Showing posts with label links. Show all posts
Showing posts with label links. Show all posts

November 23, 2015

Beekeeping Resources for Natural Beekeepers

Honeysuckle Hive
Welcome to all of you who have clicked on over from Farmer Liz's! For those who don't know what I'm talking about, I did an interview with Liz about Warré beekeeping on her Eight Acres blog. If you aren't familiar with Liz's blog, please visit and you will undoubtedly become a regular reader. Click here for my Warré post.

What you'll find here are links to more details on my own Warré experience, plus a list of resources for Warré, top bar, and natural beekeeping.

My Warré Blog Posts:

 Warré Hives and Beekeeping

 Horizontal Top Bar Hives

 Plans to build Top Bar Hives

Books (All but the last link will take you to Amazon US, so you may need to do a search of your favorite regional online bookseller to find them closer to home.)

Websites Promoting Natural Beekeeping

 Groups and Forums
  • warrebeekeeping at Yahoo Groups. Moderated by David Heaf. While this group focuses on Warré hives and methods, there are frequent technical discussions about bees and beekeeping in general. 
  • Natural Beekeeping Forum

 Natural Beekeeping Treatments

Miscellaneous

If you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them if I can. If I can't, I'll try to point you in the direction of finding more information.

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June 16, 2014

More Solar Cooking Links

I found this list in my drafts folder. It's a collection of links I gathered last year, when I was considering using these plans to build my own solar oven. These are in addition to the links I gave you in my "Crossed Off My Wish List - A Solar Oven!" post. For anyone interested in solar cooking, I hope they are useful.

More Recipes:
Recipe Index at Solar Cookers International Network
Recipes from the Solar Oven Society
Step by Step Solar Cooking Recipes at CantinaWest
Cook with the sun

More Resources:
Introduction to Solar Cooking
How Solar Cookers Work
Free plans for making solar cookers 
Solar Cooking and Food Drying and Solar Stills and Root Cellars
Comparison of plans for solar cookers
Solar Cooking Guidelines (with cooking times)
Solar Cooking Tips and Tricks
Solar Oven Questions & Answers
Food Safety & Solar Cooking
Solar UV Index (for the U.S.)
Solar Cookers World Network
Solar Cooking Discussion Forums Archives

REMINDER: You can get an $80 discount on a Sun Oven by going to this page and entering the discount code "FiveAcres" at check-out. I am not a Sun Oven affiliate and get no sales fees for this offer. I'm just passing it on to you. Code expires June 30.
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July 3, 2013

Guest Posting on Lovely Greens


I have been honored with a request to guest post on Lovely Greens! This is part of Tanya's six week series on DIY homesteading (see the list of articles and links in my sidebar on the right). My topic? Goats! You can read the post by clicking the link below....


I've you've just come from Lovely Greens, welcome and thank you for visiting! I am happy to try and answer any questions you might have. Also, I thought you might be interested in some of my other blog posts about goats. Here is a link list of goat posts that folks have found helpful or interesting:

Feeding our goats:
Food Self-Sufficency And Animals
More Thoughts On Growing Animal Feeds
DIY Vitamins & Minerals For Goats - from homegrown herbs & veggies
Pea Pickin' - growing cowpeas for protein
Them Ain't Weeds, Them's Forage - one man's weed is a goat's delight
Homestead Haying - what we've learned
Kudzu For Hay - utilizing an invasive weed for hay

Breeding (Adventures In)
How To Make A Buck Rag - one way to detect if your does are in heat
Love Is In The Air - a buck assist for mismatched goats
Breeding Plans, Awry Again - a buck and fence problem

Goat products I make:
Ziggy Milk, Ziggy Butter, Ziggy Mozz - a gallery of goat dairy products
Goat's Milk Butter For Two - how to get cream and make butter
Homestead Whipped Cream (From Goats!) - another cream product
Goats Milk Mozzarella - tips on making
Cheese #11, The Recipe - one of my hard cheese recipes
Cheese #15 - Another Keeper of a Recipe - a washed curd cheese
Rendering Goat Fat - a how to
Goatherd's Pie - a recipe for chevon

