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1st out of 115 books
—
46 voters
The Encyclopedia of Country Living
by
Carla Emery
The bible of sustainable living, food gardening, and living green, no home is complete without this one-of-a-kind encyclopedia! For more than thirty years, people have relied on the thousands of recipes, detailed how-to instructions, and personal advice provided in this definitive classic. It is the most complete source of step-by-step information about growing, processing...more
Paperback, Tenth Edition, 922 pages
Published
July 1st 2008
by Sasquatch Books
(first published 1977)
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Feb 21, 2008
Jenn Pellerin
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
back-to-the-landers and daydreamy city folks
We keep this book up at the cabin. I like to sit by the fire and read about shearing sheep and slaughtering pigs (sorry, my veggie friends).
Contained in these pages is just about everything you need to know to live off the grid or on it, if you prefer. It covers finding and purchasing land, building houses and barns, buying, raising, and breeding all sorts of animals, hunting, foraging, slaughtering livestock, shearing sheep, growing fruits and vegetables, canning, and more and more and more. S...more
Contained in these pages is just about everything you need to know to live off the grid or on it, if you prefer. It covers finding and purchasing land, building houses and barns, buying, raising, and breeding all sorts of animals, hunting, foraging, slaughtering livestock, shearing sheep, growing fruits and vegetables, canning, and more and more and more. S...more
Jun 13, 2009
Jerry
is currently reading it
Finally decided to learn something useful. This is the 10th edition of her book. It seems to contain everything you need know to be self-sufficient. All the stuff I failed to learn from my grandparents. Our first little garden is coming in nicely, but a fierce battle is being waged with the chipmunks, squirrels, wild turkey, groundhogs, rabbits, deer, moles, birds, bear, and raccoon (and we live in NJ!) Seems like everyone wants to eat. I never saw this many animals growing up in Appalachia (pro...more
Holy macaroni, there's a lot in this book! I have no desire to live in the country but I am interested in urban agriculture, growing more of what I eat, and learning how to preserve what grows. This is not a book to read in one sitting though I certainly tried. From Latin names for plants to when and how to plant to what to plant with what to how to fight pests to preserving harvest for winter to recipes for everything you grow, you ought to be able to find what you need here. Now that I know wh...more
I use this reference manual for most everything country over and over again!
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Next time you need to castrate a goat, check out this book first.
I had heard of this book for years, so decided to get it from the library. It is not the kind of book you read from cover to cover. I was particularly interested in the food preservation, oddments and herb sections. This is a book about self-sufficient living, so it also has interesting things like a diagram of a hog with an X placed exactly where you should shoot it. I also enjoyed the recipes for pickled pig's feet and scrapple, amont others. This would be a great book to own, if you actually...more
good lord, this book is comprehensive. i got it out of the library because i'm trying to put in a garden and am clueless, but i found myself paging through it, fascinated, as she discusses such handy and useful things as how one slaughters a hog, keeps hens from getting "broody," does laundry with a plunger and bucket, etc. information that won't help me a bit in my urban home, but which is entertaining to read and, as with the animal-slaughtering-how-tos, page past very quickly. if i had any de...more
This is a MASSIVE reference book over 900 pages long on just about anything you'd need to know about country living, including how to purchase farm animals, catch a run-away pig, milk a cow, make sausage, can tomatoes, build a chicken coop, etc. This book is jam-packed with an impressive amount of detail, and includes diagrams, references, mail-order sources, and price estimates. A wonderful book to either flip through for inspiration or to turn to for detailed advice.
i have a soft spot for Carla Emery, the queen of hippie back to the landers. I grew up with this book, and read it many a time as i plotted my own future homestead. the information is far from complete, like all of these "everything you need to know" books there are simply too many subjects to cover any in depth. but it gives a person an overview of what's involved, and that's a fine starting point.
GREAT armchair reading. her style is blunt and homey.
GREAT armchair reading. her style is blunt and homey.
The first page I turned to said, "How to take care of your dead". So I figure it has it all. This book has everything your Grandmother should have taught you! I love learning how to do things on my own like making pickles and soap, so I am enjoying it. Already I found out I have poison Hemlock all over the front yard of my newly purchased home/ 5 acres that I want to turn into a mini farm. This book might have just saved my life!
