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A lighthearted A-to-Z encyclopedia of farm lore, Barnyard Confidential covers everything you need to know about living in the country, from courting to dealing with manure, root picking to rat catching, winter chores to tractor restoration, hay mows to outhouses … anything and everything related to farm life. Entries from well-known country authors like E. B. White, Gwen Petersen, Roger Welsch and Patricia Penton Leimbach range from funny definitions to full stories and are illustrated throughout with a charming mix of fun, nostalgic, black-and-white photos and illustrations. These stories are both humorous and practical and will remind you why you often have a love-hate relationship with rural living. Before you move to the country (or even if you already live there), learn all the secrets to success from Barnyard Confidential.

Featured authors include: Eric Sloane, Roger Welsch, Gwen Petersen, Ben Logan, Jim Heynen, Bob Artley, Marjorie Myers Douglas, Hamlin Garland, E. B. White, Jerry Stelmok, Louis Bromfield, Bob Becker, William Hazlett Upson, Patricia Penton Leimbach, Jerry L. Twedt, Michael Perry, Willa Cather, Jerry Apps, Josh Billings, Michael Dregni, Jared Van Wagenen Jr., Hugh Orchard, Dorothy Canfield, Virginia Bell Dabney, Tom Anderson, Ronald Jager, Margret Aldrich, Bill Vossler, and Gordon Green.

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Hempstone Heritage I explores the fascinating story of the thriving hemp industry of early Pennsylvania. The book's subtitle offers a succinct summation: "All the Heckled Hemp She Can Spin - A Study of the Early American Homespun Hemp Industry as Revealed by the Wills of Old Lancaster County, Pennsylvania: 1729-1845."

The first book in the Hempstone Heritage Series, this work reveals the untold tale of the hempfields of Pennsylvania. Hemp was a vital necessity for our ancestors. They used it for everything from course cloth to fine linen and everything in between. The Conestoga wagons were covered in hemp canvas, and hemp was used for grain bags, rugs, curtains, tablecloths, napkins, handkerchiefs, towels, pillowcases, sheets, and tough, durable work clothes. Between 1729 and1845, Pennsylvania's Lancaster County alone contained more than 100 water-powered hemp mills, and dozens more were located in York County. The author reveals this and much more in this detailed account. It's a story that is changing the way historians have viewed our history and opening the eyes of many.

In a race to save Lancaster County's prime farmland and unique culture before this beautiful but endangered land is paved over forever, Hempstone Heritage donates one dollar for every book sold to the Lancaster Farmland Trust.

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Build a honey extractor. Use top-bar hives. Bake with honey. Find your favorite honeybee. Read about all this and more with GRIT's Guide to Backyard Bees and Honey, 3rd Edition. This treasure-trove of bee knowledge has more than 75 ways to get more from your bees. Cover-to-cover, this 100-page guide includes great advice, tips, techniques, instructions, recipes and more to help you get started with beekeeping … or, if you are a seasoned beekeeper, to help you learn new tricks of the trade.

Save money while building your own beehive or honey extractor with simple materials available at your local hardware store. Read how to use a top-bar hive, a less expensive method to raising bees that will pollinate your crops and provide tasty honey fresh from the comb. Honey adds something natural, healthy and sweet to any recipe, whether it's appetizers or main dishes.

More articles include:

• Top Tips for Happy Bees: Expert advice for novice urban beekeepers.
• Bee Byproducts: Honey is but one of the items created by ever-industrious honeybees.
• Go Native with Wild Bees: The humble little orchard mason bee is the best-kept (pollinator) secret.
• The Case of the Disappearing Honeybees: What is colony collapse disorder, and what can be done?
• Winterizing Your Bees … Naturally: There may be snow on the ground and ice on the trees, but your bees are a balmy 96 degrees Fahrenheit inside their hive.
• And more!

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Across North America, an agricultural renaissance is unfolding. A growing number of market gardeners are emerging to feed our appetite for organic, regional produce. At the same time, most books and resources about food production aim at the backyard and hobby gardener, who simply want to supplement their family's diet with a few homegrown fruits and vegetables. Targeted at serious growers in every climate zone, Sustainable Market Farming acts as a comprehensive manual for small-scale farmers raising organic crops sustainably on a few acres.