Problems we've had with our goats:
Goat Buster - how to keep little goats out of the chicken yard
Has Finally Grown Into His Knees - contracted tendons in newborns
It Was Time For Elvis To Go - dealing with a difficult buck
Milk Goiter - in nursing kids
Make Do Baby Goat Coat - for kidding during cold weather
Ziggy and Company - retained placenta
Some Not So Good News About Jasmine - weeping sores on her udder
Stillborn - the story of Jasmine's stillbirth
Poor Jasmine. Again.  - a broken shoulder tops continual problems
Goat Updates - what happened to Jasmine in the end
To Bud Or To Disbud, That Is The Question

A series on pasture establishment and improvement:
Pasture Improvement Phase 1
New Book For The Homestead Library - answers to soil deficiencies
Two Soil Tests, A Comparison - different services = different results
Pasture Improvement Phase 2: Remineralizing Our Soil
1st Peek At The New Pasture
Hello Pasture - when & how to introduce goats to new pasture
Soil Remineralization Year 2

A few miscellaneous goat posts
Book Review: Pat's Coleby's Natural Goat Care - a favorite
Immunities & Milk (Another of My Theories) - poison ivy eating goats

For fun:
Um. Is This Something I Should Be Concerned About?
Psst. Have You Heard The Latest?
Most Annoying Goat Award
Ziggy Report - A very pregnant goat

And, of course, posts to show off this year's kids:
More Alphie - this season's first born
The Age of Exploration (Being Two Days Old) - Lily's twins
Ziggy's Surprises - Ziggy's quads triplets
Coming Soon ... Baby Goat Updates - just a bunch of pics
Kids From A To Z: Our 2013 Kids In Review - and how they've grown

Coming Saturday, July 6 - "Barn Brainstorming" - how we hope a new barn will address some of the things goats have taught us.

Guest Posting on Lovely Greens © July 2013 
by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/
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March 13, 2013

Hello Pasture

Lily, Surprise, and Ziggy

The other day I let the girls into the new pasture for the first time. It was for about 10 or 15 minutes, just enough time to give them a taste without upsetting their tummies. Ruminants can have problems with fresh pasture when first introduced to it, specifically bloat. This has to do with their digestive microbes. Changes in diet must be slow to allow for changes in the microbes too.

Even though we planted the pasture last October, I hadn't let them in until now. This was partly to give the tender new growth a chance to establish itself, but also because we've had so much rain that the ground has been very soft and soggy. The day before yesterday, however, it had dried out somewhat and so I let them in for a brief visit. They loved it. I timed it right before evening feed, so that they'd be willing to come out when I called them!

I'd already introduced the fresh forage as "green feed," where I cut big basketsful of the pasture grasses and dumped it into their hay feeder. Later I increased it to twice a day. Before I actually let them into it, I made sure they'd just had a hay feeder full of a new armload of hay. I also made sure their baking soda feeder was fresh and that they got probiotics with their evening grain ration. All of that may have been overly cautious on my part, but I definitely do not want any problems.

The next day I increased their visit by another ten minutes. So far so good. I'll gradually increase it to full time because this must be their home pasture this summer.

For more information and several good articles about bloat, including how to treat it, the following are helpful resources:

Hello Pasture © March 2013 
by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/
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July 15, 2011

Food Self-Sufficiency & Animals

I received a lot of excellent comments on my "The Economics of Food Self-Sufficiency" post. Most of you, like me, see a definite benefit to growing your own food, but don't see a significant savings monetarily. I going to hazard a guess that this is because most of us are in what Dan and I call the establishment phase of homesteading. Most of us are starting from scratch. We do not have the benefit of inheriting the family farm and the knowledge and skills to go with it. Nor do we have the benefit of a local, like-minded community, where social gatherings center around work days: barn raisings, canning bees, harvest days, corn huskings, butchering, sugaring off. Most of us know what our goal is, but aren't always certain of the best way to achieve it.

