to consider and how much of what they have can be moved to where they are planning to go. Fuel will be a huge consideration as the lack of it prohibits how far someone can go. Something else everyone should understand is how to read maps. You will likely not have any GPS system to guide you and the good old fashioned paper map may be the only way to show you where you are going. Understanding topographic maps is also key here
12.Trapping – trapping animals for clothing and food; using dead falls and snares; proper preparation of traps; understanding their use and safety.
13.Gardening. Growing your own vegetables and fruits, knowing soil conditions, how to get water to your plants, extending your harvest season, and common garden pests will be vital to having a continuous food supply. Check out The Forgotten Skills of Self-Sufficiency Used by the Mormon Pioneers for some great old-time gardening tips.
14.Saving seeds. The other end of gardening is being able to plant again next year. Saving seed can be kind of intimidating and mysterious, especially for plants like carrots that don’t go to seed in their first growing season. Start with non-hybrid seeds and a reference book like Seed to Seed and practice saving some kind of seed from your next garden. This is definitely a learned skill, but could be vital to a continued food supply.
15.Building a home, or another shelter, or a fort, or a fence. Knowing how to use hand tools and simple machines will go a long way if you have to rebuild.
16.Start a Fire without Matches and learn how to keep the fire going 24/7. Prepare your fireboard. Cut a groove in the fireboard. This will be your track for the spindle.
Take the tip of your spindle and place it in the groove of your fireboard. Start rubbing the tip of the spindle up and down the groove.
Have your tinder nest at the end of the fireboard, so that you’ll plow embers into as you’re rubbing. Once you catch one, blow the nest gently and get that fire going. (learn more methods)
17.Cooking over a fire. You may have other methods to cook your food available, like a solar oven or barbeque grill, but an open fire is the most primitive and one of the most common means of cooking in a grid down emergency.
18.Tracking – identifying animal tracks; understanding process of tracking.
19.The Bee Hunter. One of the most important men on the frontier was the bee hunter. Sugar was almost impossible to come by. Honey, which was called ‘long sweetenin” in Texas, was the only source of sweetening for many years.
20.Knowing and preparing wild edibles. Which plants in your area are safe to eat and what parts of them are edible? A little foraging can add variety to your diet or even sustain life if there’s nothing else to eat.
21.Learn how to maintain light at night. One of the most depressing situations is to spend night in near to total darkness. Besides this, not being able to see at night is dangerous. Learning how to make candles and wicks should be a skill to consider learning. Fats and other oils will burn and can be obtained throughout nature and the outdoors. Long term solar battery rechargers for flashlights and LED battery powered lanterns are another option.
22.Maintain proper hygiene. This is one of the top priorities because disease and sickness can and do take down the toughest man. People must realize that after a terrible disaster it is not like someone that goes camping, comes back dirty, and takes a nice long shower or a hot bath. After SHTF the water to the faucets, as well the hot water heater, may not work. Bathing on at least a semi-regular basis is necessary to avoid all sorts of bacteria from building up on the skin and causing a variety of health concerning ailments that will then have to be treated. People should plan on just how they will keep themselves clean, even thinking about sponge baths as an option.
23.A car or a horse?
Some people say about SHTF that unless you’re living on an oil well or in a gas tank you won’t have access to gas.
Riding a horse. They make this look easy in the movies, but there is a learning curve involved. A horse is transportation, a pack animal, and a friend. Learning to ride one can get you places when roads are impassable or vehicles aren’t working. Plus, your gas reserves won’t last forever when SHTF.
Texans love all kinds of horse powered transportation. Should an EMP attack render cars useless, they’ll get around riding their horses or driving their horse drawn carriages, buggy’s, hay wagons, chuck wagons and buck board wagons. During the summer on country roads you can run into wagon trains filled with hundreds of people driving their wagons, which is an awesome sight to behold! And yes they still ride their horses into town for a coke, hamburger and even a beer.
There were vast herds of wild horses in early Texas. The horses were considered an excellent source of meat. Many of them were shot for food. Others were captured, but if a horse resisted being tamed and saddle-broke, it usually wound up on the table.
24. Herbal remedies. When the doctor’s not around, knowing which herbs to use and how to use them to treat common ailments like cough, fever, headache, etc. can be a great blessing to your family or others around that may need the help. (herbal remedies)
25.Learn first aid. Treating yourself and or others will probably be the only thing someone can do as medical professionals are going to be few and far between. Many places offer free classes on first aid because they want people in the community to be prepared. A good first aid book along with a first aid kit is something every household should have before, during, and after a disaster. Primitive conditions should be expected when anyone is helping someone after a catastrophe. A stockpile of antibiotics are always a good idea. Even acquiring the skill of making your own antibiotics can save lives as infection is something that will become an epidemic, especially with minor cuts and abrasives that are sure to be plenty.
