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The Lost Skills of our Ancestors: 100 Time-Tested Skills for Self-Reliance, Homesteading & Everyday Survival
Paperback
General Construction & RenovationGeneral GardeningSelf-Help
Publisher Price: $18.99
Publisher: Banked Fire Press
Published: Jul 9 2026
Pages: 128
Weight: 0.69
Height: 0.27 Width: 8.50 Depth: 11.00
Language: English
When the storm knocked the power out, two kinds of households woke up the next morning. One was in a panic. The other barely noticed. The difference wasn't money - it was knowing.
Your great-grandparents could bake bread without a store, keep food without a refrigerator, stay warm without a furnace, mend anything with a needle, and calm a household crisis with a full pantry and a steady hand. They didn't call it self-reliance. They called it Tuesday.
Within two generations, almost all of that knowledge quietly disappeared. This book brings it back - one skill per page, exactly as it should have been handed down.
Inside, 100 forgotten skills across 10 parts of the old household:
- The No-Power Kitchen - cook over fire, bake real bread, keep a sourdough starter alive for life
- Preserving the Harvest - canning, fermenting, smoking and curing, written to current USDA safety guidance
- The Home Pharmacy - teas, salves, and the honey-syrup tradition, practiced safely
- Mending & Making - darn, patch, hem, and sharpen; make things last a lifetime
- Water & Warmth - collect it, purify it, store it; heat a home and cool one without a meter running
- The Kitchen Garden - build soil, save seeds, grow the survival crops
- Animals & the Barnyard - chickens, ducks, bees, and the backyard dairy
- Thrift & Household Economy - the envelope budget, stretched suppers, soap, and candles
- Handy Around the Homestead - the tool kit, five knots that do everything, repairs that save real money
- Readiness & Resilience - the working pantry, the 72-hour kit, and cooking calmly through any blackout
Every skill fits on a single page: why it mattered then, what you'll need, five clear steps, and The Old-Timer's Tip - the wisdom that never made it into books because everyone already knew it. Beautiful vintage woodcut-style illustrations throughout, plus three reference appendices: pantry shelf lives, a seasonal skills calendar, and a safety page worth taping inside a cupboard door.
No farm required. Around 70 of these 100 skills work in an apartment as well as they worked in a farmhouse. This isn't a book about fearing the future - it's about becoming the most capable household on your street.
Learn one skill a week, and in two years you'll be the neighbor people come to when the lights go out.
The knowledge is not gone. It's been waiting. Scroll up, get your copy, and blow the coals back to life.
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