redroanchronicles | 101 life skills in 1001 days

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101 life skills in 1001 days

Recently I have been forced to come to a depressing conclusion: my strongest areas as a person are the ones that are the most useless to my survival.

Here's a case in point. Recently I was out to dinner with the girls, and we came upon the subject of a coworker's recent collision with a deer, and I mentioned that he was lucky it wasn't a moose, and then... well, that got me going on the moose thing, you see. I had to tell them about how moose like to get drunk on fermented apples, and how they sometimes get brain parasites that cause them to stagger and run around like crazy until they die (sort of like the moose version of a zombie! But with more sadness). And I didn't even get to the parts about how the Soviet Union tried training them as riding and driving animals, and when that failed, they started in on the idea of dairy moose. Dairy moose.

I am so fun to go to dinner with, you guys. Seriously.

Anyway, while my skills of random ungulate facts are sure to make me the life of any dinner party, I've realized lately that the price to be paid for this cornucopia of amazing and useless facts is that my life is lacking in other areas. Like, say, knowledge that is useful in practical ways. My roommate and I have just moved into a great rental house, and I had to be taught how to build a fire. And I'm not talking how to build a fire in the wilderness using only the lenses of my glasses and a pile of kindling painstaking shaved from the back of a wild marmot. I'm talking about building a fire in a fireplace, with a bunch of kindling and logs already prepared. Oh, and a box of matches. And a lighter. Three lighters.

By not knowing these things, by lacking these essential skills, I'm letting myself down. And worse, I'm letting MacGyver down. MacGyver, who has taught me so much, like how to repair a radiator with an egg and how to escape from East Berlin in a coffin/jet ski!

Actually, now that I think about it, it's entirely possible that my reliance on MacGyver as a role model might be why I don't know how to do anything handy that actually works.

I've been working recently on a new 101 things in 1001 days list, because all of the changes my life has undergone lately have rather invalidated my last one, and as part of that I decided to make a list within a list. One of my 101 goals will be to learn 101 useful things and practical skills in the next 1001 days. I'll be counting both big things and small things, and I'll be making the list up as I go along, but a few of my goals include learning to build some furniture, snowshoe, cross-country ski, train my horse for driving, tie a rope halter, splice yacht rope, correctly trim my horse's feet, drive a manual transmission, use a map and compass, dance, throw pottery, jump start a car, chop firewood, safely handle and shoot a few kinds of guns, change a tire and put on snow chains, camp without being eaten by a bear... or maybe I'll end up learning how to wrestle bears in defense of a chocolate bar. It's hard to say.

As I work my way through the list, I'll be sharing my trials, tribulations and triumphs with you... and hopefully it'll be more of the latter. As you can tell from this list, I've got plenty to learn, and in addition to all the butch and outdoorsy stuff I've listed, I'll also be attempting to master new cooking techniques and recipes, create some new crafts and whatnot, and generally embrace any opportunity that comes up to learn something new. I only have a few requirements: the thing I'm learning has to be something at least moderately useful in my every day life (so I guess I can put off "perfecting impression of moose mating call"), and it has to be relatively cheap and not involve acquiring too much equipment. So while I might, say, be interested in learning to weld, it won't do me a lot of good if I can't afford a bunch of welding equipment to put those skills to use.

So, I'm dying to know, what are the skills you think everyone should learn? What do you wish you'd learned before necessity forced you to sink or swim? What simple things do you feel like everybody else has down pat but you're just mystified? Maybe we can all brush up a bit on our knowledge base, so when the inevitable zombie moose apocalypse arrives, we'll be well-prepared.

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I'm always flabbergasted when friends don't know the basic handsewing for doing small clothing repairs.

I wish I knew how to darn socks, but that may have more to do with my Sockdreams addiction than a sense of importance of darning :)

That's a cool one; I can do buttons but that's about it. Exactly the sort of thing I need to learn! Also just how to alter clothes, like I have a pair of jeans that really need hemming. I'd like to get my hands on a good sewing machine eventually but for now the needle and thread I have will suffice. :) (Eventually my master plan is to learn how to hunt, brain-tan hides, and then sew clothes from the buckskins. I suspect elk hide would make the best possible riding pants, and also elk are deeeeelicious.)

One of my projects for the winter is going to be experimenting with painting on clothes; I have a few pairs of jeans with some pretty serious stains on them (mostly from adventures in learning how to load and light the woodstove :D) that I think it'd be cool to paint tattoo-y designs on them or something to cover up the spots. :D

I can darn socks. And there are bunches of online tutorials. Knitters who have spent tens of hours making a pair of socks do not consign them to the rag bin for a small hole.
video: http://www.knitpicks.com/tutorials/Sock_Darning-Swiss_Darning_part_1__D171.html (There are more videos to that tutorial, but that's the start.)
different text: http://www.hjsstudio.com/darn.html

When I darn commercial socks, I use sewing thread or embroidery floss.