Black Oil Sunflower Seeds
Crude protein 16.8%
Digestible protein 13.9%
Feed for: goats, chickens

When it comes to food self-sufficiency, I figure we have two choices. We must either learn to grow everything we want to eat, or we must learn to eat what we can grow. A vegetable garden is the most basic, and a fruit orchard often follows that. Animals take it to another level. The benefits of eggs and milk alone, appeal. In addition, there is meat for those who eat it, manure for fields and garden, increases of flock and herd for selling or bartering, and the simple pleasures and entertainment that animals provide. The trade-off is, now, instead of buying our own food, we buy food for our animals. No relief for the pocketbook there.

Dan and I decided at the beginning, that we wanted to become self-sufficient in regards to our animals. Each animal must contribute to our needs, and we in turn must not keep more animals than our land can properly provide for. That means we have to learn how to grow our own animal feed.

Field corn
Crude protein 8.7%
Digestible protein 6.7%
Feed for: chickens, humans

I've spent a lot of hours researching this, and have run in to the same problem I did when it came to eggs and chickens; much of the information out there is based on the scientific approach, which is aimed at production and profit. Recipes for feed for example, are so complicated as to be discouraging. I don't even have a local source for some of the ingredients. And the cost? Prohibitive.

On the other hand, it would be a mistake to oversimplify the whole thing and think, well, back in the day they didn't feed them anything extra. We have to keep in mind that back in the day, topsoils hadn't eroded much and the nutrients hadn't been leached out. Thanks to decades of modern agricultural practices, our soils are often little more than a medium to hold the plants up. Because of that, our foods are no longer nutritionally adequate for humans or animals. Unless one happens to find a piece of virgin land to homestead on, this is a problem.

Wheat
Crude protein 13.2%
Digestible protein 11.1%
Feed for: goats, chickens, humans

So. We've set a goal to grow our own animal feeds. We look at this as a long term goal, which we can only accomplish one step at a time. We've begun with some experimental patches of wheat, corn, cowpeas, and black oil sunflower seeds.

One priority, is to make sure they get enough protein. A milking doe is said to need a diet of about 16% protein. Laying hens, 16 to 18%. As I've researched protein, I've learned there is a difference between crude protein and digestible protein. Crude protein is basically the sum total of the nitrogen in the plant. Crude protein figures include both digestible and indigestible protein. Whether or not protein is digestible, depends on the protein source. My copy of Raising Milk Goats the Modern Way (an older version of Storey's Guide to Raising Dairy Goats) has a great chart in it showing the average composition of selected goat feeds. It gives both crude and digestible proteins, which I find very useful. Obviously this can apply to other animal feeds as well.

Cowpeas
Crude protein 23.4%
Digestible protein 20.1%
feed for: chickens, goats

There are other things to consider: calcium, roughage, vitamins, trace minerals, etc. We'll have to experiment to figure out what grows best in our part of the country, which will also meet these needs. Our wheat grew well and our corn is so far. I plan to experiment with things like oats, barley, millet, as well.

Something we grew last year was amaranth.

Amaranth, Golden Giant
Crude protein 12.5 - 17.6%
Toxic raw???

The chickens didn't seem to care for it, but the goats ate it. I later read it is toxic unless cooked, so I stopped giving it to the goats and didn't plant a patch this year. I know there are numerous articles about sprouting and cooking feeds for animals, but to be honest, I don't have the time to mess with that. I need a regime that meets my animals needs, but is simple. I still read mixed reports on amaranth, and I have enough volunteer plants to harvest quite a bit anyway. For the time being, it's not on our list of feeds to grow.

