13 Skills for 2013

The 13Skills website is a new Survival Podcast network site designed to help people help themselves by becoming more independent and self sufficient. Please go check my profile to see to see what 13 skills I am working on for 2013.  

You should join too!

13Skills has a list of 154 skills from which to pick.   Listed skills range from alternative transportation to winemaking.  The five most popular now are fitness, computer, canning, gardening, and cooking.

It's a challenge.

"The 13 in 13 Challenge is a call to develop or drastically improve your personal skills in the coming year. These skills can be any hands on practical skill from ancient skills like flint napping to traditional skills like trapping and hunting or even technical skills like graphic arts or computer programming.

Our modern society has become a world of specialists who can do one thing very well but can no longer accomplish simple tasks like growing a garden, changing a tire or fixing a hole in wall."

I hope the United States economy comes roaring back and everyone gets a good job.  But I'm worried about the nation's path, especially as it pertains to our monetary policy.  Common sense says that the Federal Reserve will keep printing trillions of Dollars until we face a dire monetary problem . . . and then who knows what might happen. I want to be as personally prepared as possible to take care of my family in difficult times. I'm not sure we have a whole lot of preparation time left.

With this in mind, one of the skills I picked was the homesteading skill carpentry.  I am a poor carpenter, but need to learn to be a passable one by the end of 2013.  Our fifteen acre homestead in western North Carolina has plenty of forestry material for carpentry work.  My family also has chickens, horses, a cat, and a pregnant goat. All our critters need good shelters and living systems in which to thrive.  One of my 2013 carpentry objectives is to build twelve projects on my homestead.  If I become as proficient at building as my ancestors before me, I will improve our place, save money, and be more independent and better able to help others.

I've just started working on my carpentry skill. Watch me try to move my carpentry project gauge to twelve by the end of 2013. Here, I will publishing widgets like the one below showing progress toward my skill objectives. I also intend to post technical information about the skills I am learning.


Maybe I can help some friends by improving my writing skill. Maybe I am just selfish?

However you slice it, the more people out there who are independent and self sufficient, the smaller the scope of pain associated with the coming difficult time. The more people who are skilled, free, and creative, the stronger will be our local communities when the storm comes.

Although there is a blogging contest going on at 13Skills, that is not really why I am writing this blog post. I wrote it to persuade you to join me on 13Skills. I wrote it to ask you to forward this post to your friends and family so you can get them to join it too. By helping yourself and your friends develop practical skills in 2013, you help the community become stronger, more resilient, and better prepared for a difficult time.