Sustainable, small-scale self-sufficiency in harmony with man and nature. Make everything yourself with your own hands, heart and head.

About life (in spite) of nature, survival, self-sufficiency, making everything yourself, finding food, growing it, conserving, building, basic skills, materials, techniques... all knowledge to keep yourself simply alive, do you (still) have it?

If tomorrow the distribution of water and electricity breaks down, we cannot keep ourselves alive (for a longer time). We miss the required knowhow and techniques our ancestors had. We should try not to lose and spill, but secure this skills. That’s why we try to collect them here.

Industrial developments made us, especially in the West, increasingly dependent on producers and distributors.
We’re living on ready- made ​​meals and fast food, and even can’t make our own bread anymore.

Food, clothes, housing, water are imposed with the greatest possible profit. How and how accounted all this is made ​​and transported, we can’t check. We have everything in reach on shelves or with one mouse click. All year long, all kinds of vegetables, fruit and meat are available. But what if...

More than once, existing civilizations got lost. Solar storms, volcanic eruptions, environmental disasters, epidemics, lack of drinking water,...
As we want to go on with our life tomorrow, after the catastrophe, who will be able to start again from scratch the day after?
Who will still be alive after the next winter? Financial and IT specialists? Farmers and gardeners without fuel or chemicals? Eco boys with an allotment of 1 acre?

We try to collect all necessary (and perhaps already often forgotten) skills and knowledge on this site.
Those are pre- industrial home and garden tools and techniques to survive in and with nature... as a single person, a family or a community. To rebuild an acceptable life with nothing then our bare hands.
In the old days this knowledge was simply passed on from father to son. To gain a place in the increasingly complex society everyone nowadays had to specialize. We know more and more about less and less. Passing knowledge is concentrated in school education. And is often theoretical, narrow and not practical. Much knowledge is suppressed by new techniques, and is (almost) forgotten.

With ’search’ you can quickly look up any topic you want.
The main menu is always displayed on the right.
On the left you see the detailed components of the selected menu item.

We bring the real Old World to the New World.
Al content was written for my own situation: a temperate climate and rather good soil in mid west Europe, the Low Countries around the Rhine, Scheldt and Meuse rivers (mainly Belgium and the Netherlands, partly Germany). Described vegetables, trees, animals etc. are those you normally find here.

Is something missing on this site? Can't you find something essential? Then challenge me to add it ... (Do use the search function first.)