Resources for your self-sufficiency library.

Today I want to highlight 5 books that I feel are very important to have in our home library.

The Encyclopedia of Country Living: An Old Fashioned Recipe Book

Initially self-published 20 years ago, The Encyclopedia of Country Living has become the trusted guidebook to sustainable, self-sufficient living. Filled with memorable anecdotes, crucial advice, and a generous helping of good humor, this compendium provides detailed information about food production — growing, processing, cooking, and preserving — together with hundreds of illustrations and recipes. With updates of over 1,100 mail order sources, including websites and email addresses, this revised edition is the definitive classic text for living off the land.

Forgotten Arts and Crafts

"There is not a human skill that was ever developed that is not still practiced somewhere on this planet." -- John Seymour. The Forgotten Arts & crafts brings together in a single absorbing volume two best-selling classics, The Forgotten Arts and Forgotten Household Crafts, written by the acknowledged "Father of Self-sufficiency" John Seymour. Taking the reader on an evocative journey through the worlds of traditional craftspeople -- from blacksmith to bee-keeper, wainwright to housewife -- Seymour celebrates their honest skills, many of which have disappeared beneath the tread of progress. With characteristic passion, Seymour demonstrates that these country arts and household crafts need never be forgotten. From woodland and building crafts to the tasks of the kitchen and laundry, he explores every aspect of traditional life. Materials and workshop tools are usefully annotated, and techniques evoked in engaging words and pictures. Over 1,700 detailed illustrations and photographs bring to life each craft and skill. In an affectionate and nostalgic account, John Seymour recalls a lifetime of encounters with working craftspeople in different parts of the world and describes the trades and household activities he saw practiced in the countryside of his youth. With a crusading vigor, he commends the joys of noble toil and makes a compelling plea for "virtuous craftsmanship," which may, without vigilance, vanish forever.

Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, Third Edition

Anyone who wants to learn basic living skills—the kind employed by our forefathers—and adapt them for a better life in the twenty-first century need look no further than this eminently useful, full-color guide. Countless readers have turned to Back to Basics for inspiration and instruction, escaping to an era before power saws and fast food restaurants and rediscovering the pleasures and challenges of a healthier, greener, and more self-sufficient lifestyle.

Now newly updated, the hundreds of projects, step-by-step sequences, photographs, charts, and illustrations in Back to Basics will help you dye your own wool with plant pigments, graft trees, raise chickens, craft a hutch table with hand tools, and make treats such as blueberry peach jam and cheddar cheese. The truly ambitious will find instructions on how to build a log cabin or an adobe brick homestead.

More than just practical advice, this is also a book for dreamers—even if you live in a city apartment you will find your imagination sparked, and there's no reason why you can't, for example, make a loom and weave a rag rug. Complete with tips for old-fashioned fun (square dancing calls, homemade toys, and kayaking tips), this may be the most thorough book on voluntary simplicity available. 2,000 color photos and 200 black-and-white illustrations.

Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre

Start a mini farm on a quarter acre or less, provide 85 percent of the food for a family of four and earn an income.

Mini Farming describes a holistic approach to small-area farming that will show you how to produce 85 percent of an average family’s food on just a quarter acre—and earn $10,000 in cash annually while spending less than half the time that an ordinary job would require. Even if you have never been a farmer or a gardener, this book covers everything you need to know to get started: buying and saving seeds, starting seedlings, establishing raised beds, soil fertility practices, composting, dealing with pest and disease problems, crop rotation, farm planning, and much more. Because self-sufficiency is the objective, subjects such as raising backyard chickens and home canning are also covered along with numerous methods for keeping costs down and production high. Materials, tools, and techniques are detailed with photographs, tables, diagrams, and illustrations.

Homegrown Whole Grains: Grow, Harvest, and Cook Wheat, Barley, Oats, Rice, Corn and More

A backyard field of grains? Yes, absolutely! Wheat and corn are rapidly replacing grass in the yards of dedicated locavores across the country. For adventurous homeowners who want to get in on the movement, Homegrown Whole Grains is the place to begin.

Growing whole grains is simpler and more rewarding than most people imagine. With as little as 1000 square feet of land, backyard farmers can grow enough wheat to harvest 50 pounds in a single afternoon - and those 50 pounds can be baked into 50 loaves of fresh bread.

In addition to providing information on wheat and corn, Homegrown Whole Grains includes complete growing, harvesting, and threshing instructions for barley, millet, oats, rice, rye, spelt, and quinoa, and lighter coverage of several specialty grains. Readers will also find helpful tips on processing whole grains, from what to look for in a home mill to how to dry corn and remove the hulls from barley and rice.

Chapters for each grain include inventive recipes for cereals, desserts, casseroles, salads, soups and stews, and, of course, home-baked breads, the crowning achievement of the home grain grower. Sara Pitzer shares dozens of ideas for using whole grains - from cooking sturdy wheat berries in a slow cooker to malting barley for homebrewed beer. Whether milled into nutritional flours or used in any of their un-milled states, wheat, barley, quinoa, and the other grain crops are healthful additions to every diet.

All the book info was taken from Amazon

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"Don't be scared, be prepared!"

Prepper Chris