The Rugged Life

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Clint Emerson is the go-to expert for surviving the first minutes, hours, and days of a crisis. Now, in The Rugged Life, he works with modern homesteading experts to show you how to thrive over the long term by being prepared and self-sufficient.

You can live the Rugged Life completely off-the-grid by farming your own food and using the waste from your toilet for compost. You can also live it by adding solar panels to your home, keeping chickens and bees in your backyard, or starting a windowsill garden. Each of these homesteading and prepper long-term survival skills stand on their own, and taken together, they can help you design the independent life you want for yourself and your family.

• Be your own protector: Create a last-resort emergency plan; gather medicinal plants; protect against dangerous animals and threats; understand survival first aid

• Be your own provider: Hunt for game; make a gillnet; set snares; forage for wild foods; build a rabbit hutch; ice fish; butcher a pig; keep bees

• Be your own builder: Retrofit a van; set up solar, microhydro, and geothermal power; create a water catchment and filtration system; build a shipping container home

• Be your own farmer: Grow a victory garden; build a greenhouse; waffle garden to save space and resources; build a root cellar; can, dry, and store crops; operate a tractor

• Be your own homesteader: Make your own shampoo and face creams; pickle and ferment food; make natural bug spray and cleaning products; smoke meat; tan a hide