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I tried to spin wool into yarn once but it was really hard to learn from a book and I didn't know anyone who could show me. Youtube has videos though and if you want to practice w/o buying a drop spindle you can use a stick and potato.
Youtube has become my surrogate grandparent. I've learned so much that they were never able or around to teach me.
For some strange reason, I became interested in preparedness(in all its forms) at about nine years old. None of my family were into it. Since then, I have learned to make fire under varied conditions and using a variety of methods, learned a bit about wild edibles(and poisonous plants, too), learned to hunt and fish using both traditional and non-traditional methods, learned to tan hides and make rawhide(still not my strongest suit), and learned to sew well enough to repair my own clothes and gear. I have learned to fix my own vehicles, build my own house from the ground up, including all the necessary systems. raise a garden, orchard and livestock, and how to preserve the harvest of all three. I have learned how defend what is mine competently(I am still a mere student of the subject, and always will be, there is much to know, and more all the time). I have learned to maintain and in some cases repair my body. I have learned to keep my dwelling warm with a wood stove, and feed that stove with manual tools. I have learned how to cook a meal using a campfire, solar oven, wood cookstove, and other methods. I am in the process of learning more about snaring and trapping game for meat and hides, there is SO much to learn about this! I can operate most vehicles and equipment from bicycles to small planes to earth movers. I can cut and weld steel(need to learn aluminum and others), braze copper, and have some machining skills.
I still need to learn some blacksmithing skills, more about trapping, snaring and tracking, and there are a host of other things a man needs to know. The day we stop learning is the day we start dying. Unfortunately, much knowledge is, and has been, dying off without being passed on. For a couple of generations, people have left the land, not looking back, seeking an easier life in the cities. and the reams of knowledge their parents held died quietly, in farmhouses and old folks' homes all over America. Now, we have multiple generations of people who mostly could not even feed themselves without modern infrastructure in place. No store, no food. No electricity, no cooking(or heat). No water when the handle is turned, no water at all. I have yet to understand the ability of men to see themselves as masculine when they cannot even survive at the level of the young of most other species, much less provide the necessities for their mate and offspring without massive assistance from modern methodology. That some men think being able to complete a specialized task in a factory and bringing home a paycheck are enough, just amazes me. What will they do if that system fails them? How can they go to bed at night feeling secure about being able to take care of what is theirs? How can their family have any confidence that they will be taken care of? It boggles the mind.
Back in the 70's i was out in Detroit and met guys who called themselves mechanics. They were far from that. Working in GM FORD and Chrysler as parts installers. Putting a steering wheel on car body as it rolls by does not make anyone a mechanic. Of course the next guy putting on the steering wheel nut was a mechanic too
When the bottom dropped out of that place, there were a lot of mechanics that couldn't get a job and a lot of cars that wouldn't run.
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