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Tillers General Store Books & Publications
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Publication Categories
(Alphabetical by Author within categories)
Blacksmithing and Metal Working
Children's
Farming
Fiction
Food and Fiber
International
Livestock, Oxen, and Draft Horses
Woodworking and Construction
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Blacksmithing and Metal Working
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Blacksmithing Projects
Percy W. Blanford
$12.95 paperback |
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Is blacksmithing a lost art? Not according to this master craftsman. If might be one of the world's most ancient crafts, but it remains an exciting and essential one today. Percy W. Blanford presents twenty-four different projects: some are for novices, requiring only a few tools, improvised equipment, and a single propane torch; others call for the skill and equipment of an experienced smith. Projects include: punches and chisels, traditional candlestick, door latches and bolts, garden tools, weather vanes, fences and railings, tables, wheelbarrow... and many more! A book of ideas and suggestions, rather than an instruction manual on blacksmithing techniques, this volume features eighty detailed figures and diagrams. It also includes a list of materials, step-by-step instructions, and suggestions for variations in design.
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The Blacksmith's Craft
Charles McRaven
$19.95 paperback |
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Discover the Practical Simplicity of Blacksmithing
Setting up your own forge and crafting everyday items is easier than you might think. Charles McRaven, an accomplished blacksmith, guides you step-by-step through the process of buiding a simple forge from recycled materials, acquiring or crafting the basic tools, and learning the techniques to get you started in blacksmithing. McRaven, who began smithing out of a desire to make his own tools for building and restoring hewn-log homes, demonstrates his simple methods in easy-to-follow photos throughout this book. Working under his tutelage, you'll find yourself encouraged and confident that you, too, can create items of lasting beauty and durability from iron and steel.
Projects include a circular pot rack, ornamental hinges, traditional door latches, nails and hooks, fireplace poker and tongs, decorative andirons, and hand-forged tools.
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The Backyard Blacksmith
Lorelei Sims
$24.99 paperback |
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Takes the mystery out of blacksmithing, but not the magic...
With an increasing interest and revival in the art of blacksmithing as a hobby, both men and women are becoming at-home blacksmiths. Blacksmithing is a simple, rewarding craft anyone can enjoy in their backyard or home workshop; even beginners can produce useful and beautiful projects on their first try.
The Backyard Blacksmith shows you how--with some patience and a working knowledge of metals, basic tools, and techniques--blacksmithing can be easy to learn and a rewarding hobby. Through instructions and illustrations, readers will learn to make simple tools and useful items, such as nails, hinges, and handles, as well as an interesting mix of artful projects, such as letter openers, door knockers, and botanical ornaments.
Detailed step-by-step full-color exercises teach all the universal skills and techniques used to forge iron; like having a master blacksmith by your side.
Provides the reader with an understanding of the properties and characteristics of forging hot metal, making the craft accessible to those without previous experience.
More than 20 beautiful and functional projects organized by level of difficulty allow new blacksmiths to progress at their own pace, and master the skills they learned in earlier chapters.
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The Complete Modern Blacksmith
Andrew G. Weygers
$19.95 paperback |
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Teach yourself the lost arts of blacksmithing and tool design and repair...
Design, forge, and fix your own tools, hardware, and household accessories with master craftsman and teacher Alexander G. Weygers. Weygers's three extraordinary books, The Making of Tools, The Modern Blacksmith, and The Recycling, Use, and Repair of Tools, are classics in their field--and in The Complete Modern Blacksmith, they are brought together in their entirety for the first time ever. All three books contain clear, step-by-step instructions and hundreds of the author's own detailed drawings, bringing scores of time-honored techniques to modern artisans--experienced craftsmen and beginners alike.
The Making of Tools teaches the artist and craftsman how to make exactly the tool he or she needs: how to design, sharpen, and temper them, using only basic shop equipment and scrap steel. Dozens of tips and techniques are covered, from setting up a beginner's workshop and learning to temper steel to making simple tools such as screwdrivers and carving, cutting, and sharpening tools.
The Modern Blacksmith demonstrates, with lucid text and beautifully clear illustrations, the basic tools and techniques that are available to the modern blacksmith. This fascinating book covers everything from developing the correct hammer and body motions for forging to creating tools such as pliers and shovels and hardware such as hinges and door latches. Alexander Weygers explains the hows and whys of inventing, iprovising, and constructing "things" out of "nothing."
The Recycling, Use, and Repair of Tools stresses the creative use of old materials, and features a wealth of easy-to-follow procedures for making, repairing, and maintaining a great variety of equipment and parts, from shovels and chisels to washers and bearings. Alexander Weygers leads you step by step through making everything from a water pump to cutting tools to candlesticks and Christmas decorations out of scrap metal. In these pages, artists and craftsmen will learn to exploit the modern abundance of scrap steel with creativity and skill.
A truly unusual and unique resource, The Complete Modern Blacksmith is an essential volume in any serious artist's or craftsman's library.
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Children's
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Gallop!
Rufus Butler Seder
$12.95 hardcover |
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What's all the commotion? Animals in motion! Can you believe your eyes? The galloping horse, the strutting rooster. Each page is a marvel, to flip and flip again...
"An exciting merge of technology and wonder that brings the animals to life." -Robert Sabuda
Click to view a video of author and creator Rufus Butler Seder talking about his animated book on the publisher's website.
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Barnyard Games and Puzzles
Helene Hovanec and Patrick Merrell
$9.95 paperback
TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK |
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Fun and Games Down on the Farm!
100 mazes, word games, picture puzzles, jokes and riddles, brainteasers, and fun activities for kids! Join your favorite farm animals for games, jokes, and puzzles--barnyard style! Crawl your way through a Worm Squirm, fine out how to tell if there are cows in your refrigerator, and use letters in Rhode Island Red to fill in an entire crossword puzzle.
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Katie Down the Pike
Carol March McLernon
$8.00 paperback |
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Katie Down the Pike is a short historical novel about the traveling of a church bell up the Mississippi to Galena, Illinois in 1844. Written by a friend of Tillers, Carol McLernon visited us while researching her book. Approptiate for both children and adults, this story highlights the unsung role of oxen in American history.
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Farming
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Low Stress Cattle Handling Techniques DVD
Dr. Ben Bartlett DVM, Dairy and Livestock Educator, Michigan State University Extension
$29.95 DVD |
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The last 10 years have seen a revolution in how we handle cattle and other grazing animals. These new handling methods are low stress for both livestock and handlers, and can increase safety, productivity, and profitability. Join Dr. Ben Bartlett of the Michigan State University Extension in exploring these new low stress techniques.
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Storey's Guide to Raising Dairy Goats
Jerry Belanger
$18.95 paperback |
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Breeds, Care, Dairying
The best advice on raising dairy goats. This indispensable, fully illustrated guide provides the very latest practical information for dairy goat owners. All of the essentials are covered here, including: individual breeds, breeding and kidding, feeding and housing, milking and dairying, healthcare and disease prevention.
"We receive many requests from novice goat owners wanting caprine information. This book will give answers and help people get started. It can also be used by established goat owners wanting a reference in an easy-to-read format. We will certainly recommend this book as a great reference about goats." -John D. Howland, American Goat Society, Inc.
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Fences for Pasture and Garden
Gail Damerow
$16.95 paperback |
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A well-made fence brings peace of mind...
If you keep livestock or tend a garden that's vulnerable to wildlife predators, you know that a good fence is essential for protecting your investment. But with of the new options available today--and the many challenges posed by terrain, weather, and predators--it's often hard to determine what type of fence meets your needs. That's why Gail Damerow has written this practical, easy-to-use guide to selecting planning, and building fences that work.
