Facebook Ain't Flagging This Story? My Goodness!

[Snarl]

My dad grew up in the Great Depression, in the Appalachians, so I learned it from him. He made sure I knew how to do to it... by making me do it. I've plowed and cultivated with a horse, because he made me do it to make sure I knew how.

That's probably the only way to learn that kind of life skill.  Most people wouldn't have the first clue of how to take a flat piece of earth and turn it into a crop producing field.  They'd probably cross their fingers and hope they could bring in some semblance of a crop first year.  Waste a lot of good seed in the process.

I've done blacksmithing and farrier work on a home-made forge. We used a truck tire rim standing on water pipe legs for a mud box, and "fire bricked" it with red clay. A two pound hammer and a 150 pound anvil mounted on a section of tree pulled out of a firewood pile and left unsplit rounded out the set. I've split wood with a double bitted axe (there's a trick to that) and learned to make my own wedges out of wood when the axe was not enough, which was not often.

I got a minor introduction to blacksmithing as a kid.  My uncle didn't think it was a safe activity and quit teaching.  I've swung the hammer several times since, but have no clue when it comes to heat.

And I still used the Foxfire books to learn other things. I particularly like Book 5 - it tells you how to make stuff that will blow shit up, from scratch, i.e. black powder from charcoal, horse piss, and sulfur. I don't know if they are out of print by now or not, but I do know PDF's of them can be found here and there in the shady corners of the internet.

They're out there.  Expensive to buy.  I'll have to go look later and see if I can find 'em in .pdf format.

Am glad you guys still find the time to read.  Off to the range once the sun lights things up.