The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Thrifty Thursday - Repairedness - Survival Salvage w/ Ryan Buford

Episode Date: January 29, 2026

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Hey guys, Toolman, Tim here. Welcome back to the workshop where we create community, find freedom, promote preparedness, and share success. It is Sunday, April 3rd, 22. I got that right. The first time, this is great. And this is episode 91 of the workshop podcast. And tonight, we are going to feature a first. We have our very first returning guest. We're going to have Ryan Buford on here from the NextGen podcast on in just a minute. If you remember back to his USB survival episode, it was a huge hit, told him we'd have him back. And I think we're going to have to make this a, you know, a semi-regular occurrence because he is just, yeah, we always have a good conversation. But real quick, we'll get our announcements out of the way, and then we'll go from there. So quick update on the coffee. I know everybody's been asking. All of my work is done. The website is done on my end.

So all that is left is the, how do you want to put it? They're just the back end shopping cart work that they're doing. It's basically like a Shopify page. Hopefully that'll be done early this week. So look out for an announcement for that. And if you're not in the telegram group, that is the easiest way to stay up to date in the workshop, on the workshop so we can share and interact.

And yeah, just have a great old time. I love it. Earlier today, we had a post in there about laser levels. And unfortunately, we were all lost. We didn't know the answer. So the more people we have, the better off we can be. Number three, this one's important. You guys have heard it before, but toolmantimdeme.com.

That's the place where I've got like 250 items that I've reviewed or used over the years. So if you are looking for recommendations, that is the place to go. And even if you just go there and start your shopping, it helps support the workshop. And I had to give one more quick shout out here. Yesterday we were in the city. And for us, our idea of the city is Edmonton. So we went to Edmonton this week and for a day anyway. And I ended up meeting up having a real in-person conversation with Carson Pratt.

He is a member of the workshop community, a member of the telegram group. And he's an all-round really cool Albertan. Anyway, I met up with him and he had some really cool 3D printed DeWalt battery holders for me. But beyond that, it's just, it was a pleasure meeting him. And it's just a recommendation for everybody. We need to not just have, as my wife loves to joke, my imaginary internet friends, but we need to meet in real life and have real life connections, guys. So this is where it's at.

And this is what we're doing. And we're going to build something special. And we're going to eventually have a big flatlander meetup here. So anybody within driving distance, we're going to have a, I don't know, a living free kind of get together. And it'll be great. So with that, let's bring up on. Hey, Ryan.

How are you? Hey, everybody. Hey, Tim. It's good to be back. Thank you. Thanks for having me back. I said this is an absolute first. You are a very first. My wife, I count as an occasional guest host. So she doesn't count as a returning guest. You were the official very first, but back by popular demand guests. Hey, all right. Thank you. Thanks for coming back. I'll try to live up to the standard, right? Oh, you know what? Your USB, the USB episode we did, that was, I don't even, that was the one that started everything kind of trending in a good direction. And it was great. It did really well. People got a lot of feedback on it.

And I love collaborating, you know? So it was great. I will say I didn't get a chance to own up to the challenge that I left with, which was, I believe, trying to get a plasma lighter to do something specific. Like, I don't remember. But I'm still working on it. So for the folks who had that episode, I'm still kind of trying to figure that one out. But all that.

We got a huge crew in here tonight. We got a Hunter is in here. We got a JS. We have a Dave H. I know you told me I should be looking out for somebody, Ryan. Oh, if we see Dean, Logic or Dave, I think that was Dave. Dave. Okay, well, we'll give him a fair time.

So there's a thumbs up for Dave there. All right. Cool deal. So, yeah, I threw this idea at you. Man, I don't know. It's probably been a month, six weeks ago. And I said, you know, I've been reading through, I got this recommendation from Carrie Brown. He's another guy in the workshop community.

He was a guest a while back. And he knows I like post-apocalyptic fiction. So I always need something to pass the days. How do we all do? Oh, man. And this, have you ever read, I throw this right on you. Josh Sloan. Sorry, I had to interrupt.

Josh Jones. Yeah, how's it going, Josh? Oh, PA's great. He does my website work for me. We've been buddies on Zello for years and through. Oh, and there's Rev. This is a local guy here in my hometown. We got a great crowd going on. Hi, Josh Sloan. That's nice to see you, man. Yeah, right on. So this book, World Made by Hand, have you ever read it or listened? I haven't. No. It's incredible. It's like this. Yeah.

There's a four, it's a four-part book. It's post-peak oil. And the whole idea is, of course, that they ran out of oil. And so it's in upstate New York. And there's a four-part New York. And They're just kind of surviving and getting by. And I got thinking about it. The whole idea of the main character is Robert Earl, and he's a handyman, a carpenter, and everybody hires him to do, you know, he's a finished carpenter, so he does a lot of work.

But everything they do is scavenging and salvaging. Yeah. I was like, hmm, that sounds like it'd be right up Ryan's alley. I think you should chat about this. Definitely. Yeah. And you said you used to do demolition, something like that. Tell me a bit about that. I love here.

Yeah, so I keep popping out of spring. That's a great. We always have fun. I used to work in demolition and hazardous materials removal. And in the course of what we did, we always wound up tearing apart structures, cabinetry or, you know, it was all hand done. It wasn't like explosive demolition. It was all manual demolition of selective demolition of certain things.

So I learned hard and fast, all the things you need. need to know about demoing out plumbing and walls and HVAC systems, roofing, structure, I mean, all across the board, what to watch out for, but also what you can gain through knowing those systems, because, I mean, a house or a commercial building, they have systems in them just like a human being, you know, the HVAC system is your lungs, your plumbing system is your plumbing system, right? You know, your lifeblood a lot of times is the electricity, plus you've got the structure, the bones, the framing, and then the muscle, the, you know, the other components that keep the structure alive. And then the outer skin, the shell, the roofing, the siding, all that kind of stuff.

And in the course of doing that, I learned what worked, what worked well, and the things that didn't work and the things that didn't work well. And I've learned construction from, you know, kind of like the turn of the century, 1900s era, all the way up through the early 90s and beyond, you know, some of the things that they were putting in after we were demolishing these buildings. So it's kind of, it's open my eyes to a lot of the opportunities when it comes to structures, you know, and what you can gain from a structure and what, you know, some of the things that you can't really rely upon in a structure to be able to save you. you know, in a S-H-T-F situation. You know, some people say, oh, I'm going to burn my furniture, burn the two-by-fours out of my house, and they have no idea how much volume it takes to be able to come up with two sticks of, you know, lumber.

You'd be burning yourself out of your own house just to get by for a month in the wintertime. And think about the energy you would expend to do that, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't, yeah, and I remember, what is that movie? Do you remember, I don't know if you ever saw the movie with, called Cinderella Man? Yes.

Yeah. Russell Crowe. Russell Crow. And his manager there, I can't think of his name right now from Sideway, Paul Giamati. Yes. And so they, they ended up either selling or burning all their furniture at one time, too, to stay warm and get by. And it, I mean, it just doesn't last, you know.

You can, anybody who's ever cut up a palette and used a pallet to burn, I mean, how quick do you go through that? There's just not much to it. It's fast. I can tell you that because I just cut up a palette before the show tonight. Yeah, at least two pallets. And, you know, fun fact for the folks out there listening, one palette will only generate about two cubic feet of firewood. Well, that's basically, well, if you figure an 18 inch stick of firewood, you know, a foot wide, get one and a half of that. though. So, you know, two measly sticks of firewood from a pallet.

It ain't much. So. And it takes work to beat them apart and. And power energy. You have to have, you know, electricity or battery power or something to be able to move that. So else you're going to be doing it by hand. Well, that, so that's the thing. Like, we just did a job for a bank property here in 10, well, just outside of town. And there was a little bit of mold, not a lot, but enough that they were worried about it. So we had to gut the entire basement. And we used pretty much honestly 99% hand tools or just, you know, muscle power because it made way less mess, right? You start cutting drywall and everything. And, but there's nothing easy about it. You think, okay, I'm going to start pulling that drywall off.

And no matter how, no matter which tricks you watch and try to figure out, it still comes off in one foot square chunks. You know, it, everything's just a lot of work, right? Yeah. There is a trick to pull and drive all off, and I'll tell you that after the show. But I'll save you some time and money. Sure, yeah. Dave says first year burning wood for heat. Yeah, that dream of heating with furniture is comical. Yeah.

The very first winter that Becky and I lived together, we moved into a home in November. And basically, we cut our own firewood as we lived there. And we basically cut a tree and burn it every day. And that is not ideal for soot or creosote or work. And we we might have stayed a day or two ahead. We did cut ash so you can burn ash right off the stump, but it still sizzles like a bugger. And it was a lot of work. But it makes for a good story now.

