Primitive Skills - About Me

My Name
   is Mike Beckett and I live in Tacoma, Washington USA. I'm 27 years old, married, with 5 kids.............4 are foster children and 1 is my step-daughter. What's more, my wife is due to give birth to our new baby boy on December 1st!! That'll make 6 kids!! Get any more and I'll have to trade in the Chevy and get a bus!
So I guess you could say that I like kids, I am their primary care giver, my wife has a full-time job and my job is the children and keeping the house in order.
   I am a christian, I believe firmly in the bible, I base my moral code on the bible and I strongly believe that Jesus came to earth and died so that we can have a hope of being seen as clean in gods eyes. I know that sounds all cliche and really, truthfully, people do overuse and abuse the "Jesus" story. I in no way see myself as any "better" than anyone else, we are all individuals with a personal relationship with Jehovah God and we all sin, some peoples sins are open and blatantly visible and others are hidden away in dark closets. It is Jehovah's job to judge.

Forth Love
So moving right along we come to my forth love in life, if you're confused about my first 3 loves, read above and count with your fingers :)
My number 4 love in life is the earth and primitive skills. I love the idea that the earth provides everything we need in a very basic form. What I mean by that, is, todays food can go through a myriad of processes to get to our table. Not just our food but also our clothes, shelters, water, fire.   Fire, you say? Well seriously think about it, most people start a fire with either a match or a lighter . Where do matches and lighters come from, how are they made, what are they made out of, where do those materials come from, how are those materials put together and how are they shipped and finally unpacked, displayed on a shelf, advertised and purchased? That's a freaking lot of processes for something as basic as fire!
   As I said above and I'll repeat for emphasis, the earth provides everything we need while only requiring a minimum of processes. Food can often go from plant to mouth, or plant to boiling water to mouth or plant to powder to heat to mouth.
Obviously I'm preaching to the choir because you're here at this site because you already have an interest in primitive skills and you have your own reasons for that.
I guess something else that needs to be said is, I'm not some master primitive skills man who can live in the booneys with nothing but a loin cloth and a sharp piece of flint, build a two story shelter with sticks, track deer for miles with my hands tied behind my back and blindfolded or take down a bear with sharp finger nails and secret indian ninja moves.
Nope that's not me, I'm just an average guy who has an above average love for walking through the woods beating my own trails. I have an interest in the plants I walk by and whether or not they're edible or medicinal. I see tracks and scat and wonder who made them and when. I notice the weather and hope I can see and learn its patterns. I enjoy the seasons and how it effects the forest. I get thirsty and think about where to find the nearest water source and whether or not it needs filtering and how. It rains and I look for shelter and figure how to make some. It gets cold and I practice fire by friction. There's no magic here, just me and my human interest in the basic simplicity of things.

Primitive Skills Links the website
So now we come to this website, it basically came about because I found it some what annoying to come on the internet and try to find what I wanted to read, yes the internet has all the info but if you don't know how to find it then well it's useless. So as I found what I was looking for I cataloged it so others don't have to look so hard! Therefore making my efforts seem so much more productive!

The Blog
This is a new venture for me, it came about for a few reasons. Its here to encourage me and keep me motivated to continue working and updating the website and also to help encourage others to continue their interest in primitive skills. Maybe with a daily fix of random primitive skills information it'll keep the spark alive and glowing and soon burst into flames. Then the flames will rapidly expand and eat up every bit of info they can get their hands on.... oh and don't forget to practice. The day you need a skill for real is the day you realize, hmm, maybe I should have tried this before.

P.s. After reading this my wife says I'm not being totally truthful here, apparently I failed to mention that I'm a dork.........