Filled with sound, up-to-date advice and instruction, Fences for Pasture and Garden makes fence-building a task anyone can tackle confidence. The author weighs the pros and cons of various fence systems--from traditional fences to the latest technology--and helps you select the best one for your needs. Helpful suggestions for planning the fence ensure maximum efficiency of labor and materials. And complete, generously illustrated directions show you how to build wire fences, rail fences, electric fences, high-tension fences, temporary fences, woven fences, snow fences, gates, trellises, and more.
From alarm systems to zoning laws, this book covers it all. If there's a fence in your future, don't waste time and money on an ineffective system. Make it one you can rely on by first reading Fences for Pasture and Garden.
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Small-Scale Grain Raising
Gene Logsdon
$29.95 paperback |
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The classic text on raising grain--revised and expanded for home gardeners and small-scale farmers.
More and more people are seeking out locally grown foods, including those they grow themselves, yet one of the main stumbling blocks has been finding local sources for grains. In this revised edition of his classic book, Gene Logsdon proves that anyone who has access to a large garden or small farm can (and should) think outside the agribusiness box and learn to grow healthy whole grains or beans--the base of our culinary food pyramid--alongside their fruits and vegetables.
Logsdon succinctly covers all the basics, from planting and dealing with pests, weeds, and diseases to harvesting, processing, storing, and using whole grains. There are even a few recipes sprinkled throughout, along with more than a little with and wisdom.
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Haying with Horses
L. R. (Lynn) Miller (Editor, Small Farmers Journal)
$32.95 paperback |
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Back in print!
Haying with horses need not be daunting or frightening or too difficult. Especially if you are fortunate to have good help, good animals and good implements. Haying with horses can be its own reward even more than the finished, stored crop. Be prepared to discover a beauty and a romance to this work which will wrap you up in goosebumps.
Full of black and white photographs and illustrations!
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Horsedrawn Plows and Plowing
L. R. (Lynn) Miller (Editor, Small Farmers Journal)
$32.95 paperback |
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Full of black and white photographs and illustrations of various types of plows, hitches, and diagrams of plowing patterns.
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Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal
Joel Salatin
$23.95 paperback |
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The Salatin family farm, known as Polyface, located in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, has been featured in countless print, radio, and video media as one of the nation's premier ecological farms. Exemplifying local food systems and imbedded community-based agriculture, the farm caught the attention of Michael Pollan in his runaway New York Times bestseller Omnivore's Dilemma when Salatin refused to ship T-bone steaks to New York.
Behind the glitz, however, the farm struggles with a labyrinth of government regulations and cultural perceptions that terrorize the antidote to mad cows, avian influenza, and food fears. The solution is simple: allow freedom for traditional food growing and purchasing choices.
This book brings to life, with humor and verve, the everyday conflict between the entrenched industrial food system and the local artisanal neighbor-friendly farmer-entrepreneur.
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Salad Bar Beef
Joel Salatin
$35.00 paperback |
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Introduction
In a day when beef is assailed by many environmental organizations and lauded by fast-food chains, a new paradign to bring reason to this confusion is in order. With farmers leaving the land in droves and plows poised to "reclaim" set-aside acres, it is time to offer an alternative that is both land and farmer friendly.
Beyond that, the salad bar beef production model offers hope to rural communities, to struggling row-crop farmers, and to frustrated beef eaters who do not want to encourage desertification, air and water pollution, environmental degradation and inhumane animal treatment. Because this is a program weighted toward creativity, management, entrepreneurism and observation, it breathes fresh air into farm economics.
The yearning for a comfortable living from a pleasant life in the country is pandemic, as is the desire within folks to reconnect to the land and eat clean, nutritious food. The salad bar beef paradigm speaks to these issues with answers that escape band-aid problem solvers. I do not have all the answers, but this approach offers a positive perspective on a topic that generally receives nothing but negativism, ranting and railing.
It is my hope that this book will challenge the very foundations of America's agriculture and provide some creative alternatives to conventional wisdom. Yesterday's battles over DDT will pale as we enter the era of genetic engineering and more insidious food processing manipulations. The herbivore and grass relationship is an important ecological building block. For the sake of health--ecological, human and societal--the salad bar beef model cries out for acceptance.
The sooner we adopt it, the better.
Joel Salatin, August 1995
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You Can Farm
Joel Salatin
$35.00 paperback
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The Entrepreneur's Guide to Start and Succeed in a Farming Enterprise...
Introduction
Have you ever desired, deep within your soul, to make a comfortable full-time living from a farming enterprise? Too often people dare not even vocalize this desire because it seems absurd. It's like thinking the unthinkable.
After all, the farm population is dwindling. It takes too much capital to start. The pay is too low. The working conditions are dusty, smelly and noisy: not the place to raise the family. This is all true, and more, for most farmers.
But for farm entrepreneurs, the opportunities for a farm family business have never been greater. The aging farm population is creating cavernous niches begging to be filled by creative visionaries who will go in dynamic new directions. As the industrial agriculture complex crumbles and our culture clambers for clean food, the countryside beckons anew with profitable farming opportunities.
While this book can be helpful to all farmers, it targets the wannabees, the folks who actually entertain notions of living, loving and learning on a piece of land. Anyone willing to dance with such a dream should be able to assess its assets and liabilities; its fantasies and realities. "Is it really possible for me? " is the burning question this book addresses.
Although the overall thrust is positive and exdes a "can do" spirit, the hurdles and misconceptions are treated honestly and seriously. As a fourth-generation farmer with a deep legacy of alternative thinkers on whose shoulders I stand, my advice may not be 100 percent correct, but it is tempered with lifetimes of wisdom. This practical, dirt-under-the-fingernails information is desperately needed as thousands of city folks look for land roots, seek something better than a cubicle at the end of the freeway, and begin repopulating the countryside dehumanized by industrial agriculture.
Nothing makes a competitor more successful than intimate knowledge of the opponent's strengths and weaknesses. My prayer is that You Can Farm will acquaint you with farming in ways you never imagined. It should stimulate thoughts you never had before. And it should awaken the dream within you in ways you never thought possible.
My goal is to empower you with new confidence, new vision and new direction. While you may not have some of the personal qualities necessary to embark on a farming career, a roadmap can make the journey far more possible. I trust that this book will inspire you with new hope. Let's look at the map together.
Joel Salatin, July 1998
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Pastured Poultry Profits
Joel Salatin
$35.00 paperback |
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Introduction
A couple working six months per year for 50 hours per week on 20 acres can net $25,000-$30,000 per year with an investment equivalent to the price of one new medium-sized tractor.
Seldom has agriculture held out such a plum. In a day when main-line farm experts predict the continued demise of the family farm, the pastured poultry opportunity shines like a beacom in the night, guiding the way to a brighter future.
I've pastured poultry in portable pens since the late 1960's, when I was scarcely a teenager. It worked then, and it works now.
Because so many people have sought information on our model, I have attempted to put it in writing so that it may be duplicated throughout the world. For the health of the rural economy, the health of the environment, the health of the poultry consuming public, and the health of farm families, we offer this proposal.
We encourage continued refinements and innovation to this system, and trust that our role as catalyst will encourage thousands of enterprising farm families.
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Getting Started with Beef and Dairy Cattle
Heather Smith Thomas
$16.95 paperback |
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Successful cattle farming, start small, start right...
If you've been dreaming about raising a family cow, or even a small herd, here's the book for you. Whether your interest is in beef or dairy farming, veteran cattle farmer Heather Smith Thomas helps you make the experience satisfying, rewarding, and even entertaining.
Get your animals off to the best possible start with advice on all the basics of cattle farming. You'll learn how to...
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Select the breed that best suits your goals.
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Raise a thriving, contented calf.
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Groom your aniimals and provide basic health care.