In addition to grains, there is pasture, browse, and hay of course, Pasture improvement / hay is one of the next projects on our list. Plus, there are a lot of things we can grow in the garden for feed: turnips, beets, carrots, Jerusalem artichokes, mangles, collards, pumpkins, winter squashes, etc.

Comfrey
Crude protein: 22 - 33%
Feed for: goats

Obviously this is not a goal we will reach in just a year or even two. It will take experimenting in regards to the amount of seed we need to plant and the expected harvest. It will take trial and error as we explore the best possibilities, but at least we've begun.

Those of us pursuing a goal of self-sufficiency understand that it is a difficult goal to achieve. Not only in terms of skills, knowledge, and resources, but because our culture is not set up for us to succeed. One of the biggest obstacles is having a mortgage. In addition, the tools and resources we need are expensive; ever price an off-grid energy system for your home? However, I'm a firm believer that something is better than nothing. A tomato plant on the patio is better than none. Growing at least some of our own food is better than none. Some relief on our feed bill is better than none. It's a journey, a process. When I get discouraged I consider the alternatives. Is there any other life I'd rather be living than this?

Resources:

Related Post:
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September 24, 2010

Colors of September

I have to make a confession here.  These colors have not been typical for September this year. But at the tail end of August, we got rain. When September arrived, the ground was moist and the temps cooler. During the first week or so of September, we had fungi galore. I was amazed at the variety I found, and couldn't resist photographing them. I know absolutely nothing about mushrooms, so I won't attempt to label any of these. They are here strictly as my Colors of September.












I did research mushroom identification sites, and have this link list to offer:

American Mushrooms
MushroomExpert.com
The Fungal Jungal
Backyard Nature Mushroom Identification

I've not tried to ID any mushrooms with them, so let me know how they work for you. Or if you have another suggestion, I'll be glad to add it to the list.

For more Colors of September, click here. Sue (Life Looms Large) has a linky list of participants around the world.


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April 16, 2010

Comfrey For The Compost

One thing I never seem to have enough of, is ready-to-use compost. It seems to take a long time to make, mostly due to our shortage of manure. While we can hope to get some from our little flock of chickens and the goats we plan to get as soon as the fence is up, it won't be enough to make all the compost I need for our various gardens, fruit trees, etc. This is why I was delighted to find a source for comfrey.

Comfrey as a medicinal herb is quite controversial. (If you're interested in that discussion, see links at the bottom of this post.) As an aid to composting however, there is no dispute. Here are my quick comfrey facts:
  • High in nitrogen, making it a great compost activator.
  • Deep rooted (8 ft) dynamic accumulator, tapping deep soil for nutrients like potassium
  • Contains 2 -3 times more potassium than barnyard manure
  • Low in fiber, so that it has an extremely fast decomposition rate
  • Carbon-to-nitrogen ratio is lower than well rotted compost, meaning it be tilled directly in the garden with no wait-time before planting, nor the need for added nitrogen.
  • For the same reason it can be used as a side dressing
  • Can be used to make liquid fertilizer. More info on that here.
  • High in protein, making it an excellent supplementary feed for livestock
  • Source of allantoin which is curative and preventative for scours
  • Can be dried to like hay
  • Also a general nectary plant for bees and beneficial insects
  • Grows quickly (2 ft / month) and can be cut frequently. This makes it a high yield plant for feed and especially that compost!
This is a crown cutting of Symphytum peregrinum, Russian comfrey, Bocking #4 strain, which makes it especially suitable for livestock feed, as well as composting. I ordered 25, but received 5 extras plus 3 root cuttings.

It is perennial, and likes a fairly rich, sweet soil. I decided that a good home for it would be last year's garden, where the strawberries and almond tree are planted. Last summer's mulch has decomposed quite a bit, enriching the soil, plus I have been dumping wood ashes there all winter, so the pH should be better for it. It prefers sun, but can grow in partial shade. Whether or not the almond tree shades it too much in the future remains to be seen.

