Books: The Encyclopedia of Country Living

Over 600,000 Copies Sold!

Facts

Author: Carla Emery
ISBN: 1-57061-377-X
Paperback: 885 pages
Publisher: Sasquatch Books

The Back Cover

The New Essential Resource

Be Prepared! Be self-sufficient!

Do you know how to…

• Choose and buy land?
• Pinch pennies?
• Create and live with renewable energy sources?
• Deliver a baby alone?
• Preserve and can your own food?
• Make a quilting frame?
• Prune a tree?
• Bathe under primitive conditions?
• Raise chickens?
• Make your own vinegar?
• Treat bites and stings from ticks, scorpions, snakes, and spiders?

Learn How and Much More!

For nearly thirty years people have relied on Carla Emery’s unique and thorough instructions to learn everything they need to know to be entirely self-sufficient. Recipes, step-by-step gardening advice, how-tos, barnyard necessities and inevitabilities, and more are packed into this must-have reference. Now-at long last-an updated edition of Emery’s classic…including more than 1,500 mail-order sources, website and email addresses, and a comprehensive, new index!

Who This Book Is For

This book is written for everyone. I kid you not. It’s interesting reading, a valuable reference, and a useful source of recipes and how-to-do-it information. If you’re in the suburbs with space enough for a little garden, you’ll find it even more useful. If you dream of someday living on enough land for a garden and maybe a few animals, it’s a great wish book and guide to that transition. If you live out of town where you can have a big garden and livestock, you’ll get even more use out of this book. Even if you already know a lot about growing food, I’ve tried to make the book a resource that will help you learn even more, or point you to other places where you can network and get more information. But I want city-dwelling readers to know they’re just as important to me as the country folks, and I’ve tried hard with this ninth edition to address urban needs too.

I think there can be a satisfaction in doing your own think, in learning new skills, in producing from scratch. I also think the ability to act independently is personally empowering and can be a survival factor in crisis. I’d like to make clear however, that I don’t expect you to do everything in this book. It would take 200 hours a day – or more – to do it all! I did most of it at one time or another and wrote about whatever I was doing while it was fresh in my mind. It may sound as if I was doing it all at the same time, but that’s not true.

I also don’t want you to think I’m preaching about “from-scratch” procedures as though they’re the only righteous way. You can cut down a tree using a cross-cut saw or a chain saw. Some people get great satisfaction from working with a cross-cut saw, sharing the task with a neighbor on the other end of the saw. Other people, with family to keep warm and little time for other things, need the expediency of a chain saw. Modern methods can save you time. I’ve learned to use a computer. It sure beats having to retype a whole page just to change a few sentences. Every person has to strike a balance between doing for themselves and letting themselves be done for. It’s not weak to compromise; it’s absolutely necessary.

A spunky lady, Barb Lasley of Ramah, NM, wrote me, “Having been reared on a farm in southwest Wisconsin, I now exist as a parody to your book, because my microwave heats the lard to proper soap temperature and my Kenmore dishwasher cleans up after. My Oster Kitchen Center grinds my meat and turns out great pasta and bread dough while my washer and dryer are busy doing the laundry. I can’t imagine living better than we do, with fresh food, homemade soap, clean air, non-chlorinated water, and all the TLC that’s necessary to make a house a home. If modern conveniences infringe upon those qualities, I fail to see where.”

Although I’ve written this collection of food-growing information and along the way live, loved, and extolled – and also probably idealized – the rural life, I don’t want you to feel pushed in that direction unless it is truly right for you. Going back to the land is not, for me, a religion. It’s not the only right or happy way to live. And there are lots of country-type skills and food self-sufficiency ideas in this book that you can make use of even in town!

There have always been lots of Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders in my family of readers and back-to-the-landers. I used to get happy letters from Americans who had moved to Mexico to make new homes there. I also hear from missionaries all over the world who have moved from “modern” living to the bush and are having to learn from-scratch cooking. I’ve tried hard to make this book something that could be of use to ever more people in ever more places. I’ve added new grains, vegetables, and fruits – many of which are grown more frequently in other countries than in the United States.

So there are as many styles of “country living” as there are people and places. Whatever and wherever yours is, thank you for being my reader. You give meaning and joy to my life by being out there on the receiving end of this book, which has been, more or less, my life’s work.

This is sometimes a very personal book, a letter to a friend.

Volume Discounts on Books

• 5 - 9 = 5% off
• 10 - 14 = 10% off
• 15 - 19 = 15% off
• 20 - 24 = 20% off
• 25 - 29 = 25% off
• 30 - 34 = 30% off
• 35 - 39 = 35% off
• 40+ = 40% off
• Books may be mixed and matched

Customer Reviews

Please, take a moment and comment on this product.