I'd be so sad if I lost my stripy kneesocks because of a hole.

Throwing pottery is hard, man! But it is pretty awesome once you get the hang of the basic stuff. Especially if you, like me, don't care if your bowls are lopsided.

My list of skills is pretty heavily influenced by growing up in the boonies surrounded by Boy Scouts, but:
- absolutely how to start a fire, both in a woodstove (how to check if the flue is set correctly, knowing to make sure the stovepipe doesn't have any leaks, etc) and in the forest with damp wood.
- how to build a decent shelter out of general woodland debris
- how to recognize poisonous vs. edible plants in your area
- how to climb a conifer tree with limited equipment
- how to secure food in a tree (from bears, etc.)
- how to unclog a sink/rescue something that fell down the pipe
- how to replace a bike tire, chain, etc.
- how to can food
- how to bake a passable loaf of bread

Of course I also think knowing how to hotwire a car, siphon gas, and pick basic locks should be mandatory knowledge...because who knows when you're going to need to break into someplace for supplies and then steal a car to escape the zombie horde?

Those are all things I'd love to know how to do (though I'm not sure why I want to scale a conifer :D). The trouble is that the wilderness skills are things that, IMO, I'd be better off learning in person and would have a hard time learning on my own. I am planning to learn to hunt though, and some of the folks here at the office are either hunters or come from hunting families, and I figure if I can ride along on their coattails and learn the hunting parts, they can probably teach me a lot of the other common-sense wilderness survival stuff. I actually had a class in high school that was called Wilderness Survival, and I was top of the class, but that was purely on book learning... when it was time to go out and do practicals, like starting a fire or cooking with a campstove, I was hopeless. Couldn't do anything right. :(

And hilariously, I agree with you about the more criminal side of things. :D Breaking into a car is another one that I think would be handy, if for no other reason than it's easier than calling a tow truck when I lock my keys in.

I think everyone should be able to cook for themselves, without a cookbook in front of them, from ingredients they generally have on hand. Even if it's just one or two meals and they have to look everything else up. Corollary to that would be how to have food on hand given the kinds of eating at home schedules most people maintain.

I also think everyone should know how to deal with medical insurance claims. In this regard, insurance companies have really missed the boat. What they want you to do is call them. They have huge staffs of people whose jobs it is to explain that stuff to you when you get bills you don't understand. No one told me that and when I desperately needed help, I called out of desperation just to find out what of the tens of thousands of dollars in bills had been paid. Turns out that 90% of the bills hadn't tried billing the insurance company at all because of a paperwork mishap. The insurance company even employs people whose jobs it is to deal with the people billing you and explaining the problem. I called the insurance company so much that the operators came to recognize me by name during the months it took to get everything resolved. They said they really appreciated my preparedness and patience, but it certainly wasn't something I wanted to be learning whilst in the midst of a serious crisis.

For a more self-contained bit of household knowledge, I recommend learning to reattach towel bars when they've come loose. It's a completely hidden screw countersunk into the underside of the more awkward support brace. (It's always the more awkward side.)

I'm just getting to that point where I can look at what I've got in the house and put a meal together (and I'm learning to stock a lot of generally useful things, like frozen veggies, beans, curry powder and stuff like that) without necessarily having a recipe.

malnpudl taught me some basics of how to make stuff like stir-fries and I got a lot better at improvising under her tutelage. :)

I'd agree about the medical insurance stuff too, but I'm not sure how to learn that without being currently in the midst of it. :D I'm also currently uninsured, since I can't afford the deductions from my paycheck that would be necessary to enroll. :(

I don't think I've ever had to reattach a towel bar, though luckily fixing little dinky stuff around the house is one of the things I am pretty good at. I think our current house actually doesn't even have towel bars in it, but there's lots of other little stuff that needs fixing; yesterday I went around putting up those little blank plates over all the spots where there were holes in the wall because somebody'd been accessing the wiring. ;D

I think just sharing my story that the insurance people were extremely helpful, advocated for me, and went out of their way to fix my billing and paperwork problems.... I think that will help people. And honestly the insurance company was glad I called. I didn't expect that and no one else does either.

