Off The Grid News Better Ideas For Off The Grid Living 
February 25, 2013
This second part shows some blacksmithing. Later parts will cover candlemaking, sugar cane and other homesteading/pioneer type skills.
In these videos we toured the festival and talked with some of the folks demonstrating these skills. With some of these people we had to kind of “lead” them into talking about the skills via asking obvious questions, etc. Some were really helpful and interested in talking about the skills, a few were downright rude.
As your watching this, consider the amount of TIME involved with certain tasks- like putting up a year supply of firewood. In this first video we show them using a crosscut saw and a Bucksaw. It would take you probably weeks to put up a year supply of firewood with these methods. Now it’s important to know these skills and even have of these old school tools and implements, but don’t throw away your chainsaws! Matter of fact, you should take a hard look at your chainsaws and resulting logistics train (spare parts, extra bar, extra chains, files, preserved fuel, fuel mix, bar/chain oil, etc.) after watching this once you realize that you could put up as much wood in probably a DAY that it would take a WEEK or more to put up with hand tools! I’m all for learning these skills and we practice a lot of these skills regularly, but I also think it’s important to stockpile a pile of cheap soap (Ivory 16 bars $3.). Make soap by yourself from scratch- not from a kit- one time and you’ll want to go out and add another 100 bars to your storage also!
