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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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There's something to be said for simpler times, when our way of life seemed more wholesome ... when our food was grown with fewer pesticides and growth hormones ... when we tended kitchen gardens, kept a flock of chickens and "put up" beans, pears and pickles. So it's easy to see why people across the nation are returning to their roots — and root cellars — and embracing a return to the basics.

With Traditional Kitchen Wisdom you, too, can enjoy the rewards of being more self-reliant by ...

• Growing your own fruits and vegetables in a space as small as a windowsill
• Turning fresh fruit into jams and jellies
• Learning safe canning and freezing methods
• Drying foods and creating your own herbs and spices
• Making homemade wine, beer and naturally flavored vodka
• Raising chickens and honeybees, making your own cheese and more!

Start your own family traditions with Traditional Kitchen Wisdom, and rediscover the pleasure of returning to a greener, healthier and more self-sufficient lifestyle.

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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From the environmental activist Newsweek called the "star of climate change" comes the ultimate guide to living green for those ready to take their eco-efforts up a notch.
br /> Ed Begley Jr.'s Guide to Sustainable Living lays out a detailed road map culled from Ed's 39 years of green living. For the first time ever, a comprehensive plan is provided, from effective conservation techniques to producing your own energy.

Starting with the energy audit, Ed shows us how to create a game plan for resource conservation in the home. Then, once an adequate baseline of resource use is achieved, he leads us into more in-depth eco-matters, such as the production of alternative energy, and how to use solar and wind energy and a geothermal pump. As Ed's guide continues, the focus then turns to sustainable lifestyle management choices, such as home gardening, and guidelines on creating a green nursery for your children. This book covers it all – small to large – in plain language and in a progression from resource conservation to energy production and lifestyle management that makes both environmental and fiscal sense.

There's something here for everyone – new and experienced environmentalists alike – and Ed walks you through every step of the way with helpful sidebars that outline costs and paybacks, as well as essays detailing his experiences of completing these eco-projects on his own home.

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In Getting a Grip 2, Frances Moore Lappé, author of the groundbreaking Diet for a Small Planet, speaks to everyone distressed by the state of our world. In a vibrant, intimate voice, she challenges us to re-examine outdated assumptions about who we are and how the world works. She then weaves surprising facts and stories of courage into a novel narrative of meaning and action.

Drawing on breakthroughs from neuroscience to anthropology, Lappé offers us a way of seeing possibility based not in wishful thinking but hard evidence.

Getting a Grip 2, thoroughly rewritten for this moment, shows us how reframing the very meaning of democracy, power, fear, courage and even hope itself, can free us to create the lives and the world we really want.

Lappé's startling message leaves readers feeling liberated and courageous.

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Nature’s Garden follows the same award-winning format of Samuel Thayer’s first book, with in-depth chapters covering 41 wild edibles. You will find the most authoritative accounts available anywhere of several important food plants, such as hackberry and American lotus.

You'll find mouthwatering photography of cranberries, blueberries, huckleberries, strawberries, wild plums and more. You’ll hear of new methods for using dandelions, and learn to make sense of the tricky wild lettuce / sow thistle group. You’ll also discover that wild carrot and poison hemlock can be reliably told apart, thanks to a detailed chart accompanied by 19 photographs.

You’ll read about vegetables with a rich tradition of use around the world that are largely ignored in the wild food literature, such as cow parsnip, patience dock and honewort. You can read more exciting myth-busting about poisonous plant fables and the maligned black nightshade, plus anecdotes about purple children and the hazards of eating cacti.

Yet, perhaps the best part of all is the book within a book about acorns: 51 pages of the details that turn these nuts into food.

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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Solar energy is an abundant resource. Once a curiosity, solar electric systems are becoming commonplace. As we transition away from finite and polluting fossil fuels, clean, reliable and affordable renewable technologies such as solar electricity will become the mainstay of our energy supply.

Solar Electricity Basics provides a clear understanding of the sun, solar energy and solar electric systems. It discusses the theoretical, practical and economic aspects of residential solar installations including inverters, batteries and controllers, costs of solar electric systems, financial incentives, system installation and maintenance, permits, covenants, utility interconnection, and buying a system.

Whether your goal is to lower your energy bill through a grid-connected system or to achieve complete energy independence, Solar Electricity Basics is the introduction you need.

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Heating water with the sun is a practice almost as old as humankind itself. Solar Water Heating, now completely revised and expanded, is the definitive guide to this clean and cost-effective technology.

Beginning with a review of the history of solar water and space heating systems from prehistory to the present, Solar Water Heating presents an introduction to modern solar energy systems, energy conservation and energy economics. Drawing on the authors' experiences as designers and installers of these systems, the book goes on to cover types of solar collectors, solar water and space heating systems, and solar pool heating systems, including their advantages and disadvantages; system components, their installation, operation and maintenance; system sizing and siting, and choosing the appropriate system.

This book focuses on the financial aspects of solar water or space heating systems, clearly showing that such systems generate significant savings in the long run. With many diagrams and illustrations to complement the clearly-written text, this book is designed for a wide readership ranging from the curious homeowner to the serious student or professional.

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When does a green home project make financial sense? The authors of this book provide the answer to this and other questions relating to the cost (and relative value) of environmentally friendly home improvements. Eric Corey Freed and Kevin Daum are experts, respectively, in green building and in financing custom homes. In this information-packed book, they walk readers through 50 green home projects and break them down according to the positive impact they have on the environment, as well as the impact they may have (both positive and negative) on the reader's wallet.

They evaluate a wide array of projects, including insulating pipes, weatherizing doors and windows, composting and recycling trash, installing a solar hot water heater, installing green countertops, upgrading appliances, building with reclaimed materials and installing radiant heat. This unique perspective on going green is a reference that green-leaning homeowners simply cannot do without.

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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).