I am going to work on the following skills inside this Winter:

basket-making
knitting
cordage-making
fish hook making
mushroom identification

Occasional outdoor forays will seek pine needles and willow branches for basketry, dogbane for cordage, mushrooms, and various wood for projects.

How about your Winter projects?

1) Be outside with the kids and wife as much as possible. Hiking, making a fire, treasure hunt, basically have a good time.

2) Train my knees so I can take 3 straight days of downhill skiing. Doing telemark turns with a knee that does not want any load when bent is kind of awkward... (I've just come over that, now I just need to train myself up again).

3) Some minor gear modification projects. I've just finished a better method for wearing the GPS pouch with the map pouch. The next projects include a water bottle holder on my backpack and a utility pouch which is easy to use with my backpack on (for the kids mittens, gloves, hats etc that suddenly I need to take care of in the middle of everything).

4) Building a PSK (well, the contents of my pack is essentially a big PSK, but I'm assembling a small one).

5) Get that old hand-cranked sewing machine working again (flee market bargain). It can sew through some pretty solid webbing, but I need to brush up on my skills of how I actually use that thing.

I am planning to construct a "garden building" this winter... probably 14'x20' ... used for storage/organization, plus potting bench, etc... .
I could have a ready-made building delivered from one of the local big-box stores or independent lots... but what's the fun in that?!

I hope to develop some carpentry skills with that project; with the hopes of constructing a larger Pole Barn next year.

Tuning my stable of bikes and scooters for bikejoring when it's not raining. No day is too cold for bikejoring here.

Wood carving. I've collected wood sculptures for years and in the last year started dabbling in carving my own small ones. Very relaxing.

Knots. I have a couple knot guides and want to become proficient with knots other than the one I use to tie my shoes.

Working on physical fitness. Learning GPS. Finding a lighter sleeping bag for summer camping. Starting seedlings for the garden. A few classes.

Hmmm ... let's see.

1) Evaluate and restock all survival kits (including First Aid Kits).
2) Evaluate all bladeware, clean and sharpen where necessary.
3) Practice firemaking skills with my son.
4) Practice other survival skills with my son, in particular the other items in his PSK and how they can be used.
5) Work on how to present survival skills/survival kits to my sons boy scout den (see this thread: http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=188989#Post188989 ).

That's all I can think of right now although I am sure I am missing something.

Saw Dagny's post after I posted. Ditto on knot tying. Also will be working on paracord braiding techniques.

Hopefully be able to work in my garage! Still lots to do.

Other winter projects include burning my extremely large burn piles to clear up the yard, and getting my cut trees in order to build something next spring/summer.

-Clean up my basement storage area and sell off unneeded items to fund other projects (PM me if you are looking for a survival knife).

-Have surgery on both my knees to allow me to enjoy the outdoors more in the future.

-Creat a PowerPoint Basic Wilderness Survival Presentation to deliver to groups when requested.

Mike

+1 on cleaning.

Improving my cooking skills.

Trying not to gain weight like I usually do every winter. That's the best thing I can do for my survival.