Hmmm, I can do most of the items on the list - now, how well is another story, lol!  I have a treadle sewing maching, but I can sew by hand in a pinch.  Can cook and can or preserve in some way most anything.  Dh and I can both hunt, if necessary, but only in a crisis - we're good shots but a bit sqeamish about shooting anything but targets and tin cans.  Dh is good at building emergency shelters and has a lot of outdoorsman knowledge, but we're not getting any younger and like some of the OP's, I have to wonder how long we could make it in a long-term emergency.  If access to food and shelter were good, I think we could go a long time, though.

I read another list years ago, and I wish i could remember where, but some of the questions were, Can you...

 - take orders
 - give orders
 - start a revolution
 - quell a revolution
 - deliver a baby
 - stitch a wound

...and on and on in that vein.  It was more a war-time list, but still very eye-opening.  I can take orders well and give them, too (just ask my dh!) and I'm not too squeamish about dressing wounds (less so than shooting my dinner, truth be told), but I'll leave the revolution part to the guys, lol.  And it's been my experience that babies pretty much bring themselves, barring complications, tho it's good if someone's there to catch them.  I think most women could bring a baby.  Maybe I'll hunt that list up, it was pretty exhaustive...Liz 

 

Interesting list! I'm not sure I could start a revolution, and truth be known, I might not want to quell one. As to the rest, I think I could, if needed. I know I can give orders, a little less certain about taking them.

Please post the list if you find it, that would be a good challenge 

1. Build a fire from scratch using only natural materials (matches or source of fire allowed)  - yes, I'm a girl scout
2. Gather and prepare a dish from wild foods - no
3. Wash and dry clothes without a machine of any kind.  - yes, not a favorite activity
4. Knit, crochet or otherwise create basic items like socks or blankets - yes
5. Cut hair - your own and/or someone else's - yes, but not stylishly
6. Kill and butcher livestock and/or wild animals for food (large or small)  - no, without butchers, I'd be a vegetarian
7. Use a solar oven to cook and heat water - yes, and camp stoves too
8. Can foods for storage - no
9. Dehydrate foods for storage  - no, but the concept sounds pretty simple
10. Stored foods in natural cold storage such as a cellar.   - no, but again it doesn't sound too difficult
11. Grown more than half of a year's supply of vegetables - no, but I'd like to
12. Make a garment by hand (without a sewing machine) - yes, but not something I'd willingly do
13. Dig a well - no, and I really don't see myself doing this one

Thankfully, I am also blessed with a good spacial ability and the ability to make just about anything. It may not be the best, but it will usually work. I enjoy making things and wish I was able to make a living in that way.

I'd like to add to the availability of water options:  catching rainwater.  It is best to have a tin roof, and of course you will need a cistern or barrels for the water to flow into from your gutters.  Living in very deep south Louisiana (as a transplant), I'm still a little surprised when I see the old-fashioned cisterns still sitting next to homes.  This was the primary method of obtaining drinking, cooking, washing, water for years and years in this area.  The bayous were often used as refuse dumps and couldn't be considered a safe place to obtain water.  My family has tried this method and it works pretty well, but we would always boil the water before we used it.  It does heat up the kitchen quite a bit.  I much prefer turning on the tap.

bourgr

Here's an anticdote re. kids not wanting to learn skills: 

We live rurally & were being visited by a teenaged 'city' niece during canning season.  I offered to teach the child how to can & got this reply, "Why would I can when we have grocery stores within 10 minutes of our house?"  Hmmm....guess that would pretty much negate soap making 101 too.

 

 

wimcc:

Here's an anticdote re. kids not wanting to learn skills: 

We live rurally & were being visited by a teenaged 'city' niece during canning season.  I offered to teach the child how to can & got this reply, "Why would I can when we have grocery stores within 10 minutes of our house?"  Hmmm....guess that would pretty much negate soap making 101 too.

That's the whole thing in a nutshell.  

I have done all but the killing part of 6 and I  do not knit, or crochet. I could make a blanket but not by knitting or crocheting. My husband is in about the same predicament that I am.

 In comment to kids not wanting to learn:

This is one advantage to having lived through post disaster times. I can remind them how hard it was and how much harder it could have been if we had been unable to do some things for ourselves. My teen daughter still balks but my son is very interested in learning survival skills and how to make things.

 

 

 

Brandy:

This is one advantage to having lived through post disaster times. I can remind them how hard it was and how much harder it could have been if we had been unable to do some things for ourselves.

That's probably the reason so many adults, even, aren't interested in learning basic skills. They can't imagine a world where they'd have to, because they've never been in a position to have to.  

Pat:

Interesting list! I'm not sure I could start a revolution, a

 

And what do you think your doing here and everywhere else you teach people how to get by with less?