Clothes pins and clothes line
Wooden laundry dryer rack
glass container I make sun tea in
scissors
A folding cart with wheels my sister bought me a few years ago. Makes transporting heavy objects much easier.

bubble wrap

I use it to help insulate the inside of windows.

~Tom

A knife. lol. I've seen people pull out big food processors to cut up one onion.

Along the same lines, I like a can opener. I'm surprised at the number of people who have electric can openers. It's one thing if you have a medical problem and cannot use manual tools, but if you can use them, you should.

A whisk. I should add that I am guilty on this one - using egg beaters when I can use a whisk. I used a whisk last night to make pudding for my kids, but only because I was too lazy to wash the egg beaters which were in the dishwasher. I'll have to be more conscious of this one.

A rake and/or broom. It drives me insane when my neighbor pulls out his leaf-blower (one of his many yard toys) to blow off his 8x10 deck. Come on! My husband can't understand why I prefer to rake our acre with it's fifty oaks rather than rent a monster leaf-blower.

A shovel. Again, my husband doesn't understand why I go out and shovel our 80-foot driveway instead of buying a snowblower.

Hand-held grass shears. Not as fast as a weed-whacker, obviously, but I prefer it. Of course, I have a fear of power tools, lol, especially ones that can cut off a body part.

:)
Dee

My reel mower. Couldn't sell me one of those noisy, stinky power mowers. :-)

Good thread. I had to think about this for a while.

Clothes line for sure.

Shovel - I just LOVE shoveling snow. I was given a snow blower years ago and only used it a couple of times. Shoveling snow is just so relaxing and quiet.

Reel mower also. I sold the gas one I had.

Salad spinner - Why pay more for prewashed greens when you can wash your own for less? Less packaging to throw away too.

Kevin

Here are a few more:

dishpan of water in front of the blower of the furnace or woodstove to humidify the house (no moving parts!)

nifty butter/cheese dish made of a marble base (stays cold by itself) and a heavy glass bell top to keep dairy at table temps.

I do a lot of slowcooking by bringing a pot of food to a boil, covering it, and wrapping the whole thing in a couple of towels. Come back in a few hours, and it is cooked!

Seraphima, what is a toasting fork?

Salad spinners also work well for doing "hand wash" laundry.

A fork & hoe instead of a roto-tiller.

A good kitchen knife.
A flexible silicone spatula - cleans out bowls, stirs hot and cold pans, flips pancakes, prods omelettes, stir fries -brilliant.
Hand mower.
Mouli legumes grinder/sieve.
Hand coffee grinder.
Rotary whisk.
Slad spinner.
Kitchen window (quieter than the extractor fan.)

Dee, I also HATE leaf blowers. They use one where I work to clear the steps. A person with a broom could do it in a fraction of the time and quietly too. Same applies to my neighbours power mower for his pocket size lawn. Ridiculous.

A toasting fork is a very long-handled three prong fork, usually made of iron. You put the slice of bread on it (putting the tines through it) and toast over an open fire. My grandmother's toasting fork is my favorite. The toast made over a real fire is far tastier than that made in an electric toaster!

If you have a fireplace or plan to bake in a woodstove, cast iron dutch ovens, with or without feet, are a wonderful tool. You can cook soups and such like any kettle, but can also use them to bake breads or cakes. On my grandmother's summer farm we had a huge woodstove, and we even heated flat irons to do the ironing on the woodstove. One set up the ironing board next to the stove, and then picked up the hot flatiron with a special handle, ironed until it cooled, then put it back on the stove and picked up another flatiron. That is how I learned to iron!

A pressure cooker,or several in different sizes, really saves time for cooking, and is the only way to safely can meat and fish. I can a couple of cases of salmon every summer, it's easy.

I love my pressure cooker.
Spray bottle is another favorite. Great for all sorts of good stuff, including spraying wrinkled clothes while on a hanger. If you do it the day before you plan to wear something you usually won't have wrinkles.
Great also for spraying soapy water on plants that have bugs on them you want to get rid of.
Homemade cloth bags for shopping. I took a paper bag and cut it apart to use as a pattern for mine, thus usng up some old fabric scraps.

In no particular order
salad spinner
wire whip(s) various sizes
garden fork - shovel
rags for everything
broom, dustpan and whisk-broom
non-electric can-opener
wooden spoons
knife sharpening steel
"Mother Nature" hair dryer (sun)
Cloth bags for shopping(I am known as the "bag Lady")

In an area where the electrical power is sometimes not dependable, you get green or else. LOL.