Let's put it that way. You move past it, right? Yeah, yeah. So let's start. I don't even. So I guess let's talk about, you're talking about, you know, construction skills and being a handyman and demolition. How so okay, I want to frame our discussion a little bit because first off, the whole idea, like, it's a little tongue and cheek. Of course, it absolutely could be something

post-apocalyptic, but it can also be something practical for us today, you know, or if times get tough as they kind of appear to be trying to, right? So how about handyman skills and all of that? What do you think? How important do you think that would be in any type of situation? like that. Well, personally, I think it's huge. So I live on a homestead and I have several outbuildings here. One of the outbuildings, the previous owner told, I was like, what is this building for? Like, what is, he's like, oh, that's a bunk house. Oh. And I was like, what's a bunk house for? He's like, well, you know, they used to have migrant workers come through and, you know, they'd work the land and they'd come through. They'd stay in the bunk house, work a season or two, and then they'd leave.

And I never really thought much of it. And right now the bunkhouse, it's still there. I mean, it's a structure that's been here for probably 100 years now. And there's no plumbing in it. There's enough room for a bed or a cot and a small closet. And that's it. You probably could put a twin bed in there. And maybe back in the day, they might have had a small wood stove, you know, tiny, you know, pot belly stove or something like that. But the thing is, this is, you know, during the Depression, the people that were able-bodied workers who, who could physically, you know, work the fields, work the land, you know, know how to run a horse or, you know, set up tack or do whatever they needed to do, that was valuable. And so you had people who were starving and those who could perform tasks or who could maintain a house or systems

of a house or a building or something like that became extremely valuable. And that value added to their own survival level because they were able to, you know, basically barter their skills when they had nothing else. The clothes on their back and, you know, a pack on a stick that they were hiking with, you know. And, you know, really that that is the only way to exchange what you have to offer for food when there is no cash available. Because here's what's happening. In an environment like that, someone who owns land doesn't necessarily have money to pay someone.

Right. But if you have a place to say, a little bit of shelter and maybe some food, that is your, that is, that, that's basically your currency. And in exchange for that, what you are providing is some sort of service. So it's kind of like I see that as something that's extremely value, especially in the handyman side or, you know, being able, I might be handy with certain power tools or or skills here and there, but I know how to level something. I know how to run concrete. I know how to set a post. I know how to do certain things that on a homestead or on some sort of area, it's extremely valuable. you know, if you're, if you're capable and you're willing and you're able-bodied,

that is one of your greatest survival skills, um, above and beyond any kind of first aid or, you know, being able to handle a firearm. All that stuff goes out the window if you cannot, you know, sustain the structure that you're in,

right? And I was thinking about that because, you know, we can, we can store up as much silver or, you know, if you're a little better off. as much gold as you possibly think you can or as much ammo, whatever.

But all of those are finite resources, right? So you're going to spend your silver. You're going to expend your ammo. But your skills are infinite other than the amount of crime that you have. And as long as your body holds up, right? So any skill you have, you can always refill that coffer simply by saying, hey, I can come out and I can set fence posts. I can stretch wire.

I can, you know, that roof that blew off on your storage shed or your barn where you need to keep your mule, I can come and fix that. And I'll trade you for three, 1964 quarters or whatever it happens to be. You know, because, yeah, you're going to run out of things, especially long term. And, yeah. And I mean, it works, obviously works for me right now because I run a business with it. And it's fairly profitable. But in a situation, the other thing is.

is is that and we probably know this a lot of people aren't bothering to learn those skills anymore so all of a sudden you're in a situation where people are just worried about where their next meal is going to come from or you know we don't have gas or energy to keep the systems going because what did i forget what they said it was but like a gallon of diesel can is it 80 men like an hour's labor of 80 i forget it's insane right yeah i've heard jack talk about about on the survival podcast before, but whatever it happens to be, if you don't have access to that, all of a sudden, you've got to do all that work manually. You don't have triangular new skills either because you're just worried about where your next meal's going to come from. Yeah. So, yeah,

then you could be the guy that's like, oh, sure, I can come and fix that window or fix the door. And sure, I'll trade you for half a ham or, you know, three rabbits or something. I love that. Yeah. And I think that's kind of the thing that. It's really important here because you don't have the ability to, you can only give so much physically. Like you can only carry so much physically. So what you really need to find value in is your ability to have value to someone else or some other place, you know. That's going to be hard to come by in like an urban environment. I mean, my situation is completely different and I'm kind of living in the, you know,

1900s out here in some ways. But the thing is, is I did that on purpose. Sure. In an urban environment, your ability to understand and navigate, you know, systems and buildings and stuff like that, it is crucial. You know, if you can, if you know where to find plumbing parts or you know where to find, you know, batteries or, you know, cinder blocks or ceramic tiles, things like that, it's, it's significant to be able to navigate in an urban environment just as much.

as a rural environment. In fact, there was one guy, or one time when I was a kid, I watched one of my favorite shows is the red-green show. Oh, Canadian legend. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I remember sitting on the couch watching this show with my dad, and these guys made a pontoon boat out of duct work, out of metal ductwork, and it worked.

Wow. And that's the first time I realized, wow, there's some value in knowing how to manipulate. and re-evaluate, you know, what you can do with a thing, right? Yes, like thinking outside the box. Oh, yeah. I wouldn't have thought of that. I mean, everything out there was goofy and tongue and cheek, but they still did it, you know?

Yep, they sure did. You know, a little duct tape and the handyman secret weapon, right? If they can't find you handsome, they can at least find you handy. That's right. So what do you think? I guess one of the first, well, okay. Okay, the other day I went to the landfill and I drove around the scrap metal pile just because I would love poking around and look in. And you never know what you're going to find, right?

Oh, sure. My favorite thing at landfills or anywhere is what I call mail Tupperware, the milk crates, you know? Yes, yes. And I got six for a gallon buckets. Oh, yeah. Five or six from my post the other day, you know, anyway. So I got looking around and I'm like, I wonder. So what do you think like, okay, first off, let's play the six months.

months after a grid down situation. It doesn't matter what it is. Could be EMP, could be, you know, CME, whatever, right? Yeah. What, six months after, what do you think would be the things that people can't find that they need to scrounge or, you know, if you were good at salvaging or fix and what would be the stuff people would be starting to look for? Well, and that's funny that you say those milk cartons because the top thing that I had on my list was containers. Oh, my Jesus, I never thought of that. Sure. I mean, nothing ever lasts. I mean, you can, You can get containers, plastics, have rubber made totes last as long as you can

until you drop them or until they're exposed to sunlight and they fracture everywhere. But those milk cartons, five-gallon buckets, steel totes, ammo cans, things like that. Those things are going to be in high demand, I think, initially. Because you have to be able to pack stuff. Right. And then with that, any of your bags are going to be,

you know, generally they tend to fail. No matter how good it is. how good the brand is it doesn't matter so at that point you need to have access to thread meagles so i think um you know your your ability to to move stuff is important and i don't know if you're familiar with carpet baggers or um you know hobos in the past generally they had everything tied up on a stick and a small satchel and that's all that they they were running with but you have to have something to carry it with. I mean, a burlap sack even.

Something that's going to sustain because the reality is, is we do not have materials right now that are capable of withstanding rigors over time outdoors. With the exception of some things, like I mentioned already.

You know, the milk crates, like you said, that's a perfect example. The other things that I kind of came up with on this were like hand tools, especially sharpening tools. Yep. The one tool that I've mentioned before, I guess two,

are a round file and a triangular file. Yep. Do you know why? Well, triangular is going to be for sharpening hand saws and things like that. Yep. And the round file, I would guess for chainsaws, but I guess it depends on, yeah, yeah. It's exactly right. Because even if you don't have a chainsaw that works,

the chain itself is still about. valuable. So, you know, if you can at least keep a file and know how to sharpen a chainsaw and know how to sharpen a standard saw, those two things alone are enough to get you a meal. Yeah, you're right. And if you could show up on some farmstead or homes, you know, anywhere, even a construction site or somewhere else and know how to sharpen something, you will get a job. you that would be a i just thought it that would be a burdable a burd her that would be a good you could murder with too there that let's try it that way oh man everybody's listening here yeah yeah j s says wheelbarrels and dollies yep um cheap uh j s also said uh bicycles and scooters yep wire and rope that's on the later the later side of mine not on the immediate i think right off the bat we're gonna

because things are going to go dull people aren't going to know how to do anything right off the bat one of the other things that I came up with was sanitizing equipment and supplies so like gloves condoms stuff like that things that are that are going to go quick and you cannot replace them if if the grid is down so to speak you do not have access to replenish those types of things and they're consumable so all that kind of stuff goes away pretty quick I thought about a few I guess in my mind for some reason I was also picturing maybe there would be like some weather issues too, you know, because tarps, plywood, those were two things. And then another one I thought of fairly quick would be something like a wood stove. People are, you know, they're not, I've got my eye on one in

an empty house right now that's going to be coming home with me pretty soon. Nice. I need one for my grad, right? So I got thinking, if you, I don't know, if you took in my town of 1,500 people, you know what would that be maybe five 800 houses i don't know and maybe 10% have some sort of woodburning appliance in them so it wouldn't yeah they're and mostly it's just for looks you know people don't use them are very very rare i mean you can walk around here in the wintertime and when you you smell it you notice that awesome wood smoke smell but there's not many houses that do right so boy there would be a demand for that and it's not like you could just go and make new ones tomorrow right? No, not at all. Another one that I thought of was booze. And not necessarily the booze itself,