I planted the crowns on a grid, 3 feet apart. Hopefully I should see first growth in about a week. This first year will be for establishing the plants, with a few leaves for the chickens. Next year I will be able to harvest leaves for the garden. I am looking forward to that.

Before I forget, here are the links I promised:

The Organic Gardener - Growing & Using Garden Comfrey - How to use comfrey in compost

Comfrey Central - A Clearinghouse for Symphytum Information - a balanced and objective look at current comfrey research.

Henriette's Herbal Homepage - things to consider when reading claims about comfrey
University of Maryland Medical Center - uses and cautions of medicinal comfrey

Mother Earth News - Comfrey For the Homestead

Alternative Field Crops Manuel - Comfrey - University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension

Comfrey For The Compost photo & text copyright 
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April 8, 2010

Potatoes & Horseradish

My seed potatoes are planted.

Originally I ordered 4 lbs of Red Pontiacs, but when confronted with bags of them at Tractor Supply, I bought another 5 lbs "just in case." Just in case of what I'm not sure, but now I have 10, 23 foot row trenches of potatoes planted. Once the plants are taller than the trenches, I'll fill them in. Later I'll mulch heavily (up to one foot deep) and then wait for the harvest.

Except for occasional volunteers from buried compost, I've never grown potatoes before. In a way this is odd, because of all the years I've been gardening and we do like potatoes. After all, I grew up in the midwest, where potatoes were our staple starch. You know, the old "meat and potatoes" thing.

The other thing I planted, or rather sunk, were two pots of horseradish, smack dab in the middle of the potato patch. You can see the tops of the two pots sticking out of the soil, in the photograph above. I saw on a companion planting chart, that horseradish is a good companion to potatoes. Since horseradish is perennial however, I didn't want a permanent bed in that particular spot. After all, next year my potatoes will be planted elsewhere.

My order came with five horseradish roots. Three, I planted in a corner of the garden, the other two I potted.

I don't usually do well with potted plants.

However, I figured that sinking the pots might work well. They won't dry out for one thing.

For another, they won't spread uncontrollably, plus I can move them when I want. I'm curious as to how well this will work out.

I'm thinking now, that I probably should have waited to order the potatoes so that I could plant them later, for a fall harvest. That would make more sense, considering our long growing season, and as most of them will go to food storage anyway. My seed potatoes were beginning to sprout however, so I figured if I didn't get them into the ground, I'd lose them. How long the last of this crop will keep in the spring for a later planting is a question I don't have an answer to. It's one more thing I'll have to work out as I go along.

Potato Growing Links:
University of Illinois Extension - Potato
The Organic Gardener - Growing Potatoes
Seed Savers Exchange - Potato Growing Guide
BBC Gardening Guides - Growing Potatoes
and some nutritional information - World's Healthiest Foods - Potatoes

Horseradish Growing Links:
Bert's Gourmet Horseradish
How To Garden Guide - Growing Horseradish
GardenGuides.com - How to Grow Horseradish
Potatoes & Horseradish (both text & photos) 
copyright April 2010 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/
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January 22, 2010

The Chicken To-Do List

The chicks are on order so now we need to get serious with our preparations.

Here's what we have to start ...

Dan cut out the door on the right & added the gate, for goats.

Goats will go on the right, chickens on the left, with a partition in between to store feed and supplies.

Entire floor is a concrete slab. Good or bad for chickens & goats?

When we bought the place, this shed was overflowing with trash and junk. I know that someone kept chickens here at one time, because the key caddy in my kitchen (pic here) has a peg labeled "chicken coop."

A fenced in chicken yard will be in back, under the shade of the pecan trees.

View of the back. The hardwoods are pecans.

Besides the fence and gate, we need to make a chicken door out the back of the coop, which will go on the lower right side of the building in the above photo.

This is how a design problem becomes a design feature.
The gap between post and corner is where we'll add a gate for the chickens.

