The reader's edition
Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills: the summary
Abigail R. Gehring, who has edited a shelf of self-sufficiency guides for Skyhorse, updated this big illustrated how-to, which grew out of the 1981 Reader's Digest book of the same name. Its argument is plain: a simpler, more self-reliant life is built one practical skill at a time, and ordinary people can still learn those skills. The book runs in six parts: buying land and building on it, energy from wood, water, wind and sun, raising vegetables, fruit and livestock, enjoying the harvest the year round, skills and crafts for house and homestead, and recreation at home and in the wild. It teaches through step-by-step instructions and drawings rather than stories, from building a log cabin and grafting fruit trees to keeping chickens, making cheese and dyeing wool with plants. It also keeps projects for people without land, such as weaving a rag rug on a homemade loom. Read a chapter at a time, with a printable action book at the end.
- Abigail R. Gehring
- 2008
- 4 chapters
- 5 min read
- 9 takeaways
This is HourLife's reading of Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, in our own words. It is not a substitute for the book.
Chapter 01
Before you start
The book in a minute
Tap a paragraph to highlight it. Turn pages with the arrows, the arrow keys, or a swipe.
Abigail R. Gehring, who has edited a shelf of self-sufficiency guides for Skyhorse, updated this big illustrated how-to, which grew out of the 1981 Reader's Digest book of the same name. Its argument is plain: a simpler, more self-reliant life is built one practical skill at a time, and ordinary people can still learn those skills. The book runs in six parts: buying land and building on it, energy from wood, water, wind and sun, raising vegetables, fruit and livestock, enjoying the harvest the year round, skills and crafts for house and homestead, and recreation at home and in the wild. It teaches through step-by-step instructions and drawings rather than stories, from building a log cabin and grafting fruit trees to keeping chickens, making cheese and dyeing wool with plants. It also keeps projects for people without land, such as weaving a rag rug on a homemade loom.
Below are the 9 ideas HourLife readers vote up most, each in our words with a note on what it asks of you, and then the steps that put them to work.
Chapter 02
What readers keep
The takeaways
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1
HourLife takeaway
Self-reliance is a stack of small skills, not one big leap.
The book is built as hundreds of separate projects, each one learnable on its own. You don't need to buy a farm to start. Baking bread, sharpening a chisel or weaving a small rug each count, and each makes the next one easier.
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2
HourLife takeaway
Before you fall for the house, find out where the water comes from.
The opening part, on buying country property, gives a whole section to developing a water supply. A tired house or barn can be repaired. Land without a reliable supply of water is very hard to live on, however pretty it looks.
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3
HourLife takeaway
Design a home around how you live, and draw it before you dig.
The first part moves from buying land and preparing the site to planning the home, before any building starts. That order is worth copying: draw the plan to scale on paper first. Mistakes are cheap on paper and expensive in timber and concrete.
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4
HourLife takeaway
Save energy before you try to make it.
The energy part opens with making a home efficient, and only then turns to wood heat, water power, wind and solar. A draughty house wastes whatever you produce. Sealing and insulating comes first because it is the cheapest power there is.
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5
HourLife takeaway
A harvest is only half the work; the other half is making it last.
A whole part of the book is about enjoying the harvest the year round: canning and jam, preserving meat and fish, cheese, maple sugaring and homemade drinks. Growing food matters less if most of it spoils in a week. Preserving is what turns a summer glut into a winter pantry.
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6
HourLife takeaway
Grow what you will actually eat, and start smaller than you think.
The growing chapters run from the kitchen garden and fruit trees to bees and fish farming. Read as a whole, they show how much each crop asks of you. A small bed you keep up beats a big one you abandon by July.
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7
HourLife takeaway
Animals need you every day, so match them to your time and your space.
The livestock chapters cover poultry and larger animals, and each needs housing, feed and daily care. Hens are the usual first step because they ask the least. A goat or a cow changes the shape of your whole day.
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8
HourLife takeaway
Hand skills turn raw materials into things you keep for years.
The crafts part is the biggest in the book: spinning, weaving, natural dyes, soap, candles, baskets and woodwork. One project builds a hutch table with hand tools alone. The point is less to save money than to understand how things are made and mended.
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9
HourLife takeaway
Old-fashioned fun belongs in a self-reliant life too.
The book closes with recreation at home and in the wild, including square dance calls, homemade toys and paddling a kayak. Work on a homestead never really ends. Leaving room for play is part of the design, not a reward for finishing.
Chapter 03
Put it to work
Your action book
Do the setup steps once, then keep the habits going. The setup changes your week; the habits keep it changed after the first good one.
The download puts this whole reading and a printable action book in one PDF: the setup checklist, then a page of real calendar days for each habit, starting on the day you choose.
Set up once
Choose three skills for this year
Pick one skill that feeds you, one that uses your hands and one for your home. Write them on a card and keep it where you plan your week.
Walk your home looking for draughts
On a cold or windy day, hold a hand or a candle near doors, windows and outlets. List the leaks and seal the worst one this weekend with weatherstrip or caulk.
Set up one small growing space
Build one raised bed, fill a few large pots on a balcony, or ask about a community plot. Plant two or three things you eat every week.
Gather a basic hand-tool kit
Collect a saw, a chisel, a square, a hammer, clamps and a sharpening stone, secondhand if you can. Give them one shelf or box so they are always ready.
Find one teacher near you
Look for a canning class, a woodworking evening, a spinning guild or a beekeeping group within an hour of home. Book one session this month.
Keep it up
Spend one hour a week with your hands
Block the same hour every week for your current skill. Finish small projects rather than starting big ones.
Keep a homestead notebook
Write down what you planted and when, what you made, and what went wrong. Read last season's notes before you start the next one.
Preserve something each month in season
Put one preserving session on the calendar while fruit and vegetables are cheap and plentiful. Use a current, tested recipe from your food safety agency for anything you can.
Chapter 04
The last word
Before you go
Pick one step from the action book and do it today. An idea from a book starts to count once it changes what one ordinary day looks like.
Learn one old skill well, and the next one comes easier.
That is the end of our reading. Where to go from here, or go back to the full Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills page.
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