Informed by the author's extensive experience growing a wide variety of fresh, organic vegetables and fruit to feed the approximately 100 members of Twin Oaks Community in central Virginia, this practical guide provides:

• Detailed profiles of a full range of crops, addressing sowing, cultivation, rotation, succession, common pests and diseases, harvest and storage
• Information about new and efficient techniques, season extension, and disease-resistant varieties
• Farm-specific business skills to help ensure a successful, profitable enterprise

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MOTHER EARTH NEWS and GRIT come together to bring you 600 pages of expert advice, recipes, do-it-yourself projects and more information on living a self-sufficient life. This set covers everything from organic gardening to bees and honey, from backyard rabbits to self-reliance and country skills. The do-it-yourself projects include energy-saving household updates as well as instructions for constructing chicken coops, outdoor bread ovens and permanent garden beds. Follow recipes for baking sourdough bread, preparing rabbit meat, fixing delicious egg dishes, and cooking with honey. Discover how to save money with energy-saving tips for your home, and how to cut your food bills in half by growing your own food right in your own backyard.

This set includes:
MOTHER EARTH NEWS Guide to Organic Gardening, 4th Edition
This glossy-paged guide is perfect for beginners or expert gardeners. It covers everything from perennial vegetables to choosing a greenhouse, from organic pest control to making compost. Read how poultry is the secret weapon for organic pest control. Learn how to make the best homemade tomato cages. Or plan out your kitchen garden with four delightful herb gardens plans.

MOTHER EARTH NEWS Guide to Self-Reliance and Country Skills, 2nd Edition
With more than 20 articles, this guide has hundreds of great ideas for self-reliant living. From preserving food to small-space gardening, from backyard chickens to making your own yogurt and cheese, this special guide has a wide variety of information that will help you lead a sustainable life.

GRIT Guide to Homemade Bread, 3rd Edition
Bread, bagels, pretzels, pizza crust, cookies and more! All of these delicious homemade creations can be found in this Guide to Homemade Bread. This guide includes more than 53 keys to successful bread making, outdoor bread oven plans, fail-proof no-knead breads, top bread machines tips and more.

GRIT Guide to Backyard Rabbits, 2nd Edition
You'll find more than 25 keys to a successful rabbit-raising enterprise in this special Barnyard Series guide. Learn about raising rabbits for meat and breeding stock. Build rabbit homes and learn what equipment you'll need. Read about a basic bunny diet that will keep them happy and healthy, and also discover so much more.

GRIT Guide to Backyard Chickens, 4th Edition
Calling all chicken enthusiasts! The fourth edition of this popular guide is overflowing with expert advice, key facts and easy chicken coop plans that will have both beginner and seasoned chicken owners crowing for joy! Read how to build a broiler coop on a shoestring budget. Build the perfect chicken tractor. Learn which heritage hens are the best for laying eggs. Follow the wide variety of delicious chicken recipes this book has to offer.

GRIT Guide to Backyard Bees and Honey, 3rd Edition
This treasure-trove of bee knowledge has more than 75 ways to get more from your bees. Cover-to-cover, this guide includes tips on saving money while building your own beehive or honey extractor with simple materials available at your local hardware store. Read how to use a top-bar hive, a less expensive method to raising bees that will pollinate your crops and provide tasty honey fresh from the comb.

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How to Not Go Broke Ranching is the irreverent, laugh-out-loud effort of a rancher to help people keep from committing all of the mistakes he made over the course of more than 50 years of ranching. This is advice drawn from real life … but some names have been changed to protect the guilty.

The vast majority of ranches in the United States, whether commercial or lifestyle operations, are neither profitable nor sustainable; author Walt Davis explains why this is so and what must be done to remedy the situation. The required changes in philosophy and management practices are spelled out in detail by a man who used them to turn a ranch teetering on the edge of bankruptcy into a consistently profitable and stable operation.

This book is not a how-to cookbook. It's an attempt to get people to think of ranching (and agriculture in general) as the biological endeavors run on sunshine and rainfall that they once were and should be again … rather than the industrial enterprises that are common today. The methods described have been proven effective by people all over the world and their results can be duplicated by anyone who is willing to think through their own situation and not be afraid to be different. As Davis' father once told him, "You have two kinds of neighbors: Half of them think you are crazy and the other half knows you are crazy." The management described by Davis may not yet be universally accepted, but it works from all standpoints: it's financially and ecologically sound, and provides a good way to live and raise a family.

Whether you're a would-be rancher, a greenhorn just starting out or an old hand, you'll find information and advice in this book that can be used to make your operation more profitable, less dependent on purchased inputs and markets, and a whole lot more fun.

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Do you have a dream of living on a farm? From buying land and being neighborly to determiningg soil fertility and creating filing systems, this “entrepreneur’s guide to starting and succeeding in a farming enterprise” tells you everything you need to know to make farming an economically viable option and a practical success. While this resource can be helpful to all farmers, it's written for wannabes, the folks just getting started with rural living.