At the back left corner of the shed will be a chicken gate, between the shed and the end post. This will allow the little flock easy free range access to the back field.

To Do:
  • Clean out coop (Done! So nice having at least one thing crossed off)
  • Remove the old sink & shelves stored there
  • Add support to roof (which is sagging in one spot. Fortunately it doesn't leak)
  • Fence in chicken yard
  • Wall off feed storage area
  • Make chicken door (from coop to chicken yard)
  • Make chicken gate (from yard to field)
  • Make brooder
  • Build roosts
  • Build next boxes
To Get:
  • brooder lamp
  • brooder bulb
  • chick feeder
  • chick waterer
  • chick grit
  • chicken wire
  • chick litter
  • starter feed
  • storage cans to keep feed in
I've also been doing a little searching on the Internet and have found some sites with ideas for homemade equipment:

The Chicken To-Do List photos & text copyright
January 2010 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/


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January 14, 2010

Of Chickens: Feed

I very much want to thank everyone who left a comment on my Of Chickens: Gathering Information post. Your experiences, opinions, and feedback are very helpful. Now, here is something else about which I'd love to hear what you have to say - chicken feed.

Seems like the subject ought to be simple enough. Yet in spite of the fact that peoples around the world have successfully raised chickens for millennia without the aid of modern science, every book and online article I read made me feel that feeding chickens is a highly technical and complicated subject. That mixing one's own is obviously not something beginners should attempt, and that I am totally inadequate to the task. Good grief: starter ration, lay ration, pullet ration, breeder ration, adjusting protein, Pearson's square, scratch, feedstuff analysis, calcium, minerals, vitamins, cost analysis, and recipes that yield a thousand pounds or more of feed! I got overwhelmed!

Finally, while pricing chicken feeds on Tractor Supply, it occurred to me that complete commercial feed formulations are necessary for contained birds. Birds which are pasture fed or allowed to free range, and whose diet is supplemented with garden and kitchen scraps get a good percentage of their nutritional needs met in those ways. What I need to do, is to supplement their diet with grain, which should cost less than buying a commercial ration.

The ideal scenario, would be to raise our own grain, which I've mentioned is one of our goals for 2010. Of course, that won't help me this spring when my chicks arrive, so I am looking at buying chick starter at least.

I have several concerns about buying chick starter, chicken feed, and/or grain. The biggest is GMO feeds, which I do not want to use. Yet so far I can't find a local source for organic chicken feed. At the very least I'll need starter feed. Still, it seems that a prepackaged starter ration would be the easiest way to get going, even if it isn't organic. Then there's the question of medicated or non-medicated.

In general, I found a good article on feeding chickens here.
Lots of recipes for chicken feed here.
There's a chicken treat (kitchen scraps) chart here.

Of Chickens: Feed text copyright January 2010
by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/


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November 13, 2009

"You Can Buy As Many Books As You Want"

Dan and I used to have a private joke. I love books (we both do), and when I could find a good bargain for something we were interested in, I would get it. Then I would show it to him, and he would invariably respond, "Nooooo! Now we have to move it!" This was because he used to drive for a local moving company, which meant not only driving, but also packing boxes, loading and unloading the truck. As you can imagine, moving households that owned a lot of books meant a long, back-breaking day's labor.

The other day, when I was showing him my latest purchases, he put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye, and said, "You can buy as many books as you want." We both laughed because this is our forever home which means we aren't planning to ever move again.

He doesn't have to worry about me going hog wild of course, because I major in frugalness. That means I am careful with what I choose to buy, and I only buy if I can get it on sale or discounted. Since we've moved here, I've added quite a few good books to our home library, and almost all of them are tools to help us fulfill our dream.

It's funny because while I was working on this post, Theresa over at Camp Runamuck asked her readers about their reading lists, so I can offer these as mine. You can click on any book cover for a closer look.

