What is your most valuable survival tool?

[Katrina-Sisu]

I was wondering what would be your most valuable tool in a survival time?

Katrina

[Spikejerk]

Knowledge. It's the only thing you can't lose, break, or have taken from you. It goes anywhere you go and takes up no space. . . . . . A good knife helps too. ;)

[Katrina-Sisu]

Knowledge. It's the only thing you can't lose, break, or have taken from you. It goes anywhere you go and takes up no space. . . . . . A good knife helps too. ;)


Thanks for the reply! :)

Good thing I'm taking a survivalist course :D lol, I can use more knowledge! It looks like we have a cutlery shop in this house, so many knives lol!

Kat

[padraic]

I agree with Spikejerk,knowledge is number 1, but you also have to practice the skills that you have learned. There is a big difference in knowing how to do something and actually doing it. For example knowing the technique of starting a fire with flint and steel is one thing but doing it is something else.

[Spikejerk]

There is a big difference in knowing how to do something and actually doing it.


A big +1 on that. Practice makes perfect.

[snuffy]

Spikejerk is right, the only thing I could add is what I was going to post.
Your mind, which is really the same thing.....I guess. If you don't know how to do something, sometimes you can figure it out if you put your mind to it.

Snuffy

[alma]

"Neccessity is the mother of invention."

I think that skills, knowing and acting upon what you know is a priceless commodity of sorts.

You can exchange all kinds of services for the goods you need and desire.

Now, in my old age, i can still do many things i learned as a child, like sewing, making clothes, blankets, quilts, etc. and can teach others the same.

--so, even if i cannot do everything that i used to do, i can teach someone to help me get it done.

I can still cook and do everyone's laundry, and bake, etc.

This week sue and i made adorable doll quilts to go on a double decker child's bed to sell at an antique store.
Sue paints all kinds of old furniture into masterpieces.
She, and i have many skills.

I prefer sewing one thing or another, and have made several small quilts this week with the scraps from our project together.

I love to embroidery on velvet, crazy qults for pillow covers, etc, over and over again. I love taking scraps and making them come alive into some beautiful thing.

I have done some simple nursing for family and friends, and baby sat kids for years in exchange for some cash or in exchange for some other thing i needed.

I've helped paint and restore houses with sue in my time, and put cedar shakes on a cabin that bill and i built with sue.

Knowing how to grow food and learning about wild foods and meds is something i am studying in my old age, but can't even bend down to pick up a dandylion any more, so that cramps my style, for sure.

--and sue is having trouble doing many things she has done in the past with scleredema, and can hardly tie her shoes anymore.

Skills, knowledge, information of all kinds, but these skills last only as long as YOU do. love, alma

[Katrina-Sisu]

Thanks all for the replies!

Alma, you brought up a very good point! I think alot of people get caught up in the SHTF scenerio but they don't think about long term. I wish bartering was more common (minus my FIL, he rents out the family car and that thing is BUSTED up because he lets anyone drive it.)

Thanks! :)

Katrina

[ol_hoot]

I would say it depends on just exactly what you're needing at the moment.

A multi-tool is a handy thing to have close by.

But the ability to reason is about the best tool in the box.
With that you can figure out what you need to do no matter what it is you are up against.
You might not be able to do it but at least you have figured out that you can't and you can go on to plan-B.

[Katrina-Sisu]

Thanks! :)

Kat

[alma]

I think that social skills are imperative.

If you cannot sell yourself, you can hardly sell anything else.

People have to detect that air of confidence, etc.

You can be the best worker in the world, but a bad personality makes people prefer a person skilled in the art of communication.

I have taken care of so many kids in my life, and find that many, many are never given a practical picture of the upper atmosphere, either.

When i lived in d.c., a group of kids in my neighborhood were asked what they hoped to become, and most said doctors, teachers, etc. and some even dreamed of being politicians like their dads.

Most expected to go to college. It was a given.

Many planned to go abroad before they settled down.

When the kids on the other side of the track were asked the same, they dreamed of being a janitor in one of the better schools where we lived, or become a waitress, or a nanny in some beautiful home, etc.

They had very limited expectations, and that, too, is imperative, that they are surrounded with successful stories all their lives, rather than living among people whose aspirations are next to nil, generation after generation.

That cycle has to be broken, through exposure to some of the more practical and productive skills.

Often they dreamed of being an opera star when they couldn't even carry a tune, or a movie star, or whatever.

It is still hard for me to talk with kids who have no idea
of the wonderful world that is out there for them to conquer.

Even where we live now, some of these kids are thinking off the wall, and have no personalities at all.

I have known real poverty in my time, and know that it is REAL for millions of kids in this, and every land, and even today, and it is not all their fault.

When the economic tide turns, and the screws are turned again on our society, we will know the meaning of raw poverty again.

Many good men went down with the depression of 1929
and their families sufferered for years ater, and it was not their fault.

Wars have devastated many families and left innocent people in a bind when their loved one died in war, as did my hubby's dad, and many more i have known in my time, one economic downturn after another, and it was not at all in their heads.

An empty belly knows little more than where then next meal is soming from, and today and here in the u.s. it has happened in the past, and is still happening with fires, floods, tornados, and one "katrina" after another that leaves families torn apart, and hopes and dreams gone for years and years, and particulalrly health problem that stem from these down turns in the social and economic fabric.

I have not been posting lately about poverty or war or anything controversial, because it seems futile when all it does is make many people attack the personality of the poster, and not talk about possible real solutions at all.

Isn't that what a forum is for, to encourage people to speak out, and compare notes from where they sit on the mountain, or beneath it?

--and not be intimidated into silence.

No wonder the forum is so quiet lately. love, alma
--oops, i forgot to stick to the subject. Please excuse the rant.

[flatwater]

Ya can't argue with spikejerk on that one but I might add close trusting good friends that are willing to lay down their lives for you as you would do for them. I have some of them and it's a good feeling to know that any given time they will be there to help out no matter what the problem is.
flatwater

[Mac_Muz]

Water, food, fire, shelter and clothing, which is shelter, and tools are all anyone needs. Having a brain helps with most of them.

There no one tool that does it all, for all, in all situations, other than a brain. Your brains are what will help you over come anything you must. Knowing how to use it and to make items from nothing helps more.

The tools depend on what you want to do, but very simple tools can do alot depending on what you want to do.

What is it you want to do?

[RobertRogers]

I agree: knowledge

[longshot]

for me a loaded brain. although its usually half cocked. lol

ls

[RangerRick]

My brain, limited as it may be.

:)

Ranger Rick

[Fastnought]

I agree that knowledge is key. The next is attitude, the iron willed determination to take care of yourself, and your family no matter what.
The last is a home/base with suitable land, woods and iinfrastructure for independence.

[Txanne]

Myself--period.



annie

[idris]

Knowledge+practice+experience: knowing how to make cordage is a tool in itself; shelter; a knowledge of the lay of the land; keeping within your limits. How to go Naked into the Wilderness, if it should come to that.

[Mac_Muz]

At this point, maybe what metalic tool should be considered before I die of boredom.

Metal tools can be pretty handy, and IF I could only have one metal tool mine would be an axe... In that I would like a lighter axe in a Hudson Bay pattern, mainly because I am not all that big. This would be for me some place between 2 and 3 pounds.. With that I can do many things no other one tool can do.

[RazorBack]

At this point, maybe what metalic tool should be considered before I die of boredom.
LOL, it does get kinda ho-hum hearing "I want knowledge!" all the time.

I'd want either a large hatchet or a cruiser-size Hudson'a Bay style axe. Can be choked up on to do knife chores, can make shelter, make other tools. . .