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Choose the best grain supplement to complement grass-feeding.
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Comply with grass-fed and organic guidelings.
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Maximize your cows' milk production.
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Market and sell your naturally-raised products.
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Recognize situations where you need a vet's help.
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Raising a cow for milk or beef is easier than you might think. With the information in this book you can reap the pleasures and rewards of using your land to raise healthy and productive animals.
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Logging with Horses, Oxen and Mules DVD
With Brandt Ainsworth
$29.95 DVD
TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK |
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Professional logger Brandt Ainsworth of Franklinville, New York, discusses safety gear, proper felling techniques, logging horse harness, log carts in a variety of styles, ground skidding, scaling, and decking saw logs. Brandt has been working with his father in the woods since he was big enough to walk behind a team of horses. By the age of 16 he had his own firewood business, and in 1996 at the age of 20 he struck out on his own as Brandt Ainsworth Logging. A full-time logger, he handles long-term hardwood management for several private woodlot owners. He practices worst-first selective harvesting using teams he raised and trained himself--a pair of Percheron draft horses and a yoke of Holstein-Limousin oxen. "Whether you're a weekend horse logger or a seasoned pro, this video has tips and ideas that will help you improve your efficiency and safety," says Brandt. "I've been fortunate enough to have learned some of the best techniques in logging from some of the best men in logging. In this video I share much of what I've learned from these great loggers, as well as some things I picked up on my own. Even if you don't aspire to be a logger, but just like to watch draft animals work, you will enjoy seeing the diversity of logging horses, oxen, and a mule and the friendship shared by the teamsters in this video."
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Fiction
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The Glass Horse
Lynn Miller
$19.00 paperback |
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"All Enno Duden ever wanted was a farm of his own..."
The Glass Horse is a modern agrarian parable steeped in humor, intrigue, espionage, piracy, animal tricks, and romance (not necessarily in that order). This fast-paced romp repeatedly slams deeper meaning against sheer entertainment. Farmers and ranchers with rich artistic and political backgrounds work underground to sabotage the finances of global corporations until their successes bring on 'corrective' action by enforcers of every stripe. Laid over the top of this intrigue are the movements of a bizarre tangle of memorable characters weaving a blanket for a ripping good tale.
"The 3rd person omniscient narrator can't quite hide his Milleresque origins--not a bad thing, because when LRM tells a story in your hearing, you know you are being told a story... Sticks with you like a bowl of oatmeal on a long ride to the stock yard... This is a novel to be read as much with the eyes as with the inner ear... A post card from the agrarian edge." -Charles Capaldi
"The work pulls itself up by its bootstraps, becomes smarter and richer and less predictable and more inclusive, like a baleen whale with mouth wide open going twenty knots, trolling for the whole of life." -Paul Hunter
Lynn Miller is the founder/editor/publisher of Small Farmer's Journal, an international quarterly. He is also a painter, farmer and author of ten books. He lives with his family on a remote Oregon ranch.
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Food and Fiber
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Beekeeping: A Practical Guide
Richard E. Bonney
$18.95 paperback |
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Whether you're a beginning beekeeper or one with a season or two of experience, Richard Bonney tells you how to keep bees, not just have them. This new book by the acclaimed author of Hive Management offers vital, up-to-date information about how to: acquire bees; install a colony; management a hive; take a crop of honey; prevent and treat Varroa and tracheal mites; and learn about Africanized bees.
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Hive Management
Richard E. Bonney
$16.95 paperback |
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The beekeeper's year begins with a late winter hive inspection and ends with "putting the bees to bed" in the autumn. Richard Bonney believes that each beekeeping activity should be performed with an eye toward the overall well-being of the colony, as part of an integrated year-round program of hive management.
Long-term success in beekeeping can be achieved only by understanding the intimate lives, behavior, and motivations of honey bees--the factors that govern the life of each colony. Richard Bonney explains the reasons behind common practices that many beekeepers perform without really knowing why. He also stresses when to take timely actions that will prevent problems in future seasons.
Hive Management offers concise, up-to-date information on the whole range of beekeeping tasks, including: how to prevent, control, and capture swarms; what you can tell from an outside inspection of your hives; when and how to "take the crop" and harvest honey; how to successfully requeen--from handling and marking queens to methods of introducing one into a hive; the problem signs to look for when you open up a hive.
For the practicing beekeeper who needs more information, or for the serious novice who wants to start out right, Hive Management offers sensible advice to help keep your honey bees thriving.
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Home Cheesemaking
Ricki Carroll
$16.95 paperback
TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK |
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The 3rd edition of the classic reference, now better than ever!
75 recipes for cheese--25% more than in the previous editions.
Recipes for dairy products, including creme fraiche, sour cream, and yogurt.
60 recipes for cooking with cheese.
Plus tips from cheese makers and lots of "cheesy" lore.
"...This book covers everything the novice cheese maker needs to know about making delicious cheese on the first try." -San Fransisco Examiner
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Natural Beekeeping
Ross Conrad
$35.00 paperback |
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Organic approaches to modern apiculture...
Beekeepers face unprecedented challenges, a fact this is now front-page news with the spread of "colony collapse disorder." Newly introduced pests like the Varroa (destructor) mite have made chemical treatment of hives standard practice, but pest resistance is building, which in turn creates demand for new and even more toxic chemicals. In fact, there is evidence that chemical treatments are making matters worse.
It's time for a new approach. Natural Beekeeping offers a holistic, sensible alternative to conventional chemical practices with a program of natural hive management. Ross Conrad brings together the best "do no harm" strategies for keeping honeybees healthy and productive with nontoxic methods of controlling mites, eliminating American foulbrood disease (without the use of antibiotics), selective breeding for naturally resistant bees, and many oither tips and techniques. Detailed management techniques are covered in a thoughtful, matter-of-fact way.
Whether you are a notive looking to get started with bees, an experienced apiculturist looking for ideas to develop an integrated pest management approach, or someone who wants to sell honey at a premium price, this is the book you've been waiting for.
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The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest
Carol W. Costenbader
$18.95 paperback
TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK |
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Save a summer day--in batches...
With The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest, even the busiest folks can create a well-stocked pantry of fruits, vegetables, flavored vinegars, pickles, chutneys, and seasonings. Step-by-step instructions, informative charts, and a host of delicious recipes make this an indispensable kitchen reference for cooks of all levels. The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest covers the handling and managing of produce fresh from the market or garden, including:
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Canning--containers and equipment, safety, and appropriate foods
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Drying--equipment, appropriate foods, drying times, and storage methods
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Pickling--canning, freezing, and refrigerating; equipment and containers
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Preserving--canning and freezing jams, jellies, and preserves
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Cold Storage--root cellars, storage methods, and produce preparation
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Gift Giving--creative packaging, gift baskets, and more
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Cheesemonger
Gordon Edgar
$17.95 paperback |
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Cheesemonger is the first book of its kind--a cheese memoir with attitude and information that will appeal to everyone from serious foodies to urban food activists.
With unpretentious sensibility, Gordon Edgar offers an entertaining, unflinching, on-the-ground look at the growing cheese movement. Edgar--a smart, progressive cheese man with an edge--takes the reader from animal rights to business ethics to taste epiphanies with élan.
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The Home Creamery
Kathy Farrell-Kingsley
$16.95 paperback |
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Fresh and Easy
You don't need a commercial kitchen or unrecognizable ingredients to whip up fresh buttermilk, yogurt, cream cheese, creme fraiche, mozzarella, goat cheese, and other dairy delights. Simpler-than-you-think instructions encourage you to turn your fresh, sweet milk and cream into cultured dairy products and soft, unripened cheeses.