but the stuff to make booze. So you're copper stills, copper pipe, copper lines, things like that. Because I have a feeling, and I notice just because of tweakers in certain areas that I've worked in demolition, that's the stuff that tends to go first. But, you know, if you can get your hands on a two or three inch copper pipe, you can make your own sanitizing equipment. you know, materials with a proper still and you could also make booze with the proper still. And I think, you know,

once that stuff goes quick, this applies to make those materials will become hard to find. And you know what else I just thought of too would be books to have, because if you haven't had the time to learn how to build a rudimentary still yet or, you know, because my mind's always a science project and I'm always trying to learn. But having, well, something like the joy of home brewing,

for instance, that's a good book, but doesn't show you how to make stills, but have something, yeah, yeah, right? But have something on hand, a good, at least, you know, it doesn't have to be vast, but a dozen or two dozen kind of reference preparedness books would be huge. Yeah. Yeah, there's a couple that I keep on hand just for that reason. I think it was time or Black and Decker. You know, there's a couple of them that have series on basic electrical, basic plumbing,

basic framing basic this you know whatever um and first aid that's a big one too you know literature on first aid like red cross books things like that i have literature on the on the final stages of this thing not the the mediate's but that's all right j s is latrine building never thought of that but that would be a huge skill that you could literally i mean you're saving people's lives right oh yeah sanitation sanitation sanitation sanitation and snail creek says making meat honey yeast and water that tastes good how about longer term so we're beyond six months you know we'll go into a year three years whatever you're thinking so at this point i was looking into you know what what runs out and people realize okay you know our rubbers and plastics

are toast but we and the fabrics that we have are probably junk so at this point we need to really have sustainable materials that can work in the long term at this point i'm thinking along the lines of leathers. Things like that. TAC, material, steel. What do I have in there? Raw materials, supplies and oils. Just stuff that you can forge.

Steel, quality wrenches, things like that. Oil is a big one because if you have oil and wood, you can actually make diesel fuel. If you know what you're doing. but you also need oil for other things, you know, and whether it's cooking or lubrication or whatever, you still have to have a whale. And I think it's at a certain point, people are going to start going along the lines of recycling oil, pulling oil out of vehicles and whatever else. You can run oil in a diesel engine right out of the pan, especially if it's something in a gas engine. Really?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, you can, you can, the first diesel engine. engines they came up with ran on straight peanut oil. Oh, I suppose. Well, you know, we just had a guy on just the other day that talked about wood gas fires. Oh, man, it was intriguing. I knew so little it was great to have him on. But yeah, and I was just thinking the old timers back where I grew up, they used to use,

I wouldn't recommend it today, but they used used motor oil as chain oil in their chainsaws. Absolutely. You know, it's- Especially if you're out in the woods. What do you do? Yeah, you've got to have something. or otherwise you're going to burn up your chain like that, you know, and then you're in trouble. Yep.

But I thought about generator parts. You know, even us preppers might, you know, we might stock a year or maybe a couple years worth of, you know, spark plugs and air filters and fuel line and things like that for your generator. But a year or two in, the book I was reading there, he had a, it was an old-fashioned waterwheel generator. But it, I forget what the main part was. It was like a, I want to call it a pinwheel, but that wasn't the right. Anyway, it was some sort of wheel mechanism. And over time, he'd burn out all three that he had.

So then it got pretty desperate. They were looking at machining or going around and finding them. They eventually found some more in an old country shack somewhere. But that kind of stuff, like you said, wearable parts, things that are going to wear down after a year or five, five years. And you're like, I mean, if you still get your generator going five years after a collapse, you're doing really good. But, you know, another thing.

thing I was thinking was shingles. Because if you're not doing routine maintenance and you're trying to keep the water out of your home, it's going to be, yeah, you might be able to find some at building supplies, but I'll bet you by this point, people have probably stole, you know, bag for it or stole any of them, right? Oh, yeah. Any kind of, and I've got a metal roof. I'm down with shingles.

So, for me, where we're heading to. Good point. For me, it's, but you still have metal. I mean, how are you going to get sheet mill? You're going to go take off someone's hood of their truck and put it on your roof to waterproof. I mean, it's just, you got to be aware of what you have and what's going to work for you, you know. And how to get that material. I mean, if I had a puncture, like if a tree limb fell on my house in the middle of, you know, an apocalyptic scenario,

I would have to isolate a part of my house or try and find a way to, you know, repair the roof because, and if I'm got a metal roof and no shingles, that I'm pretty much SOL, right? So one of the other things that I have to, and I have one of these two, I bought one at an antique store probably three years ago is a treadle machine.

Any kind of mechanical tools that you can use, like a hand drill, treadle machines, anything that works off of basic human movement is going to be valuable, especially long term, farther in. Right. You know, because you can actually

actually work and you can perform work. You can, you know, mend sheets or mend clothing, mend shoes, for example. I think that was dropped into chat by one guy and, you know, footwear, clothing, making repair, that kind of stuff. If you, after, I mean, I don't know about you, but my pants, it's all I can do to get them last two years. Yeah. And if I wind up getting too close to some battery acid, you know, I'm done. Right. I get, I get it, you run it through some water. Next thing you know, you got holes everywhere and you're done. So knowing how to patch clothing and having the ability to do that is, is worthwhile. It's definitely an investment worth making. And I've used my treadle machine. I've made, I've made all kinds of stuff on my machine.

And I do it regularly to, you know, to be able to continue to do. these things and keep that skill level high. If I didn't have any freddle machine, but someone else did, I could show up. Yeah, we, you know what? There was a house that got tore down recently that had one of those in it and I had meant to salvage it and I didn't and it made me kind of sad. I do have an electric sewing machine, which is great. But I wanted to bring this one up to Snail Creek. I'd read about this before. You ever see this Transformers, the ones that are up on poles, they have an oil or a liquid in there that you can run diesel tractors on.

Yeah. Be careful with those. A lot of the older ones do have PCBs in them. I'm sure in a short-term situation, that'd be fine. Just protect yourself so you're not getting that stuff in your skin. Because even if you do survive the apocalypse, you're going to wind up dying of cancer. That wouldn't be good. Yeah.

So Dave Jones always talks about with the iodide pills or whatever, you know, he's like, you take over, or, you know, if you're under 40, you probably should. if you're over 40, don't worry about it. I was like, oh, okay, you know. Yeah. And, yeah, and said, Jason says, wow, two years out of pants, good for you. I must be buying the wrong pants. No, you're not.

I do. I try and change out my pants at least daily. But one of the things that I've noticed is trying to wear coveralls to protect them as much as I can. But also, I make sure to always get double knee when I can, Carhartts or rigs or Wranglers, whatever they are, just make sure you get double-kneed because that's always what fails first. When I worked in construction and demolition, it was all I could do to get six months out of a pair of pants. So it's a little bit easier for me now, but on the other side, if we're in a situation like that, you're going to need quality materials, burlap, dungarees, that kind of stuff, good quality canvas-type material to be able to patch those pants up.

And if you have a double knee, you can at least get a little bit more life out of them. And another thing, too, of course, and something not a lot of us do at this point. But if you do wear some clothing, we're going to keep them around afterwards. You know, you're going to cut them up. You're going to use them for red. Or you're going to use them to patch some other clothes, you know. I've got a whole drawer full of patch material. I love that.

Yeah. And Becky gets, she laughs at me. But I, you know, I still buy rags from Costco in the box. but I use, you know, anything, anything even remotely absorbent gets cut up and goes out to the shop because, you know, yeah, can you wash out rags and reuse? I'm sure you can. But honestly, most times it's oil or gas or something that I don't want to put in the washing machine. So one wipe and it's gone. What about what kind of everyday items outside the box kind of thinking here? Like what could you, what could you look at and you're like, oh, that that's normally for this. But what,

we could actually use it for that. You're talking about using a roof or using a hood from a car on your roof. What kind of stuff were you thinking? So, okay, this kind of comes out of disaster a little bit, but also when you see the value of it, you might be able to understand. When I was working in selective demolition, we had a guy who was working on demoing out a bathroom wall. And a part of the wall, for whatever reason, like, it kind of,

of you have to be smart about how you do certain things. Yep. When you build, you go from the bottom up. When you demo, you go from the top down. Right. If you go the other way, it can be dangerous on both fronts. In this particular instance, the worker was working from the bottom up, demolishing a wall in a bathroom. You might think, well, that's not that big of a deal.

But part of the reasoning was because he didn't want to destroy the plumbing right in the wall. Okay. The problem was that there was ceramic tile on the walls. What had happened was at some point, while he was demolishing the wall, he started pulling the bottom of the wall to make it come off. Some of the ceramic tiles fell and slit his wrists. Oh my gosh. He was able to survive, but he got some significant scars, and it was not exactly the prettiest thing on the planet. And out of that, I realized something that I had known for a long time is how dangerous and how sharp ceramic tile is.

