Skills to learn

You want skills to save you money, and skills to earn you money. Both are valuable.

You have basic mechanics and welding - brush up on them.
Small and large motor, motor vehicle and mechanical maintenance.
Basic building - carpentry, masonry, plumbing, electrical, cement work.

Advanced first aid, EMT, marksman, fireman.
If you can manage it, armory work and gunsmithing.

Community and state college by correspondence and on-line - agriculture, agronomy, animal husbandry, horticulture, viticulture, farm and rural business management. This is useful not only for running your land and business, but for getting business loans.
Basic biology degree that would get you into pathology or X-ray lab - always work available, like nursing, but without having to take the manure that nurses get handed these days.
Consider criminal justice and police courses - you may or may not think that would be a good way of earning off-farm income. In any case, being able to qualify as a volunteer MAY have some value to you.

Down here, a basic biology degree will get you accepted into xray or lab school. It will not get you a job as an entry level tech.

And be aware, all school slots are competitive.

Patience, perseverance and prayer. The three most important skills you will need.

As everyone has said you need to know about everything and what you don't know you will figure out. Every piece of land is different and you never know what problem will come up next. Get to know your niegbors, they can be a world of information. I learned how to raise Goats, Sheep, Chickens and Ducks from my nieghbors, also how to keep my pastures productive. 40+ years ago we moved in to our first little farm and we got to know the 70+ year old nieghbor next door, he would come over everyday to tell me that I was doing whatever wrong. I learned so much from him and all the other nieghbors. I thank them all.

If you ever plan to heat with wood- learn how to split and stack cordwood and learn how to start a fire in the stove you have.

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They shall all sit under their own vines and their own fig trees, and they shall live in peace and unafraid. Mica 4:4

Why? Anything you could want to know is in a book or online. Building a house requires an attention to detail and specifics, but it's hardly rocket science. I'm a school teacher for heaven's sake, but I've designed and built our house almost entirely by myself.


To skills, I agree with pretty much everyone else's lists and would just add, don't get hung up in that whole "homesteading" thing.
People should know these things just because they're alive and productive!

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop