What YourGrandfather KnewThat You Don't.
New chapters every Thursday.
Before the internet told you what to eat, before the grid told you when to sleep, there were people who simply knew. They knew which roots kept a family through January. They knew how to read a sky that was about to turn. They knew, because forgetting wasn't an option.
Kindling is a weekly podcast recovering those skills — drawn from grandmothers who canned without recipes, homesteaders who built their own water systems, and field manuals written before electricity was assumed. Not survival as fear. Survival as memory.
The first episode drops soon. Pull up a chair.
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"The root cellar was dug in August. By November, it had fed us through the worst winter in thirty years."
How a podcast starts
with a grandmother's recipe box.
Marcus Webb
Grew up off-grid in rural Vermont. Now teaches what he almost forgot.
"My mother never wrote down how to make her brine. She said if you had to write it down, you hadn't learned it yet."
It started with a recipe box and a power outage.
In January 2024, a nor'easter knocked out power to Marcus's neighborhood for eleven days. His neighbors ran to stores that had already emptied. He opened his grandmother's recipe box — the one with cards stained by decades of use — and fed his family from what was already in the house.
"I realized I knew things most people my age had never been taught. And I knew people who knew far more than me. That's when I started making calls."
Bowline Knot
"The knot that doesn't slip. Learn it once, remember it always."
Dorothy Haines, 84. Still canning.
She's put up over 400 jars this year. Her water-bath canning method hasn't changed since 1971, and her pantry could feed a family of four for three months. She was Marcus's first call.
"This isn't about fear. It's about remembering who we were before we decided forgetting was progress."
Sambucus nigra · Elderberry
Every part edible when prepared correctly. Every part toxic when not.
94%
of traditional food preservation skills lost in two generations
11days
average American household food supply
Stories that could save your life.
"The people who made it through weren't the ones with the most gear. They were the ones who'd been paying attention for thirty years."
— Cpl. James Rourke (Ret.)
12 Skills We've Forgotten
- 01Pressure canning without a recipe
- 02Reading weather without a device
- 03Water storage math for your family
- 04Building a root cellar in a weekend
- 05Fire-starting in wet conditions
- 06Seed saving across seasons
+ 6 more in the free PDF guide ↓
Save My Seat at the Fire.
Be among the first to hear the stories that could change how your family weathers what's coming. No spam — just a note when the fire's lit.
The community already gathering at the fire.
I've been quietly building a three-month food supply for two years. My wife thinks I'm paranoid. Then she met Dorothy on this podcast and started asking me when we were getting a pressure canner.
Derek Paulson
Suburban dad, 41 · Denver, CO
Fourteen years in the Army and I still learned something from the water episode. The civilian perspective on grid-down water is almost always wrong. James Rourke fixed that in an hour.
Mike T.
Former Staff Sergeant · Fayetteville, NC
We bought five acres in 2022 with no idea what we were doing. This podcast is the curriculum we didn't know we needed. The canning episode alone saved our first harvest.
Amara & Josh Delacroix
First-gen homesteaders · Willamette Valley, OR
My grandfather ran a homestead through the Depression. I always assumed that knowledge died with him. Kindling is proving me wrong — it's still out there, if someone bothers to ask.
Carol Whitfield
Retired teacher, 68 · Appalachian Virginia
I keep a go-bag and I map routes on weekends. My neighbors think it's a hobby. After the first three episodes I realized it's the most reasonable thing I've ever done.
Raj Anand
Former Navy, now engineer · Seattle, WA
The episode on root cellars made me realize my basement has been wasted space for fifteen years. We're digging in spring.
Tom & Caitlin Brennan
5-acre plot, first year · Central Vermont
2,400+
On the waitlist
Suburban dads, former military, homesteaders, and grandmothers who want their knowledge heard.
The next chapter hasn't
been written yet.
Every person on the waitlist is already part of this story. The community that forms before the first episode drops is the community that shapes what comes after it.
Pull up a chair. The fire's almost ready.
Save My Seat at the Fire.
Be among the first to hear the stories that could change how your family weathers what's coming. No spam — just a note when the fire's lit.