On the bookshelf

I have been thinking a lot about the things that have helped me along the way to figure things out and learn new trades when it comes to homesteading. I learn a lot by doing, but I also learn a lot from books. So I thought I would take a few minutes to share some of the books that I own and have read and found helpful as it pertains to the homestead.  The first book I think is a must have might gross a few out because of the pictures inside the book. But, I think that this book is a necessary one for people who have never hunted or cleaned their own meat. I found it very helpful in building my confidence into helping me butcher our chickens for the first time. It is called A Hunter's Cookbook: A Practical Step-By-Step Guide To Dressing, Preparing And Cooking Game, In The Field And At Home, With Over 75 Delicious Recipes And Over 1000 Photographs


The next is a book that I have never fully finished reading because it is so big and so much information in it that I get distracted and tend to flip through and read random pages in it. It has everything that you would need for being self sufficient on your homestead. It has information on building chicken coops, making cheese, soap making, bread making, tons of information on herbs and tonics. Really there is far too much to list of what this book has, if you can only afford to get one book I would say this one is definitely the one that I would pick. Country Wisdom & Know-How: A Practical Guide to Living off the Land


Another book that I find myself looking at all through the growing season is one that most homesteaders already have on their bookshelf. It is the book I refer to any time that I pull out my canner and can anything. I find that I can take almost any of my recipes and can them using this book just by canning the longest time for whichever ingredients are in it. If you are canning potatoes and meat for example, the meat is supposed to be pressure canned longer than potatoes so you would go by the time it takes to can the meat in the recipe.  It is a great idea for canning leftover soups so that you don't have to make a huge pot to bring the sick neighbor some chicken soup. ® Blue Book Guide to Preserving (by Jarden Home Brands)


There is also another blue canning book that I purchased while at the 2012 NRA conference in Houston, that takes the recipes to a whole new level. There are tons of recipes in this book that are not in the blue book. A lot of them are things I never would have even thought of it I hadn't seen them in this book. Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving I can promise you will not be able to make ever recipe in this book because there are a lot of them in there.

These are just a few of the books on my bookshelf I have tons more and I will try to cover more of them as the year progresses. If I have one good word of advice for purchasing books, it would be not to get them from the big box store, amazon is a great website and will save you tons on books. Take the Ball complete book for example, it is usually around 15$ on amazon I paid 20$ at the NRA conference for it. Every one of these books are worth every penny, but it helps to save that homestead cash for that roll of fence or new milking pail that you need. You can check out these books on amazon at http://astore.amazon.com/alitbitofhom-20