And I had done work on flooring, like removing ceramic tile floors. And you have to, you basically have to gear up. I mean, you've got to have leathers on, you're running stuff. Stay out of the way. keep face shields on eyeglasses at all times because ceramic tile is extremely sharp. It's like it's like obsidian, only way more, way more effective. That's what they use on track shoes and sharpening tools. People don't really give ceramic a whole lot of credit, but the fact of the matter is,

it is extremely sharp and it's easy to manipulate. So something as simple as a 4-inch by 4-inch piece of ceramic tile can develop into a tool, a very sharp tool that can be used for anything you might need just like obsidian. Yeah. And if you have, you know, and it doesn't take a genius to be able to split, you know, to make it into an arrowhead or anything like that. All you have to do is break it in half and you can do dang near anything with them. So ceramic tile is something that you can use from like a demo site or some sort of fallout, that kind of thing. Cinder blocks is another one. In urban environment, cinder blocks are fairly common.

Bricks are, but cinder blocks is where you can get some added value because if you do have access to cinder blocks, you can make your own oven like a um and Colin and I did this early on a rocket stove very simple just put some cinder blocks together the right you you stack of me just the right way light a fire underneath we've cooked on top of them before it's very simple discrete low profile and you know you can do it in an environment where you do not have you know if you need to be if there's a light sensitivity, like you need to cook and not give away a position. A rocket stove made out of cinder blocks is an extremely valuable tool. I love that.

That's awesome. Yeah. Another one that I've been thinking about since we started talking about this was actually piano wire and guitar. Right. Can you give? I mean, a couple of things, what might be useful for those? Well, I'm possibly fishing line, I'm thinking.

and self-defense. Self-defense, snare wire. Rabbit snares, yes. And there's a lot of water. Usually a stainless wire or some kind of high-quality wire. It's not just like your copper wire out of your house. We're talking, you know, this is the kind of thing that can be used. I mean, even if you needed to string up a bow,

you might be able to do it with that or a crossbow, maybe. Yeah. Something like that. But wire itself and those kind of textiles are pretty valuable. But knowing what kind of wire and what the properties of wire are, copper wire can stretch, right? Yeah. Stainless steel wire doesn't necessarily stretch. It doesn't have a whole lot of give.

But, I mean, it can, if you're not careful with stainless steel wire, you can cut yourself up pretty bad. Think about how much wire would be in just your average piano, for instance. Yeah. And squirrel snares, rabbit snares. Oh, yeah. One piano could set up one person for, and maybe even a couple of people, you know, for a while. You could, I mean, you could at least start something and get some of that leather going. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I love that. And when I first, one thing I forgot to mention was another area of this is the farmer mindset. So out here, you know, I was talking my, my electrician, he's just over 80 years old. incredible guy. His name's Robert. And he was talking the other day we were talking. And when he grew up, you know, you didn't just run to town for supplies. You, you had to make due. So it was, you know, you tore the boards down. You pulled the nails out. You straighten the nails. And you used them, right? Who's done that in a hundred, you know, or I don't think any of my kids have ever straightened the nail, you know? I haven't. Yeah. But so my dad, he grew up on a farm too. And he gave me this hack a while

back. So whenever they needed to build, say like a man gate going in and out of a fence or, you know, an outhouse door or something, they would cut up old tires. You know, they'd make a square patch of rubber. Yeah. And nail it on both sides and they'd make a poor man's hinge. And a gate. So if you have livestock, for instance, one time I wanted to build a gate. I had no money for a gate. Dad said, well, let's go. And he said, we went back in the woods and we cut down four trees that weren't any more than maybe four, maybe five inches in diameter at the longest. And then we just put some cross, you know, probably six, eight inch cross members on one side. And you just took those boards and you slid them over and they sat in there.

And then when you wanted to close your gate, you just slid them back. It was the simplest, easiest way to do it. Yeah, that's the thing is, you know, keep it simple, stupid. You just got to try and make sure that you're not, you know, trying to overthink some of this stuff. You know, get into it, get what you need, and get out. Or, you know, move on because you don't, you're not going to have time to sit there and overengineer some of this stuff. It's got to be able to last and you've got to be able to make it through the next winter or whatever it might be. And it just needs to work.

It just needs to work. Don't let it perfect get in the way of the good, you know. Yeah, one other thing, a couple of the things I had. One was fiberglass insulation just for gardening. kind of an oddball one, but I've kind of thought it was weird until they started using rock wool to grow weed. But essentially, it works.

You can stuff a PVC pipe with fiberglass insulation, drill some holes in the top, and you've got a planter that you can use indoor or out. With the right kind of setup, especially with aquaponics or something like that. And the other one is 12-volt batteries. So when you have a battery, You have a couple of and the battery connections.

So total grid down scenario, no fuel after long term. The connections on a vehicle's 12-volt batteries are made of what? Lead or lead. Yeah, and then, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, copper wire usually from there. Right. So if you clip those lead connectors, you've got lead. If you open up that battery carefully. and train that sulfuric acid that's inside the battery,

you can use the sulfuric acid to do two things. One is self-defense if you're very careful and you're aware of how sulfuric acid reacts with the human body. But also, sulfuric acid is extremely useful in cleaning filters. So if you look at a hot tub filter, and you, for example,

if you get a hot tub filter cleaning, the ingredients on it, it's 100% sulfuric acid. No, shit. Your batter is the same thing that's used to clean filter. So, for example, if you have a hot tub or some sort of system that uses a media filter like that, you can soak it in battery acid, essentially, to clean all the oils and what out of it so that you can make that filter last longer and use the filter or use the water in your hot tub, for example, that is no longer working.

fill it with rainwater, fill it with drain water, whatever, and cycle it through that filter using a pump or whatever it takes, you can keep your filters clean and actually try and get the particulates out of there before you go and boil it out or do whatever. That's great. But the other part with that is so fear of gas is one. You've got plastic around the outside of the battery, but what else makes the rest of a battery?

Well, I'm thinking the lead plates. A lead plates. I know, right? So right there you've got tools for either or the materials to either make bullets or to make material for soldering pipe together. Right. Which is something that as a builder, you're not going to be able to go to the hardware store and get solder, which is basically tin and lead. So if you have tin cans and you have lead and half a brain, you can make solder. I love that.

Yeah. Your 12-volt batteries, because they're going to be useless, especially if they're, you know. that's what I was thinking. I had 12 volt batteries down because, you know, there are, there are some kind of hokey ways to try to rebuild them or recharge them. But for the most part, they only have so many charge cycles like anything.

And yeah, you're going to, at that point, strip them down. And of course, I never thought about the battery connectors, because there's another source of that. Yeah, I was thinking inside the battery,

but yeah, that's great. Well, and, you know, I don't know so much anymore, but they used to use lead as wheelways. I think they've switched over to steel.

If you can find them, you know, that's one opportunity. In old houses, old, old houses, if you've ever torn about an important old window sash, inside of those, especially the older ones, when you're talking like turn of the century, there's a steel column that was usually used for counterweight for the window. The larger the window, the bigger the steel. But if they didn't have space, they used lead. So you can sometimes pull apart old windows and find basically an untouched lead ingot that you can pull out of some of these windows and be able to use that for the same purposes.

I've got about four two and a half gallon buckets full of lead ingots that I made out of wheel weights. But that was a few years ago. I've never gone any further with them. Hunter, this is one of the greatest because a lot of times, you know, everybody thinks, okay, if they think lead, they're going to think batteries, but eventually all the regular places are going to be salvaged and scavenged and torn down, right? Yeah. He said here, one of his best lead halls was a demo of a doctor's office, x-ray room, lead line

walls. Absolutely. That's, I mean, just, I was, first I was thinking like the lead jackets that you'd find in dentist office as well, right? They would have some, but you'd need to start getting a little more creative, thinking outside the box to find some of this. That's awesome. I love that.

Oh, yeah. So it's definitely cool. I mean, you think outside the box and you realize, especially if you know what stuff is made of. I mean, kind of going back to what we were talking about initially, once you see how things are built, you take things apart, you understand what the components are of those. you know, you start to recognize what can be used in an environment or in a situation like this. Like Hunter says, you know, lead and stained glass.

If you, you know, I mean, if you get to the point where you're tearing out the stained glass in old churches or something like that, we're in pretty dire straits. But that's pure lead. I mean, you know, you're pulling the glass out. And every single intricate piece that holds that glass together is made of solid lead. yeah i i think yeah and when we're talking about going back to i don't know i kind of think back maybe like 19th century you know pre 1900s and everything you're james just come on and said his favorite guys james showed out to james and if you're not a member of the prepper broadcast network why aren't you make sure you are because they're awesome but i think we need to like you

said go back to the basics so like the the the essential materials you know break everything It's no longer a water heater. It's, you know, tin metal, steel in the inside, and either fiberglass or spray foam insulation, you know, just... Perfect for making diesel fuel, by the way. Spray foam? No, water heaters. Oh, really? Talk about that.

