James,
Today I picked up 200 pounds of pearled barley from my local health food store that had ordered it for me. As I loaded it into my living room so I could mylar seal it, I flashed on what it would have represented in terms of time (man hours) in an earlier age. To get that 200 pounds of barley, I would have had to:
1) Have land
2) Have seed
3) Till, irrigate and plant the land
4) Protect the crop from birds and thieves
5) Harvest, thresh and transport the grain
The number of man hours required to get 200 pounds of grain would have been enormous, compared to the amount of time I had to spend to make the money to buy the grain.
As we witness the collapse of the current economic model, I have begun to ask myself not just how much something costs, but if I had to make it or do it myself, how much time would it take. From this perspective, the relative value of things change. Wheelbarrows and horses aren’t necessary, but they sure are faster and easier than transporting things on my back. Water filters aren’t necessary, I can chop and carry wood and boil water, but this takes more time then using a water filter. – SF in Hawaii
JWR Replies: The foregoing observation becomes even more sobering when you consider the prospect of doing work with “the sweat of the brow” versus diesel fuel or electricity. Engine-powered and electrically-powered equipment is a tremendous labor saver. As my grandfather Ernest E. Rawles was fond of saying: “There’s nothin’ like power tools!” That saying has been passed down to my children.
Woe be unto us, if and when we live through an age with a significant disruption in the supply of diesel fuel and gasoline. Presently, here at the Rawles Ranch we burn about three cords of firewood each winter. We could get by with just two cords. But even that represents a tremendous amount of effort if it must accomplished without the aid of a chainsaw. A four day job becomes a four week job. Nearly the same ratio applies to hand tilling and to hand scything. Someday, a pair of well-trained draft horses with pulling tack and tackle might be worth a king’s ransom.
Prepare for times of fuel scarcity. Start looking for high-quality used hand tools. Here is a short list: Axes, timber jacks, timber cross-cut saws, splitting mauls and wedges, scythes, wheeled-cultivator, spading fork, a hand-crank or treadle bench grinder, a brace and bits, carpentry hand saws (cross-cut and rip) a pair of come-alongs, a hand crank meat grinder, a hand crank wheat grinder, a post hole digger, wheelbarrows, garden carts, and so forth. A “WTB” ad on Craig’s List is a great place to begin gathering such tools inexpensively.