Enjoy your creamy, homemade spreads and cheeses as simple accompaniments to small bites or light meals, or as starring ingredients in more substantial side dishes, salads, entrees, and desserts. 75 recipes--from Cheese Blintzes to Chocolate Sour Cream Cake--bring out the very best in your dairy creations.
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The Farmer and the Grill
Shannon Hayes
$21.95 paperback |
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A guide to grilling, barbecuing and spit-roasting grassfed meat and for saving the planet one bite at a time.
"All of us who have struggled with grilling nuances on our pastured meats and poultry will find this book both liberating and empowering." -Joel Salatin, Polyface Farm
In her first book, The Grassfed Gourmet, Shannon Hayes introduced a radically simple idea: understanding the world of sustainable farming naturally leads to understanding great food. Thousands of new and seasoned cooks discovered the thrill of working with grassfed and pastured meats. Her simple, delectable recipes made "real food real simple," and her passionate prose told the story of pasture-based farming, one of the country's greatest food and environmental movements.
Now, America's favorite foodie farm girl explores the world of grilling, barbecuing and spit-roasting grassfed and pastured meats. Packed with fool-proof techniques, tasty and easy recipes, witty anecdotes and insightful essays, this new guide from Shannon Hayes will soon grow dog-eared and care-worn as it accompanies socially-conscious cooks into the kitchen, out to the grill, then onto the back porch swing for some delicious reading.
Features:
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fabulous recipes for all cuts of pasture-raised beef, lamb, pork and poultry |
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delicious herb rubs, marinades and barbecue sauces to make at home |
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guidelines for sustainable, environmentally friendly outdoor cooking |
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principles for accomodating for natural variation in grassfed and pastured products |
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hints from "the inside" for selecting and working with pasture-based farmers |
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tips on authentic, Argentine-style asado cooking |
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suggestions for having fun in the kitchen while nourishing your family and the planet |
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American Farmstead Cheese
Paul Kindstedt with the Vermont Cheese Council
$40.00 hardcover |
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The complete guide to making and selling artisan cheeses...
American Farmstead Cheese is the essential resource for aspiring and experienced cheesemakers. The book is packed with cheesemaking history, technique, artistry, and business strategies.
Paul Kindstedt explores the rich traditions of European and early American cheeses and their influence on today's artisan and farmstead cheesemakers. Kindstedt combines his love for small-scale cheese production with his scientific expertise to provide a wealth of practical resources.
Features include a fully illustrated guide to basic cheeesemaking, explanations of milk composition, starter cultures, and the chemistry of cheese, effects of calcium pH, salt, and moisture, ways to ensure safety and quality, and methods for analyzing cheese composition.
Successful cheesemakers share their marketing plans, business strategies, personal setbacks and successes, and the unique creative spirit of artisan and farmstead cheesemaking.
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The Backyard Homestead
Carleen Madigan, Editor
$18.95 paperback |
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From a quarter acre, you can harvest: 1,400 eggs, 50 pounds of wheat, 60 pounds of fruit, 2,000 pounds of vegetables, 280 pounds of pork, and 74 pounds of nuts.
Put your backyard to work. Enjoy fresher, organic, better-tasting food all the time. The solution is as close as your own backyard. Grow the vegetables and fruits your family loves; keep bees; raise chickens, goats, or even a cow. The Backyard Homestead shows you how it's done. And when the harvest is in, you'll learn how to cook, preserve, cure, brew, or pickle the fruits of your labor.
The indispensable guide to food self-sufficiency. Learn how to: milk a goat, prune a fruit tree, dry herbs, make dandelion wine, bake whole-grain bread, tape a maple tree, make fresh mozzarella, brew beer, mill grains for flour, save seeds for next season, and a whole lot more.
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The Cheesemaker's Manual
Margaret Peters-Morris
$45.00 paperback
TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK |
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"This is an excellent choice for the new and home cheesemaker. Margaret is a valuable resource. I highly recommend the book." -Barbara Jenness, Dancing Goat Creamery and Tillers' cheesemaking instructor
Cheese is Margaret Morris' chosen product to create, research, develop and market. She believes that it is the one product that can truly express the dedication, pride and labour of the dairy farmer as well as the uniqueness of a given dairy animal--cow, goat or sheep. Tribute is paid to them in the creation of fine cheeses as well as reflecting the talent of the cheesemaker.
This manual is written for the home and on-farm cheesemaker. The recipes provided have been developed from the recipes of origin based on Margaret's own trials and successes in small-scale cheese production. The methods and techniques used incorporate traditional and artisanal flair. The recipes are written in a step-by-step manner enabling the user to follow them with ease and confidence.
The book provides recipes to make cheese and dairy products from cow, goat and sheep's milk with an emphasis on European style cheeses in both hard and soft cheese categories.
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Home Cheesemaking with Margaret Morris
DVD
$37.00 DVD |
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Find out how to prepare your own Feta, Camembert, Gouda and Cheddar! Margaret Morris will share her knowledge and expertise on cheesemaking, so that you can make cheese at home.
A great reference for the home cheesemaker loaded with tips and techniques to simplify the process.
Running time -126 minutes
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The Complete Compost Gardening Guide
Barbara Pleasant & Deborah L. Martin
$19.95 paperback
TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK |
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You'll never think about compost the same way again!
Turn the compost bin upside down! The nutritious, organic diet your garden craves is as simple as creating compost heaps right in the garden. Plants and compost live together in labor- and time-saving harmony, producing bright, sweet, juicy vegetables all season long.
"If you are a gardening beginning or totally into compost, I guarantee you will love this book! ...Sure to become the leading how-to, why-to manual about compost. Packed with lively, informative and innovative content." -Cheryl Long, Editor-in-Chief, Mother Earth News
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The Omnivore's Dilemma
Michael Pollan
$16.00 paperback |
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Today, buffeted by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only be described as a national eating disorder. Will it be fast food tonight, or something organic? Or perhaps something we grew ourselves? The question of what to have for dinner has confronted us since man discovered fire. But as Michael Pollan explains in this revolutionary book, how we answer it now, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may determine our survival as a species. Packed with profound surprises, The Omnivore's Dilemma is changing the way Americans think about the politics, perils, and pleasures of eating.
This is the book that first introduced the now-famous Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm, one of the leading personas of the beyond-organic, grass-based, sustainable agriculture movement.
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The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese
Jeffrey P. Roberts
$35.00 paperback |
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345 top cheesemakers from 43 states!
The first reference of its kind, this fully illustrated atlas of contemporary artisan cheeeses and cheesemakers will be the source of many a fabulous food adventure. Organized by region and state, The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese highlights 345 of the best cheesemakers in the United States today, most of them tiny, family-owned creameries. Each profile describes a cheesemaker; its history; its cheeses, whether from cow, sheep, or goat's milk; availability; location; details on cheese-making processes; and suggestions for the best wine and beer pairings. The Atlas captures America's genius for local artisan cheese: a capacity for adaptation, experimentation, and innovation, while following Old World artisanship and traditional methods.
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Saving Seeds
Marc Rogers
$14.95 paperback |
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Looking for something to add excitement and interest to your gardening hobby? Try raising and saving your own seeds!
Saving seeds is a time-honored tradition that many gardeners are rediscovering. Anyone can become a successful seed saver--the only limitations are your time, space, and interest. And the benefits of growing and storing your own seeds are many:
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Save money on expensive yearly seed bills.
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Select seed from plants that have thrived in your particular growing conditions.
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Preserve old-time and regional favorites, including heirloom vegetables and flowers that your grandparents grew.
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Share seeds from your favorite flowers and vegetables with family, friends, neighbors, and other gardeners.
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Detailed seed information for each vegetable and flower gives you everything you need to know about how to raise, harvest, and store seeds for a lifetime of fruitful home gardening.