I love... This is why I love having yawn because, yeah, we think a lot of you have so many good ideas. So basically a water heater is what they use to still diesel fuel. It's basically the same as making beer. You heat it to a very specific temperature and combine it with methanol, basically, wood alcohol. Okay. You mix oil and wood alcohol together and you heat it to a certain temperature, and it turns into diesel fuel. There's more to it than that.

But in general, you can build a two or three stage diesel fuel generator out of hot water tanks. Oh, perfect. Sure. it's basically just linking the plumbing together. Plus, they're not completely explosion proof, but they will retain a lot of the heat that you're generating on the inside of the tank. Plus, they have built-in heaters.

So if you do it right, you can go. And you could, I mean, depending on what the temperature you need to rise it to, most of them have a pressure relief felt built into them anyway. So, you know, save you from being a Darwin Award winner. Oh, yeah. You know, just I thought about using old mowers and alternators and things to make a redneck generator as well. I love that.

And simple, it's fun too, you know, just frigging around and tinkering around, trying to get it to run something. I build an apple mincer one time when I was into, for five minutes, I was into apple cider. So I built a popper out of just old chipboard, you know, because it wasn't going to last. And I had a guy,

the only thing I paid for was I took the straightest piece of maple out of my firewood pile, and I had him running on a lathe and made a perfect scent. cinder cylindrical you know anyway and then i use stainless steel screws and sunk them in and left him out his heads but i use an old washing machine motor and pulleys and belts to run the thing and it was it was awesome yeah that's awesome you know one thing about cider too is uh one one one thing that i've thought about doing is building a cider press out of a bottle jack basically yes yep because essentially you're using all that pressure to push down on a plate and squeeze that juice

out, you know, it's different than what they used to do in the past, but they didn't really have bottle jacks back then. So if you have access to a bottle jack and a little bit of hydraulic oil, you've got the ability to run cider, which is not a bad skill to have, my friend. I know, not at all. And there's never an old burn or garage or shed that I've ever gone into that didn't have a bottle jack sitting in it. They're always there.

Like I can think of right now, at least. two properties I haven't cleaned up yet for the banks that have bottle jacks sitting in them. One we just did. My brother-in-law just took four out to his shop because he's a mechanic because they're always there, you know? Because they're always beautiful. Yeah. And even if they're leaking, you know, if you know how to repack them or fix them or even

just fill them, you're golden, right? Oh, yeah. How about places for scrounging materials? So this one was, in my experience, the best place that scrowns for stuff. stuff is where people aren't. And usually this has always been, like in my experience, commercial buildings. Because it's demolition, usually when we got into it, the buildings were vacant. But they were huge buildings and there's a lot of material.

So you can get, you know, 40 or 50 fire extinguishers, which can be used for all kinds of things. I mean, you can cut the bottoms out and use them as bells for warning symbols, signals, or, you know, if they're still active, if they still have the material in them, you can use them as instant cooling devices, things like that. But commercial buildings. Another one is schools. Yep. Junkyards, roadsides, anywhere, basically, if we're on a full-on grid down, anything. It's your whole, the whole world is your playground. But you've got to know where to find this stuff on what you're looking for.

Construction sites. And actually, hospitals and jails is another one because you have a pretty good chance of finding some other materials that you could really use, especially when it comes to those things like ceramic tiles, cinder blocks, the heavy duty stuff, steel bar, things like that. you know so for me i growing up on the east coast you know i grew up near the ocean the best place for us was the beach because you know you look like i seen a story the other day i can't remember i think it was in england anyway it was a tanker you know had i don't know how many sea cans or storage containers blew off the side one time this was 20 years ago and one of them was full of Lego. And for the last 20 years, Lagos has washed up on the shore of this small little island, just constantly for 20 years. It, you know, the stuff that's in the ocean that washes up constantly,

I built entire fences just on like old wharf poles or anything. Because a lot of times, the logs that have been in the salt water, for whatever reason, they're pretty sturdy. And they're rounded and weather beaten and washed and they're great. But you can find netting for fishing. you can find rope, like I said, poles and posts, lobster crates for storage. Lobster traps. I think this has probably been long enough, but a buddy of mine and I, we found a lobster trap on the beach one time. And one time after dark, yeah, anyway, we tied it off to a 50 foot piece of rope that we

found. And we went down at low tide and tied it around a big boulder and left it there for a few days and put some bait in it and we may or may not have caught some lobster that way. So that kind of stuff is absolutely possible. Yeah, absolutely. If anybody's ever seen how lobster traps work, but they're, yeah, we, you know, it's totally illegal and, but at least I'm sure the, uh, what do you, statute of limitations has passed on that one, but it was, yeah, super easy.

Yeah. So, I mean, it's kind of like you, you kind of have to realize that your whole world becomes your ninja suite. I mean, you've got to be able to manipulate everything around you and recognize what it is for the materials at hand and really got to make that word. Absolutely, yeah. So we, I guess there was a whole bunch of ways that we used to do that. But like I said, the beach was number one. I enjoyed that beyond belief.

And then another thing was we used to go back to when we, there was a whole bunch of abandoned houses. and sheds and that kind of stuff down Digbynack, where my dad grew up. And, you know, people are always looking for what they can salvage that's inside of buildings. But I think for us, the big one would be what the building itself is made out of. So taking your time to just go and strip a building down. Oh, yeah. So, JS, I love that. Making cordage out of plastic bottles.

That's one of those things that's forever being brought up. on Instagram. I think about once a week I see a video. And I don't exactly, I should look into it a little bit more, but it's just a sharp blade they make and they just pull the bottle through and through and makes it. Yeah. And learn to make simple glues and adhesives. Krio soap was something that the old timers where I grew up used to use to coat logs and some buildings as well. And that was basically just that sticky shit that would be on the inside of your chimney. Just strip it down and use it. I mean, there's just, there's no end. Or how about the wood ash out of your furnace, your fireplace? You can use it for traction in the winter. You can use it for making your soil

more acidic. Oh, there's a hundred different things. And Justin says you could totally use an old barn to build a decent size structure if you have the time in patience. And that's what I was thinking. I'm picturing, so there was this one house down at the end of Tempty Lane where I grew, not where I grew up, but in the area where I grew up. And it had had a house fire. And it was always the place that all the teenagers went in and, you know, we broke out the window. So there was no glass left. There was no doors left.

But the structure was still there. So there's nothing of value in the building. But the building itself, if you had the time and patience, could, you could make a fence. You could make livestock fence out of it. You could make, you know, a wood shed out of it. wouldn't matter. But the material that's there, if you wanted to strip it down, would absolutely, you know, and Justin says those places are getting more and more rare. And they are because a lot of those older buildings have just completely dilapidated. One other thing JS had mentioned was making

cordage from plastic bottles and making simple glues and adhesives. And then I mentioned their way it popped out about creosote. The old timers in my area used to save the creosote out of the chimneys, and they'd use it for treating logs and things that would make it fair well you know the old railway ties were creosote covered right sure yeah and i mean those all those different things if you can if you can capitalize on what's around you and understand the chemical properties of some of the things that we're talking about i mean it makes it a lot easier and you can have that knowledge and keep it upstairs and be able to to use it to your advantage which is really what we're talking about you're taking everything and using it to your advantage whether it's something that is a chemical or a physical material, something that you can,

straightening nails, I mean, knowing how to do that kind of stuff, it's, it, all of it is valuable. And when it comes to the handyman side of things, you know, your ability to do that kind of stuff, it is critical. And it, and it's advantageous. So, and sitting in an office cubicle, I'm sorry, if you don't have the hands on skills, if you don't got the calluses on your hands, you're going to struggle. Absolutely. You know, of course, you know, I always talk about the post-apocalyptic fiction that I listen to. But there's always the stereotypical, it's either computer programmer or an office jockey.

And they just, they never, they either never survive or they're just, you know, they're always that stereotypical, oh, I don't know how to do anything. I don't know what to do. And, you know, they're not used to working per se, at least that type of work. And you learn to work. So this is kind of an odd thing that I don't, I don't really tell a whole lot of people. So I was a journalist.

And I went from journalism to manual labor because I had to feed my family. And luckily, there was cash on the other side of that to where I could actually make a living and pay for mortgage, get food, all that kind of stuff. Not a whole lot different. If you want it bad enough, you will find a way to make it work. and you will pick up those skills, you just won't be at the top of the room. Right. And you're right, though. You do learn, it is funny.

