Rating: 
Summary: A Great Book, But...
Review: I received this book two days ago and already I've learned that my beets might cross pollinate and that my Hampshire Reds are heavy layers. BUT - and this really worries me - this book is printed on paper like newsprint. This is a book I mean to go back to time and time again. I'm really sorry it's not built more substantially.
Rating: 
Summary: The style in which this book is written makes it delightful
Review: Mrs. Emery has done a wonderful job of bringing practical advise in an entertaining style. It many ways it feels like reading letters from a good friend. The information is general for the most part but detailed enough to be very usable.
Rating:
Summary: Best darn encyclopedia/how-to diary available!
Review: I thought I'd do Carla a favor and tell the world what a wonderful book she'd written. Too late! The whole world aleady seems to know! This book truly is an Encyclopedia! It's crammed full of how-to information that I refer to as the lost arts. Unlike most books, it's not generic information, but instead, step by step useful stuff and little known hints from folks who've spent a lifetime learning it! In addition to being all enclusive, it's also her life's work.... A personal diary of her triumphs and heartaches as she worked on this masterpiece. When you finally put this book down, you feel like you really know her personally. As a mother of 4 small children, all close in age, I have been inspired by her. As a homemaker, I have learned a great deal from her. Thank-you, Carla for being true to your inner voice and putting down on paper a thousand lifetimes worth of knowledge. My family is better prepared and living a simplier, happier life because you've enlightened me! Nashville, TN
Rating:
Summary: No back to the land manual is more comprehensive
Review: I purchased this manual in 1978 & still refer to it regularly. Its just like the old five & dime- there's nothing you can't find there. We are living a very different life than we would have had we not found this treasure.
Rating: 
Summary: Hi to My Readers from Carla!
Review: What a privilege and joy it is to have authored a book read by more than 400,000 persons. For 25 years, I've collected information about family food production and related rural subjects. It feels good at this stage of my life to know that work was well done. My life is now a perpetual speaking tour, helping folks understand what's coming, "How to prepare for Y2K." (I hope for lecture invites also from overseas.) Everywhere I go, I meet old friends whom I've never personally met before. These folks have enjoyed and relied on the how-to-do-it information in the Encyclopedia of Country Living for years. Their beat-up old books tell a beautiful story of hard work and dedication.. Sometimes I've felt foolish for insisting on telling readers things like how to save seeds and how to grow their own feed for farm animals. At times, I've been scorned and berated for trying to keep oldtime skills alive. But as Y2K approaches, inexorably as the clock ticks, this information is becoming mainstream again. I love you, dear readers. You have been a beautiful thing in my life, too. God be with you in the coming years.
Rating:
Summary: I LIVED IT!
Review: Unlike the previous reviewers, I lived this book. I was raised in a big city in Florida and moved to a small country town (pop. 181) in the Arkansas mountains. I was in my late 20's and imagined myself as part of the back-to-the-earth movement. A friendly librarian pointed me to this book, which I bought after checking it out so often.Since we moved to a small community where "everyone was related" except us, we did not get much neighborly help at first. The first week there we bought baby goats (which rode home in the front seat with me), 2 pigs (which didn't), and planted our garden. Using Carla's book we mail-ordered baby chicks who lived in our bathtub until the weather got warmer. We bought a wood stove and learned to can and dry vegetables. I tried most everything, using Carla's book as a reference. When it came time to butcher our hogs, we could not get anyone to help us, even for $$. The closest we had been to a hog before moving to Oden was in the grocery store. So we checked out Carla's book and I sat on the cab of the truck reading the instructions aloud while DH took aim and shot the pig. We were both very nervous, so we went inside (it was very cold) and had a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, when we went back outside, the pig was up and boy, was he mad! I won't go into any further details except to say we had funny looking meat that winter, but it was tasty. By the way, the townsfolk treated us differently from then on. Anyway, I just wanted to say that you can really do what she says and make it happen. Carla gives you practical backyard-to-table "hands-on" advice, and I've recommended it to may people.
Rating:
Summary: Great resource that Carla keeps up-to-date
Review: This is an awesome guide for many country skills and a great starting point for the rest. Carla covers best the skills she's experienced in and gives a very thorough introduction and references to other resources to get you going on just about anything else. For more involved skills that you are really interested in, you should also get a book that is specifically about that subject. Some suggestions include "Deerskins into Buckskins" for hide tanning, "How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Thought Possible" on gardening, any of Michael Moore's guides for herbalism, and "The Natural Pregnancy Book" and "Spiritual Midwifery", for home birthing. Amazon.com sells all of these.
Rating:
Summary: THE MOST COMPLETE, HELPFUL BOOK IN TEN YEARS OF SEARCHING!
Review: Carla's priceless collection of country living wisdom from all over and from all ages has been the most valuable, practical, and utilized in our home, after a ten-plus year of collecting such back-to-basics publications. Her down-home presentation doesn't leave you feeling like you just walked out of a city classroom. Folks from the city and life-long country-dwellers alike find the Recipe Book a delightful resource.
Rating:
Summary: The most complete and thorough book ever!
Review: When I purchased an 8-acre ranch in 1985 I had a six-month old baby one on the way and had never been off of concrete in my life. Now I had 8-acres, goats, chickens, rabbits, ducks, geese, pigs, 60 fruit and nut trees and an acre garden. I had no clue how or what to do! I learned everything from reading that book. How to harvest, can and cook up your garden & orchard harvest, feed and butcher animals, all kinds of doctoring for kids and animals, crafts, and even how to cut hair. That book is so dog-eared with tape from all of my years of use. I owe my sanity to that book. It has every scenario imaginable. I recommend it to anyone living in the country or on a farm or thinking of it. What I learned from Carla Emery's book will stay with me forever! The knowledge is priceless.
Rating:
Summary: One book I dont want to live without!
Review: Ms. Emery has truly been an inspiration in my life. This book has everything from making soap to Butchering hogs! I use it in my everyday life. I would love to her write even more so I can get more information on how to live a pure and Natural life! The chapter on Poultry I have found to be very useful. Many things that are in there I have never heard of before .But now thanks to this book I have. I have told many of my friends of this book and convinced a few that they could'nt be without it either. To sum it up if all people lived their lives as Carla and her children do there would be alot more peace in the world!
|
