What are your actual skill sets?

[Cedar]

Some of my skills from over the years, and many I will actually not bother to, or remember to put down.

- Milk animals from small to large, make products from said milk, such as cheese, yogurt, butter, caramel, ice cream, etc.
- Rear poultry (geese, chickens, quail, pheasants, ducks, turkeys) from eggs to production stock, meat birds, and to better the breed
- Rabbits since 1977, also a judge
- Canning both waterbath and pressure canning, 900-1,200 jars most years
- Dehydrating in numerous ways
- Tanning hides since I was 9 years old from rabbit, sheep, elk
- Butchering animals from rabbits, poultry, hogs, moose, ect
- Shear sheep, Sheep to Shawl
- Weaving of several different types from floor looms, inkle looms. warp weighted, tapestry
- Fiber junkie skills, knitting, naalbinding, weaving, ect
- Carpentry, although I am a beginner, I am building my own home this summer
- Smokehouse
- Blacksmithing, specializing in kitchenware, hinges and farm stuff
- Build a Springhouse
- Seed savings, gardening, farmers markets, food security for my community
- Grafting fruit trees and teaching food security for my community
- Ham radio operator and volunteer as emergency comms for my community
- EMR and former volunteer firefighter
- Mantracker
- Teach wild edible foods classes for the PNW
- SAR dog handler 15 years
- Cut wood for winter, and can cook in/on a wood cookstove
- Can run a portable wood mill
- Beekeeper, and starting to raise queens
- Can drive a team of horses or singles
- Can pack donkeys (and I presume horses and mules, and even cattle)
- Started and have drove a oxen team
- Make and store loose hay
- Root cellaring )and have built them)
- Stone wall laying (dry and masonry)
- Render hogs
- Trim equine, porcine, caprine, ovine and bovine feet
- Bake bread from grains I grew
- Grow and cure tobacco (although I do not smoke)
- Wine and mead making
- Cooking over an open fire
- Work bone and antler
- Lathe without electricity (spring)
- Archery
- Cultivating and growing culinary mushrooms on various mediums
- Bookbinding, and papermaking
- Furniture making
- Make rope
- Cut cloth and somewhat sew
- Make shoes and boots
- moderate herbalist and apothacary
- Dental
- make salt
- Basketmaker
- Willow worker (for various things. from wattle to fishtraps to chairs)
- Veterinary skills (22 years)
- hat maker
- rendering oil
- tool maker
- make sausages
- ink maker
- paint maker
- peel and notch logs
- alternative power
- broom making
- fence building
- soapmaking
- make coffee substitute
- sockknitter
- make a tick bed
- make nails
- make a comb and brush from bone
-make a fire from a steel
- make charcloth
- make charcoal for blacksmithing
- traplines with various traps styles
- other odds and ends

Cedar





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[RICHFL]

Lets see well I was raised on a dairy farm with all that brings to the table. My grandfather was a blacksmith who trained us grand kids on the art of the black smith, until he retired at the age 92.

Got my draft notice so I joined the USMC. I'm now a retired Gunnery Sergeant USMC with 22 years and 2 wars behind me. SO I guess I'm a journeyman of all the trades and the master of none!

Also served as a Deputy Sheriff for 8 years until I was injured on the job and had to retire.

Went on to get 2 degrees because I had nothing else to do but watch Jerry Springer.

[dalewick]

Not wrong, but differently.

I agree it takes muscle memory.. but remember,although the brain is not a muscle but it behaves as a muscle. The more you work it, the more you can actually do things oin 'autopilot', aka 'muscle memory'.

Part of the reason I respond to questions and take the time to answer them is to retain the muscle memory in my brain so I do not forget the skills that are often like breathing to me.

Cedar

Nice to see you back Cedar.

Dale

[Cedar]

Nice to see you back Cedar.
Dale

Thanks Dale.

Cedar

[Morgan101]

Cedar: I didn't think the page would be long enough to list your skill set. Welcome back. I always enjoyed your very informative posts.

[Cedar]

Cedar: Welcome back. I always enjoyed your very informative posts.

That is kind of you to say Morgan101. Thanks.

As for my list, I have had some good mentors over the years, been in some good groups where I could learn such skills, and I figure if there is no such thing as reincarnation, I am going to do and learn as much as I can in this lifetime.

Cedar

[Buggyout]

Hey Cedar! Welcome back!