You do learn how to work because I did sales and customer service for like the first decade of my working career. And I always seen these other like lobster fishing or the guys that work in the oil patch. I thought, man, they make good money. But I couldn't do that. Well, geez, as soon as I got out there and started, it gets addictive. You sleep better at night. You enjoy your help you feel better. less stress yeah right and some of the most fun i ever had was on a lobster boat not that i did

but we just i mean it was some of the hardest work ever uh snail creek says make wood ash out of lie soap as well or like one of those nights yeah wood ash make lie for soap that's what i was trying to say yeah there we go that's absolutely yeah know how to render your fats uh reading that going home series and we don't have it up here but he talked about a cut kudzu root that they would pull out of the ground and then they would beat it and make it into a powder and it was basically a flower extender or its own flour in general and the uh the acadians where i grew up they had a dish called raw pier and basically what it was was they would take potatoes and they would grate them so like through a cheese grater or something and then they would put

the potatoes in a cheese cloth and then they would press it out again you would need something like a cider press. And then all you have left is the almost, you know, semi-damp, but basically dry potato. But what's in that water that they would normally throw away is starch. So now you have, they had, you could use it for clothing. You could use it as a thickener, all of that. But then they would turn around and reconstitute the potato with chicken broth and it made a rapier pie, which is similar to shepherd's pie, but completely different at the same time. Incredible meal. But yes, the byproduct of squeezing out of potatoes was starch. So then you had that, you know, for thickening or like you said, you know, for cleaning clothes and that kind of stuff.

Yeah. And I mean, that's the kind of stuff that you, our grandparents all knew that. Right. They knew how to do this kind of stuff because it wasn't available over the counter. Supermarkets have only been around since about the 50s or 60s. And we've been spoiled rotten. Really. We have all been spoiled rotten.

And so I think, you know, this whole thing that we're talking about, it's very much, how do you say, not the norm? Timely, I guess you put it that way. Oh, yes. Considering the goings on in the world today. Yeah, yeah, I get it. Sure. Yeah, yeah. Because the knowledge of being able how to do this kind of knowledge of being able to know how to do these kind of things is critical.

And that's, I mean, that's kind of one of the things why we do what we do at the next generation show is like, hey, let's, let's talk about this stuff. Let's bring it back up because this isn't new. I mean, this is, this is a recurring song. We're getting back into it. In fact, I was at a museum last week. It was the down in Nampa, Idaho. There was the Warbirds Museum. And they had all kinds of exhibits there, but one of the things they had, which I thought was kind of weird in a in a military you know world war two style museum they had planes and helicopters and firearms and that kind of stuff but there were two wedding dresses there those wedding dresses were made out of silk okay that were obtained from parachutes from opposing forces at the time

wow silk was unattainable and the women here uh wanted to have a wedding in a silk dress right and a white dress. That's all they wanted. But the only way they could get it was through silk, which was essentially unavailable. And the only way that they could track it down was through parachutes, through the Japanese soldiers that they were able to, whatever, you know, track down or whatever.

And so these two wedding dresses were preserved. And essentially the personnel, the army or Marines or whoever else, was collected this this particular material took it back to France and had it sewn and fitted to the women that they wanted to marry and they would send it back home and then when they got back they got married that is cool I that's a much I'm sure everybody's heard the story about how in the Great Depression they would put prints on the flower sack bags because the women were always turning you know I mean they had to use everything everything, right? So they had flour sacks and potato sacks. They were turning them into shirts or

dresses for the girls. So the flower company's like, well, hey, let's put nice, bright colors on them so that people can turn them into clothing. And I, you know, I don't think, you know, if you tried to use a Robin Hood flower bag today, you know, first time you went out in the rain, it would, you know, but there is stuff out there that you can scrounge and like you said, turn around and turn it into something. Yeah. Absolutely. So what about all of the the stuff. Because originally I had the idea about talking about post-apocalyptic transport.

And then I was like, yeah, but then we got talking about scrounging and salvaging and we thought that might be a little more interesting topic. But even at that, if you got a bunch of 10 foot two-by-fours or some four-by-four posts, how the heck you're going to get those and point in a point B? I mean,

and really this is kind of where it comes down to your ability to understand leverage and the wheel. Yep. You know, if you have a rickshaw. I had that on my list. Yeah. I mean, something as simple as a rickshaw can get you a lot of materials very fast, a wheelbarrow.

I think that was mentioned earlier. You know, I think like some of the along the lines of what I'm kind of working on now is like collecting bike wheels for the purpose of making like small carts. Okay. Whether they can be hauled by a bike or by hand. basically an oversized radio flyer you know what I mean yeah sure you know you can actually you know move materials by hand and that's something that a lot of people especially a lot of materials if you can move brick if you can move stone by hand it's it's pretty valuable the other thing is this is kind of an oddball one my wife is actually back to

Norway I believe or Switzerland where they were reindeer her murders. So they actually, you know, did the thing. They, they, they did whatever they did with reindeer. But the thing is, is you have the potential to use natural, um, resources to your advantage. And if you're not out killing everything you see, uh, you can go ahead and get your hands on some mule deer. And if you have, you know, a knack for tack or whatever it might be, you can, you can potentially wrangle a mule deer or something along those lines and be, able to to use that to your advantage. Another one that I thought of was dog sleds.

Not a whole lot of information on dog sleds out there, but I know my dogs are pretty lazy. I've tried strapping stuff to them. But if you have the right kind of breed, a well-trained dog or a set of dogs, you have the potential to move a lot of materials, and they will do anything for you. So, especially you up there, you know, what do you call on the, the, um, I'm drawing a blank. What's it called? The inner rod or the

I did rod. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't think my chihuahuas would get me very fair. Not my little. They would get on the sled and be like, all right, dad, pull me, you know? Yeah. But I think you were sneaking a peek at my notes because I had Rickshaw, I had sled in the wintertime,

I had a bike with a trailer. But so, okay, a few years back, we had to move a 600-pound ice machine. Basically two doors down. didn't have to go very far. And we really didn't have the equipment for doing it, but it basically had to go down a slope and then up the street to the next building. Anyway, we built a little tiny, not even a sled. It was basically just a sheet of plywood that we were able to, we made a ramp. So we slid it down the snow. But once we got it on the road, here in the wintertime, our roads

freeze solid. You know, they don't scrape them, right? So once we got it down onto the pavement, the two of us were basically able to push it with one finger each, a 600 pound ice machine. We pushed it basically the two doors down and right into the next building. Yep. So if you think about it, I did the same thing with my shed out front. I needed to move it. I waited until the ground froze. And then I was able to basically push and pull it on the ice, the what, 35 feet across my property, roughly where I wanted it.

So sometimes it's a matter of thinking about when the best time. Yeah, you know, like the ice road truckers. It's a way to take stuff in in the winter than it is in the summer because in the summer they have to fly it all in. Yep. Yeah. And when I worked in Selected Demolition, we used a machine that would blast adhesives off the floors. And in fact, essentially what it did was it shot steel, steel beads at the ground and then reclaimed them through a magnet system. but if you ever lost that shot man it was like no matter where you were it was a full

there was no friction because it's it was just like a skating rink so if you have something like that if you're trying to move something just a little bit you know steel shot just roundball or whatever it can be extremely effective and it's hard to find like we were using very small small shot. But if you have like a steel plate or some sort of solid surface to work with, you don't need to get it up very high. You just need to get it up enough to be able to get the steel shot underneath it. And then you can roll it just like an Egyptian roller where you put a roller and move it a

little bit and then pull a roller from the back and move it to the front and keep going. I mean, a PVC pipe, copper pipe. I've been there, done that. And then, like, because I work by myself almost all the time. And you have to come up with ideas, right? And when I moved my shed, it was, okay, I used a crowbar to pry up the end a little bit. And then I put a wooden pole under one side and then lift at the other side and pushed it in. And then you just, you know, and then eventually you get to the point where like the tipping point, right?

So you get enough of those under there that as soon as you, you push it a little further, it drops up onto the rollers. It does all the work for you. Yep. And that's just it. I mean, I do a lot of work by myself too here. I mean, it's calling around to help me, but not always. And, you know, if you got to move, if you got to move something heavy, you got to have the tools to do it and you got to know where to stand, where not to stand, you know, how to handle stuff, how to rig stuff. And I tell you, if someone, for example, we were talking about someone from an office environment, if you work in an office, environment all day long, take the time to learn how to rig.

Learn how to lift thing with rope, with pulleys, understand how weights work, how to rig things, and I swear to God, you will have a job anywhere you go. And it's not something that will interfere with your daily routine. Nobody has to know what you're doing. You can figure it out on your own. Understand the way of winches and pulleys, like JS says in chat in the comments. because it is if they talk about force multipliers knowing how to run a pulley and knowing how to run winches, those are force multipliers. And you've really got to, it's something that people don't really understand anymore because they're like, oh, I'll just hit the button on the winch.

Yeah. And I'll be able to make it lift or all, you know, push the control on the forklift or the backhoe or whatever it might be. But they never had any of this stuff 100 years ago, folks. they had ropes and pulleys. Like the snatch blocks, you know? Snash blocks. Yep. Dad used to have some of those when they, they used to pack their hay loose in the burn.

And they had just two forks that would come down and they would jam it together. And then they would pull it. And it was just like, I think, I guess like a snatch block or whatever. You know, there was three or four pulleys in there and it would just, it multiplied, it lifted it up. And oh, and that's like magic. I don't even have a real good grasp of that kind of thing. It's pretty amazing. I mean, really, so like I've got a canopy for my truck.