Click here to biggify Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats by Sally Fallon. I mentioned this book in my recent ginger carrot post. Besides being a cookbook, this book offers a complete dietary model for healthy living. It begins with a discussion of the nutrients and their food sources, and then goes on to a chapter on "Mastering The Basics." These include cultured dairy products, fermented fruits and vegetables, sprouting grains, nuts & seeds, stocks, salad dressings, sauces, marinades, condiments, and about coconut products. Ther rest of the book covers every category of recipe you can imagine, including a chapter on feeding babies. Lots of interesting informational tidbits are to be found in the sidebars.

I don't agree with everything she says, but even so, this has been a mind blowing book for me.

Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods by Sandor Ellix Katz. Sandor approaches the subject from a cultural point of view: cultural context, cultural rehabilitation, cultural theory, cultural homogenization, and cultural manipulation. I don't agree with all of his conclusions, but he writes intelligently and makes some good points. Chapters include: Vegetable Ferments, Bean Ferments, Dairy Ferments (and Vegan Alternatives), Breads, Fermented Grain Porridges and Beverages, Wines (Including Mead, Cider, and Ginger Beer), Beers, and Vinegars. Lots of good recipes here.

Sandor also has a website and fermentation forum at http://www.wildfermentation.com/

This book is a keeperThis is another one I mentioned previously, Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation by The Gardeners & Farmers of Terre Vivante. This one was the precursor to the two above.

Besides the chapter on preserving with lactic fermentation, other chapters cover preserving by root cellaring, by drying, in oil, with salt, with sugar, in alcohol, and sweet & sour preserves. A chart at the back of the book indicates which methods are best for which foods.

DH was interested in this one, Smoking Food: A Beginner's Guide , by Chris Dubbs and Dave Heberle. We're nowhere near ready to build our own smoker, but like most things on discount, I've learned to buy it when I find it. The book covers types of smokers, with instructions on how to make your own, various fuels, other equipment, materials, cures, hot vs. cold smoking, and marinades. Then it discusses the how-tos of smoking fish, seafood, butcher meat (i.e. pork and beef), poultry, wild game, making and smoking sausage, and lastly smoking cheese, nuts, and eggs. Appendices discuss troubleshooting, herbs and spices, and tips on handling game (deer, rabbit, bear, squirrel, opossum, woodchuck, etc.)

This is another book that's really broadening my thinking about our little homestead, Small-Scale Grain Raising: An Organic Guide to Growing, Processing, and Using Nutritious Whole Grains for Home Gardeners and Local Farmers, 2nd Edition by Gene Logsdon. His sense of humor makes this fun to read (ever heard of a pancake patch?) For the first time I can actually see myself raising grain. Look forward to some experiments next summer!

Chapters discuss corn, wheat, the sorghums, oats, dry beans, rye, barley, buckwheat, millet, legumes, rice, and feeding grains to animals. One chapter is dedicated to more unusual grains like wild rice, triticale (a wheat/rye cross), spelt, farro, quinoa, and flax. Each chapter contains some good looking recipes as well.

Published in 2009, I don't agree with him that the jury's still out on GMO grains, but he does endorse open pollinated seed in order to save it. Informative charts are sprinkled throughout the book: cooking chart, bushel chart, and crop rotation plans. An illustrated glossary shows and explains the various tools needed form homegrowing grains.

Handy Farm Devices and How to Make Them by Rolfe Cobleigh is a reprint from 1910. It wasn't very expensive and I figured that even if it didn't contain something of use to us here on the homestead, it would be of historical interest at least. I wasn't disappointed, I got both. Devices are discussed by type, which are divided into chapters. For example: Workshop and Tools, In and Around the House, Barns and Stock, Poultry and Bees, Garden and Orchard, Field and Wood, and Gates and Doors. The devices themselves? How about: a potato sorter, a stump puller, a rack for seed corn, a wheelbarrow sheep trough, a fire warning device, an elevated clothes line, a device for extracting beeswax, and a gate to overcome snowdrifts, to name just a few.

