Beauty Farming Life

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver Just got finished reading this book and wow, what a wonderful journey it was.  And talk about inspiring! The book is by famed author Barbara Kingsolver, and instead of fiction, it's a work of non fiction, chronicling her family's journey as they move from the life they've known in Arizona, to a self sufficient existence in rural Appalachia.  Once they are there, they decide to live for one year on just the food available locally to them, and only grown at the time of year they are eating it.  More often, they end up doing this themselves, starting with seeds and going through trial and error.  They raise meat birds as well, and the sections on that are hysterically funny. The part I was most fascinated with was how she came up with a growing/eating plan called the "vegetannual".  It's a fictional plant that bears something in just about every month of the year over the course of one growing se...

REPOST:  I posted this a few weeks ago but it was accidental (I used the wrong date) and was in between two other automatic posts that went up an hour or on each side.  I think it might have gotten lost in the shuffle. Since today is a holiday and I'm traveling, I figured I'd repost it and see if anyone has some more book suggestions.  I can always use more books, LOL! I am so excited!  I got this book yesterday  a couple of weeks ago on the recommendation of several bloggers, and I have to say, I LOVE it.  I've never seen so much great information in one place.  This is a classic book I'm sure many of your have seen.  It's been around since the early 70's but it's periodically updated with the most current information and is the newest 10th edition. It's almost a thousand pages of valuable information.  Recipes, cleaning tips, how to home repairs, gardening, beekeeping, canning, butchering, orchards, flowers, fence bu...

Wildflowers of Houston and SE Texas by: John and Gloria Tveten Many of our regular readers know that I've often posted pictures of random flowers I find around the property.  More often than not, I don't have a clue what they are.  Well I'm clueless no more because I found this book! It's called Wildflowers of Houston and Southeast Texas .  It's a visual guide to over 200 wildflowers found in this part of the state. The flowers in the book are divided by color, which is a pretty cool way to find them.  Next Spring, it will be an invaluable tool as I try to identify all the wonderful colors that magically appear.  Actually, I'm still seeing flowers coming up now, so I'll be trying it out soon.  Maybe now I won't have to post about some  random yellow/pink/white flowers that I find in the yard, LOL. It's really neat that there is a book that is so specific to our area and our part of the state and I have a feeling that it will prove to be a grea...

2014 Old Farmers Almanac with Calendar and historic reprints OH HAPPY DAYS! I always forget about this until it arrives unexpectedly.  And yesterday, it arrived.  I subscribe to the package that sends me a hardcover version of the venerable gardening standby,  The Old Farmer's Almanac .  Included are free gifts too (well, part of the purchase price I would presume, ha).  First, an awesome gardening calendar (that goes in the mudroom) and then reprint copies of their issues from one hundred years ago, 1914, and two hundred years ago, 1814.   Those are always a fascinating read. I save them all though, hard as it may be, until later in the Fall when the weather is cool and thoughts turn to next Spring. They sell it above at the Almanac website, and they sell the less expensive softcover on Amazon below by clicking this link  The Old Farmer's Almanac 2014 .  Anyone else read this?  They claim an 80% accuracy.

Got this AWESOME new book recently and I've been loving it from cover to cover. It is called  Free-Range Chicken Gardens: How to Create a Beautiful, Chicken-Friendly Yard  (a long title for a great subject),  by author Jessi Bloom, who is herself an award winning garden designer.  She's combined her skills at garden design and love of chickens into what I think is a great resource of information with information for the novice and maybe some new tidbits for the long time chicken keeper. The inside is filled with great chapters and has lots of diagrams, lists of do's and dont's, good and bad, and best of all, suggested layouts for a chicken yard. It also has beautiful photography (by Kate Baldwin) that shows happy chickens and close up details of plants and coops and chicken yards that others have created. It's divided up into sections such as Free Range Chickens, Natural Fertilizer, Organic Pest Control, Soil Aeration, Fresh...

I first picked up this book at the store because of the cover.  It was gorgeous.  Simple yet detailed, modern yet classic. I guess you could say that yes, I did judge a book by it's cover! The Beekeepers Bible Here is the Amazon link to the book.  I originally saw it in a bookstore but when I went back, it was sold out.  I searched Amazon and of course, found it online. The Beekeeper's Bible: Bees, Honey, Recipes & Other Home Uses Anyway, I purchased it and wow, do I love it.  It's on the nightstand beside the bed so that I can read a bit each night.  It's very comprehensive, covering the history of bees and beekeeping and then delves a bit into the 'how to' of beekeeping.  It has recipes using honey and even shows you how to make candles from the wax and soap using honey.  In a way, it's like a history book, an encyclopedia, an almanac and a cookbook were all rolled up into one. The illustrations and photographs are beau...