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Italian Cheese
Slow Food Editore
$25.00 paperback |
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293 artisan specialties, exhaustively described and lavishly illustrated: a new, updated edition of our guide to Italian cheeses. A comprehensive catalog of produce from an incredible variety of landscapes and environments, or animal breeds and production techniques. Plus, a wealth of specialist information about cheese families, aging, and terminology. And, last but not least, tips from Slow Food experts on how and where to buy, cut, taste and keep cheese.
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The Real Food Revival
Sherri Brooks Vinton and Ann Clark Espuelas
$18.95 paperback |
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Say good-bye to flavorless tomatoes, mealy apples, and "mystery meats." Join the Real Food Revival and learn how to celebrate delicious, sustainable, and locally produced Real Food--daily, conveniently, and affordably.
With each chapter devoted to a specific food group, The Real Food Revival gives you an aisle-by-aisle guide to finding Real Food wherever you shop, whether it's a massive MegaMart or the local farmers' market. The book is an indispensable tool for anyone who wants to:
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Navigate the jargon of the marketplace--organic, eco-friendly, fresh, natural, cage-free, GMO-free, Fair Trade, grass-fed.
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Avoid the side effects of industrial agriculture--including exposure to toxic residues, the potential hazards of GMOs, and ailments such as mad cow disease.
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Connect with trusted vendors and growers who are dedicated to providing fresh, well-tended edibles.
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Be liberated from rushed meals of chemically enhanced mush.
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Enjoy one of the greatest pleasures of life--a luscious meal at your kitchen table--every day.
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Garden Seed Inventory, Sixth Edition
Kent Whealy
$26.00 paperback |
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Garden Seed Inventory is the ultimate reference for anyone who cares about heirloom vegetables, saving seeds and preserving the world's garden heritage. Now in its updated sixth edition, this comprehensive "catalog of catalogs" lists all of the non-hybrid vegetable seeds offered by 274 mail-order vegetable seed companies, large and small, throughout North America. Nearly 8,500 varieties--everything from amaranth to zucchini--are fully described and keyed to the companies that sell them.
Vegetable growers will find that the Garden Seed Inventory is an invaluable resource and will turn to it again and again, looking for sources of new varieties or old favorites. Gardeners and farmers who save their own seeds can quickly tell which varieties are becoming unavailable, and need to be purchased and re-grown to prevent them from being lost forever.
In an era of generic engineering and patented seeds, it is even more important to preserve our garden heritage: Native American varieties, seeds brought by immigrants from every corner of the globe, and improved varieties developed by gardeners and plant breeders for superior taste, regional adaptability and disease resistance. Far from being obsolete or inferior, these plants represent the cream of our vegetable crops. Garden Seed Inventory opens the garden gate and invites us to discover them.
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Enough: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty
Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman
$27.95 hardcover |
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Synopsis
For more than forty years, humankind has had the knowledge, tools, and resources to end chronic hunger worldwide. The Green Revolution, fashioned by Novel Peace Prize-laureate Norman Borlaug, was among the technological wonders of the twentieth century and helped to ignite Asia's rise to economic power. Yet at the start of the twenty-first century, 25,000 people a day--and nearly 6 million children a year--die of hunger, malnutrition, and related diseases. Malnutrition kills more African than AIDS and malaria combined. The world paid for its complacency with the 2008 food crisis, which is a warning of worse to come.
We in the West tend to think of famine as a natural disaster, brought about by drought; or as the legacy of war and corrupt leaders. But Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman, award-winning writers on Africa, development, and agriculture, see famine as the result of bad policies spanning the political spectrum. In this compelling investigative narrative, they explain through vivid human stories how the agricultural revolutions that transformed Asia and Latin America stopped short in Africa, and how our sometimes well-intentioned strategies--alternating with ignorance and neglect--have conspired to keep the world's poorest people hungry and unable to feed themselves.
Thurow and Kilman take on some of the most powerful groups with a stake in the issue, striking a critical stance on:
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THE FOOD AID INDUSTRY, which often puts the interests of those providing the aid ahead of those receiving. |
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FARM SUBSIDIES that tilt agricultural trade in the favor of U.S. and European farmers and help keep Africa's farmers impoverished and dependent on foreign aid. |
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ETHANOL INCENTIVES that turn more and more food into an uneconomical fuel at a time of increasing hunger. |
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WESTERN DONORS AND POLICYMAKERS who hypocritically impose economic medicine on Africa that they aren't willing to swallow themselves. |
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ACTIVISTS whose distaste for the modern agricultural practices that keep them well-fed at home makes it harder to bring science to African farmers. |
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AFRICAN LEADERS who devour the wealth of their own people and use starvation as a weapon of war. |
The authors argue passionately and convincingly that this generation is the one that could finally end the scourge that has forever haunted the human race. And they profile a movement to fight hunger like never before. It includes evangelical Christians, African entrepreneurs, Midwestern farm town families, ex-presidents and prime ministers, philanthropists Bill Gates and Howard Buffett, Irish rock stars and statesmen, Southern house-wives, and corporate executives.
Most importantly, Thurow and Kilman don't simply outline the problem. Based on their extensive reporting--which has taken them from the famine zones of Africa and the corridors of the World Bank to kitchen tables all across the American farm belt--they point to practical solutions.
Enough is essential readnig on a humanitarian issue of utmost urgency. It is certain to outrage and inspire.
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Ox Farmer Training in the Pader District of Uganda, Fall 2008
Tillers, CRS, and ECHO III
$5.00 DVD |
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A thirty minute DVD of Tillers ECHO III / CRS project. See Tillers' international work first-hand and share it with others!
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Livestock, Oxen, and Draft Horses
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Horses
Yann Arthus-Bertrand
$25.95 hardcover
TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK |
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The subjects of Horses are not grazing in springtime meadows or caught in full gallop. Rather, they are captured on location around the globe in majestic portraits. Yann Arthus-Bertrand experty sets up light and shadow, angle and exposure, to etch the grandeur of these magnificent creatures--and to explore their relationship with their human partners--in more than 225 color photographs.
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Good Breeding
Yann Arthus-Bertrand
$12.95 paperback |
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In this charming, newly formatted edition of Good Breeding, internationally renowned photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand once again presents some of the most spectacular, prize-winning examples of domestic livestock in the world. Posed with their owners, breeders, or trainers at agricultural shows in France, England, and Argentina, some of the breeds will be familiar to most readers, while others are very rare and little known beyond the region where they originated.
One of the most appealing aspects of these animal photographs is the presence of human companions, all of them proud to be presenting these great creatures to the camera. These images express intense joy and affection--the essential bond that has connected humans and animals since the earliest days of civilization.
Supplementing the photograhs is an essay by Claude Michelet, a French author who wrote his first novels while working as a cattle-breeder, and descriptions of each of the breeds pictured, their origins and current status, their uses, and their most significant characteristics.
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Oxen: A Teamster's Guide
Drew Conroy
$24.95 paperback
$34.95 hardcover |
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Operating Manual for the Mighty Ox
From plowing and hauling to logging and demonstrating traditional farming techniques, oxen contribute their trustworthy strength to many tasks. Calm and easy to work with, they are perennial favorites at farm museums, in municipal parades, and at county fairs. Here is the definitive resource to owning and working a team of your own.
With Drew Conroy's reliable advice, you will select your ideal animals, feed and house them properly, begin their basic training, fit them with a yoke and bows, and look after their health. Finally, you will take on the satisfying process of training your team to master the working skills you desire.
Farm with them, show them off, or compete with them--there is much to admire about the mighty ox.
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Barnyard in Your Backyard
Gail Damerow, Editor
$24.95 paperback |
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Barnyard basics for today's hobby farmer
Befor eyou put down money on that hen house, turn a single goat loose in the yard, or fence in a couple of acres for frisky calves, read Barnyard in Your Backyard, the essential primer for first-time farmers.
