Book review: The back to basics handbook : a guide to buying and working land, raising livestock, enjoying your harvest, household skills and crafts, and more

I just finished reading sections of this book by Gehring, Abigail R. It is a wonder to read. I enjoyed skipping hought sections, picking a topci, and reading from there. Then I read to the end of the book and had to go back and read the beginning. This is one that is going on my bookshelf.


Summary: Rediscover the pleasures and challenges of a healthier, greener, and more self-sufficient lifestyle. Anyone who wants to learn basic living skills-the kind employed by our forefathers-and adapt them for a better life in the twenty-first century need look no further than this eminently useful, full-color guide. With hundreds of projects, step-by-step sequences, photographs, charts, and illustrations, The Back to Basics Handbook will help you dye your own wool with plant pigments, graft trees, raise chickens, craft a hutch table with hand tools, and make treats such as blueberry peach jam and cheddar cheese. The truly ambitious will find instructions on how to build a log cabin or an adobe brick homestead. More than just practical advice, this is also a book for dreamers- even if you live in a city apartment you will find your imagination sparked, and there's no reason why you can't, for example, make a loom and weave a rag rug. Complete with tips for old-fashioned fun (square dancing calls, homemade toys, and kayaking tips), this is the ultimate concise guide to voluntary simplicity. 500 color illustrations.

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Book review: The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love

I just finished reading "The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love" by Kristin Kimball.
This book is a story of how she went from a New York city-slicker to a full farmer. She met an interesting farmer, fell in love, and moved off with him to pursue his dreams of farming and creating good food. They eventually setup a complete CSA (community support agriculture) where people come by and get pick up anything they grow/raise on the farm. They also host dinners on Friday nights for their members.
This is a great book, it really shows what two people can do with energy, experience, and lots of stubbornness.

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Book Review: The Sheer Ecstasy of being a Lunatic Farmer

I just finished "The Sheer Ecstasy of being a Lunatic Farmer" by Joel Salatin.

This one I am going to have to buy! He crafts small chapters, covering areas of Polyface farms, the land, farming, and big agribusiness. He clearly expresses his feelings about how big business farming has really weakened the world and Nature and people, all for the mighty dollar.
He strongly expresses his views, but is not obnoxious about it, he is amusing as he explains them.

This is one for my bookshelf.



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Book Review: Growing a Farmer

I just finished 'How I learned to Live Off the Land' by Kurt Timmermeister. Tim has written a very good book about how he changed his 4 acres of overgrown land into a 12 acre successful small farm.

He really goes into good details on how he's had to adapt and learn to work out his problems that he encountered.
His chapters are:

• Growing the Farm
• Bees
• Fruits, Apples, Vinegar
• Sheep, Goats, Pastures and Grazing
• Cows
• Dairying
• Raw Milk
• Vegetables
• Fowl
• Pigs
• The Slaughter
• Butchering
• The Present-Day Farm
• The Table

All in all, a good read and worth the money to acquire it and learn how to plan for a homestead.



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Book Review: The Feast Nearby

I just finished "The Feast Nearby" by Robin Mather. It is an interesting book, telling about her experience re-making her fancy, foodie life on a tight budget. She combines her experiences with recipes she uses. It is an interesting mix for a book, but it works.

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Book Review: 'The Good Food Revlution' by Will Allen

I just finished Will Allen's book 'The Good Food Revolution'. This is a great book on growing food and ways to do it organically and w/o lots of chemicals. He covers composting, vermiculture (composting with worms), intensive growing, aquaculture (closed loops with fish and plants), and how he gets it all working together. It's a great book, check it out!

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Book Review: "hay fever: How Chasing a Dream on a Vermont Farm Changed My Life"

I just finished 'hay fever' by Angela Miller and Ralph Gardner Jr.

A very good book about the experiences of Angela as she and her husband moved from big city life in New York out to a Vermont farm (but they kept up their NY careers). Once there, they decided to start making cheese. Excellent, artisan cheese. And raise their own goats, and run their farm. They ended up taking on 2 more full time jobs.