The affordability of insurance really depends on the employer and industry you're in. My SO changed jobs and got like a 10% raise, it didn't seem worth the enormous commute, but since they pick up 95% of health insurance costs (instead of 50%), there was a tremendous improvement above and beyond our expectations. And weirdly when you interview for jobs, they don't advertise what the benefits packages entail until after you've already agreed to the job based on the salary.

Thanks for having such a fun post.

Hm. At the risk of sounding like overprotective parents, I'll suggest that you delay using radial saws, scaling big tall conifers, or practicing taking punches until you can screw up without breaking yourself and your bank account. Get the gardening, shoe polishing, and sock-darning down first (:

Though I both agree with this and consider it generally sound advice, I do plan to be cautious (and never actually scale a conifer, because omgwtfheights) and start slow. I'm really a coward at heart so I am not at all eager to do anything which will part me from my limbs. My roommate just yesterday inserted herself into the middle of a dog fight and we ended up in the emergency room (it was a pretty minor injury, but needed stitches, plus a good old fashioned tetanus shot), and it did occur to me that a similar visit for me would pretty well break the bank. On the other had, I simply can't make the rest of my bills if I opt in for health insurance and its associated premiums.

tl;dr: America's health care system sucks balls.

If you didn't live so far away I'd teach you to crochet!

So:
- crochet OR knit
- hem pants
- sew a button back on
- make and can jam (ridiculously easy, actually)
- start a plant from seed
- you can also choose say 10 kinds of food and learn about the best ways to cook them
- change the oil in your car
- change a tire
- follow a map (really hard if you're me)
- design and build a basic carpentry structure (say a bookcase)

That's all I can think of at the moment!

I'd love to learn to crochet, if you have any favorite videos or tutorials or anything. I can knit a little bit, but only know one stitch and all I can make is scarves and potholders. :D I'd really like to be able to make hats and things... I want a cool hat with earflaps but I don't want to pay $40 at the local outfitter. Sal had sent me an *awesome* one and my lack of useful knowledge struck again... I didn't realize wool would shrink in the dryer. :( It no longer fit on my head so I gave it to the goodwill. Curses!

I really like the idea of choosing 10 kinds of food... I was thinking I might join the local CSA next summer so I'll have to come up with something to do with each of the boxes of mystery foods that they send out, but I haven't been crazy about the freshness of their produce, so I probably won't do it. It is cool that they work their fields by horsepower though; it's the same place that I posted pictures from a few days ago with the horses in the pumpkin patch.

Definitely planning to build some basic furniture... that site I linked to, ana-white.com, formerly Knock-Off Wood, has great plans and instructions for building really cool stuff. I might see if the owner of our house would be agreeable to me building sort of an organizer into my closet, because currently I have some wire shelves and I'm afraid that they're going to collapse under the weight of my clothes. :D

I had much better luck with my CSA during the winter/spring than I did during the summer. Fall was really monotonous because one time they sent 7 varieties of apples. I was at the end of the route and during the summer, stuff would go lame before I got the box. Plus it's less of a hardship to go to the farmers market when it's not bucketing down and muddy.

After about a year with the CSA, I discovered I was innately more adventurous. I buy weird veg and fruit when I'm at the good grocery store now. I like that better because I don't send myself home with 6 avocados and no limes, because unlike the CSA people, I have a clue that I'm probably going to make some guacamole.

I don't have any particular online tutorials to recommend, but I bet you could find some good ones at Crochet Pattern Central, which is a great clearing-house for all sorts of crochet information. You can start there, and then if you have a local yarn or crafts store, they might have a knitting/crocheting group that meets once a week or so, and you can find someone there to give you pointers.

I have been thinking about doing a fruit CSA next summer. I am just terrible about eating vegetables, and I would probably mostly let them rot. I'm not an adventurous eater at ALL.

That is a GREAT website. Cool. Someday, when I have actual space to do woodworking I'd like to make some of my own stuff. :)

And I didn't even get to the parts about how the Soviet Union tried training them as riding and driving animals, and when that failed, they started in on the idea of dairy moose. Dairy moose.

!!!!! That is the BEST THING EVER. And also possibly one of the most poorly-thought-out.

Hmmm. Most of the basic life skills I am grateful for are cooking-related, all the little things that make it possible to look in the fridge and the cabinets and make edible food without a recipe or a grocery-store run. Hard-boiling eggs. Cooking pasta al dente. Estimating amounts so there are actually enough leftovers to freeze (I fail at this). I still call my mom on a regular basis to ask questions like "How do you cook sausages?" (he method: approx. 1 million times easier and better than what I used to do).

