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The romance of the farm calls to all of us at some point in our lives. For some, the appeal lies in the promise of a simpler lifestyle marked by honest work and results you can hold in your hands. For others, the farm is a lineage to our past. It conjures images of dewy meadows, Mason jars, ripe tomatoes and the pure companionship of a trusted horse or dog.

Usually, our dreams of going back to the farm remain dreams. But in growing numbers, today's enterprising city-dwellers are finding ways to make it happen. Whether your dream farm is just a few acres with a big garden and a rabbit hutch or an 80-acre tract with a horse corral and big red barn, John Deere's Hobby Farm is just the guide you need to get started on your adventure. With full-color photos and step-by-step projects it will give structure to your dream and take you one big step closer to achieving the real thing.

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Nothing adds more warmth and charm to a home than the simple, rustic beauty of natural wood. Now, thanks to the inspiring and creative ideas of woodworker Chris Lubkemann, bringing the natural elegance of the outdoors into your home is easier than you think. With little effort that can produce amazing results, twigs, branches and fallen trees can be transformed into artfully designed candleholders, coat racks and coffee tables that will flavor your home with an eco-chic style.

If you're creative, have an appreciation for wood, and can work with a few basic tools, you can create these 35 unique and practical projects using the easy-to-follow instructions and some found wood.

Among the distinctive projects in Tree Craft, you'll find:

• A gallery of knotted-wood photo frames to hold your favorite pictures
• Attractive table lamps in a variety of styles
• One-of-a-kind décor items such as curtain rods, clocks and planters
• Beautiful and practical coasters, napkin rings and spoon holders

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There has never been a better time to make and sell great cheese. People worldwide are consuming more high-quality, handmade cheese than ever before. The number of artisan cheesemakers has doubled in recent years, and many of the industry's newcomers are "farmstead" producers — those who work only with the milk of their own animals. More than ever before, the people who choose to become farmer-cheesemakers need access to the knowledge of established cheese artisans who can help them build their dream.

Few career choices lead to such extremes of labor, emotion and monetary challenge. In The Farmstead Creamery Advisor, respected cheesemaker, instructor and speaker Gianaclis Caldwell walks would-be producers through the many, and often confusing, steps and decisions they will face when considering a career in this burgeoning cottage industry. This book fills the gap that exists between the pasture and cheese plate. It goes far beyond issues of caring for livestock and basic cheesemaking, explaining business issues such as:

• Analyzing your suitability for the career
• Designing and building the cheese facility
• Sizing up the market
• Negotiating day-to-day obstacles
• Ensuring maximum safety and efficiency

Drawing from her own and other cheesemakers' experiences, Caldwell brings to life the story of creating a successful cheesemaking business in a practical, organized manner. Absolutely essential for anyone interested in becoming a licensed artisan cheesemaker, The Farmstead Creamery Advisor will also appeal to the many small and hobby-farm owners who already have milking animals and who wish to improve their home dairy practices and facilities.

Recommended Product for Wiser Living: Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, MOTHER EARTH NEWS is recommending books to readers. For 40 years, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

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This second collection of Mother Earth News' most popular DIY articles provides enough fun, rewarding projects to keep you and your family busy all year long. Made available to you in an easy-to-use CD-ROM format, just like our popular Mother Earth News Archive on CD-ROM.

Selected from nearly 40 years of material, this collection provides 147 articles for enough fun, rewarding projects to keep you busy every single weekend for a full year!

You can learn how to:

• build a rabbit hutch
• make your own tiles
• build a log cabin
• build a solar water heater
• build a natural swimming pool
• make a kite from recycled materials
• And more!!!

• With an IBM-compatible computer: Microsoft® Windows 98 SE (Second Edition) or newer; with Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5 or newer. You also will need Java Virtual Machine (VM) version 1.3 (free download from www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp) or newer browser plug-in with Java enabled on your browser and computer.
• With an Apple Computer: Mac OS X with Safari 3.2.525.27.1 or newer and Java. Use the Software Update feature (available on the Apple menu) to check that you have the most up-to-date version of Java for your Mac.
• For Mac OS 9.2.2, this CD must be run in Netscape 7.0.2 with Apple MRJ 2.2.5. (Both available free from www.versiontracker.com.)
• A CD-ROM drive (auto-start should be enabled).

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Recently, thousands of North American schools have begun to take a critical look at their grounds and realize the enormous potential for transforming barren expanses of asphalt into a diversity of exciting natural spaces for learning and playing.

This compendium of articles from Green Teacher, North America's leading environmental education magazine, brings together the best strategies for school-ground renewal. Greening School Grounds provides an overview of the school grounds greening movement, complete project plans, and subject integration. From vegetable and butterfly gardens to an amphibian oasis and avian attractors, this comprehensive guide offers a trove of curriculum tie-ins, activities, and plans for educators, parents, and students.

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Water has been described as the 21st century oil. Water shortages, water quality and water rights are hot-button issues at the local, national and international levels. Climate change, population growth and contamination from industry, farms and human settlements have dramatically impacted water supplies and disrupted natural nutrient cycles. Strategic wastewater management will be a critical tool in protecting this valuable but threatened resource.

