What do I mean by essential skills?

• Being able to identify trees, plants and animals, and there uses.
• Lighting fire without the aid of modern technology
• Knowing how to grow your own food. (Sarah's passion)
• Woodworking, specifically being able to creat basic items from felled trees using only hand tools. (my passion!)
• Being able to tie a range of useful knots.
• Using basic cutting tools proficiently (knife, axe, saw, etc...)

There are I'm sure lots of things I've not thought of and will later feel silly about, but that's half the fun of it!