recently, i've become very interested and curious about how pioneers used to do things.
some may think i'm crazy for wanting to know how to make cheese, tan leather, turn cotton fibers into cloth, and so on; especially since i live in a culture where these things are cheap and plentiful. but i think this knowledge can still be useful.
admittedly, the scenarios in which i would need this knowledge are few and far between. but there are definitely at least a few different scenarios where this knowledge would come in very handy. here are but a few examples:
1- if you were a part of some new reality tv show where modern people live like pioneers. in that case, this knowledge could earn you a large sum of money after winning the leather making competition.
2- you're on a plane that crashes in a very remote place/country/island and because of varying circumstances, there's almost no hope of you being found any time soon. your only option is to start a little community and farm the land and so on until you're rescued years later.
3-you take a trip on a time machine and because it's a trial run, or because of some malfunction or miscalculation, you're trapped in the early 1800s (or earlier agrarian society).
4- the national power grids get zapped for some reason (be it EMPs, other terrorist activity, alien attack, a flock of suicidal pigeons, or some other unlikely cause) and we are forced to go back to pioneer-like living conditions and survival techniques (even if it's only for a relatively short time). (thanks to Mike McCurdy for this one)
5- you're in a very secluded cabin. you have a strong hankering for cheese, yet the nearest town is 5 hrs. away. since you know how to make your own cheese, the crisis of waiting 5 hours and wasting a ton of gas is averted.
6- zombies have invaded. knowing that most people depend on grocery stores for food, they wait in the isles for their brain-meals to come to them. but if you used your brain to learn how to be a pioneer, you could keep your brain from being eaten by never going into a store ever again.
now even though these scenarios arent all that realistic, i still think that learning how to do stuff the pioneer way is interesting and worth your time. after all, it's better to know something and never use it than to need to know something and not know it.
therefore, i've decided to declare this is as "Pioneer ______ (insert unspecified amount of time)". it's a new and unnofficial holiday that will be celebrated on this blog. basically, this just means that as i learn how to do different pioneer things, i'll write about how to do it while making fun sidenotes every now and then. i already have a list of things i want to learn, but if you have any suggestions for things you'd find interesting, feel free to leave a comment.
hopefully you'll enjoy this holiday as much as i will, however long it may last.
until i post again, happy Pioneer... Time! :)
