The Homemade Living Series

The Homemade Living Series
by Ashley English [various call numbers]

For beginner homesteading DIY enthusiasts, Ashley English's Homemade Living series is a must. At first glance, the exquisite photography and layout of each title are reminiscent of a coffee table book. After you've flipped through each title, just to look at the pictures, the concise text written for the laymen is enough to get started on any of the projects. If you're interested in keeping a few backyard chickens and don't know where to start, read Keeping Chickens for an introduction. Keeping Chickens covers building a coop, picking breeds, and general chicken care topics. Home Dairy provides basic instructions and recipes for making your own cheeses, butter, and yogurt. Keeping Bees is a straight forward guide to starting a hive, harvesting honey and tending your bees. All of English's titles include step by step instructions, illustrations, pictures, tips, and true short stories from enthusiasts. English's series is an excellent introduction to the fine arts of homemaking for the urban/suburban/rural farmer, foodie, exotic pet keeper, and or the just plain curious reader. [If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Backyard Homestead 641.3 Mad, The Chicken Whisperer's Guide to Keeping Chickens 636.5 Sch, Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living 640 Kap, The Ultimate Guide to Homesteading: An Encyclopedia for Independent Living 640 Fai, Rural Renaissance: Renewing the Quest for the Good Life 307.26 Iva, Beekeeping in the Midwest 638.1 Jay, Making Great Cheese: 30 Simple Recipes From Cheddar to Chevre, Plus 18 Delicious Cheese Dishes. 641.637 Cil.] -- recommended by Glory B. - Bennett Martin Public Library

[ official Ashley English web site and blog ]

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month.

Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World

Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World
by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen [640 Coy]

The DIY movement has been gaining momentum for quite some time bringing about a revival in canning, homesteading, urban farming and knitting circles to name a few. While nearly everyone appreciates the results of homemade, it can be a time consuming undertaking with a full time job, family, friends etc. Making It is a charmingly written and thorough practical household DIY reference resource book that accommodates busy people who want to integrate environmental friendly homemade products and projects into their household. To achieve this, authors Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen structured the chapters of the book in relationship to time management! Projects and tasks are broken up into chapter timelines; day to day, week to week, month to month and season to season tasks and recipes. As for content, the book is home-ec for adults. As a reference book, Making It includes friendly introductions to soap-making, various homemade toiletries and cleaning supplies, practical use of medicinal herbs, homemade condiments, laundry, mending, gardening, home brewing, and even beekeeping. At times while reading it seems to be a somewhat haphazard collection of tasks and ideas for making things at home from scratch. However, as an introductory book to the DIY homemaking, it is a great place to start. The recipes are simple and easy to follow. The authors took great care in writing practical instructions, with time management and economy in mind. Most of the recipes are feasible to do as a DIY beginner and without access to exotic supplies. Readers be prepared to use your visual imagination, the book contains a few illustrations, but no photographs to compare your projects to. That said, it is chock-full of neat projects and homemade philosophy for living on the cheap and making a healthier happier home. [If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try DIY Projects for the self-sufficient homeowner: 25 ways to build a self-reliant lifestyle (640 qMat), The Backyard Homestead by Carleen Madigan (641.3 Mad), The edible front yard: the mow-less, grow-more plan for a beautiful, bountiful garden by Ivette Soler (635 Sol), Urban homesteading: heirloom skills for sustainable living by Rachael Kaplan and K. Ruby Blume (640 Kap), Grow Great Grub by Gayla Trail (635.048 Tra), and Mother Earth News (magazine).] -- recommended by Glory B. - Bennett Martin Public Library


Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide web site. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month.