Dear Mr. Rawles,
I think there is a blind spot in a lot of preparedness/survivalist writing that I would like to address. There are a number of sites which do a good to excellent job of getting the word out about the nuts-and-bolts of getting prepared to allow a family to get through a short term emergency, and there are sites which encourages us to get a retreat in farm country.
However, I have not seen anyone talk about how we will boot strap ourselves to back towards some sort of village life and civil society[, in the event of TEOTWAWKI].
In your novel “Patriots” , you touch on this with the Troy Barter Faire, and then fast forward at the end of the book to this being an accomplished fact. In the novel “One Second After“, the author makes the point that an EMP event could have pushed people back to a 19th century lifestyle, but things were more medieval because no one had the knowledge of how
to live in the 19th century, or readily had the tools.
In a post-SHTF scenario, there won’t be much call for fibre-channel administrators, but there will be a demand for bakers and candle makers. What I suggest is that while people are assembling their preps, they also look at the skills and services that they will need afterwards, and see if they can’t learn to do these things themselves. After all, if they need them,
so will other people, and some folks will be willing to trade for them. Free trade will be the boot-strap which brings about village life again.
Here’s a quick list of skills/trades that I think would be useful in a post-SHTF world.
Food:
Baker
Brewer
Canning fruits, vegetables and meats
Cheese making
Smoking meats
Sausage making
Truck patch gardening
Vintner
Yogurt making
Dry goods, sundries:
Soap maker
Candle maker
Paper making
Clothing:
Seamstress/tailor
Leather worker (shoes, belts, coats)
Weaver
Materials:
Leather tanning
Wool shearing
Wool carding
Wool spinning
Lumbering (the hard way!)
Foundry for smelting recyclable metals
Manufacturing:
Blacksmith
Tin smith
Wheel wright
Cartwright
Cooper (barrel maker)
Leather worker (tack for animal drawn equipment)
Glass blowing (jars, bottles and apparatus)
Pottery
Many of these skills and trades can be started as a hobby. I suggest that people think about these now, and find what they have a knack for and consider it “job security” for the future. – Bear in California