Free Classes & Skills from the Past
e-learning is different. Though it doesn't earn you credits, it does allow you to learn pretty much on your own schedule, without spending a nickel on class fees.
http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses
https://www.aarp.org/personal-growth/life-long-learning/info-01-2011/free_online_learning.html
https://study.com/article_directory/Free_Online_Courses_and_Education.html
https://snapguide.com/guides/
https://ed.ted.com/lessons
http://brainpump.net/
https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Research+Channel&uid=1575
https://www.skillshare.com/classes/free
https://www.craftsy.com/a/shop/free-online-classes
https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/watch-online/
Skills from the Past
The "Good Old Days" were in reality those of just recent decades past. In the 1800s and centuries previous the pioneer folk had it unimaginably difficult.
In addition to not having the "toughness", work habits and skills of the early pioneers - we do not have their resources. There are no buffalo herds and there is nowhere near that the deer and antelope play in sufficient number to support most survivors.
One will not have the horses, wagons or other implements that were necessary to pioneer survival. There will be a far larger population survive than there were pioneers a few centuries ago and there will be far fewer resources of the kind that sustained them. The early settlers of our village were confidant in their ability to find in a few minutes enough fish in the stream to make supper. Even in the early days of a village a person could promise the night before that they would go out on the bridge outside their back door and get fresh fish for breakfast - and make good their promise. But those days are gone. Fished out and poisoned out by salt on the roads and pesticide run-off from the farmer's fields. As of this writing fish no longer come safe even from the farmer's markets without warnings that they are hazardous to expectant mothers.
We have a great advantage in modern knowledge - but we may well need to supplement that, at least for a while, with some of the pioneer knowledge and skills that we have forgotten about. That is the purpose of this page.
Books to Read:
Simple Machines: Descriptions of Simple Machines
- This 81 page .pdf book from MIT explains how to build dozens of primitive machines, drills, lathes, pumps, and all sorts of other useful devices.
- This 150 page .pdf book shows how farmers built their own devices in the 1700s and 1800s (and for perhaps centuries earlier). Practical ideas that are still used today.
- This is one of the most basic and essential tools of the centuries. Along with ax, hoe, hammer and shovel, it has been essential to the establishment of civilization. Largely displaced by modern harvesting methods it is a technology that may need to be at least temporarily "recovered".
- This 132 page .pdf book covers an essential technology that may have to be recovered. About a hundred years ago every village would have one or more blacksmiths, but then the skill largely disappeared except as retained by farriers (horse shoeing is another subject) and some ornamental artists.
- This may seem like it should be under farming - but this tells how to set up a basic blacksmith shop. Just don't believe the prices.
- This may seem especially strange here - but blacksmiths need forges and forges need airpumps.
- This 324 page book sort of goes along with the above ones on setting up a blacksmith shop.
(Without fossil fuel or fetilizer, and probably without horses)
Making Bread and Storing and Preserving Food
(Without modern packaging such as freezing and tin cans)
Dealing with Radiation in Food
(How to measure it and remove it)
Creating Alternate Energy
(Details for many methods including running an engine on wood )
Keeping Machinery Functioning
(Hundreds of pages on basic principles and simple machinery)
Medicine
(Re-establishment of medicine is going to be a very big objective-
and this link like some of those above, leads to many sublinks.)
Instructions
The Simple Art of Making an Earth Oven (for outdoor pizza & bread making)
http://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/simple-art-making-earth-oven
http://www.freestylefarm.ca/2011/08/22/build-your-own-earth-oven/