26.Don’t throw away anything that may be useful at some point. Personally, I don’t like to keep too many things in my house. So I throw away much stuff. And most of us do that because we know that if we have to, we can immediately buy another one. But our grandparents NEVER threw away jars, plastic bags, casseroles, boxes, cans, metal in general.
27.Stealth. While the survivalist mindset might seem to stem from weathering bad times, it is actually based in a basic enjoyment of nature. Nature is a gift, and the ability to live comfortably from its provisions is one of the most life-changing experiences a person can ever have. The art of survival seems to have been lost over the years, but before the technology boom in the last century, it was commonplace to know and understand survivalist principles.
One of the most basic skills when in the wild is a combination of two methods. These methods are called the “Fox Walk” and “Wide-Angle Vision.” These were the basic “bread and butter” of how tribal populations would hunt and stalk without leaving any trace. Learning lessons from these peoples, it has enlightened us on how to live from the land. (Native American Survival skills)
28.How to pan for gold – Although gold pans were much in evidence during the early days of the Gold Rush, miners used them less and less as time went on and they created better gold extraction devices but much more expensive. Even today, however, some gold seekers will use the light and simple pans for prospecting, systematically sampling gravels as they work up a stream, for example, and knowing that when the gold “color” stops, a vein or two of gold feeding into the stream may be close at hand.
29.Understand the psychology of desperate people. This is a difficult one. After a SHTF event people are going to, simply put, go crazy. That neighbor that was in control during many minor emergencies may be the one pounding on your door with whacked out eyes demanding what you have because they did not prepare for anything. In the Wild West most of the travelers when they spotted another traveler – they went around him thinking it’s wiser not to encounter at all.
30.Every cowboy knows that a rope is an important tool. Sure they can lasso a cow, but it serves so many other uses that it would be impossible to list. Suffice to say that that’s one thing that you never can have enough of and I’ve been known to use my son’s lariat in a pinch to tie down furniture on the utility trailer.
Resources:
The SHTF We Prep for is What People Called ‘Daily Life’
Survival MD (Learn how to survive any crisis situation)
Blackout USA (EMP survival and preparedness guide)
Preserving Meet Without Refrigeration 1
Another is obtaining water. We have a well and for a long time have been concerned about how we would get water in a crisis. Closest creek is over a half mile away in runs through several beef cattle pastures, not a very appealing option. We got a product called the Emergency Well Tube that allows us to draw water without power and without having to remove pipes or the pump from the well. This product really seems to fit the spirit of this article and could help folks get water just like the old-timers drew from their wells. The website for the product, if interested, is http://www.emergencywelltube.com
One method is to wrap a tree branch tightly sealed and stake it in the sun and it will compensate a lot rapidly obviously just for emergency drinking water
Before anyone decides to rely on solar methods of providing drinking water, ie., clear plastic around bushes or tree leaves, clear plastic over a hole in the dirt, be sure to look at the amount of water those methods generate and compare those figures with the amounts of water that folks who claim to know say is absolutely necessary to maintain life.
Certainly some folks will assert that you can dig multiple holes and tie off acres of trees. Consider the time. How many people are you generating water for? If it is just you, are you prepared to spend the whole day generating water? Solar methods only work when the sun is shining and mainly in a hot summer day. If you are using the solar method to try to generate enough water for wifey and 2 kiddies, you will be digging like a crazed groundhog.
I don’t know why survival books continue to tout solar methods of providing water. I suspect it is because the writers are parroting what they have read in other equally weak books. I suspect they have never ever tried to get water from clear plastic around tree leaves or over a hole in the ground. That’s why lifeboats no longer use solar distillers. Never provided enough water. Now they have hand operated reverse osmosis devices and it still is a lot of hard work.
I notice toilet paper is not mentioned, but here is an idea for “family cloth.” Of course you need to be able to wash it!
http://dailytwocents.com/reusable-toilet-tissue-would-you-use-it/
Cute dissertation, but quite useless in detail.
let’s get real, this “article”, like most all prepper articles, is just click bait for ad revenue. Quite useless, except to get ad revenue.
Joey; There is a LOT of excellent information here. I know a butt load about prepping, but I still found some good info here.
Frankly, I don’t know ANY site on the net that doesn’t have advertising. You are wrong about the ad revenue. It is hardly enough to fill a spit can.
