Dear Mr. Rawles
I read with interest the letter you posted this morning (September 10, 2009) from Bear in California with regard to the skills and services that will probably be required in a post-SHTF scenario. It was all good stuff, and it caused my eyes to drift towards a set of books that have been on my bookshelf for over 30 years. Although, somewhat dog-eared since they only came out in soft cover, they are still highly valuable to me. I am referring, of course, to the Foxfire series that came out in 1969.
While you are probably aware of this series, many of your blog readers may not be. The Foxfire Book series ([edited] by Brooks Eliot Wiggenton, 1969, Southern Highlands Literary Fund, Inc.) represents, in essence, “the body of knowledge” of the “people of the mountains”. (Specifically, The Appalachians). They are the result of a student project at the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School in Georgia to capture and publish the “almost tribal” knowledge held by the “people of the mountains”. There are several volumes to the series (I have five, but there may be more), and a small sampling of the topics covered include:
hog dressing
log cabin building
mountain crafts and foods
planting by the signs
snake lore
hunting tales
faith healing
home remedies
moonshining and still making
making a foot powered lathe
bee keeping
building a lumber kiln
water systems
building a smokehouse
spring wild plant foods
preserving fruits and vegetables
soap making
weather reading
cheese making
spinning and weaving
midwifing
burial customs
making tar
corn shuckin’s
wagon making
bird traps, deadfalls, and rabbitboxes
animal care
banjos and dulcimers
hide tanning
summer and fall wild plant foods
butter churns
ginseng
fiddle making
springhouses
horse trading
sassafras tea
berry buckets
gardening
iron making
blacksmithing
gun making (flintlock rifles and much more)
bear hunting
…..”other affairs of plain living”.
Many topics are covered in quite a bit of detail with instructions and drawings/schematics included. It is clear to me that these people have forgotten more than we city folks ever knew about living off of (and, to some extent, in harmony with the land). These books are very much a part of my family’s survival kit. I hope that this information is useful to your other readers. Thanks! – Surefooted in Colorado