wow,  what an awesome thread !   omygoodLord what a good thread.  I am salivating. 

  Have read… Make the bread ,  buy the butter…because I've been mourning not having a cow,  and making bread every other day since retreat !!!  She has many good things to say,  but i don't agree with everything !

   Anyway,  ,  I'm reading  Enslaved by Ducks by Bob Tarte…and laughing outloud  every couple of paragraphs. 

   As newlyweds,  Joe and i read ' One Acre and Security  '…and had a wonderful place in Il,  with a big garden,   summer kitchen and ,  a tiller.  Man,  how my parents laughed at us for buying that tiller…   Then we made some choices to climb and move to bigger cities…and I KNOW  it hasn't been the best for this family.  But,  who was around to teach us how to get back to the land and make do? I longed for a country life,  and a truck and a tractor…but how to carry it off ?  Now's the time,  I think.  I have to search y'all out !

   We had a truckload of horse manure delivered to the house for free once…and I was thinking a couple of yards of manure.  What we got was a semi full…at least 10 feet high,  and 30 feet long… My cauliflower that year were as big as a bushel basket.  Omy,  that was a summer.  (  terrible weeds though) 

  anyway,  my neighbors thought it was against the law to do something like that.  But they liked the tomatos !

  laur

  I can hardly wait to read these books,  darlings…thanks everyone !

  laurie

Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery is my all time favorite and go to book. It tells not only how to do everything, but also is a life journey,,giving birth, taking the kids to book promos, what works and what doesn't. I bought my first copy in the early 70's and have bought several updated versons. I read on here that she died in the last couple of years and I still feel like I have lost a very dear friend.