Author Sue Weaver, who keeps various exotic breeds and countless barnies on her farm, is an expert on all things livestock and an avowed chicken fanatic. This photo-filled guide begins with “Chickens 101” and details the physiology of chickens, members of the Phasianidea family, providing beginning hobby farmers with a basic education in the chicken’s unique physical makeup (from wings and feathers to beaks and digestive tracts), behavior, mating, and its unexpected high intelligence. The author offers advice on choosing the right types of chickens to get started: meat, egg, or dual purpose, or maybe even “just for pets.” The book is an excellent resource for selecting which breed of chicken is best for the hobby farmer based on the birds’ traits, such as aggression, personality, noise factor, tolerance for heat, confinement, cold, etc. Chickens also provides information on selecting or building a suitable chicken coop for the hobby farmer’s brood, outlining the basic requirements (lighting, ventilation, flooring, waterers, insulation, safety, and so forth). A detailed chapter on feeding chickens offers essential guidance on nutrition, commercial feeds, supplements, and water requirements. For the chicken hobby farmer looking to start with a clutch of baby chicks (from his own hen or an outside source), the author provides excellent info on incubators and hatching as well as all of the accommodations and preparation required for hens in the nest box. A chapter on selling eggs and broilers provides timetables, requirements, and dos and don’ts to get a hobby farmer’s business off on the right foot. All chicken keepers will find the chapter on health of particular value, with expert advice on preventing common problems and dealing with various maladies and diseases. Much detailed information about all of the topics in the book is encapsulated in sidebars. A glossary of over 125 terms plus a detailed resource section of chicken and poultry associations, books, and websites complete the volume. Fully indexed.

    And with the help of author Anne-Marie Faiola, it's easy to make luscious, all-natural soaps right in your own kitchen. This collection of 32 recipes ranges from simple castile bars to intricate swirls, embeds, and marbled and layered looks. Begin with a combination of skin-nourishing oils and then add blueberry puree, dandelion-infused water, almond milk, coffee grounds, mango and avocado butters, black tea, or other delicious ingredients -- and then scent your soap with pure essential oils. Step-by-step photography guides you through every stage of cold-process soapmaking.

    Learn to sew traditional and silk ribbon embroidery, make raised stitches, and embellish with beads, charms, buttons, and mirrors. Step-by-step photo instructions show exactly how to sew 85 different stitches. Learn how to combine and place stitches to enhance a finished piece and how to work with embroidery threads, ribbons, fabrics, laces, beads, buttons, and other embellishments.Includes 8 complete embroidery projects to stitch and embellish. An essential embroidery reference for everyone from beginners to experts.

    Why? Because the bold promises in the book are kept: grow vegetables anywhere, earlier in the year, with no weeding. Gardeners everywhere are excited. Straw bale gardening works! In just the short amount of time that has passed, the gardening world and Joel Karsten himself have learned even more about how to apply this method in just about any environment: on a city balcony, in a rocky outpost, in a desert, and even in the tundra of Alaska.Straw Bale Gardens Complete contains all of the original information that has set the gardening world on fire. But it also goes much deeper, with nearly 50 pages of all-new advice and photos on subjects such as growing in a tight urban setting, making your straw bale garden completely organic, and using new fertilizers and conditioning products. There is even information on using straw bale techniques to grow veggies in other organic media for anyone who has a hard time finding straw.Fans of Straw Bale Gardens will not want to miss adding Straw Bale Gardens Complete to their gardening library. There is, literally, nothing else like it!

    More than 300 color photos illustrate the plants, their flowers, leaves, and fruits. The descriptive text includes information on where the plants are found as well as their known medicinal uses. An index to medical topics is helpful for quickly locating information on specific ailments from asthma and headaches to colds and stomach aches. Symbols next to plant descriptions provide quick visual caution for plants that are poisonous or cause allergic reactions. Organized by plant color for fast identification, this guide is a tool for understanding the traditional medicinal uses of the plants around us.

    They erode soils, pollute air and water, damage riparian areas, and decimate wildlife populations. The UN s Food and Agriculture Organization bolstered the credibility of this notion with its 2007 report that declared livestock to be the single largest contributor to human-generated climate-change emissions.But is the matter really so clear cut? Hardly. In her new book, Defending Beef, environmental lawyer turned rancher Nicolette Hahn Niman argues that cattle are not inherently bad for the Earth. The impact of grazing can be either negative or positive, depending on how livestock are managed. In fact, with proper oversight livestock can actually play an essential role in maintaining grassland ecosystems by performing the same functions as the natural herbivores that once roamed and grazed there. Grounded in empirical scientific data, Defending Beef builds the most comprehensive and convincing argument to date that cattle could actually serve as the Earth s greatest environmental benefactors by helping to build carbon-sequestering soils and prevent desertification.Defending Beef is simultaneously a book about big issues and ideas and the personal tale of the author, who starts out as a skeptical vegetarian and eventually becomes involved with sustainable ranching. She shows how dispersed, grass-based, smaller-scale farms can and should become the basis for American food production. And while no single book could definitively answer the thorny question of how to feed the Earth s growing population, Defending Beef makes the case that, whatever the world s future food system looks like, livestock can and must be part of the solution."

    Compiled from the information in Storey Publishing's landmark series of "Country Wisdom Bulletins," this book is the most thorough and reliable volume of its kind. Organized by general topic including animals, cooking, crafts, gardening, health and well-being, and home, it is further broken down to cover dozens of specifics from "Building Chicken Coops" to "Making Cheese, Butter, and Yogurt" to "Improving Your Soil" to "Restoring Hardwood Floors." Nearly 1,000 black-and-white illustrations and photographs run throughout and fascinating projects and trusted advice crowd every page.