Izzy; you are correct. Farmer and Joey the value of this article is the listed methods and skills used for survival. Most of the 30 listed, each have numerous books written specifically on their subject. As a prepper for multiple decades, I found this list helpful. I still haven’t attained or mastered all the skills listed. I do however have books on them. If I were just starting out, I would find this list invaluable. No list is not 100 percent complete for everyone’s situation but we should not dismiss this out of hand due to a perceived lack of information or a bias about advertising.
A note about horses. I’ve been around and owned horses all my life. Horses are wonderful animals to have around and can be put to many uses, as mentioned in the article. However, reckless, careless or clueless people can also be hurt or killed by them. There are many “cheap” horses being sold on the market right now, some at $200 or less. Be mindful, unless you get in on a VERY good deal, you get what you pay for. DO NOT buy a horse at an auction or sale, unless you know the owner personally and trust them. Better to buy off the farm, AFTER you have caught, saddled and ridden the horse ON YOUR OWN. How much do you know about horses? Do you have adequate pasture and shelter? Will you be able to realistically feed and water your horse? Do you know basic veterinary care? Do you know what to look for in a healthy vs. unhealthy horse? DO YOU KNOW HOW TO RIDE?
Very few people can get on a horse for the first time and “get it.” It’s much like learning to ride a bike. Takes lots of practice! Could you handle a spooked horse in a dangerous situation? They are by nature prey animals with a hefty fight or flight sense. Find out WHY the owner is selling the horse in the first place. Do you know what “good” hooves look like, as opposed to ones that look like potential problems? A horse is no good lame! Do you know how to care for their feet? Can you handle his feet safely? Will the horse load on a trailer if you have to move him quickly? Does he bite, spook at objects or animals, kick, bolt or buck? When ridden, will he STOP when you want him to?? Does he have painful or sensitive areas? Are any joints swollen or showing signs of injury? Can you tell if something is wrong with the way he moves and walks? Will he lead easily without balking, and will he stand tied for long periods of time without breaking the reins/rope? Does he jump fences? Has he ever colicked before? This could be an ongoing problem. Horses broke to ride won’t always pull a wagon or buggy or logs, either, without training. I was thrown from a horse several years ago when a neighbor kid quite innocently shot off a bottle rocket behind his house as we passed it riding. I landed on my lower back on the pavement and haven’t been the same since. Please, if you are considering buying a horse, research and find out all the info you can first. Then find someone who knows a lot about them and has a lot of real experience with them, and hang around and learn from them. THEN you will have an idea of what it takes to own and manage a horse. In a SHTF situation, you don’t need a pasture ornament, a serious injury or a starving horse in the mix! Only after you’ve done your homework can you intelligently choose a horse that has the level of training and ability that will ensure you a safe and willing partner for you and your family. Happy (and SAFE) trails!
You are NEVER going to find the perfect well behaved characteristics that the author just mentioned! I have been riding horses since I was 5 years old and we had a cattle ranch and we raised and trained/saddle broke our own horses! No matter how much you have ridden and think you know your horse, remember it has its own brain! Every rider should be able to know how to train there own horse! I am not talking about training them to do tricks like the Lone Rangers horse Silver, but every rider should know how to break their horse from bad habits like walking off when they are trying to mount! Every rider in a shtf situation should be able to shoot a firearm off the horses back and not get thrown! This takes a lot of practise for the horse to get used to and will still flinch when you fire off of them and will learn to listen to the hammer of a revolver click before it is fired ETC. Don’t just buy a completely dead broke horse and think that it will not still throw you in certain situations! Most time the horse has got more common sense than the rider and he knows when it is time to run and a time to fight! Learn to listen to your horse! Watch his ears and eyes! They will alert you that the horse has seen or smelled something that might be a threat to you and him! A horse will alert you to game animals if you will just learn to listen to him! Get to know your horse. Ride ride and ride some more until you become one with each other! It will save you a lot of trouble and a lot of sore buts and shoulders and back aches!
In addition to all of the concerns about owning and maintaining a horse, you have to consider this. When the SHTF, your horse will NOT be considered transportation. It will be eyed as so many steaks can it produce? Are you prepared to protect your animal? How do you plan to hide it? Would you be willing to hide it in your house or garage for a long time? Do you have enough hay stored? What about water? Horses will require at least 15 gallons of water a day, especially in the summer. Do you know how to trim a hoof correctly? There are many considerations to think about, especially if you live in a populous region like East of the Mississippi. Rural or not, any livestock a person has will be considered food.
