Fun ways to prepare for collapse

Though I’m very skeptical about a rapid, catastrophic collapse of civilization, I do think things will be changing over the rest of the century. Perhaps you have children, and you’d like to help them be positioned best for a shift over their lifetimes.

home canned food Library of Congress image

First of all, I think these shifts will probably be slow enough that they’ll have time to adjust on their own. But a few skills learned young can serve for a lifetime. You can easily imagine a forty-five year old kid of yours saying, “Yeah, we had hens for a couple of years when I was a kid. What was that Mom said...?”

Hunter-gatherer skills. Teach your kids or grandkids to fish, hunt, shoot a bow, throw a spear, or identify and collect edible plants of your region, or all of these.

Farming skills. If you have a farm, great. (And I’m jealous.) If not, have as big a farm as you can manage, even if that means ten potted plants on the patio, which is what I have right now. You’ll learn about your region, the insects that will be a problem, the growing season, the local soil and what it needs. Involving your children and grandchildren will help them learn how to grow their own food.

If you can have hens where you live, think about doing that for at least a year or two. A dairy cow a possibility? Cool, though few of us could do that. Again, just a couple of years of doing this with your kids can teach lessons that will last many years.
 
Home skills: The more cooking, woodworking, basic mechanicals, plumbing, food preserving that you can learn and teach, the better. Have angora rabbits and spin your own yarn, then knit or crochet it into clothing? Make the family's old t-shirts into braided rugs and jackets? You get a gold star from me! You say you brew your own beer? Wonderful! Know blacksmithing? Wow, that one's really impressive.

All of this can be fun. It’s not much extra effort than what you likely do already around home and yard, it’s far healthier of a family activity than staring at a game console or TV all the time, and you might meet your next dear friend by getting out and learning some of these skills.

I can imagine a future where we live an agrarian lifestyle again--or our descendants will--but if I'm wrong, you've had some fun, so you haven't even wasted time.



You can hoard supplies for the end time, but supplies can be stolen or go bad or be lost in a flood. Knowledge is yours forever. Hoard knowledge.