Recently, I've been immersed in gardening books and bee books and flower books...to be honest I was getting homestead overload and  it was time for something different.  So I  had the pleasure of getting a book that has been a very moving read.   The Book of Barkley: Love and Life Through the Eyes of a Labrador Retriever This is the book (click link below to be taken to the book purchasing options).   It's called  The Book of Barkley: Love and Life Through the Eyes of a Labrador Retriever .   The author is L. B. Johnson and I believe this is her first published book.  And wow, what a read it is. One thing I was immediately struck by is her beautiful writing style.  I love reading authors that have such a way of using words to so vividly describe moments in life.  Her style takes my mind to a different place when I'm reading.  As a lover of the written word, this book made me very happy and I ...

Click here to find the book on Amazon I had the pleasure of reading a book from a fellow blogger.  Many of you know Leigh Tate from her blog 5 Acres and a Dream  where she is chronicling their journey.  If you don't know her, get on over there and check it out.   She has recently written a book that documents that journey.  Even though I received the book in the Summer, I hadn’t blogged about it yet because I was actually saving it for those cold Winter evenings when I could lay in bed and read.   It  has been on my nightstand and f or the last week I’ve done just that, reading a chapter or two each evening.   While our own adventure, that I blog about here, bears a few similarities, we are nowhere NEAR being ready to do what she and her husband have done.  B ecause the book is divided up into different accounts of events and plans, it’s kind of nice to read about it and the next day,  when I find myself daydreaming about ...

Recently, I received a wonderful book for review.   Taming Wildflowers: Bringing the Beauty and Splendor of Nature's Blooms into Your Own Backyard   by author Miriam Goldberger.   Living in Texas, wildflowers are a way of life here.  In fact, as I read this book, the wildflowers are in bloom all around us, a riot of color and texture.  We also have some newly cleared areas on the property and the thought of a wildflower garden is high on our list.   Needless to say, this book was perfect timing. The book is smallish in size (dimensions) but the author somehow packs a LOT of information into that footprint.  It is over 200 pages long and is divided up into 8 chapters.  Miriam takes the reader through all aspects of wildflowers, their relationship to us, how to care for them, propagation, and so on. As many as 60 different wildflower species are referenced in the book.  Is this the definitive book on all wildfl...

I have another great book to review: Fresh Eggs Daily: Raising Happy, Healthy Chickens...Naturally   by author and blogger Lisa Steele. While we don't have chickens yet, because we aren't there full time of course, that doesn't preclude planning.  Heck, we read books about beekeeping for a few years before we had bees, so it never hurts to increase our knowledge. This is a smaller sized book but trust me when I say it is packed with lots of info and personally, I like smaller books, they don't seem so overwhelming.  This one is filled with beautiful photos, many from the author's own chicken yard (and she's got a beauty).  Flowers, greenery and chickens galore.  The pictures are great because they show, visually, exactly what she's talking about in the writing.  Lisa has a talented way of describing in great detail exactly what she shows in the pictures.  Her philosophy is natural or holistic chicken keeping...

I had the pleasure of reading another book from a fellow blogger.  Many of you know Leigh Tate from her blog  HERE . Now she is back (not that she ever went anywhere, ha) with a new book that is just as wonderfully informative as the first one.  It's called "Critter Tales".  A book that covers everything you might want to know (or were afraid to ask) about having animals/livestock on your homestead.  From dogs and cats, to chickens and guineas, to llamas and goats, even honeybees!  The book is well over 300 hundred pages long and chock full of photos and resources. This covers it all.  In fact you might say the good, the bad and the ugly.  We all know in our hearts that we want animals and livestock on our homesteads and farms but we also know, somewhere in the back of our heads, that it's not going to be as easy as it looks or sounds.  But she and her husband have been through it all, from first getting them and figuring out...

Recently, I received a couple of book recommendations in the comments of other posts and it got me to thinking; we have a lot of gardening books and cook books and decorating books.  Without a TV at the farm, when we go out there and relax a bit, it's nice to just sit and read.  But these are all pretty much "how to" books.  We love them of course but... ...one of you suggested Charlotte's Web (great suggestion to read a classic that I might look at differently now) and another suggested a book on WWII that featured someone working on a chicken farm (sounds fun).  So now I'm wondering, what fiction and/or historical books would you all recommend for the farm "library"?   I'd like to keep them farm related, maybe about someone building a garden, or raising livestock or maybe a book about a beekeeper?  Heck, maybe life on a farm now (Amish?) or even a hundred years ago (Little House on the Prairie-ish perhaps?) Speaking of fiction,...

I recently  asked for some recommendations of farm/survival/self sufficiency books.  We have a ton of just regular gardening books and of course cookbooks and all sorts of 'how to' books, but I thought it would be fun to have some fiction, or maybe first person account non fiction or historical type books about farming, or homesteading or even survival.  I got a lot!  THANK YOU!  In some of the comments,   several of you asked if I'd create a list.   Here it is, compiled from your suggestions: Growing a Farmer - Kirk Timmermeister Animal, Vegetable, Mineral - Barbara Kingsolver Tender at the Bone - Ruth Reichl Plenty: One Man, One Woman, & a Raucous Year of Eating Locally - Alisa Smith This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader - Joan Gussow Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer - Novella Carpenter  The Omnivore's Dilemma - Michael Pollan The Dirty Life - Kritsen Kimball W...