-Buggy

[Applejack]

Good one to bump. We all need the skills. Most important part of prepping is knowing how to do many different types of things.

[registror]

I'll belief maybe half of the above when I SEE it. Cause each of many of them would take many years to learn well.

[orangetom1999]

An unusual skill set today..


I stopped in an olde used goods store today and looked around. In there I found an olde slide rule. No batteries required.

It had bee years and years since I had taken a course in them...and I thought I would buy it and put it away..I have another one put away here somewhere.

So I took it to work with me to sort of fiddle around with it....but could not remember how to do multiplication.

Hence I thought to myself to go up to the fourth floor wherein hang out the engineers offices.


Boy oh...Boy did I ever get a shocker....for which I was not prepared...

None of them were familiar with this tool....!!!

Wow!!

I am sure I can still get a book or u tube on how to work it ...but I reckon I was not prepared for none of the engineers to know how to work it...even in simple multiplication.

We in a heap of trouble if the electricity goes out for months or even years ....in this country.


Orangetom
Not an Ishmaelite

[Tugaloo]

They are young engineers and the reason why they don't know is the 'pocket" calculator. The TI 50 was introduced in 1974 or 75; at the same time, HP offered one.
The weakness of the slide rule was don't expect exact answers. One would often have to make a best guess as the answer would fall between the lines. The "pocket" calculator fixed it.

There is an engineering language of symbols. It is used to communicate tolerances on drawings to manufacturing, inspection etc. Its name is Geometrical Dimensioning & Tolerancing" or GD&T.
An example: a cube has 6 planes or sides. The plane/side that rests of the floor is Datum A. The 4 sides are required to be perpendicular to Datum A within a value. The top plane or side s required to be parallel to Datum A within a value.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_dimensioning_and_tolerancing

Even up to 2015, many colleges did not offer a very basic course in GD&T. How could our educational system ignore it. I can accept young engineers not knowing how to use an old school tool; however, not to be proficient in a tool that has been in use since WWII is unacceptable.
Although, I took a long path to make a point, it shows a serious weakness that hopefully is being addressed.

[orangetom1999]

I appreciate the calculator and they have come a long way over the years. However..I will not buy one which does not have the solar option.

Agree about many of the basics...and that they not be lost....including the ability to do a manual override when needed...not be stuck to automatic systems..


When I had time and transiting through the Engineering offices..on that floor....one of the Engineers had on his desk some of the most interesting books on metals...strengths and stresses....per designs....etc...math....etc. Lots of math formulas in the explanations. A very interesting book but much of it was beyond me...

I liked to look through them when I had time. I'd never run across such books ...so it was fascinating to me.

That fellow has been moved to other area of this shipyard....but I remember his books.

Orangetom
Not an Ishmaelite.

[Tugaloo]

My solar setup is too modest to need a solar function. A solar panel array is not an infinite source of electricity as batteries do not last forever. On an old "Life Below Zero" show in winter, a pallet of batteries were towed home by a snowmobile.

Potentially, the book on metals may have been Ryerson Metal Data Book. The other book might have been Illinois Tool Works trig tables.

https://archive.org/details/Metal_Data_Handbookllections/search/object/nmah_905182
https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_905182

Ryerson and Illinois Tool booklets lack a lot of today's materials.

Your engineer may have had one of these:
https://www.amazon.com/1972-SAE-Handbook-Information-Recommended/dp/B0187VP6MU
Later issues have a darker green cover.


Complete trig tables and more are available in solar powered calculators. Although batteries are finite, I have an old one and although the battery is dead, it still works in sunlight.

Today, there is a website, http://matweb.com which covers a lot more.

MatWeb's

searchable database of material properties includes data sheets of thermoplastic and thermoset polymers such as ABS, nylon, polycarbonate, polyester, polyethylene and polypropylene; metals such as aluminum, cobalt, copper, lead, magnesium, nickel, steel, superalloys, titanium and zinc alloys; ceramics; plus semiconductors, fibers, and other engineering materials.

Also, there is https://www.engineersedge.com

Today's problem is there is so much information, it would require a library size area to contain pretty much everything. If one owned the machinery and had electricity to power it.
One book that has not lost its value is Machinery handbook. To give an idea of what it contains:
https://collegelearners.com/ebooks/machinery-handbook-25th-edition-pdf-free-download/