It's an eight footbed, and it weighs probably close to 300 pounds. And I mean, silk and wet, I might weigh 150. And I can lift that by myself off of my truck using a pulley. And I've done it before. And the thing is, is if you know how that works, you can perform work. and if you have that knowledge upstairs, you can provide value to wherever you go. There's a guy on YouTube.

I want to say I might have seen him on unsolved mysteries first, but it might not have been unsolved mysteries first, but he basically, somewhere in the Midwest, and he would, I remember if it was Stonehenge or pyramids, but anyway, he basically was reinventing the way they moved all those old stones. And he was showing how putting a, a pebble in the right spot under these rocks. And these were like, you know,

10, 20 ton slabs of granite. And he was able to just push him by hand. And it was, it was like magic. I'm like a little kid in a candy store. Yeah. And stuff. Yeah, I know.

And he really kind of, I mean, that's the thing is this is, the physics are there. But the knowledge isn't. The widespread knowledge isn't. Yeah. It's almost,

almost non-existent. You know, for something that, at least, and I don't want this to sound sexist, but at least the male population would have had an understanding of that 100 years ago. Now almost nobody does. Excuse me. Male or female.

Right. And it was just a, you know, what do you? Just a fact of life back then. But at least enough people were passing the information on that you would know. But man, I wouldn't, I wouldn't know. When's the last time in a day-to-day life when you would actually even be exposed to a manual pulley or a manual wench? maybe a clothes line but who even uses those anymore and they're really just something for rolling on right

right man yeah i don't i don't know i it's kind of cool but so what about um we'll touch on these other ones quick but i uh like no electricity versus say limited electricity right like we talked about hand tools and stuff maybe we'll just maybe talk more about the importance of i guess again the 19th century mindset and hand tools where where you're going to get them what you're going to use that kind of stuff. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the stuff that we use now requires electricity. And if you look into it, I mean, it's significant. I mean, what we're doing right now requires electricity. If anyone ever wants to see this podcast, you know, in an apocalyptic environment, they're going to have to use electricity to be able to see it, to hear it, whatever it might be. So when you cut all

that away, what you're left with are the tools at your disposal, which is anything that's written or something that is tangible that you can physically manipulate to perform the same amount of work, like a pulley versus a winch. But I think that if you have the ability, if you have the mindset to be able to generate and distribute electricity, that is marketable. Oh, definitely. Yes. Yeah, like is mentioned in chat, a woman. mill water power. We use a lot of hydroelectric power here in Washington State, and there were counties that, in fact, there still are up north, that have basically communities that are powered by the local hydroelectric facility for free, you know, because there is no, there's a moratorium

on any sort of fees or anything that was established back in the turn of the century. So, you know, power companies cannot take their power. power companies cannot, you know, absorb their power. They cannot sell that power because of their forward thinking. They were like, we want to be able to provide power to the community on this river with this hydro facility that we own as a community. So your ability and hydroelectric power is something that is pretty amazing to me. I've worked a lot in hydroelectric facilities. I mean, walking on the generator floor is just unbelievable.

you can feel your heart vibrating just because of the energy that exists within those spaces. And it's like something out of a sci-fi movie. It's like it's not even real. And especially when these people were building these things back in the turn of the century in 1902, 1920, and they're still running. They're still providing power for us today. On a smaller scale, go ahead. I just can say like the Hoover Dam. Yeah.

I mean, that's going on 100 years old now. And how could you, anyway, yeah, but yeah, go ahead. Yes. On a smaller scale, if you have the ability to harness and manipulate power, even on a small scale, that is a marketable skill. And it is something that you could potentially use to get you through from one point to another. Communications. When I went to this, this, what do you call it? museum. I couldn't understand why they had a kite in the window of this one particular exhibit until I realized what it was connected to. A radio.

Right. Yeah. They run a kite up with a small copper wire lead that essentially turn into an antenna. So they'd send a kite up. They'd just control the kite and they could communicate across vast distances with nothing more than a small piece of copper wire and a, what do you call them? Like a, trench radio. Wow. Sure. So, I mean, if you're careful and you understand how things work, you know, you can use these types of things to your advantage. People today don't understand how electricity works. Yeah. Right. And we just, we just discovered, you know, the importance of electricity, not, you know, not even 100 years ago. Yeah. And, and kind of developed it, but now we're already past that point. I mean, people, not only, do you not understand how it works, you don't understand how to recreate it or how to develop it in a lot of scenarios. And we'll get to the point where, well, like the, I think it's the Saturn rocket.

I don't know if you've ever heard the story about the anyway. So basically they can't recreate, even if they wanted to. The, the, so the, it's not that they don't have the plans to build one of those again from back in the 60s or 70s. It's that the people with the skills that knew how to do that don't exist anymore. And the tools to take advantage of those skills basically don't exist anymore either. So even though they have the plans on paper, there's nobody there with the skills or the tools or the know-how to do that. And I watched again another great video on it. But it's crazy how stuff can get lost. And I was thinking JS talked about like a small DIY windmill or water power. Here's an idea. You could be one of two things. Either you could offer a,

you know, you could have infinite batteries at that point. Because if you had rechargeable AA batteries, you could either have people bring their dead batteries to you and recharge them for them or you could, you know, do a battery swap system. Like the old milkman would bring, you know, the, he'd take the empty jugs home with him and drop off fresh milk. Well, you could go to people's houses, pick up their dead batteries and drop off fresh ones for them. And that would be a way to get your power out to people without needing to build an infrastructure. Yeah. Well, even knowing how to build a battery. I mean, a battery is basically just resistance between lead plates through a electrolyte solution. I mean, it's a basic concept, but it's not

something that you're going to learn in public education systems. Well, here in Alberta, at one point, I really need to dig into this more. But at one point, a lot of of houses had homemade or makeshift battery banks in their homes and they were basically, I think they would buy the parts and assemble them there. I don't know a lot about it, but basically just using windmills to store the power. Of course, it was basically just to light one or two light bulbs or things. But I know a guy here in town whose grandmother had a setup like that. And it usually set in the basement like outside the cistern because they had like storage places

for water too. But yeah, I got to dig into that more because that to me is super intriguing. I don't have to fill the battery. Well, in windmills themselves, I mean, you good luck trying to find one these days. I've seen them before. But people don't realize that windmills were actually a staple on pretty much every homestead to be able to provide a pump system to be able to draw water up to a well or you know even a small amount of electricity so it's pretty i mean it's pretty cool um to think what our ancestors were able to develop and come up with with basic understanding of electricity or concepts like that whereas today you go tell a teenager how to you know it says something like or even a grown adult i mean i i i could see how it might work but if you told me to go

build a windmill and make it do something it would be a pretty rough project you're basically rebuilding the windmill at that point. Yeah, you're reinventing the wheel. You know, so yeah, so you're basically out there. You're like, okay, well, what do I have? Okay, well, I have some thin metal. So let's cut some thin metal. Maybe, you know, instead of, you know, stepping on the shoulders of everybody that came before you,

you're now needing to figure out the tilt of the blades, you know, that what kind of ball bearing system or gear or bearing system will work in the center, what you can use to capture the power like yeah instead of basically like we do you know we pick up the cell phone and talk on it we don't know how to build a cell phone or a cell phone infrastructure or the you know niacad or lithium ion batteries that are in it or you know all that's already gone it um one of my favorite philosophers is Canadian Marshall McLuhan and he always talked about how when humanity learned to shoot a gun, they forgot how to fire a bow and arrow.

And basically, every time we learn a new skill, the old skills were lost. And I love that idea, you know? It's true. It's kind of heartbreaking, but it is true. But I guess it's kind of,

I don't know, it's like the Library of Alexandria, you know, what was lost there, right? So any final thought? We've been an hour and a half. I know, it goes quick. Every time we do this,

it's great. Yeah, we'll do it. other one. I got ideas of maybe a prepper library episode down the road, like essential prepper books. I know if you'd be up for that, I'm sure you would. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. You know, you did have one thing that you wanted to talk about was an example of movies. Hmm. Oh, yeah, I'm okay. I mean, I don't, I don't mind. I think this is probably something that's pretty cool because I think a lot of people can relate to these things and absorb them quickly in a short period of time.

And especially if you have a prepper mindset and you approach a movie as that, you know, with that in mind, you can see the things in that movie. And in fact, there was one that I watched just last week while I was on the road. That's one of my all-time favorites because of how I guess accurate, I think it would be. I mean, it's still Hollywood, but there are some things in there that are very accurate. There's a couple of them that I really enjoy. but the one in particular is the book of Eli. Oh, yes, I love that movie.

Yeah, this is one with Denzel Washington, and there's some things that happen in that movie that are very true to life, I think, especially with regard to the value of objects, the value of, you know, personal ideology and information, exactly. And kind of how that works. like what what you would have to do to survive and be able to survive in a world like that.

