Came across some useful articles while nosing around the internet.

http://www.offthegridnews.com/2011/01/17/weeds-theyre-whats-for-dinner/ – A few common weeds and a some of their uses.

http://www.primitiveways.com/index.html – Primitive living articles and related links.

http://www.gotmead.com – Mead making how to site. Make some ahead of time & carefully store for barter or personal use.

 

In my last post I mentioned one of the books I have on wilderness living, and I thought I ought to share a list of other similar books I own.

I have:

Ultimate Guide to Wilderness Living: Surviving with nothing but your bare hands and what you find in the woods by John McPherson and Geri McPherson – Teaches basic primitive living skills such as basic flint knapping, several fire starting techniques, and basic shelters.

How to Survive The End of The World as we Know It by James Wesley, Rawles – Preparation advice for finding & setting up a survival homestead and stocking it before a situation happens.

The Forager’s Harvest by Samuel Thayer – “A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants” as stated on the cover…

Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places by “Wildman” Steve Brill with Evelyn Dean – Another resource for finding, identifying, and using edible and medicinal plants

Back to Basics edited by Abigail R. Gehring – A book of traditional skills used in homesteading

The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery – Another homesteading book

Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin – A home birth book

Heart and Hands by Elizabeth Davis – “A Midwife’s guide to pregnancy and childbirth” as stated on the cover…

Knitting Without Tears by Elizabeth Zimmerman – A classic knitting text good for Beginners and Advanced Knitters. She has patterns for sweaters, socks, hats, mittens, and other garments.

Knitter’s Almanac by Elizabeth Zimmerman – A knitting project for each month of the year, goes wonderfully with her other book. hats’ sweaters, baby items, socks, mittens, and more.

Donna Kooler’s Encyclopedia of Knitting by Donna Kooler -Basic knitting instructions, a large variety of stitch patterns, and instructions for 22 projects.

Donna Kooler’s Encyclopedia of Crochet by Donna Kooler -Same as her knitting book, only for crochet.

Somewhere I have a book on spinning fiber into yarn using various techniques, but it is lost or packed away right now. A must-have if you plan to knit, crochet, or weave.

Hi all,

I haven’t been updating this for a long time, with the 7 of 10 dragging on I have to admit I let myself get lost in “normal life” a bit. This weekend I have been thinking, and I believe it is time to start learning useful stuff rather than sitting and theorizing about it.

I have the book, Ultimate Guide to Wilderness Living: Surviving with nothing but your bare hands and what you find in the woods by John McPherson and Geri McPherson. I’m going to start learning the “Wilderness Living” skills taught in the book and taking photos and video of my efforts to post here. I’m kinda excited, the making fire and building shelters looks like fun & the hunting, trapping, skinning, and butchering meat will be important to know.

http://neithercorp.us/npress/?p=710

This post on final survival prep from Neithercorp Press has lots of good information for getting ready NOW before anything happens. Not just good information in the blog posts, but lots of good tips and ideas in the comments too.

Beans, rice, peanut butter, flour, vitamin/mineral tablets, and dry milk are all recommended to stock up on for your food stores. They keep well, fairly nutritious, and not very expensive. Buy one or two extra bags of rice or beans each grocery trip and soon you’ll have a nice stock saved up for Emergencies.

Also learn what edible plants and weeds grow in your area. If you don’t have time to stock up enough food stores, a few good books on identifying edibles will be a life saver!

Hi! I just added Pole Shift Prep to the resource list on the right. Lots of good, useful information there – this guys has been working on planning longer than I have.  🙂

I know my updates here are rare, I try to add things as I come across good ideas or think of stuff. Life keeps me busy, but busyness shouldn’t get in the way of getting ready.

Thanks to my readers and visitors, I love helpful comments! (but not spam, thanks!)

A lot of knitters and crocheters have a stash of yarn for future projects saved in their homes. Unfortunately, much of it is possibly 100% acrylic.

I know acrylic is durable, can be soft, and comes in millions of colors and weights. However it does not work as well for cold and wet weather like natural fibers. Acrylic clothing will hold in heat, since plastic is an insulator, but it does not breathe well and will leave you cold and damp after the clothing is full of sweat. Wool and Alpaca are both great insulators that “breathe” and wool is known for keeping warm even when soaking wet. (Wool is also naturally flame resistant!)

I’m not saying throw out all your acrylic yarn, but if that is all you have I’d recommend sorting through it and selling your least favorite of the bunch. With the money from selling your old yarn buy some wool or alpaca yarn (or un-spun fiber if you spin). It doesn’t have to be 100% wool, 50% or 25% is fine too. Your acrylic yarn you have left can be doubled up with your wool/alpaca yarn giving your items strength and durability from the acrylic and the warmth, breath-ability, and fire-retardance of wool. Items like socks, gloves & mittens, elbows on sleeves, and knees of pant-legs can really benefit from being reinforced this way.

While searching today for inexpensive tents or shelters to have ready after the Pole Shift I found an interesting & useful website.

http://hexayurt.com/

They are very cheap (depending on the materials you choose to use), easy to set up, reportedly wind resistant, and transportable. You could build a folding one for quick set up or just transport and store your pre-cut materials at your safe location. I’m still working on getting my group together, but we may make one or more of these to have ready rather than spend that much on store-bought camping tents.

Events seem to be speeding up… The Earth Changes and The Pole Shift Ning is updated daily by the participants & is great for keeping up with whats going down!

If for some reason you can’t make big preparations, at least study.

Take some time to learn some survival skills, basic gardening, and first aid. Hit the library, take classes, and search the internet while we still have such resources available. The natural disasters around the world are trying to clue us in that we don’t have much time left.

I may have to go this route myself short of winning the lottery. Feel free to comment with your own ideas and suggestions. Now that I’ve recovered my password here maybe I can update it more often.

http://www.survivalblog.com/2009/05/letter_re_an_expedient_manual.html

Over on Survival Blog I came across this short letter describing how to make a washer out of a 5-gallon bucket with lid and a plunger. Good to know! Hand-washing laundry is a pain, especially for those of us who grew up with washers and dryers.

Also there are articles on Home-made laundry detergent and home made soap (part 1, part 2, part 3). Knowing how to make soap will be a big help and also a barter item later.

SURVIVING IN THE AFTERMATH – ADVICE TO GET YOUR PREPARATIONS STARTED

Words cannot convey the gravity of the situation that waits should you survive the Pole Shift. It is easy to say “complete devastation” but when you think about it, can you really fathom what that means? For the majority, we would suspect not. Even the best description that we could provide you with will not prepare you for the immense shock you will experience.

The purpose of this post is to get you to think about survival in the aftermath. The information here is the bare minimum essentials that you need to consider…

More at http://poleshift.ning.com/forum/topics/surviving-in-the-aftermath

Very good and useful tips in this Article over on the Earth Changes and Pole Shift blog.