This particular reprint is from Skyhorse Publishing, but Dover also reprints it under the title, Old-Time Farm and Garden Devices and How to Make Them .

I mailordered Fuel Cell Projects for the Evil Genius by Gavin D. J. Harper because it is about hydrogen as an energy source. However, it wasn't what we hoped it would be. it Oh, it's a very good book, and I wish I'd had it for DS back when we were homeschooling our way through high school science. In fact, it would be perfect for that because it is geared toward small hydrogen fueled DIY projects, some of which we may still be able to apply practically around the place. Or at least gain a better understanding in order to apply the knowledge on a larger scale.

Chapter 1 is a history of the discovery of hydrogen and the development of fuel cells. Chapter 2 is entitled "the Hydrogen Economy" which explains why hydrogen as an energy source is important to explore. The remaining chapters discuss and provide projects for making and storing hydrogen, different types of fuel cells ( platinum, alkaline, PEM, methanol, microbial, high-temp. and scratch-built. Hydrogen safety, transport, and fuel cell competitions round out the book.

I bought The Amish Cookbook when we were at the Shady Maple Gift Shop on our trip to Pennsylvania. It contains over 1000 recipes from 14 states, and so probably gives a pretty good idea of a typical Amish diet. This is not a health or natural food cookbook, and some of the recipes contain ingredients I don't use such as Jello, shortening, Velveeta cheese, salt petre, to name a few. However, I don't think there is a recipe in there that one couldn't substitute preferred alternative ingredients.

The reason I got it was for the chapter on canning and preserving. When I saw it contained several recipes for canning homemade bologna, I decided to buy it. (Not to mention that I probably would have regretted not getting it once we left the shop.) I've also appreciated the chapter on pickles and relishes, and as of this writing, have realized that it contains cheesemaking recipes as well.

Weaving As An Art Form: A Personal Statement by Theo Moorman, was on sale as a surplus copy from my weaving guild's library sale. I bought it as a source of inspiration, because one of these days (after the dining room floor gets done and I can have my studio back), I will get back to my fiber arts. The title appealed to me, because I am an artist whose medium is fiber, and someday I hope to abandon functional weaving and weave strictly as an artistic statement. The author appealed to me, because Theo Moorman is well known in the weaving world. The introduction appealed to me, for it was there that I read, "..... I seem, in my work as a weaver and designer, only able to gain ground through a mass of experiments, blunders, and muddles." That's me in a nutshell. I have been in the learning and exploratory stage of the various weave structure and techniques for almost ten years, not counting long term breaks to attend to other areas of need and interest. And of course, the content of the book appealed to me, for it discusses the technique for which the author is famous, The Moorman Technique, which simply put, is a type of inlay. So this book is on my reading list, probably not in the near future, but in the future nonetheless.

Where do I get my books? Well, Amazon.com, of course. Also from the numerous Dover catalogues we get. Dover reprints a lot of old books and sells them at reasonable prices, plus they often have sales and specials. Also, I buy a lot of books from my Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller Company catalogues. If you click on their name it will take you to their website, but they do charge an additional 40 cents per book if ordered with a credit card via the website, so I prefer ordering from their catalogue. They have a standard $3.50 shipping no matter how many books are ordered, which is very reasonable.

In addition to the above, I have three more books on order!
From Hamilton:

Home Cheese Making: Recipes for 75 Homemade Cheeses by Ricki Carroll

Living Off the Grid: A Simple Guide to Creating and Maintaining a Self-Reliant Supply of Energy, Water, Shelter, and More by Dave Black

From Amazon:

The Complete Medicinal Herbal: A Practical Guide to the Healing Properties of Herbs, with More Than 250 Remedies for Common Ailments by Penelope Ody

Did I also mention that I love books? And until these arrive, I will love going out to look in the mailbox every day. :)

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