Another one that's probably not as common, but is something that I really thought was valuable, was a book called or a movie called No Country for Old Men. Oh, I love, yeah. Yeah, go ahead. I'm trying to think of how you would. Anyway, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a book by Cormac McCarthy. And Cormac McCarthy is also the guy who wrote the,

the road. He also wrote a book called Blood Meridian. And Blood Meridian didn't come out into a movie yet. But if it ever does, that is going to be the survival movie of the century. I have never read his stuff. Yeah. The road depressed me. It is hard.

It is so, oh, my God. I love the movie. But it is, if you have kids, it's bad way. It's tough. Oh, anyway, keep, yeah, keep. But, yeah, no country for old men was a little bit different. but the reason, because the road was a good one, and you kind of mentioned that as a survival movie, of course,

a post-pocalyptic, it was designed for that, but no country for old men was a little bit different because you start to see, you know, what this guy does to survive as the criminal. Yeah. And if you are on that side, or if you, let's say you weren't a criminal, you're just trying to escape someone who's coming after you,

you've realized the value of, knowing how to read people and knowing how to protect yourself, how to heal yourself, how to do these kinds of things. Castaway was another one that I had to because that's a little bit older, but you kind of realize what he does to survive. That's, I mean, again, they're all Hollywood, but the concept of using a, you know, an ice skate to be able to have function, you know, have a tool, have a dental equipment, whatever it is, you know, all the cross everything, to be able to create courtage and

and things like that and realize that things, objects are just objects. They are what they are based on what people advertise them to be. But in a world where things have fallen apart, a soccer ball isn't just a soccer ball anymore or volleyball or whatever it was. It's your friend. It's your friend. Yeah. And it's your mental stability.

you know, it's your ability to survive in some cases. And I don't think people realize how much of an impact something as small as an object has on your ability to survive. I know you mentioned. I got to go back and rewatch Castaway now that you mention it because, my God, is that not a, I think for, I think the key in that one is grit. Like he, he has the mental, I think most people would have just curled up and died, right? But yeah, yeah, sorry, I cut you off again. No, you're fine. Yeah.

And then there's, so if I had, I mean, if I could leave with one thing on this, because I know I don't want to take up too much of your time. And I don't know the audience is probably like, you can do a whole one on movies if you want. I do a lot of episodes on movies. Movies and books for sure. There is a book out there called Man's Search for Meaning. It's by a guy named Victor Frankel, F-R-A-N-K-L, Frankl. He was a Holocaust survivor, and he started an entire form of psychology called Logotherapy.

I learned about this guy when I was in college, and I was like, okay, you know, whatever, here we go. Another Holocaust story. I really have no, I don't have the emotional capacity to take on more of this right now. But the truth is the concept behind Logotherapy is that if you have a will to survive, regardless of the environment, you will survive. If you lose that will to survive, you will not survive. And we were talking a little bit earlier about, you know, currency and, you know, how much you have. Well, when your gold fillings are getting pulled out of your head because of the value of the gold and your ability to have a skill set,

depends on your ability to survive, you realize how quickly things become important, like how quickly, you know, you can separate yourself from everything else that surrounds you, no matter how dark it is. And what he found through the course of this book, or through the course of this life experience, was that as long as someone had something to live for, they would survive. If they had a, feeling that their family member was still alive somewhere, even though they couldn't be with them, they would survive. But as soon as they lost that feeling, as soon as they lost that sense of hope, they would get sick. They would fall ill. They would lose sight, essentially, and they would

be gone within a matter of weeks. And this developed after the Holocaust into an entire form of psychotherapy called Logotherapy, which is basically like find that thing, find that thing that that helps you to survive and hold it, hold on to it because just because you say you're a doctor doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, you're able of performing the same tasks as a medical doctor. But in the right environment, you know, saying that you're a doctor might actually be able to get you one more loaf of bread, you know, or keep you from going into the smoke chambers. So, I mean, I guess if there's anything out there, if there's anybody out there who really wants

to know what it's like to survive, you know, an environment like that, we can talk about it all day long. We can say what we would do and how we would act, but the truth is nobody can tell. Yeah. You know, you need, you, I can't tell you how to survive in an environment like that, but this guy can because he lived it.

He survived it and he saw the connections between the people that were surviving and the people that weren't. And he was able to draw a thread between them and realize that, hey, look, the people that are actually able to make it through are the ones who have hope. So I will, I'll get the name and everything from you after and I'll put it in the show notes

because I, I got to give that a read. I asked Dave Jones one day because he was talking about, you know, basically, you know, staying calm under fire. How do you develop that? And I asked him, I said, how do you do it? And he says, well, the only way to do it is to be exposed to it, you know? He's like, the only way to stay calm under pressure and under, in disasters is to be exposed

to disasters and learn how to stay calm. Yeah. You asshole, but no, he's right, 100%. That's true. Talk to an EMT. Their first week on the job is a, you know, shit show. But after a year or two, they'll be able to talk anybody off a ledge and make sure that they're home safe, you know. That's cool.

I like that. I think that's a good place to close, Ryan. That was an awesome. Yeah. So you've been on here before, but tell everybody how they can find you, where they can find you. You plug your, make sure you tell them about stasis, all that stuff. Okay. Yeah.

So I'm Ryan Buford. I'm with The Next Generation Show over at Prepar Broadcasting. network. Let's see. I've got all kinds of stuff over at tactical torture.com. Over there, you're going to find our podcast, archives, and all the kind of information on that and product reviews and stuff like that. But if you are interested, we started a business here at the beginning of the year with freeze drying food. So we started mostly with Washington apples. And so and we shipped all over the continental United States. We'll work into Canada as it goes,

and we'll do what we can to send some stuff down with you to the, oh, what's it called with? Oh, to Nicole? Nicole sauce is... They're living free in Tennessee. Right, hurry van down there. But essentially over at stasis. VIP, we do have free stride Apple products that we send out to folks.

And hopefully, you know, folks are paying attention to what's happening right now. We were actually invited to speak on freeze drying at PreparCamp this year. So we're going to be doing a presentation on freeze drying and, you know, how to do it, the logistics of it, finances. And I'm also going to include a section on what to do in a ShtF scenario to where you can find freeze dryers. because there are opportunities, and I'm going to save that for the folks over at PreparA. Yeah, yeah. To be able to obtain freeze drying equipment for food processing and making sure this stuff lasts. I got to tell you, it's pretty amazing.

All the things that we've been doing, it has all been because of preparedness. And, you know, building businesses and reaching out to people, all of it has been valuable. and hopefully folks out there are gaining value in what we're sharing when it comes to preparedness. So if you're interested in supporting our work and what we do, head on over to stasis.vip. I package and ship the orders myself. Most of the stuff that I have is apples that are grown right here in Washington State, and they're preserved in a way that when you get them, it's just like you got them off the tree. happy to help out anybody.

I love it. And I never miss an episode of the Next Generation podcast, guys. No, I'm not, I know, that's not, I'm not just blowing smoke up, you know, I literally went, you know, my first episode that I pick out of the, you know, if I've gone four or five days of stuff and I look and I'm like, okay, I got five episodes on PBN to listen to. The first one's always you and Colin because that's awesome. We think a lot of like and I, you always challenge me with ideas that you have and I always appreciate that. Yeah. Well, that's kind of like what we'd like to do. I mean, when I started the podcast, it was about challenging the ideas and the concepts that people have already established. You know, whether you were new at preparedness or your, you know, in an old hat, there's always something to learn.

Yes. And I, myself, too. I mean, when Colin and I do these shows, we research stuff all the time. And I learn just as much as I share on these shows. It's pretty amazing, really. And I thought I was a prepper when I started the shows. And I tell you, I've learned more just doing podcasting than actually, you know, living life for what it's worth. Absolutely. Cool.

Well, thanks, Ryan. I appreciate it. This was another excellent one. And we'll have you back. You'll set the record for having the most appearances on the workshop. Hey, all right, I'll take it. Yeah, but if you want to hang around for one quick second in the background, I'll close things down.

Sounds good. Cool. Thanks, everybody. Appreciate the time. Hope you and had a good time. All right, guys, what can I say? There's no way to close it better than Ryan did. I love having him on here.

We'll have him back because I enjoy having conversations with him, and he always brings his A game. So, again, like I said, thank you. If you guys want to know what's coming up this week, Fireside Freedom, Tuesday evening, you can catch me 6 p.m. Mountain time. We're going to talk about staying disciplined, how you get things done when you don't feel like getting things done, basically just staying the line of discipline. Thursday night's going to be repairedness. That'll be 7 o'clock mountain time. I'm going to

talk about cleaning supplies. And you might say, Tim, that sounds awfully boring. Well, I'm going to share with you a lot of tips and my go-to products because I get asked all the time. So that'll be a good one. And then next Sunday evening, I got Nate LeMaster. And no, sorry, native, I mispronounce your last name, I apologize. Him and Aaron run the Two Chicks podcast, and he's going to come on talking about emergency comms, hand radio, and that kind of stuff. So anyway, guys, I tell you every single week, but you could spend your time anywhere and you choose to come and hang out in the workshop for an hour and a half on Sunday evening,

so thank you. And as always, stay happy, stay healthy, and have a great week.