Each chapter spotlights a single animal and provides simple, clear instructions on what it takes to keep your livestock healthy and happy. You'll learn what type of housing and how much land your animals need, what to feed them, how to breed them, and how to handle routine health care. There's even a calendar with reminders for daily, weekly, and monthly routine care.
Covering everything from which breeds of ducks are best for eggs and which are best for meat to how to buy a beef or dairy calf to where to find a market for manure, this easy-to-use handbook teaches you how to operate a mini-farm for fun or profit, or both.
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Storey's Illustrated Breed Guide to Sheep, Goats, Cattle, and Pigs
Carol Ekarius
$24.95 paperback |
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From the large-tailed Karakul sheep to the floppy-eared Gloucestershire Old Spot pig, North America is home to an extraordinary array of livestock. Whether you need solid, up-to-date information on common domestic animals or you are hoping to introduce a rare heritage breed to your farm, this definitive guide has the information you need on the animals that interest you.
Comprehensive, colorful, and captivating, Storey's Illustrated Breed Guide to Sheep, Goats, Cattle, and Pigs is informative enough to aid in breed selection, but beautiful and browsable enough to keep on your coffee table. Full-color photographs; a brief history; details about unique quirks, qualities, and uses; and information on conservation status bring 163 common and rare varieties to life. Whatever the breed that fascinates you, look no further than this compelling collection.
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Storey's Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breeds
Carol Ekarius
$24.95 paperback |
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More than 128 birds strut their stuff across the pages of Storey's Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breeds, the ultimate primer for farmers and faciers alike. Admire the handsome black and white plumage of Lakenvelder roosters, read the fascinating history of the Blue Hens of Delaware, and marvel at the petite size and toylike appearance of Call ducks. And if you're curious to know which heritage turkeys are making a comeback, look no further.
This definitive guide to North American barnyard and wild fowl includes a brief history of each breed, detailed descriptions of identifying characteristics, and colorful photography that celebrates the birds' quirky personalities and charming good looks. If it's fowl facts and photos you want, you'll find them all here.
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Extraordinary Chickens
Stephen Green-Armytage
$12.95 paperback |
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Over the centuries, chickens have been bred into an amazing variety of shapes, sizes, patterns, textures, and colors. Yet because commercial breeders produce only the plain chickens suitable for meat or egg-laying, most people have no idea these birds exist.
In this charming, newly formatted edition of Extraordinary Chickens, author and photographer Stephen Green-Armytage once again opens a glorious window into the world of exotic chickens. With gorgeous color photographs and informative text, Green-Armytage surveys many unusual breeds around the world, capturing with his camera chickens of all sizes, shapes, and colors while also illuminating exotic waddles, "boots," and many other details.
For breeders and enthusiasts, this new volume will be a must to own. For others, it will be a revelation, worth having for the sheer enjoyment of the striking photographs and the amazing animals they portray.
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Horse Hoof Care
Cherry Hill and Richard Klimesh
$19.95 paperback |
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Sound advice for healthy horses
Give your horse the care and attention he needs to put his best foot forward. Cherry Hill, your trusted equine advisor, and Richard Kilmesh, a seasoned farrier, bring their extensive knowledge of equine foot health to Horse Hoof Care, the complete reference for every horse owner. Every element of hoof care is covered: hoof anatomy and function; the importance of daily routines and consistent care; the role of the farrier and how to find a good one; maintaining clean, dry facilities for healthy hooves; training your horse for hoof-handling; barefoot, boot, and shoeing options; and hoof ailments, when to call the vet.
"Cherry Hill knows how to present solid how-to information in a step-by-step, user-friendly way. You can take her knowledge to the barn and work with it." -Fran Smith, Managing Editor, Western Horseman
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Keep Chickens!
Barbara Kilarski
$16.95 paperback
TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK |
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Tending Small Flocks in Cities, Suburbs, and Other Small Spaces
If you find yourself reading up on fancy breeds of chickens, if you've taken to sketching coop designs on cocktail napkins, then you're ready to join the nationwide chicken boomlet. And you need Keep Chickens!
Barbara Kilarski, a woman who is passionte about the little flock she raises in Portland, Oregon, provides the detailed information every aspiring chickenkeeper needs to know. She identifies which breeds are happiest in small spaces; gives you simple instructions on feeding and caring for chickens; lists the equipment you'll need; discusses coop design, from the simple to the stylish; teaches you how to gather eggs; explains how chickens can help fertilize your garden while eliminating weeds and garden pests; and gives you the low-down on how to start a mini-chicken ranch that complies with city ordinances.
Everything you need to know about raising healthy chickens in a small space is in this book. So if you've got a yen for your own flock of hens, chick out Keep Chickens!
"Most folks who keep urban fowl... find peace in watching their feathered friends scrabble and strut. They share organic eggs with neighbors and they take extraordinary delight in harvesting poultry poop for their garden." -Seattle Times
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The Pride and Joy of Working Cattle
Ray Ludwig
$29.00 spiral bound paperback |
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Ray Ludwig, author of The Pride and Joy of Working Cattle, is a fabulous ox trainer and Tillers instructor. Written from Ray's considerable personal experience, this book contains numerous black and white photographs, as well as diagrams. A testament to his skill, Ray helped train Tillers' prime ox team, Marco and Polo, our pride and joy shall we say.
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Basic Butchering of Livestock and Game
John J. Mettler Jr., DVM
$16.95 paperback |
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Beef, veal, pork, lamb, poultry, rabbit, and venison
Whether you hunt or work a small farm and hope to become more self-sufficient, this book can help you enjoy the better flavor of humanely and properly slaughtered and butchered meat. Detailed instructions and easy-to-follow illustrations demystify the slaughtering and butchering process. Standard domestic and game animals and birds--from beef and veal to venison, pork, lamb, and poultry--are discussed, as well as: when to slaughter, how to skin and butcher, field dressing, the latest information on chronic wasting disease in deer, methods to avoid contamination and spoilage, aging, dry cures, pickling, and smoking. The book concludes with more than 30 recipes.
"Provides clear, concise, and step-by-step information for people who want to slaughter their own meat." -Mother Earth News
"With this book in hand, you should be able to take just about any animal from pen to freezer." -Countryside magazine
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Training Workhorses / Training Teamsters
L. R. (Lynn) Miller (Editor, Small Farmers Journal)
$32.95 paperback |
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This is a book about smart horses with courage, and the humility and sensitivity required of humans to keep their horses that way.
Full of black and white photographs and illustrations.
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Work Horse Handbook, Second Edition
Lynn R. Miller (Editor, Small Farmers Journal)
$32.95 paperback |
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The Work Horse Handbook is the quintessential operator's manual for horses and mules in harness. The author, Lynn Miller, has been a farming teamster for over thirty years. He has authored many books on the subject of animal-powered agriculture and is the founder, publisher and editor of Small Farmer's Journal. He has also taught workshops, lectured and demonstrated many aspects of the teamster's craft. This second edition greatly expands on the widely popular first edition, with hundreds of additional drawings and photographs, plus a revised and expanded text.
Full of black and white photographs and illustrations.
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A Field Guide to Cows
John Pukite
$14.00 paperback |
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A book that belongs in the glove compartment of every cow lover's car
A Field Guide to Cows makes it possible for even novice to identify and get to know America's fifty-two breeds of cattle, from the black-and-white Holstein to the shaggy, long-horned Highland. Every entry in this entertaining yet completely usable book features an illustration that highlights a breed's most easily identifiable traits, such as coloration pattern and body shape. Filled with facts and lore about all breeds, it also offers a glossary of terms, the lowdown on cheese, historic cattle trails and famous cows, and a checklist so the cow watcher can keep track of sightings. Fascinating cow trivia and cartoons are abundantly available for grazing throughout the book.