Other things: basic toilet maintenance. I don't really know how to do this, but I have a book, and it saves money to be able to do the little things if you live in a house with finicky toilets (like the one I grew up in). If you have a car, basic car stuff: changing a tire, checking the oil, refilling the wiper fluid. If you have a bike, changing the tubes and tires, oiling the chain. Reading an actual paper map, for those times you are in the middle of nowhere with no GPS (of course, this works best if you have SOME idea where you are, haha, don't ask). Enough swimming to not drown. Basic handsewing and ironing (iron-on patches--also really handy). Bearbagging if you ever go camping in bear or coyote country. Reading fine print.

I am deficient in lots and lots of areas; handily I have a boyfriend who is willing to do a lot more car maintenance than I am (not on my car, but at least he can explain basic stuff) and a mom who knows EVERYTHING from cooking to basic electrical wiring and carpentry. Also Joy of Cooking.

The moose adventures are epic. I read once that they actually had pretty good success at training them to be pack animals for artillery units, but that when they came near the site of an actual battle, there was no keeping the moose from running away. :D There's a really interesting blog post about the whole thing that you can read that tells you the history of that program and how they ended up with dairy moose. It's really a spectacularly bad idea. :D

So I must know... what IS your mother's sausage-cooking method?

I really want to learn a lot of home-maintenance stuff... the scheduling didn't work out this year because both the work days and my horsemanship lessons were on Saturday afternoons, but next summer I'm hoping that I'll be able to put in some time with our local Habitat for Humanity.

I read once that they actually had pretty good success at training them to be pack animals for artillery units, but that when they came near the site of an actual battle, there was no keeping the moose from running away.

Moose have common sense?

So I must know... what IS your mother's sausage-cooking method?

Brown sausages in frying pan over mediumish heat, add some water, cover and cook 10-15 minutes or until done (probably a good idea to turn them halfway through.

I mostly cook them for spaghetti sauce, and what I HAD been doing was laboriously trying to cut up raw sausages and then cook the chunks, which tended to swell and cook weirdly (casings not so stretchy). This is much easier, and they get more yummy crispy outsides.

My mom built a good portion of the furniture in her house. It wasn't gorgeous, but it worked. She tried to teach me to wire a light switch when I was a kid, but I was too young and it kind of put me off home electrical repair. She really knows an unusual amount of Stuff. I'm nowhere near that useful, but maybe someday....

Everyone should know how to:
- front and back float, doggy-paddle (or something that'll get you headed forwards), and tread water
- build a campfire using flint and steel
- change a fuse
- reset a breaker
- tie at the very, very least, a square knot and a bowline (there are stronger knots, but those two will get you through pretty much any situation that isn't, like, mountain climbing or marine)
- change a bike tire, and fix a broken chain
- read a topo map, and use a compass
- build a snowcave
- change a car tire, sparkplugs, and your oil
- accurately use a measuring tape
- plunge a toilet
- boil water
- choose fruit and veggies at the supermarket

About half of these are things I routinely teach my Girl Guides....the other half are things I wish my housemates had known before they moved in (one of the boys, a couple weeks ago, blew the upstairs kitchen breaker in the morning - not unexpected, it's an old house. When I got home in the late afternoon, he said "Hey, this morning the plug-in on the counter just, like, stopped working. Did I break it?" - thankfully, the fridge is on a different circuit).

Excellent idea! The one thing that came to mind that everyone should know, and which encompasses some things already listed, is simply being comfortable enough around a tool box to use it. Even if you haven't precisely learned every home improvement skill there is, being able to look it up and then not being afraid of using the tools it takes to do the job counts for quite a bit.

I can't think of certain things that everyone should know, but I can say that this is a great idea. I think I'll do it too. And that furniture website is an awesome idea! I think I'll build me something.

Hm, looking at what everyone else has suggested, I agree with a good chunk of them :)

I'm constantly stunned when people get impressed that I bake bread, because I truly believe it's something everyone should be able to do. Without a recipe. It's nowhere near as hard as most people seem to think. Better yet, make sourdough with your very own starter. Easy and fun.

How to catch, clean (i.e. butcher), and cook a fish.

Everybody should be able to wire a new socket into a lamp and install a lighting fixture into an existing box. It's really not hard at all, and you can do amazing things once you know even the slightest bit about wiring (not to mention saving tons of money on electricians). Electricity scares people when they don't know anything about it in the same way that water scares people who don't know how to swim. Home depot has a great book called wiring 1-2-3 that should tell you everything you need to know, plus it has pictures and tells you exactly what to be careful of.

Pick up a copy of Carla Emery's classic "Encylopedia of Country Living". 1001 lifeskills in one place, now in it's umpteenth printing...

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101 life skills in 1001 days

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No health insurance?

Re: No health insurance?

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fish

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