This is not a how to manual of how to make cheese, it is someone's experiences with running a farm and cheese making business. She and her husband have to worry about the animals, the staff, making and marketing their products, and the normal craziness of daily life. Angela tells us about her trials and tribulations doing all of this and keeps her story upbeat, amusing, and interesting.

A good book to read.

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Book Review: Different yeast products.

I've been maintaining my sourdough starter, quite easy to do so. I've made 2 batches of bread by cheating and using the bread machine. Tastes good. Now time to do it by hand.

I've also decided to try making beer. I bought a small kit from 'The Portland Homebrew Exchange'. The kit I bought is the 'Red Ale Picobewery One gallon ingredient kit'. This will allow me to use my existing mead/cyder making equipment. I also get to learn how to make beer using malt and grain/hops. Hopefully I'll find time this weekend to get it brewing.

I checked out the following book from the local library. So far, it seems to be a good book on how to grow your own ingredients to make your own beer.

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Book Review: Honeybee, Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper

I recently finished by "Honeybee, Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper" by C. Marina Marchese. It is an enjoyable book, leading us through the authors progression from being scared of bees to leaving her old life and starting 'Red Bee Honey' company.

Right away she pulls us into her story by explaining when she received and installed her first box of bees. She explains how during the installation the bees were overly aggressive and attacked her. After finally getting the bees into her hive, they examined what went wrong. And discovered something that I've not heard of, that the bananas she had with breakfast had alarmed the bees. Seems bananas smells like the alarm pheromone and that is why the bees were aggressive.

The author leads us through history examining the part that bees and honey played, and then teaches us about bees, how to harvest honey, get them ready for winter, etc.

What is different from most books on beekeeping is that she explores how the honeybee venom can help with some illnesses.

She finishes her book with the sweet stuff, lots and lots of information about honey. The basics of honey, what is in honey, varieties of honey, and how honeys from different areas and different plants taste and feel and smell different.

Scattered through the book the author leaves us interesting tidbits, how to make lip balm, what to do with beeswax outside of making candles, and recipes for feeding the bees.

This is a good book, one I recommend as a good alternative to the dry, technical books on bees. Check it out!

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Book Review: Extreme Simplicity: Homesteading in the City

I just finished 'Extreme Simplicity: Homesteading in the City' by Christopher and Dolores Lynn Nyerges. A very good book on their experiences creating and living on their 'urban homestead' in the outskirts of LA. They describe how the property they purchased went from a barren, run down duplex into a productive, semi-wild jungle. They share their feelings and thoughts on their house and yard and how the have created a system to produce food for themselves and their critter friends. They also share their feelings on trash, recycling, economics, and self reliance.

I find their perspectives on 'modern' life interesting and thought provoking. It has definitely shown me that a garden does not have to consist of only plants that you buy, native plants have a place in a garden also. Even the plants you consider weeds.

This is not a 'how to' book, but a guide to one way things can be done and it will help you come up with your own ways to do things.

All in all a good book to make you expand your thinking and start new ideas.

Christophers website is here (unfortunately, Delores passed away in 2008).

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Book Review: Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis

Book Review: A very good book, helped me make the decision to get a hive or 2 starting this season. Really scary what is happening to the bees. They are another environmental 'canary in the coal mine'.

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Book Review: A good back to local food book

Not quite a homestead book, but getting back to the locally grown foods. Esp their own.

A good read.

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Their website can be found here.

Book Review: A good homesteading story

Just a post-read review of "Farewell, My Subaru" by Doug Fine. Doug goes thru the first year experiences of starting his own homestead and the trials and tribulations he went through. He's a good write, amusing to read, and has some good points on how to homestead and be carbon neutral.

Link to his site: Farewell, My Subaru

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Book Review: A homesteading book.....

I read over the weekend 'Hard Times in Paradise' by David and Micki Colfax. Story of a families return to nature/homestead adventure. Rather well written, has lots of info on what they did right/wrong and how they survived w/o a steady income. Big point is how tasks are always harder than they appear. They also home-schooled 4 kids as well.

A good read.

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