Wild meat, hunted in a responsible way, is one of the most healthful, sustainable foods possible. Depending on how it is done, hunting can be as local, intimate and humane as it gets. And aside from this, it demands the hunter enter a world of awareness, wildness, life and death that we have lost connection to as a culture.
The Compassionate Hunter's Guidebook is a guide for those that come to the act of hunting with pure intentions, motivated by a desire for healthy food that comes directly from the land where they live. This practical manual suggests that hunting is not a "sport" and the animals whose lives are taken are not "game." It combines a deep, philosophical exploration of the ethics of killing with detailed instructions on every step of the process including:
A unique and comprehensive, fully illustrated guide to the complexity, ethics and spirit of the hunt, The Compassionate Hunter is a must-read for beginning and experienced hunters alike. It will appeal to anyone who wishes to delve more deeply into the complex, humbling and ultimately profound reality of our relationship with the food that nourishes us.
Author: Miles Olson
Format: Paperback
Healthy soil is key to sustaining life on Earth. While more and more people are starting to see the need for soil restoration, there is very little understanding of just how it can be accomplished. There is a rapidly emerging demand for a “how to” manual for soil restoration. Dale Strickler is an expert on building healthy soil and restoring degraded soil, and in The Complete Guide to Restoring Your Soil, he presents the science of soil, along with proven methods of restoring depleted soil and agricultural practices from around the world that continue to build soil, rather than cause it to deteriorate.
Author: Dale Strickler
Format: Paperback
Are you interested in the country lifestyle or becoming more self-reliant? Do you think about someday raising livestock or growing crops? If you're ready to make these thoughts a reality, The Complete Illustrated Guide to Farming is the perfect place to start. Farming experts Philip Hasheider and Samantha Johnson explain farming from start to finish: build your own fence, repair your own machinery, and know what to look for when you're buying a tractor. Instead of buying a book on each subject area, you need just this one, which condenses the most important and relevant information on every aspect of running a farm into a single handy volume. Unlike other books, it's designed specifically for the owner of a working farm. This practical illustrated guide provides hard-won expert advice on raising livestock, growing crops, making repairs, harvesting and butchering, managing a woodlot, and more. It's everything you need to know to establish and maintain your farm.
Author: P. Hasheider & S. Johnson
Format: Paperback
Increasing the energy efficiency of your home can save you money, help the environment and enhance your comfort, but how do you decide which improvements are the most beneficial and cost-effective? Completely revised to incorporate the latest developments in green technology, The Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings is the definitive resource for consumers who want to better their home's performance while reducing their energy bills.
Well-organized and highly readable, The Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings begins with an overview of the relationships between energy use, economics and the environment. Updated and expanded chapters focus on specific aspects of any home, such as heating and cooling, ventilation, electronics, lighting, cooking and laundry, and provide helpful explanations for each, including:
This comprehensive resource is packed with tips on improving existing equipment and guidance for when and why to invest in new purchases, as well as a reminder to check local government and utilities for purchase or retrofit grants or incentives. It is a must-read for anyone concerned about reducing both their energy bills and their environmental impact.
Author: J Amann, A Wilson, K Ackerly
Format: Paperback
In this book, you’ll learn how to build inexpensive infrastructure, harness energy from the sun, manage an off-grid home, grow vegetables in tough conditions, preserve the harvest, build an earthbag root cellar, raise beginner’s livestock, and so much more. These attainable, game-changing tips and projects have allowed the Stongers to live a simpler, more rewarding life with their children. If they can do it, so can you!
Author: Stewart and Shannon Stonger
Format: Paperback
Rainfall levels are rarely optimal, but there are hundreds of things you can do to efficiently conserve and use the water you do have and to reduce the impact of drought on your soil, crops, livestock, and farm or ranch ecosystem.
Author: Dale Strickler
Format: Paperback
America’s favorite small farm tractor is retrieved from the shed and shined up for duty in this essential guide by tractor repair expert Rachel Gingell and longtime writer Kenneth Updike. The Farmall Cub Encyclopedia is a comprehensive manual for any self-starter, at-home historian, or backyard farmer.
Author: RACHEL GINGELL, KENNETH UPDIKE
Format: Paperback
This anniversary edition brings us generations of voices and lessons about the three essential Appalachian values of faith, family, and the land. We listen to elders share their own memories of how things used to be, and to the new generations eager to preserve traditional values in a more complicated world.
Author: Angie Cheek
Format: Paperback
The Foxfire 45th Anniversary Book continues the beloved tradition of celebrating a simpler life, this time with a focus on Appalachian music, folk legends, and a history full of outsized personalities.
