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"Storey's Guide to Raising Poultry" is an invaluable resource. It contains the most comprehensive and current information available on selecting birds for meat and production; home processing of eggs and poultry; brooding and rearing; housing and equipment; and flock health.

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Building on the enormous success of his original Shelter book, Lloyd Kahn continues his odyssey of finding and exploring the most magnificent and unusual handbuilt houses in existence. Among the intriguing domiciles described in Home Work are a Japanese-style stilt house accessible only by a cable across a river; a stone house in a South African valley whose roof serves as a baboon trampoline; and a bottle house in the Nevada desert.

More than 1,500 photos illustrate various innovative architectural styles and natural building materials that have gained popularity in the last two decades, such as cob, papercrete, bamboo, adobe, strawbale, timber framing and earthbags. If you love fine, fun and/or funky buildings, you will want to own this splendid book.

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More than 70% of Americans cannot afford to own a code-enforced, contractor-built home. This has led to widespread interest in using natural materials — straw, cob and earth — for building homes and other buildings that are inexpensive, and that rely largely on labor rather than expensive and often environmentally-damaging outsourced materials.

Earthbag Building, a Mother Earth News Book for Wiser Living, is the first comprehensive guide to all the tools, tricks and techniques for building with bags filled with earth — or earthbags. Having been introduced to sandbag construction by the renowned Nader Khalili in 1993, the authors developed this "Flexible Form Rammed Earth Technique" over the last decade. A reliable method for constructing homes, outbuildings, garden walls and much more, this enduring, tree-free architecture can also be used to create arched and domed structures of great beauty — in any region, at home, in developing countries or in emergency relief work.

This fully-illustrated guide first discusses the many merits of earthbag construction, and then leads the reader through the key elements of an earthbag building:

• Special design considerations
• Foundations, walls and floors
• Electrical, plumbing and shelving
• Lintels, windows and door installations
• Roofs, arches and domes
• Exterior and interior plasters

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This is the key reference to living off the land. Packed with practical information and tried-and-tested tips, author John Seymour's visionary handbook explains how to reap the harvest, respect the land, stay healthy and waste nothing.

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It teaches all the skills needed to live independently: harnessing natural forms of energy, raising crops and keeping livestock, preserving foodstuffs, making beer and wine, basketry, carpentry, weaving, and much more.

This new expanded edition includes 150 new full-color illustrations and a special section in which Seymour, the father of the back-to-basics movement, explains the philosophy of self-sufficiency and its power to transform lives and create communities. More relevant than ever in our high-tech world, The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It is the ultimate practical guide for realists and dreamers alike.

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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Acquire herbal healing wisdom with this guide to gathering, drying, storing, and blending 25 common herbs. Create your own all-natural home medicine cabinet filled with teas, tinctures, salves, syrups and lozenges.

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Simple step-by-step instructions guide you through the process of drying and storing more than 100 kinds of fruits, vegetables, grains, meats and herbs. There are even complete plans for building your own food dryer. As seen in the Seed Savers Exchange catalog.

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The Backyard Beekeeper, now revised and expanded, makes the time-honored and complex tradition of beekeeping an enjoyable and accessible backyard pastime that will appeal to gardeners, crafters, and cooks everywhere. This expanded edition gives you even more information on "greening" your beekeeping with sustainable practices, pesticide-resistant bees, and urban and suburban beekeeping. More than a guide to beekeeping, it is a handbook for harvesting the products of a beehive and a honey cookbook--all in one lively, beautifully illustrated reference. This complete honey bee resource contains general information on bees; a how-to guide to the art of beekeeping and how to set up, care for, and harvest honey from your own colonies; as well as tons of bee-related facts and projects. You'll learn the best place to locate your new bee colonies for their safety and yours, and you'll study the best organic and nontoxic ways to care for your bees, from providing fresh water and protection from the elements to keeping them healthy, happy, and productive. Recipes of delicious treats and instructions on how to use honey and beeswax to make candles and beauty treatments are also included.

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If it concerns houseplants, you'll find it here. Mother Earth News contributing editor and garden expert Barbara Pleasant's full-color photographs and complete care guidelines put growing instructions for 160 blooming and foliage houseplants at your fingertips.

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The Solar Food Dryer describes how to use solar energy to preserve your summer's harvest. With your own solar-powered food dryer, you can quickly and efficiently dry all your extra garden veggies, fruits and herbs with free sunshine and enjoy their goodness all year long! Solar food dryers perform amazingly well under a wide range of conditions, working effectively in almost any climate where you can grow fruits and vegetables. As a bonus, solar food drying is a great way to learn about solar energy and experience the incredible power of the sun — as well as being a great deal of fun! The Solar Food Dryer includes everything you need to get started:

• Complete step-by-step plans for building a high-performance, low-cost solar food dryer from readily available materials
• Solar energy design concepts
• Food drying tips and recipes
• Resources, references, solar charts and more