I can think of a few pretty quickly. My clothesline is the biggest. I even hang clothes in winter in my greenhouses. I keep a washboard under my pump and sometimes if I need just a few things done, get it out and use it. My pitcher pump is another one I use daily. We have spring water and it's pumped to the household by electric. When the power is out, so is the water source, unless you want to walk to the springhead with a bucket. So, when we remodled the kitchen, back in went a hand powered water pump. It's the same water as from the system, only it comes out faster.

My whisk, I hate electic mixers. I use a knife steel and stone too. I don't own an electric can opener. I use a broom and mop, not a vacuum or swifter. We also open and shut windows and blinds to let in light/cool air. No air conditioner. When the weather is not severe, we turn on an old fashioned gas grate in the kitchen and it heats just the part of the house where we are most of the time, and not the unused rooms.

I seldom use a gas tiller for my food gardens. I have an old push cultivator and unless I get very behind in my weeding, it works just great.

I use a flock of chickens and a compost pile instead of a garbage disposal.

I don't use a hair dryer, either.

I even have a treadle sewing machine and butter churn. Both of which get used. Now, if I could only figure out how to power my puter with a treadle.

Okay here goes:

*Clothesline (this is a popular one and for good reason!)
*Whisk
*Several large trays I move all kinds of stuff around on
*A push cart that was hand built and is low to the ground - great for moving all sorts of things when doing yard work!
*My handed down from my grandmother - well seasoned cast
iron skillet
*salad spinner - although sometimes I just lay my greens (from my garden) out on a tea towel and lay another on top to soak up extra moisture after washing.
*Hardware cloth - I use this everywhere- I make a circle and grow snow peas on the sides - fence in delicate perennial seedlings to keep my cats away from them and use in a bunch of other ways. I have several 6 foot or so pieces and it stays outside all year and dosen't rust.
* Grass shears - someone else mentioned these. I just got a pair last autumn (on clearance :) and I love to use them around flower beds to keep anyone using the weed eater from getting close enough to chop off my plants - the weed eater is my enemy! I hate them! LOL!
*Pruners - both my small clippers for perennial trimming and my bigger ones for cutting branches - I use these a lot every Spring!
*Some that others mentioned that I like also are the rake - (grass & rock rake), broom and dustpan, shovel, and my hand held can opener (If I would name names I would have to say the "Swing Away" brand seems to be the best).
Karen

A few more for the list here-

Baskets, all kinds of baskets.They hang from the beams of the kitchen ceiling. Used for berry picking, veggie picking, for serving things on the table, as gift 'boxes', keeping jar tops in, etc. etc.

Flat basket weave trays- for drying foods, herbs, teas and flowers.

my set of recycled artichoke heart jars- about 1/2 gallon size (Costco kind) to keep beans and grains in. Since we started keeping these jars on the back of the kitchen counter, both DH and I cook much more with these foods- because we can see them!

Gamma lids on 5-gallon plastic buckets. Gamma lids seal really well, keep out the bugs, and are easy to open. Just turn- and they make this nice whoosh sound like submarine hatches in movies! Great for animal foods and human grains, beans, etc. Make great bug-out food containers also.

No list is complete without my little carpet sweeper- quiet, easy to empty, non elec.

As a kid, back in the early 60Âs I ordered (not on-line!) an abacus and an excellent book on how to use it from Edmond scientific. I remember getting the abacus even before the first electronic calculators came on the market. I still have them and IÂve always had an abacus lying around somewhere on my desk or workbench. Whenever I need to add up a bunch of numbers itÂs always a tossup as to what IÂll use, an electronic calculator or an abacus. It just depends on what I come across first. The abacus is at least as fast  but MUCH more fun!

SR

I have an abacus as well. I got it as a child when we lived in Japan. The vendors and even the clerks in the larger stores always did their calculations on them, and as you said, very quickly. Speaking of which, when I went back to university as an adult, I was taking an agricultural engineering class. When I went to school the first time, it was pre-calculator and of course we all had to use slide rules. During an exam, the battery went out on my calculator right at the beginning of the exam, and low and behold, in my briefcase, was my old rule. It had been decades since I'd used it last, but it got me through the exam.

Gosh, it's canning season and I need to add my Foley Food mill to the list of non-electric gadgets. I have processed so far at least two wheel barrows of tomatoes from my garden for home canned tomato sauce. In the harvesting forum, I noticed people comparing their ELECTRIC food mills. LOL. My foley made short work of the juicing, seed removal and peel removal. The residue made tasty and nutritious chicken mash for my hens. I just could not see paying $$$$ for a motor powered food mill. Heck, until I read that, I didn't even know they existed.

A can opener. My favorite gadget in the kitchen, when I use it. My FIL regularly comments (when he visits) that I don't have one, yet the hand held one works just fine. I went on vacation recently, and in the resort there was an electric can opener. It took me several attempts to figure out how to use it, and when I finally got the lid off, I unplugged it :) Then I unplugged the toaster, the microwave, etc.........Christy :)

I have a very old plastic shaker that I use for eggs. It is stunning.