Author: Joyce Green
Format: Paperback
First published in 1972, The Foxfire Book was a surprise best-seller that brought Appalachia’s philosophy of simple living to hundreds of thousands of readers. Whether you wanted to hunt game, bake the old-fashioned way, or learn the art of successful moonshining, the Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center had a contact who could teach you how with clear, step-by-step instructions.
Author: Eliot Wigginton
Format: Paperback
Today, Foxfire’s mission remains the same, and The Foxfire Book of Simple Living is both a rich look back at five decades of collected wisdom, as well as an intriguing look forward at the artists and craftsman who are working to preserve the Appalachian tradition for future generations.
Author: Kaye Carver Collins
Format: Paperback
A pioneering urban farmer and MacArthur "Genius Award" winner points the way to building a new food system that can feed-and heal-broken communities.
The son of a sharecropper, Will Allen had no intention of ever becoming a farmer himself. But after years in professional basketball and as an executive for Kentucky Fried Chicken and Procter & Gamble, Allen cashed in his retirement fund for a two-acre plot a half mile away from Milwaukee's largest public housing project. The area was a food desert with only convenience stores and fast-food restaurants to serve the needs of local residents.
In the face of financial challenges and daunting odds, Allen built the country's preeminent urban farm-a food and educational center that now produces enough vegetables and fish year-round to feed thousands of people. Employing young people from the neighboring housing project and community, Growing Power has sought to prove that local food systems can help troubled youths, dismantle racism, create jobs, bring urban and rural communities closer together, and improve public health. Today, Allen's organization helps develop community food systems across the country.
An eco-classic in the making, The Good Food Revolution is the story of Will's personal journey, the lives he has touched, and a grassroots movement that is changing the way our nation eats.
Author: Will Allen
Format: Hardcover
The Half-Acre Homestead is a record, with over 500 color photos, of Lloyd and his wife Lesley’s owner-built home and garden. They show you what the house and garden look like, how various functions (solar panels, septic systems, skylights, etc.) operate, and tools they use in the kitchen, garden, and shop.
Author: Lloyd Kahn
Format: Paperback
Take control of your own health care and that of your family, pets, and livestock, with tips on growing and foraging herbs safely and ethically; secrets to preservation and processing; and easy, soothing recipes. With bonus sections on creating your own herbal apothecary, creating a foraging journal, and more, this handy book is sure to become your go-to reference for all things herbal.
Author: Abby Artemisia
Format: Paperback
It really doesn’t matter if you are a ‘granola hugging tree eater’ (a onetime Freudian slip that was just better than the original and stuck) or a cheapskate, The High Art and Subtle Science of Scrounging will show you how to help the planet and save money at the same time. This book comes with a warning though: once you have started scrounging, it is hard to stop. The High Art and Subtle Science of Scrounging will show you it’s easy to own a home without a mortgage, drive a car without a loan payment, eat food without writing a big check at the grocery store, and be entertained without removing your wallet from your pocket. All you have to do is shift your point of view a bit.
The Homesteader’s Natural Chicken Keeping Handbook is the modern homesteader’s guide to raising, feeding, breeding, selling, and enjoying the noblest animal on the farm: the chicken. From the rooster’s crow in the morning to the warm egg in the nesting box, chickens are the gateway livestock for almost every homesteader and backyard farm enthusiast. In this book, you’ll learn everything you need to know about raising chickens naturally. Author Amy K. Fewell guides you in:
This is heritage chicken keeping skills 101, with a modern twist. Gain knowledge about naturally keeping chickens through every stage of their lives, and fully embrace the joy and ease of raising all-natural chickens on your homestead.
Author: Amy K. Fewell & Joel Salatin
Format: Paperback
Such self-sufficiency is largely the result of basing their farming practices around intensive pasture management. witty and welcoming style, The Independent Farmstead covers everything from choosing a species of ruminant and incorporating it into a grass-based system to innovative electric fencing and watering systems. Best of all, it’s the kind of rare how-to book that the authors themselves view not as a compendium of one-size-fits-all instructions but as “the beginning of a conversation,” one that is utterly informative, sincere, and inspiring.
Author: Shawn & Beth Dougherty
Format: Paperback
In her comprehensive history of this uniquely American obsession, Virginia Scott Jenkins traces the origin of the front lawn aesthetic, the development of the lawn-care industry, its environmental impact, and modern as well as historic alternatives to lawn mania.
Author: Virginia Scott Jenkins
Format: Paperback