I was told by a neurosurgeon friend who raised and trained cutting horses, (while I was providing riding lessons for myself and my young daughter and had mentioned to him that I was considering getting her a horse,) “you want to REALLY research that decision before you make it Nobody needs a ridiculously maintenance-expensive lawn ornament that will give you few if any returns without taking much more from you first.” I dropped the idea after we talked a little further. Life was already stressful enough. When I see horses in movies, or when coming across the rare being-ridden beast here, I think “Car!” because they were the means of transportation for so long, but after having been thrown because the wind simply wiggled a piece of metal siding on an arena, and he startled, (a show stud, mind you, used to being ridden and shown,) I decided it would be about like getting married again! Or having another child… Life was hard enough already. My Grandpa was raised from a baby, on a horse after his Mama died, and his Dad was a cattle rancher who had to go on cattle drives to get his beef to market- Grandpa was actually tied into the saddle so he could sleep without falling off the beast, and he, I must say, after years in the saddle, owned a vehicle, and did not love horses.
And how do you plan on getting gas or maintenance in a shtf scenario our utilities and banks will likely be inaaccessable
Excellent point LoisAnne: the same could apply to our pets. Starving people will happily eat what they normally would be horrified to contemplate. During the Civil War cats were referred to as “roof rabbits”. Much food for thought. (Pun intended- sorry.)
Well, time for a little personal bragging. My granddaughter who has been riding for ten years won the NorCal Junior Dressage Championship last year and her score was higher than the first place rider in the SoCal Dressage Campionship in her age bracket. She also was first in the U.S. in her age/horse bracket.
The reason why I added horse was because she rode an old swayback nag that had landed at the stable where she has been riding for the last ten years as an act of mercy on the part of the stable owner. She accepted it from its owner rather than have it put down.
The trainer had to arrange extra padding under the saddle for my granddaughter to be able to sit in the dressage position. The poor horse had passed through many hands, and it is my understanding that usually it was a matter of taking the horse off the hands of the current owner. I don’t know a whole lot about dressage but I understand there are different categories for different caliber of horses. However, the NorCal Championship that she won there was no handicapping for refugees from the glue factory. It was based strictly on the number of errors committed by the horse and rider in a three-day event.
So in tongue-in-cheek defense of swayback nags, with the appropriate care and a good rider, they can have value. Obviously if you are like me, it would just be good for consuming large quantities of feed and it would be, “Okay, Dobbins, off to the barbie for you. Hope you are as tender as you are ugly.”
Hello to all, it’s actually a pleasant for me to visit this web page, it includes useful Information.
I purchased The Lost Ways and never received the extra books I ordered along with it. I have emailed this before and have gotten no response.
I m relying on ur integrity of a prepped to make my order correct.
Thank u,
Sandra Holmes
do you ever receive a response? Did they make it right?
We replied on August 17. We always answer our emails. This is why we are called Ask A Prepper :).
This happened to me also. I got the two books on my computer for a few days and then they disappeared. I have not been able to contact anyone about this. I enjoyed the books while I had them, but feel cheated.
I didn’t even get them on pc! Nothing. Glad I at least got the big book. Has neat info. Buttttt
Same here. I thought maybe I had misunderstood the offer or not checked the right box
Hey I purchased the lost ways also for Christmas and I never received my extra books either! help me?
Never got my extra books either! Text them, no answer ever.
I had the same issue.
On point # 7, DO NOT wait till after you slip the hair from the hide with ashes and wter in bucket to flesh the hide! Flesh while fresh! I was stupid and waited on one of my first hides, and nicked myself with my scraper, and so did my DH, and we BOTH ended up with a nasty staph infection in the right hand and arm at the SAME time. Deadly mistake when SHTF. Flesh while Fresh! Then soak in the ash water to slip the hair… and rinse it well before trying to work it.
How can I buy all of the books?
Of course, those Texans and settlers were the same people as the Indians unless you believe those Hollywood spaghetti westerns from Britain. When Europeans finally came to America in numbers, and legally, in the 1830s the Americans were teaching us how to put those tomatoes on our spaghetti and how to farm and hunt to stay alive or we’d end up like the British instead of the Iroquois man George Washington. One of the basics is learning to adapt and fit into the surroundings because your immediate environment is your best friend and most powerful tool. Looters and other enemies real and conceptual will try to turn those odds against you, but always have Nature watching your back and know that Nature is your partner and your constant weapon against failure.