Reusing the Resource is a comprehensive guide to using plants to stabilize, clean, filter and reuse wastewater, while simultaneously eliminating expensive and polluting sewers and septic systems. The book profiles more than 30 successful ecological wastewater recycling systems that save money, protect public and environmental health, and provide plant-based fuel, fiber, construction materials, habitat and landscapes. It details the pros and cons of various systems, and provides tips for designers, regulators and builders. Case studies include:

• a greenhouse-enclosed wastewater aquaculture system
• a regional wastewater-recycling plant
• a city's wastewater-treatment wetland
• graywater planters.

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With easy recipes using ingredients grown in your window box or bought at the local market, ethnobotanist James Wong shows you how easy – and cheap – it is to make simple creams, salves, teas, lozenges and much more. Wong uses his top-class academic knowledge to reveal how many plants contain the same active ingredients as over-the-counter drugs, and offers recipes to relieve a whole range of common conditions, including:

• Digestive disorders: bad breath, heartburn and indigestion, digestion, irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, flatulence, diarrhea
• Skin complaints: athlete's foot, eczema, insect bites and stings, acne, sunburn, age spots, fungal conditions, burn scars, poor foot circulation, chapped hands and sores, insect deterrent
• Kids' remedies: vitamin booster, head lice, eczema, ear wax buildup, colic
• Aches and pains: water retention, varicose veins, aching muscles, arthritis
• Female-specific problems: hot flashes and night sweats, morning and travel sickness, PMS, cystitis
• Under the weather: colds and flu, coughs and sore throats, cholesterol reducer, hangover, cold sores, immune system booster, mouth ulcers, restorative
• Mind: memory enhancer, insomnia, migraine prevention, anxiety, memory booster
• Face and body: hair strengthener, body scrub, bath and massage oil, deodorant, face mask, hand care, bath bomb, exfoliator, face toner/hair rinse, sore eyes, tired/red eyes, glycerine soap, plague remover and gum soother, chapped lips

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When There Is No Doctor is smartly designed and full of medical tips and emergency suggestions. At a time when our health system has become particularly susceptible to strain, this book should be no further than an arm’s reach away in your household.

As the book's author, Gerard S. Doyle write, "This is a book about sustainable health, primarily having to do with your health and what you can do to protect it—in bad times certainly, but also hopefully in good. Its advice will help you ensure the health of those you love, yourself and, should you so choose, your community, if and when the world changes. World may come to mean your little town or the whole globe. It could change for a few days or weeks, or for a few years. It could change because of a flood, financial crisis, flu pandemic, or failure of our energy procurement, production or distribution systems.

"I will not teach you to be a medical MacGyver," Doyle writes, "the lone survivalist who anticipates doing an appendectomy on himself or a loved one on the kitchen table with a steak knife and a few spoons, although I will discuss techniques of austere and improvised medicine for really hard times."

About the author
Gerard S. Doyle, MD, teaches and practices emergency medicine at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he also plans the hospital’s response to disasters.

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Taking its inspiration from John Seymour's best-selling classic, The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency, Self Sufficiency for the 21st Century brings the subject up to date by showing how to live a more sustainable life that everyone can access, whether living in the city, the suburbs or the country. Sharing their experiences, tips and techniques, father-and-son team Dick and James Strawbridge show how to make the practical changes that will have a big impact on your life — without having to transform your lifestyle. Covering eco-projects, plant-by-plant and animal-by-animal identification, how to produce little or no waste and remove our dependence upon fossil fuels, and so much more, Self Sufficiency for the 21st Century includes something for everyone — from urban apartment dwellers to suburbanites to those living in the countryside.

Recommended Product for Wiser Living: Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, MOTHER EARTH NEWS is recommending books to readers. For 40 years, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

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Add a feeling of accomplishment to your life and personalization to your home with the ultimate practice in self-sufficiency: do-it-yourself projects from Mother Earth News. Get the know-how to fashion custom furniture, erect personal fences and more with the 479 pages of project tips and instructions in the Do-It-Yourself E-book Projects Collection on CD-ROM.

For the first time, Mother Earth News is proud to offer the complete Do-It-Yourself E-book Projects Collection on CD-ROM. This comprehensive collection includes 14 useful e-books with titles ranging from "How to Build a Pond for Fun or Food" to "How to Keep Your Basement Dry". The Do-It-Yourself E-book Projects Collection on CD-ROM is packed with practical information, innovative ideas and creative projects to inspire self-sufficiency.

E-book Projects Included in the Collection:

• How to Build Simple Furniture
• How to Build Cold Frames
• How to Build Easy Composters
• How to Build a Pole Woodshed
• How to Build a Smokehouse
• How to Build Fences
• How to Build a Pond for Food and Fun
• How to Manage a Woodlot
• How to Build Easy Bird Feeders
• How to Maintain Axes & Chainsaws
• How to Build Bat Houses
• How to Keep Your Basement Dry
• How to Build Cold Storage for Fruits & Vegetables
• How to Buy an Old House