Marshall

This is tough to answer. I probably have 50 non-electric tools or tool sets that I rely on each week or month. All just ordinary stuff in a land-based lifestyle. But here are a few that came to mind...

Fire-place insert: this device of steel, fire-brick and tempered glass increased the heating efficiency of our fireplace several fold. Still allows us to see the fire. Has an electric fan but will function without it. Important alteration to our house as it keeps us warm even if there is a power failure. Reduces the wood fuel that we burn.

Long-handled "spade" shovel
Multi-tip screwdriver (has hexagonal bits, which can be used in an electric drill too for power driving)
Vice-grip pliers
Flat pry bar (Wonder Bar is one brand)
Tree-prunerÂs long-handled loppers
Pole pruner

Propane camp stove
Small wood-fired barebecue

Good question, Seraphima... kinda fun.

Joel

5 gallon buckets!
Bicycle wheel garden cart
Hay fork (good for moving wood chips and compost)
Hola Hoe
Rake
Cardboard/newspaper
scissors
Multi tool
Knife
Hack saw
pruners

I wish a reel mower would handle what I have to offer it but I simply mow what grows when code enforcement says I have to and a reel mower would not be up to an acre of that challenge.

I want to learn more about that food mill mentioned.

Also, anyone have ideas for chipping/shredding/grinding stuff without petrol or electric power?

Can't live without my whisk broom (down with Dustbusters!)

Years ago I started collecting vintage cooking utensils and then found myself using them on a regular basis. There is something soothing about using these utensils that have been well worn by the women before me. For instance, when I use a manual eggbeater, it reminds me very much of my own childhood before kitchens went high-tech :)

I love my cranky old pencil sharpener -- been mounted in a closet in the mud room for maybe 70 years now? My children struggle with it, tho.

Stove-top popcorn popper.
Kitchen whisks.
My great-grandma's applesauce maker.
Hand can opener (I have three!)

Demeter

What is an applesauce maker ? I also use whisks, don't own an electric can opener :)

Thanks for all the good ideas!

Here's a couple more:

wooden laundry drying rack

handkerchiefs (uses no trees, endlessly washable and renewable)

I would not be without my dolly- hand truck- for moving pots and all sorts of heavy garden stuff. Also for moving wood for splitting.

Wheelbarrow- especially with the solid rubber tires that never deflate- available most hardware type stores.

Ohiomom, I think the applesauce maker may be a large funnel with holes, set into a round wire stand, (put over a bowl)then you put in the cooked apples and mash them through with a large funnel-shaped wooden pestle.

I just got a like-new Husqvarna reel mower at a garage sale and I am thrilled!

Last but not least, my neighbor is using a regular meat grinder to grind up pink salmon and make salmon sausages! Wow!

seraphima, you reminded me when you mentioned wood - we have a mechanical log splitter. You put the log in the vise and then move the arms back and forth and it splits the log - the movement you use kind of looks like you are cross-country skiing.

And if the logs are too big to fit in the splitter, we've got a wedge and a mallet to split them.

:)
Dee

I have one of those meat grinders, I grind up chicken instead of buying it ground at the store ... which they seem to charge more for :) My mom always ground up leftover turkey and ham with hers. I picked up mine at a thrift shop with all the blades for $5 !

I did look up vintage applesauce makers, that is exactly what they are a wire funnel and paddle. Cool !

Ohiomom, my grandma's apple masher is, I think, an early kind of food mill. It's got a metal cone with holes in it, a stand for the cone, and a wooden pestle designed to fit in the cone. You quarter the apples, cutting out the cores but not bothering to skin them; cook the apples till soft, put a bowl under the cone, dump the apples in the cone, and use the pestle to force the cooked apples through the holes. The apple sauce slides down the cone and into the bowl. The skins are left in the cone, and you scrape those out and do another batch. Then you taste test the applesauce and sweeten/add cinnamon as you prefer, and either can or freeze. It also works with tomatoes for making tomato sauce, but you have to cook the sauce down afterwards to reduce the liquid. If you google "apple masher" or "apple saucer" you can find them on antique sites. The one linked below is very similar to mine except mine doesn't have the ring around the base, and mine is a bit larger.

Here is a link that might be useful: This is very similar to mine

One of the niftiest and cheapest gadget in my kitchen is my garlic peeler. And all it is, is a little square of rough rubber.

I don't own a tiller. I use a hoe to break up dirt. I also own a manual reel mower, and I have a favorite short-handled garden spade that I use.

One of my handiest devices is a shopping cart. I don't own a car (how green is that? :-) ), so if I have to haul soil or groceries home, I use my cart.

I also like my solar garden lights.