Umm… A couple of points, Meteorologist. Spaghetti westerns were filmed in Italy – that’s why they’re called spaghetti westerns. White Europeans were emigrating to the Americas beginning in the early 1600’s to take advantage of free land in exchange for being a living property marker for the country staking their claim in the New World. Also several penal colonies offered a reduced or commuted sentence and land to prisoners (mostly debtors) for the same reason – claiming and holding territory for the crown. George Washington was a rich white man of English descent – no Native American blood. Don’t know who came up with the idea of cooking tomatoes into sauce and putting it on pasta – European people originally thought tomatoes were poisonous, so maybe they thought cooking them would neutralize the poison and that’s how it came about. Nature not only does not have your back, it doesn’t give a flying fig whether you live or die and may actually prefer your death as humans generally are a threat and if you’re dead you are not only neutralized but food. Humans indeed are the biggest threat to all creatures including other humans.
Tomatoes were thought to be poisonous because they are members of the nightshade family of which some members are highly poisonous. I don’t know who the first brave soul was to scarf up a tomato but I am glad someone did. They are one of my favorite foods.
I saw your book The Lost Ways on YouTube and wondered how to buy it
I have PayPal.
I purchased The Lost Ways 1 and 2 on Amazon.
Hi Dee,
Thank you so much for your interest in my work. I will send you an email with the purchase link.
God bless,
Claude
Excellent post however I was wondering if you could write a litte more on this subject?
I’d be very thankful if you could elaborate a little bit more.
Thanks!
For reliable transportation, bicycles. Go back to europe during WW1 ,WW2 , the Vietnamese – Ho CHI Mihn trail Can be used for transportation ,as a generator ,pump, etc..
And if your tube is beyond repair, you can stuff the tire with leaves, grass, crumpled up newspaper, old rags, anything soft that will fill up the space inside the tire. Won’t ride as nicely or as easily as a tire with a tube filled with air, but will beat walking.
Yes, there are tubeless tires and solid tires for bicycles but so far, from reports I have read, they aren’t quite ready for prime time yet. I don’t know why. Perhaps the testers had expectations that were too high. Some have reported success with short rides around town and that is a good use. I think most testers were looking for a tire suitable for a 50 or 100 mile day and the solids couldn’t handle that or the rider couldn’t. Don’t know which — or maybe a little of both.
For a seasoned rider, a 50 mile day is easy to attain, even attending to human needs. A 100 mile day is strenuous but doable if one is in good bicycle riding condition.
If I rode any distance over 25 miles, I used riding shorts with pads. You don’t have to have the tights that so many bicyclists favor. You can buy mountain bike shorts that look just like regular cargo shorts but have the all important chamois or pad inside for cushioning your tush. If you are going to ride 100 miles a day, a pair of riding shorts is an absolute must, otherwise you won’t put in a second 100 mile day.
the lost ways may be informative to you CITY DWELLERS but it is useless to country folks we know how to survive not just entertain ourselves most info in book is wrong or incomplete
U need to get out of ur box! there are a lot of people living in the country, but not meany country folks any more.
please don’t say a way of doing something is wrong unless
u have tried it in this way.I do quite a few things different than others with success on both parts.
Great info. Lucky me I discovered your blog by chance (stumbleupon).
I’ve book-marked it for later!
Can I have a way to buy these books please
Claude, Perhaps you should clearly state that the free ebooks should be down loaded. DO NOT PLAN ON THEM BEING AVAILABLE FOR CASUAL VIEWING FOREVER.
Undeniably believe that which you said. Your favorite reason appeared to be on the net the easiest thing to be aware of. I say to you, I definitely get irked while people think about worries that they just don’t know about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top and also defined out the whole thing without having side effect , people could take a signal. Will probably be back to get more. Thanks
Horses are a very useful tool in a SHTF situation. But there is no mention of the animal that was most used for farming and transportation by our ancestors. This is the mule. Mules are much different than horses to train but there are several good sources for information on training and using mules. One is Steve Edwards at mule ranch .com. On his site there are many great videos and articles on training and using mules. Mules eat about 40 % less pound for pound than horses and have a lot longer useful life span. Mules can live up to 40 years and be useful for almost 30 years with the proper care. They were the animal of choice for early subsistence farmers!! There is not a more willing or reliable animal than a properly trained mule. They are also pound for pound stronger than a horse. The draw back of having an equine is you must have the access to feed and facilities to keep them. This does not mean many ackers of land and an expensive barn. But they need a 20ft by 20ft pen an some sort for shelter for each mule. An equine takes daily care so it is not something that everyone can have. If you have the facilities they can be a life-saver providing transportation and a means of hauling wood and other supplies that can be life saving! They can be used for working up a garden, putting up their own hay an a host of other things. They will be in demand for emergency transportation for you and your neighbors. You can use them to barter transportation and getting essential supplies to your neighbors for things you need. Like help with getting wood and hay put up and stored. You can also work up your neighbors garden and haul their wood as another way of helping them and receiving help in return!