Informative, amazing, and amusing, A Field Guide to Cows is the indispensable companion for cow watchers, former cow tippers, farmers, city folk, agriculturalists, Interstate drivers, 4-H'ers, vacationing families, and everyone who likes to roll down the window and moo at cows.
Cow Facts:
A cow stands up and sits down about 14 times a day.
A cow can detect odors up to 5 miles away.
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The Cattle Health Handbook
Heather Smith Thomas
$24.95 paperback |
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Preventive Care, Disease Treatments and Emergency Producedures, for Promoting the Well-Being of Your Beef or Dairy Herd
You can provide the day-to-day medical care required to keep your cattle healthy and thriving. Heather Smith Thomas, a rancher with decades of hands-on experience, addresses every medical situation likely to arise on a cattle ranch or dairy farm. In lively language that offers practical, easy-to-execute solutions, Thomas discusses preventive care and how to handle sick or stressed cattle. Her thorough coverage of diseases and disorders include advice on how to treat: bacterial, viral, and protozoal diseases, weather-related health problems, internal and external parasites, problems affecting every body system. nutritional deficiencies, poisonous health hazards, accidents and injuries, and stress-related disorders.
Whether you are caring for a single dairy cow or a large beef herd, there is much you can do to reduce veterinary costs, increase the self-sufficiency of your operation, and improve the health of your animals.
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The Donkey Companion
Sue Weaver
$24.95 paperback
TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK |
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Selecting, Training, Breeding, Enjoying and Caring for Donkeys
Friendly, dependable, and intelligent, donkeys are wonderfully adept at protecting livestock and pulling loads yet make spirited racing partners and gentle stable companions. And their heart-felt braying, ever-alert ears, and expressive brown eyes earn them special status as beloved farm pets.
Give your donkey the best possible care, admire his place in history, and laugh at his charms. Training tips, valuable advice, fun facts, quotes, and colorful anecdotes are all included in this comprehensive, up-to-date guide to the versatile donkey.
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Training Oxen DVD
With Drew Conroy and Tim Huppe
$29.95 DVD |
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Drew, author of the highly acclaimed book Oxen: A Teamster's Guide, and Tim, proprietor of BerryBrook Ox Supply, present this program for training a handy team of oxen using three kinds of commands--verbal, body position, and physical touch. The step-by-step program starts with selecting calves with suitable conformation and disposition, handling the animals in the barn, establishing training goals, and pre-yoke training. Once the calves are appropriately responsive, Drew and Tim show you how to yoke the team, hitch and work them on a cart or sled, and prepare them for obstacle competition, pulling contests, and practical work such as log skidding and manure spreading.
The diversity of teams and teamsters portrayed in this video clearly demonstrate how anyone with an interest in cattle can have the satisfaction of training a team simply by taking time to understand the animals, making an effort to be consistent, and putting in lots of practice. Come along with our pair of expert New England ox drovers and see how much progress you can make in just one month--the minimum time needed to educate and condition cattle for work or competition--and witness the power and magnificence of a well-trained team of oxen at work in the yoke.
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Driving Draft Horses DVD
With Brandt Ainsworth
$29.95 DVD
TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK |
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A good teamster is defined by good hands, advises Brandt Ainsworth of Franklinville, New York, who has been driving horses since he was seven years old. During the ensuing 22 years he has done it all, from skidding logs and farming to driving in shows, pulls, and parades. His success with horses is evident in his expert handling of the lines.
Brandt shares his tips and techniques for successful driving in this video shot in Belfast, New York, at the farm of Donnie Middaugh, Jr., another top teamster who helps Brandt demonstrate good driving. This video shows how to attach driving lines, correct ways to handle lines for both comfort and safety, how to drive with one hand or both, the use of voice commands in conjunction with the lines, driving a team or a single, ground driving, and how to properly handle lines while starting a load and backing a team.
Driving with good hands can mean the difference between first or fifth place at a show or pull, between safe driving and having a runaway. Correct handling of the driving lines also results in increased productivity for both you and your working team. In this video Brandt Ainsworth shows you how.
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Harnessing Work Horses DVD
With Brandt Ainsworth
$29.95 paperback |
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Horse logger and farmer from Franklinville, New York, Brandt Ainsworth shares his knowledge of harnessing, collaring, bridling, and grooming a work horse. Using as models ten beautiful, and hardworking draft horses--Percheron, Belgian, Brabant, and Spotted Draft--Brandt demonstrates a variety of harness, including martingale (bellybacker) harness, sidestrap (sidebacker) harness, D-ring harness, Y-back harness, pulling harness, plow harness, and logging harness. He also discusses bits, bridles, collars, pads, lines, eveners, and neck yokes.
From this video you will learn to select the style of harness and collar to suit your needs, and fit and fine tune your harness to keep your horses healthy and comfortable. Shot at Donnie Middaugh's picturesque farm in Belfast, New York, this video makes a wonderful learning tool and reference source for the novice or the seasoned horseman.
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Woodworking and Construction
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A Timber Framer's Workshop
Steve Chappell
$30.00 paperback |
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Joinery, Design and Construction of Traditional Timber Frames
Timber framing has been a part of our building culture and an inspiration to mankind since the Middle Ages. As we enter a new millennium, it is destined to remain as one of building's most enduring forms, not only because of its intrinsic beauty, but because it is a pure and complete structural system.
"It would be part of my scheme of physical education that every youth in the state should learn to do something finely and thoroughly with his hand, so as to let him know what touch meant... Let him once learn to take a straight shaving off a plank, or draw a fine curve without faltering, or lay a brick level in its mortar; and he has learned a multitude of other maters..." -John Ruskin
Steve Chappell is a builder at heart and a teacher by nature. His journey in timber framing began on the northern coast of California in 1970, when, by chance, he joined a group of individuals in the construction of a joined timber frame. The group was led by a New Englander who grew up playing in his uncle's barn. Inspired by the experience, he moved to Maine in 1973 to study the buildings first hand. Building, teaching and writing about the craft has been his passion ever since.
As the founder and director of Fox Maple School of Traditional Building, Chappell has instructed hundreds of individuals over the past 15 years through hands-on workshops from Maine to California, New Mexico to Alaska, and across Canada. He is the Editor and Publisher of Joiners' Quarterly, The Journal of Timber Framing and Traditional Building, a magazine he founded in 1983, in which, he has written extensively about timber framing and traditional building.
In this book, his nearly 30 years of experience and insight is evident through the subtle nuances that he conveys. His intimacy with the craft is ever present, and his passion contagious. If you want to understand traditional timber framing, read this book. Chappell portrays the craft, with all its nuances, the way it was meant to be.
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How to Build Animal Housing
Carol Ekarius
$24.95 paperback |
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60 plans for coops, hutches, barns, sheds, pens, nest boxes, feeders, stanchions, and much more...
Happy, Healthy Animals! That's what people want, and proper housing makes it possible. How to Build Animal Housing helps you evaluate the housing needs of your animals and provides dozens of adaptable plans for sheds, coops, hutches, multi-purpose barns, windbreaks, and shade structures, as well as plans for essential equipment.
Carol Ekarius has your animals' best interests in mind and begins with a careful discussion of animal welare, behavior, and general safety issues. You'll also get tried-and-true advice on the importance of planning ahead and budgeting adequately. the detailed plans are supplemented with an entire section dedicated to construction techniques.
If you care about your animals and want the very best for them, How to Build Animal Housing is the book for you.
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Renovating Barns, Sheds and Outbuildings
Nick Engler
$24.95 paperback |
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Preserve the original charm of any outbuilding while making it usable again!
