Giveaway winner and reading material
This is a scattered,
book-keeping post, so please take a minute to at least skim the
headlines.
Giveaway: Thanks to everyone who
helped spread the word last week and entered our consulation
giveaway!
Fostermamas was the winner --- please drop me an email and we'll start channeling
wisdom your way.
Reading
material: There's
no lunchtime series this week, but Weekend
Homesteader: September
is free on Amazon today and tomorrow to make up for it. The four
projects include spicing up your cooking, canning tomatoes for the
winter, saving seeds for
next 
year's garden, and building a
homesteading team. As usual,
you can email me if you'd rather receive a
pdf copy.
Free
paperback: My
publisher asked me if I knew of anyone who might be interested in
reviewing Weekend
Homesteader, so I
thought I'd ask my favorite readers. (That's you!) This is
your chance to receive a free copy of my book, quite possibly before
anyone else! If you work-for/run/have-an-in-with a TV or radio
show, newspaper, magazine, or website and are interested in reviewing Weekend
Homesteader, please drop me an email with your contact info
(name, email, phone number, and mailing address) so I can pass it on to
my publisher. I won't promise anything (because I don't entirely
know what to expect myself), but I will definitely put you on the list.
Reading
club: I thought
I'd test the waters to see if any of you are interested in
participating in a summer reading club. I have a huge backlog of
books that I always mean to read, but don't, generally because they're
lighter or more philosophical than my usual non-fiction fare.
Maybe if we read them together and discussed them on the blog, I'd have
an incentive to buckle down! If you're interested, please leave a
comment to let me know which of the following books sounds intriguing
(or to suggest your own), and to give me an idea of how many pages you
think you'd like to read per week:
- Walden
--- Yes, I'm embarassed to say I've never read the whole book.
Mark's the one who named the blog. (Available for free download and is
also almost
certainly at your
library.) - Ishmael
--- This book has been recommended to me multiple times, but I've been
scared off by the subtitle "An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit".
It's in my tiny library, so is almost certainly in yours.
- Radical Homemakers --- I think I need to get past the term "homemaker" in the title and focus on the radical part.
- The Bucolic Plague --- Looks like it would be fun.
- The Dirty Life --- Another book on the pure fun front.
- Folks, This Ain't Normal --- Salatin's first maintream-published book...and I'm scared off by the mainstream part.
- Small is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered --- Sounds dense but worth thinking about.
- Just in Case: How to Be Self-Sufficient When the Unexpected Happens --- I'm curious about the disaster preparedness world, mostly because we prep for (and experience) little disasters on our farm all the time.
- Gaia's Garden --- A basic intro to permaculture which I've avoided because I was afraid it might be too basic.
- Introduction
to Permaculture --- By one of the movements' founders.
Pretty
pictures: Are
courtesy of our growing flock, who have enjoyed their upgrade to a bucket waterer and larger pasture!
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Sure, it would give me a reason to stop a read once in a while. I used to read all the time but now I don't feel like I can take time out of my busy day. I'm especially interested in reading:
Walden - I read it as a child in grade school, so I feel like reading it as an adult would be beneficial. Folks, This Ain't Normal - Salatin is my hero and I haven't read any of his books yet! Just in Case - I enjoy Kathy's blog and really need to read her book. Gaia's Garden - I'd like to expand my own miniscule permaculture skills.
Everybody --- It sounds like there's enough interest to give the book club a shot --- great! I'll wait a couple of days to see how the votes pan out, but it looks like Walden might be a good place to start. It's relatively short --- 200 pages in the paperback I have --- so I was thinking of us reading about 50 pages per week and discussing it in quarters. Sound good?
Charity --- The Resilient Gardener is on my shelf right now waiting to be read! I think it's going to be informative enough to turn into a lunchtime series, though, which means I'll actually get to it sooner rather than later and I don't need a book club incentive to read it. (And, of course, this is all about me, right?
) Glad to hear a vote in her favor!
De --- Thanks for the feedback on reading schedules! I've never been in a real book club, so that really helps.
Here are the votes so far:
Jayne --- I'm not sure if that's a vote for Bucolic Plague because you really enjoyed it or against because you've already read it?
Kevin --- Looks like Walden and then Gaia's Garden are our top contenders now! Don't worry about being a slow reader --- if I try to set too many pages per week, feel free to tell me to slow down.
Fostermamas --- You deserve to win! I'll be looking at your facebook photos in the next few days. It sounds like you're at the perfect point in your homestead for some advice!
I feel exactly the same way about Walden. Let's see if we can plug through together!
De --- Without the minus signs, Gaia's garden is looking better and better for book two!
Jen --- Sounds like we're on a very similar wavelength. I've added your votes and am glad to have you in the "club"!