The Next section of the Final Family Survival Strategy

If you would like pdf copy of this book just send me your email address with Steemit in the subject line to [email protected]. A lot of the pictures do not transfer with the book sections.

INVENTORY YOUR SKILLS
Why do you need to know what your skills are? Good question. What are your skills? Can you list them right now and not miss half of them? Did I get your attention with all these questions? If not then close this book now and sell it to someone that will use it. Some time ago I started an inventory of what I could do well. That was okay but sometimes it’s not what we can do well that counts but rather what we can do to get the job done. Perfection is not usually an option when we really need a skill and there is no one else around or we are broke and can’t afford to hire a professional.
Okay, “What’s so hard about a skill list, I know what I can do?” Do You? Here is my sug-gestion. Go back to the earlier chapter that discusses mindmapping. Make a mindmap of your skills. Then do another mindmap of the skills that you think you need. Now you’re get-ting somewhere. Do a third mindmap of of what skills you need to upgrade. Take these three mind map and make some lists. List your best skills from most skilled at the top to least skilled at the bottom. Take your list of skills you think you might need and place those most necessary at the top and list them is descending order of importance. Take the third list of skills that need to be upgraded and list them in a decreasing order of importance. These three mindmaps and three lists will give you a picture of what skills you have and what skills you need to develop. Everyone’s list will be different as we all live under different conditions and we live different lives.
Now take these lists and take action and have fun getting better at doing what you love.

It is obvious that my mindmaps are not works of art. They don’t need to be. Mindmaps are a way to clear thinking. If you want to make them beautiful and have the time and talent then do it.

STORING ENERGY
This could be the toughest thing to get done in the whole survival check list. Storing en-ergy in any form can be difficult. The simplest way to store energy for heating and cooking is to have a wood burning kitchen range. When I was growing up in the mountains of Montana that is what we used. We also had a sawmill so the supply of wood was endless. Now day’s things are different. I live in the desert of eastern Washington and the only wood comes from the pruning of orchards or is hauled in. Even here an old wood stove is not a bad idea.
Another way to store energy for heating and cooking is to store propane. This works fair-ly well. If you get a fairly large propane tank you can definitely store enough energy for cook-ing. We have a large propane camp stove and several propane tanks in the 7 gallon range. I do not recommend storing propane inside a building unless you have it prepared for ventila-tion.
A pellet stove with battery backup and an inverter will provide reliable heat for your home. Just be sure that you have a way to recharge the battery. Generally if you are in a po-sition to store energy to heat your home you will have an auxiliary generator for electrical power. The generator can be used to charge your batteries when it is running.
A generator is a great thing to have. It will keep your freezer cold for a long time with not to much fuel. That brings up another question. How much fuel should I store for the genera-tor? The recommended amount would be enough to provide for your needs for a year, how-ever, that isn’t to practical in all cases. My personal plan is to develop a multi fueled alter-nate energy system. This system will use high temperature pyrolysis to create generator fuel, solar power, wind power and two other sources of fuel oil or gas. You will need to solve this one for yourself.

DOMESTIC ANIMAL FEED
If you have livestock then you need to store food for them. You dogs and cats probably can get by on table scraps if worst comes to worst. If you have farm animals then you will need to store food for them. We solved that problem for our chickens by raising a little over an acre of corn. Here is a link to the book I wrote called the Lord’s Corn Patch. (This Book has been included in this system.) It is a Kindle book. http://amzn.to/VZbKRY If you have land then you can raise most of your animal feed. A word from a wise old man. Don’t wait until you need it to start raising your feed. Animal feed is one area that cooperation among neighbors is really necessary. One may grow more hay than he needs and his neighbor may grow excess grain. A trade is in order to meet the needs of both.