From the foundation up, from the walls in, and from the roof down, craftsman Nick Engler shows you how to save money, history, and architecture when you renovate or restore, rather than replace, your barn, shed, or outbuilding. You'll learn how to square and strengthen the structure, repair or replace the roofing and siding, enlarge and modify the building, install new windows and doors, and add electricity and plumbing. Engler also includes practical information on how to evaluate an old structure in light of current building codes.
"Nick Engler is quite simply one of the best how-to writers in the woodworking and home-improvement fields today. He is a master at showing you how things work, and a writer who will make you laugh and make you think." -Christopher Schwarz, Popular Woodworking
"Engler's experience as a woodworker and teacher shines through with straight-forward text, clear drawings, and invaluable tips." -Mario Rodriguez, author of Traditional Woodwork: Adding Authentic Period Details to Any Home
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The Book of American Windsor Furniture
John Kassay
$60.00 hardcover |
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Combining comfort, simplicity, and craftsmanship, Windsor chairs have long been prized by collectors. Introduced from England in the early 1700s, the Windsor style took hold in America first as seating for the well-to-do and later as the favorite chair of the general population. Included in the Windsor family are stools, tables, settees, high chairs, cradles, and candle stands, but the greatest variety is found in the chairs, which range from comb-back to bow-back to step-down versions. Their makers took advantage of the natural properties of different woods for particular components of the chairs, employing hickory, red oak, or ash for bent parts, maple for turnings, and pine for seats. Kassay meticulously documents all of these features and styles with drawings so accurate and precise that amateur furniture makers can use them as blueprints for creating Windsor reproductions. The drawings are complemented by narrative descriptions, photographs, and a list of measured parts for each of the pieces under discussion.
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The Cooper and His Trade
Kenneth Kilby
$21.95 paperback |
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This is the first book on coopering by a cooper--a name perpetuated in the surnames of many people throughout the world. With its beginnings in prehisstory the making of barrels, except for spirits, is virtually at an end in Britain, and wood has been replaced by glass and metal.
Mr. Kilby comes from a family of coopers in Bedfordshire. He was apprenticed to the trade, served in it for many years, and finally abandoned it for teaching. His book is divided into two parts. The Life of a Craftsman, partly autobiographical, deals with materials, tools and techniques and discusses the roles of the white cooper, the dry cooper and the various kinds of wet cooper. The second part of the book deals with organization and conditions of work and the social historyof coopering from early times to the twentieth century. The present state of this proud and honoured trade can be judged from the words of the Secretary of the South Wales Coopers' Union: We are now down to seven members knocking down casks."
This is a fine story, vividly told. It is fully illustrated with 56 pages of plates and 87 drawings, and there is a bibliography for each chapter.
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Chicken Coops
Judy Pangman
$19.95 paperback |
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45 Building Plans for Housing Your Flock
Bring your chickens home to roost in comfort and style! Whether you're keeping one hen in a small backyard or 1,000 birds in a large free-range pasture, this delightful collection of hen hideaways will spark your imagination and inspire you to begin building.
Author and farmer Judy Pangman combed the country to select these 45 coops for housing both laying hens and meat birds (chickens or turkeys). The coops range from fashionable backyard structures featured in the annual Seattle Tilth City Chickens Tour and the Mad City Chickens Tour in Madison, Wisconsin, to the large-scale, moveable shelters Joel Salatin has fashioned for Polyface Farm in Virginia.
You'll also find ideas for converting trailer frames, greenhouses, and backyard sheds; low-budget alternatives for working with found and recycled materials; and simple ways to make waterers, feeders, and nestboxes. A gallery of color photographs provides other creative ideas to get you going. With basic building skills, a little elbow grease, and this book of conceptual plans and how-to drawings, you've got all you need to shelter your flock.
Choose from the following plans: Cezanne's Garden Coop, Sun Coop, Little Red Henhouse, Hi-Rise Coop, Hen Haven, Shake Your Tail Feathers Coop, Starclucks Coop, Toolshed Henhouse, Truck Cap Coop, Egg-loo, Sap Bush Chicken RV, Chicken Greenhouse, Coop de Grass, Salatin Turkey Coop, and 30 more!
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Timber Frame Construction
Jack Sobon and Roger Schroeder
$19.95 paperback |
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All About Post-and-Beam Building
If you have only dreamed about the beauty of building with timbers, this book will open your eyes. It will convince you that this method is not only practical today for homes and other buildings, but often is less expensive than "stick building."
Timber frame builder Jack Sobon and writer Roger Schroeder offer a book for builders as well as those wishing to have the work done for them. Here is a practical how-to book for both beginners and experienced carpenters who want to try this method. It offers: the basics of timber framing; how to design for strength and beauty; how to combine modern tools and time-tested methods; a starter project, how to build a 12x16 garden toolshed; and dozens of illustrations and photos that make it all easy to understand.
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Build a Classic Timber-Framed House
Jack A. Sobon
$21.95 paperback |
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The timber-framed home is attractive, affordable, and easily expanded to meet the needs of a growing family. With the step-by-step instructions in this book you can build your own classic timber-framed house--one that's enduring, and features a level of craftsmanship rare in modern construction. Following the traditional "hall-and-parlor" home design, architect and builder Jack Sobon carefully and clearly explains finding the ideal building site, creating the master plan, selecting the best tree species, hewing and milling timbers, assembling the frame, installing wall sheathing, windows, and doors, designing and finishing the interior, and expanding on the plan.
One of the best-known and most distinctive figures in the timber-framing revival, Jack Sobon knows how to make home building affordable with economical hand tools, by taking control of the processing of building materials, and through using local inexpensive supplies.
The basic house design of this book is easily adapted to meet different needs. Sobon's practical advice incorporates the latest knowledge on building a healthy house, integrating natural systems, and finding effective home heating solutions.
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Ox Yokes I: Carving a Yoke DVD
With Dave Kramer and Drew Conroy
$29.95 DVD |
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Craftsman Dave Kramer of Tillers International in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Drew Conroy, author of Oxen: A Teamster's Guide, show how to design and fit a team neck yoke, select appropriate wood (or use alternative materials), and construct a yoke with either hand tools or power equipment. They also demonstrate how a yoke works, correct yoking procedure, advantages of a drop hitch point, and yokes for working a single ox.
"A poorly constructed or improperly fitted yoke will cause discomfort, and could injure the ox," says Dave Kramer. "A well-fitted yoke will allow your team to pull to its fullest potential." From raw wood to finished yoke, Dave and Drew show you how to make a proper neck yoke to help you get the best from your oxen.
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Ox Yokes II: Bending Bows and Forging Hardware DVD
With Dave Kramer and Drew Conroy
$29.95 DVD |
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In this follow-up to Ox Yokes I: Carving a Yoke, craftsman Dave Kramer of Tillers International in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Drew Conroy, author of Oxen: A Teamster's Guide, show how to bend bows and forge hardware to complete yoke assembly.
Dave shows how to select appropriate bow wood, carve out the bows with handtools or power tools, and bend the bows to fit your ox just right. As alternatives, Dave and Dick demonstrate the use and fit of straight bows and, for training calves, how to bend bows from PVC pipe.
Moving on to forge work, Dave explains how to heat the forge and use the anvil to shape the staple and rings, then fit them to the yoke. He also discusses alternatives available for purchase at the hardware store.
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Ox Yokes I and II, Two DVD Set
With Dave Kramer and Drew Conroy
$49.95 2 DVDs |
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This two DVD set includes both Ox Yokes I and Ox Yokes II with Dave Kramer and Drew Conroy. Learn to make an ox yoke from start to finish and save $10 off the individual DVD prices.
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