Today’s article concludes the seven Home Preparedness skills I previously identified as part of the thirteen skills I want to learn or improve upon in 2013 as part of the 13Skills.com 13-in-13 Challenge. Composting and Beer Brewing, the skills I’m going to talk about today, have very little to do with each other however they both fall into the “because I want to” category as opposed to the “must have/learn” category. Remember, it’s not always about work and being prepared…sometimes it’s just about learning something for the sake of learning it!
Beer Brewing
Yeah, I know that one of my skills for 2013 is getting back into good shape. And I fully intend to meet that objective. BUT, that doesn’t mean I don’t intend to have an adult beverage now and again, nor does brewing beer mean I’m going to accelerate my ability to consume beer. I already consider myself an expert at that skill!
Brewing beer, to me anyway, will be a relaxing skill which will produce a product I will enjoy both creating and consuming. As many of you know, I enjoy a good BBQ now and again and nothing goes better with BBQ than beer. I look forward to learning how to create different flavors of beer to match the many different flavors of BBQ I create. But beer brewing isn’t a skill set solely for my enjoyment. In a pinch, beer can be a tradable commodity. Not only that, but a good beer can be a comforting beverage in trying times.
Composting
My family and I have had a small garden in our backyard ever since we bought the house about six years ago. At first, we had a fairly large garden which contained peppers, cucumbers, broccoli, tomatoes and even corn. Over the years, the kids’ toys have taken over the yard and the garden has been downsized, but we’re still going strong growing our own veggies.
A few years ago, I made some of the soil outlined in Mel Bartholomew’s All New Square Foot Gardening. This soil has served us well but it’s time to refill the garden a little. Rather than making a new batch of soil as described in the book, I’m interested in ‘rolling my own’ and using some of our kitchen and yard waste to build our own soil. By learning how to make my own compost, I make sure that I can create solid soil for growing food should I not be able to purchase the ingredients at a local gardening store.
Learning
I’ll come out and say right now that I have no knowledge of either one of these skills, so I’m building my capabilities from scratch. I need to research each skill and determine a set of learning steps to go through. Much like my canning and long-term food storage skills, I plan on using a bunch of different resources including websites and the library to build my knowledge base. The bottom-line goal for these two skill sets is to learn the basics, not become an expert.
Measurable Goals
As always, defined and measurable goals will be used to gauge my process and successful completion. With that thought in mind, I’ve identified the following goals for these skills sets:
- Research compost requirements and create material list by April 1, 2013
- Research beer brewing requirement and create material list by April 15, 2013
- Purchase compost equipment by May 1, 2013
- Purchase beer brewing equipment by May 15, 2013
- Implement compost plan by June 1, 2013
- Brew first batch of beer by July 1, 2013
- Create long-term plan for composting and beer brewing by October 1, 2013
.Again, much like my canning and long-term food storage skill sets, I have used a progressive approach to learning about beer brewing and composting. The initial stages are learning phases, followed by implementing what I learned. By iterating the learn and implementation processes, I should be able to have a solid understanding of both skills sets.
These two skills wrap up the last skills in my Home Preparedness skill set. Tomorrow I will be starting to explore the Outdoor Skills I’ll be exploring and will finish this series of introduction posts with the Protection skills I plan on working on. Stay on the lookout for these posts as well as my January 1 post which will outline my workout plan for January!
photo credit: Charlie Essers via photopin cc
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