This is a book that anyone wanting to live a homesteading life needs. It can be read from cover to cover, but for me it is more of a little at a time book. Whatever I am doing at the time, be it learning about a certain plant, how to preserve food, or how to make cheese; I just refer to that section and read up on it. It is a very good book. Carla Emery really knew her stuff.
May 22, 2011
Christy
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommended to Christy by:
Logan Ward
Shelves:
2011,
books-i-own
If the apocalypse had actually occurred yesterday and I was left behind, this is the book I would want to have with me. It has instructions on seriously everything you could ever need to survive, from growing your own food, to castrating goats, to giving birth. I will probably (hopefully) never need a lot of this information, but it is incredibly interesting to read.
Excellent compendium of living a simpler life, covering many aspects from land to animals to kids to health to life and death. I have never read this entire book. I use some pages regularly, and sometimes I just pull it down and flip it open to see what I'm going to learn about next. Last time I did that, I ended up reading a recipe using a camel!
This book is almost as thick as a phone book, and contains information on just about everything you could think of when it comes to living in the country - canning, raising chickens, gardening, the works. I love it because it provides a great jumping off point for me to research topics in more depth from other sources. I'll be reading and re-reading this one for a long while.
Carla Emery homesteaded in the Yukon Territoy and this book contains the wealth of information gained in that journey. Written is a very easy manner, containing humorous snippets of her blunders along the way. An invaluable resource of recipes for cooking from basic products, homesteaders,and health conscience cooks.
3.5 stars
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I just skimmed through this giant book, and I can see how useful it would be if I lived in the country, had a farm, or gardened more seriously than I currently do. This book is like several books smashed into one. It covers almost all bases - growing, preserving, cooking veggies, grains, legumes, etc, raising animals and maybe even eating them too (I skipped the last chapters about animals).
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I just skimmed through this giant book, and I can see how useful it would be if I lived in the country, had a farm, or gardened more seriously than I currently do. This book is like several books smashed into one. It covers almost all bases - growing, preserving, cooking veggies, grains, legumes, etc, raising animals and maybe even eating them too (I skipped the last chapters about animals).
Got this one along with a couple of other "basic skills bibles", and so far I'm impressed with the breadth and depth of its coverage. Been reading about corn lately, all kinds of stuff about it. A good one for the commode, to have handy and just open randomly to any page.
Another great reference book for those wanting to learn lost of arts of our agrarian past. Whether you are interested in simple gardening, self-sufficiency or just being less wasteful and more green in your lifestyle, this books provides the information you will need.
Feb 06, 2013
Amy
added it
I keep going back to this resource on everything farm-ish. It gives me information enough that I can then start asking people questions and figure out what other books I need on the subject. Current interest: lambs and meat sheep!
Great info on raising animals, farming, bee keeping just about everything you need to know about country living. It was more like a journal than a dictionary though so that's why I didn't love it and the pictures could of been better.
I love this book for so many reasons. there is so much good info in this book. Recipes, family stories, how to grow anything, how to raise animals. I had the pleasure of meeting Carla in 1997. she was so gracious.
I LOVE this book! It is a great reference book to keep around the house with lots of DIY information for those willing to do projects. Everything from raising chickens to making soap and lots and lots in between.
This book definitely has a place on my bookshelf. And I know I will refer to it all the time…I have a feeling I’ll wear it out ;o) It’s huge and covers a lot of topics. Perfect for the homesteading or sustainable living.
Wow! What an incredible volume of useful knowledge! And while one would initially think to buy this and place it on a shelf to use as a reference (and they should!), they will find upon perusal that there are all kinds of tidbits mixed in as well that they might miss if they don't go cover to cover. For example, you wouldn't think to find homemade household cleaner recipes in the gardening section, nor would you expect to find out what to do if you find yourself giving birth and you are all alon...more
Everything you'd ever want to know about self-sufficient living and how to do it. This book made it onto my very short list of books to buy for my shelves (most recent edition).
I am going to have to buy myself a copy of this! There is so much stuff in this that I have no way to digest it all in one library loan. So far: awesome!
If you want to have an "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" experience, Carla shows you how in her book. So much fun, hopefully one day I can use the information.
Everyone who grows anything, raises anything, cans, cooks or maybe just is alive should have this book on their bookshelf! It is a priceless tool.
Partly thorough, partly superficial and outdated (e.g. section on potatoes). Heavily based on the author's own experiences and traditions.
a classic for the "homesteader" or back to land advocate, frankly not a bad general resource book for some of the forgotten skills.
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