    With this book you can turn the tiniest space into a productive and attractive plot, using the best varieties and techniques. Follow 30 tried-and-tested container recipes for top tasting crop combinations such as tomato with basil, fruit salads and cut-and-come-again vegetables. Discover the essential techniques that every container-gardener should know and use the crop directory to find out the best way to grow more than 60 vegetables, fruit, salads, herbs and edible flowers.

    The incidence of diet-related diseases, including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, and heart disease, has skyrocketed to unprecedented levels. Whether you have forty acres and a mule or a condo with a balcony, you can do more than you think to safeguard your health, your money, and the planet.Homegrown and Handmade shows how making things from scratch and growing at least some of your own food can help you eliminate artificial ingredients from your diet, reduce your carbon footprint, and create a more authentic life. Whether your goal is increasing your self-reliance or becoming a full-fledged homesteader, it's packed with answers and solutions to help you:Take control of your food supply from seed to plate Raise small and medium livestock for fun, food, and fiber Rediscover traditional skills to meet more of your family's needs than you ever thought possibleThis comprehensive guide to food and fiber from scratch proves that attitude and knowledge is more important than acreage. Written from the perspective of a successful self-taught modern homesteader, this well illustrated, practical, and accessible manual will appeal to anyone who dreams of a simpler life.Deborah Niemann is a homesteader, writer, and self-sufficiency expert who presents extensively on topics including soapmaking, bread baking, cheesemaking, composting, and homeschooling. She and her family raise sheep, pigs, cattle, goats, chickens, and turkeys for meat, eggs, and dairy products, while an organic garden and orchard provides fruit and vegetables.

    The award-winning Scam School Book 1 is available March 14 (Pi day!) on the eReader of your choice. Hear behind-the-scenes secrets about Scam School episodes and listen to bonus techniques with Brian's exclusive audio commentary for every trick featured in the book. Embedded video demonstrations provide an easy way to understand some of the visual aspects of your favorite scams.Ever need to review a trick at the bar before pulling it off in front of an audience? Having the Scam School book on-the-go allows you to easily review tricks, techniques, and presentation ideas in secret before amazing your friends.Each trick has a custom header designed to summarize the type (or class) of trick, the factors involved, and what objects are required to pull it off. Each section that corresponds to a Scam School episode links directly to that episode.

    Mushroom authority David Arora provides a beginner's checklist of the 70 most distinctive and common mushrooms, plus detailed chapters on terminology, classification, habitats, mushroom cookery, mushroom toxins, and the meanings of scientific mushroom names. Beginning and experienced mushroom hunters everywhere will find MUSHROOMS DEMYSTIFIED a delightful, informative, and indispensible companion.

    Back in civilization, Boutenko was dismayed by the inferior quality of store-bought food and industrial agriculture, and began to regularly collect wild plants near his home and on his travels. Now, in Wild Edibles, he shares knowledge gleaned from years of live-food wildcrafting and thriving in harmony with nature.This practical guide to plant foraging gives hikers, backpackers, raw foodists, gardeners, chefs, foodies, DIYers, survivalists, and off-the-grid enthusiasts the tools to identify, harvest, and prepare wild edible plants. The book outlines basic rules for safe wild-food foraging and discusses poisonous plants, plant identification protocol, gathering etiquette, and conservation.Boutenko explores in detail the many rewards of eating wild flora: environmental protection, sustainability, saving money, economic self-sufficiency, and healthy living. He draws on thoroughly researched nutrition science to make a compelling case for the health benefits of a diverse, local-food diet that includes wild greens.The majority of the 60 edible plants described in this field guide can be found worldwide, including common-growing trees. Over 300 color photos make plant identification easy and safe. A chapter containing 67 high-nutrient vegan recipes—including green smoothies, salads and salad dressings, spreads and crackers, main courses, juices, and sweets—provides inspiration to join Sergei on the trail to radiant health.“Wild Edibles: A Practical Guide to Foraging, with Easy Identification of 60 Edible Plants and 67 Recipes has taught me that my backyard is full of free food! Way to go, Sergei.” —John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market

    Her characters—Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle Duck, and all the rest—exist in a charmed world filled with flowers and gardens. In Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life, bestselling author Marta McDowell explores the origins of Beatrix Potter’s love of gardening and plants and shows how this passion came to be reflected in her work. The book begins with a gardener’s biography, highlighting the key moments and places throughout her life that helped define her. Next, follow Beatrix Potter through a year in her garden, with a season-by-season overview of what is blooming that truly brings her gardens alive. The book culminates in a traveler’s guide, with information on how and where to visit Potter’s gardens today.

    Use the oldest, most available materials imaginable — earth, clay, sand, straw, and water — and blend them to redefine the future (and past) of building.

    In this essential guide, Bruce Rogers, "The Orchid Whisperer," shares his expert tips from more than three decades of breeding and growing orchids. The book demystifies the growing process and features more than 100 lush color photographs of breathtaking plants. Best of all, it reveals professional secrets not found anywhere else for blooming, repotting, spotting hazards and pests, grooming, decorating, and much more. Perfect for beginners as well as orchid experts looking for new tricks, The Orchid Whisperer provides everything readers need to know to keep healthy orchids that will flower again and again!