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Here’s the ideal hands-on guidebook for self-sufficient farmers, ranchers and hunters with step-by-step instructions on butchering beef, venison, pork, lamb, poultry and goats. Time-tested advice on how to cure the meat by smoking or salting helps you preserve your harvest. A final section explains how to make sausages. Numerous mouthwatering recipes are included.

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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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This definitive month-by-month guide brings gardeners into the delicious world of edible landscaping and helps take a load off the planet as we achieve greater food security. Full of illustrative color photos and step-by-step instructions, The Zero-Mile Diet shares wisdom gleaned from 30 years of food growing and seed saving with comprehensive advice on:

• Growing organic food year-round
• The small fruit orchard and backyard berries
• Superb yet simple seasonal recipes
• Preserving your harvest
• Seed saving and plant propagation
• Dirt-cheap ways to nourish your soil
• Backyard poultry — it's less time-consuming than you think
• Growing vegetables in the easiest way possible
• A-Z guide to growing the best vegetables and herbs

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Conventional agriculture destroys our soils, pollutes our water and is a major contributor to climate change. What if our agricultural practices could stabilize, or even reverse these trends?

The Biochar Solution explores the dual function of biochar as a carbon-negative energy source and a potent soil-builder. Created by burning biomass in the absence of oxygen, this material has the unique ability to hold carbon back from the atmosphere while simultaneously enhancing soil fertility. Author Albert Bates traces the evolution of this extraordinary substance from the ancient black soils of the Amazon to its reappearance as a modern carbon sequestration strategy.

Combining practical techniques for the production and use of biochar with an overview of the development and future of carbon farming, The Biochar Solution describes how a new agricultural revolution can reduce net greenhouse gas emissions to below zero while increasing world food reserves and creating energy from biomass wastes. Biochar and carbon farming can reduce fossil fuels inputs into our food system; bring new life to desert landscapes; filter and purify drinking water; and help build carbon-negative homes, communities and nations.

Biochar is not without dangers if unregulated, and it is not a panacea, but if it fulfills its promise of taking us back from the brink of irreversible climate change, it may well be the most important discovery in human history.

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Since it was first published, this classic guide has helped thousands of horse owners with its comprehensive, expert information on grooming, foaling, housing, diet, exercise, disease prevention and treatment, and much more. Now completely revised and updated, the second edition includes up-to-date coverage of horse health issues and vaccination options, thoroughly updated advice on hoof care, and expanded coverage of reproductive care and techniques.

About the author
Heather Smith Thomas has been raising cattle since she was 12 years old. She and her husband have raised a herd of cattle that they have cross-bred to meet the needs of their rugged and hilly ranch in Salmon, Idaho. Heather has also written many articles on horses, farms, and livestock. She and her husband live in Idaho. She and her husband live in Idaho.

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Farmer Jane profiles 30 women in the sustainable food industry, describing their agriculture and business models and illustrating the amazing changes they are making in how we connect with food. These advocates for creating a more holistic and nurturing food and agriculture system also answer questions on starting a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program, how to get involved in policy at local and national levels, and how to address the different types of renewable energy and finance them. A hands-on guide for getting involved in the sustainable food movement.

About the Author:
Temra Costa has been working with the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) in California for the past five years through the programs of Farm to School and Buy Fresh Buy Local in the Sacramento Valley and Bay Area. She is currently director of Buy Fresh Buy Local and lives in Sacramento.

A hands-on guide for getting involved in the sustainable food movement.

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Shunned by industrial farmers, vilified by corporate agri-business, and stalked by food police as being a lunatic, farmer-entrepreneur Joel Salatin enjoys the sheer ecstasy of being surrounded by happy, frolicking animals, dancing earthworms, and appreciative customers.

His family's farm nestled in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley has achieved iconic status worldwide by featuring prominently in the Oscar-nominated documentary, Food. Inc., and the documentary, Fresh," as well as the runaway New York Times best-seller The Omnivore's Dilemma. From his own pen, Salatin explains both the rationale for the satisfaction from a solar-driven, pastured-based, locally-marketed, symbiotic, synergistic, relationally-oriented farm.

This book describes, with stories and evangelistic fervor, the breadth and depth of the paradigm differences between healing and exploitive food systems. A landscape and food policy epiphany awaits every reader.

Joel Salatin and his family own and operate Polyface Farm, arguably the nation's most famous farm since it was profiled in Michael Pollan's New York Times best-seller, The Omnivore's Dilemma and two subsequent documentaries, "Food, Inc.", and "Fresh." An accomplished author and public speaker, Salatin has authored seven books. Recognition for his ecological and local-based farming advocacy includes an honorary doctorate, the Heinz Award, and many leadership awards.

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Growing Roots: The New Generation of Sustainable Farmers, Cooks, and Food Activists is about a new revolution in food that involves young people who are living sustainable lives that revolve around healthy, natural food.

The book introduces us to farmers and beekeepers, fishermen and chefs, food activists and cheesemongers, and many, many more. We meet these fascinating young people from all across the nation through first-person profiles, along with brilliant photographs and delicious, simple recipes. They talk about raising grass-fed beef, lamb, and pork; growing vegetables and grains; keeping bees and making cheese; and their restaurants and their markets. Included are filmmakers, writers, and artists who change the way we look at what we eat and where our food comes from. In their profiles we learn how these young people got to where they are today, their backgrounds, their education, and their passionate relationship to food.

The author’s through-line gives us a glimpse of her own journey with food, through her own childhood, raising children, and becoming an empty-nester. Growing Roots is about relationships and how food figures in those relationships. It is for everyone who is interested in learning about this new iteration of the food movement and the folks involved, whether you’d like to figure out how to do it for yourself, or just love reading about it. The photos are beautiful, the narrative lively, and the recipes simple and delicious. A must-read for all ages and a wonderful addition to the food-lover’s bookshelf.

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Veterinary Guide for Animal Owners is a guide for everyone who cares for or raises animals at home or on a farm — from the 4-H student to the home breeder to parents of a new puppy. The Veterinary Guide for Animal Owners includes detailed chapters on cats, dogs, rabbits, chickens, horses, cattle, sheep, goats and pigs, as well as hundreds of strategies for preventing and curing common problems. From nail care for cats and dogs to treating saddle sore on horses, from administering medication to caring for baby pigs, this is first-rate advice from a veterinarian that anyone can understand.

About the authors
C.E. Spaulding, D.V.M, studied veterinary medicine at Michigan State University and practiced veterinary medicine for more than thirty years. In addition, he owned his own farm animals, including horses, goats, poultry, pigs and cattle.

Jackie Clay is a trained veterinary field technician with more than 20 years of experience. She is also a prolific writer, having authored four books and hundreds of magazine articles. She is a regular writer for Backwoods Home Magazine, writing on animal care, gardening, canning and rural, self-reliant living. She lives on a remote homestead in northern Minnesota with her family and lots of animals.

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How to navigate by the stars, attract butterflies to a garden, build the perfect bonfire, and bake one's own bread — an indispensable guide to everything people knew and loved before we went inside and turned on the TV.

In a world of traffic congestion, supermarket shopping, and 24-hour internet access, it is easy to feel disconnected from the beauty and rhythms of the natural world. This is the book for anyone who has ever gazed in awe at stars in the night's sky, tried to catch a perfect snowflake, or longed for the comfort of a roaring log fire. Readers will learn how to predict the weather just by looking at the sky, how to forage for food, and how to make cider. From differentiating types of owls to gardening by the phases of the moon, and from curing a cold to brewing ale, this lovely guide is packed with instructions and lists, ancient customs, and old wives tales, making it an indispensable guide to countryside lore.