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Whatever your grandma did to fix and maintain things around the house and garden, it probably worked. That’s because the old ways are often the best ways when it comes to solutions for everyday problems, ideas for saving time, and handy advice for getting the job done. And that’s where 1,001 Old-Time Household Hints comes in. Find the best hints, tips and secrets for everything from cooking, cleaning and home maintenance to pet care, gardening and holiday celebrations. You’ll also find ways to adapt and improve some old-time methods. Discover an amazing variety of useful and clever ideas, including how to:

• Clean copper pans, using buttermilk and salt
• Make real sourdough bread the way the pioneers did
• Fight wrinkles and create kissable lips
• Use natural ingredients to repair your hair
• Create your own unique perfume
• Organize common space in your home
• Use ivory soap for polishing silver and insect control
• Safely separate drinking glasses that have been stuck together
• And more!

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The recent decline of the European honeybee, one of North America’s primary pollinators, poses a serious challenge to our food supply and ecological health. Close to 75 percent of all flowering plants rely on pollinators in order to set seed or fruit, and from these plants comes a third of the planet’s food. What can you do to help? Attracting Native Pollinators shows you how to encourage the activity of pollinators other than honeybees by creating flowering habitats and inviting nesting sites. Anyone can do it! You’ll find comprehensive information on every kind of pollinator, instructions for building nesting structures, ideas for involving children, and an extensive list of resources. This is an essential reference book and action guide for anyone who is growing food or is concerned about the future of our food supply.

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Imagine a weekend breakfast featuring eggs, bacon and honey from your own chickens, pigs and bees, or a holiday meal with your own heritage-breed turkey as the main attraction. With The Backyard Homestead: Guide to Raising Farm Animals, even urban and suburban residents can successfully raise chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, rabbits, goats, sheep, cows, pigs and honeybees. It’s easier than you think, and it can be done on small plots of land. This essential guide covers everything from selecting the right breeds to producing delicious fresh milk, cheese, honey, eggs and meat. Whether you want to be more self-sufficient, save money, or just enjoy safer, healthier, more delicious animal products, you’ll find all the information you need in The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals.

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A perfect gift for maple lovers! Savor the surprising history of maple sugaring, learn to identify the various kinds of maple trees, discover how to tap your own trees and make your own syrup, and indulge yourself with tempting recipes for old-fashioned treats like maple nut bread, maple eggnog, baked beans, maple nutmeg butternut squash, maple-glazed salmon and pecan pie. What could be sweeter?

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Do you know your mushrooms? This is the only mushrooming book that will introduce you safely and with confidence to the not-so “underground” hobby of mushroom hunting and gathering.

Gathering edible wild food is a wonderful way to forge a connection to the earth. Mushrooms are the ultimate local food source; they grow literally everywhere, from mountains and woodlands to urban and suburban parks to your own backyard. The Complete Mushroom Hunter will enrich your understanding of the natural world and build an appreciation for an ancient, critically relevant, and useful body of knowledge. Amateur mycologists and mushroom enthusiasts will find this is a guidebook for their passion.

Mushroom guru Gary Lincoff escorts you from the mushroom’s earliest culinary awakening, through getting equipped for mushroom forays, to preparing and serving the fruits of the foray, wherever you live.

Inside you’ll find:

• A brief, but colorful history of mushroom hunting worldwide
• How to get equipped for a mushroom foray
• A completely illustrated guide to the common wild edible mushrooms and their poisonous look-alikes: where to find them, how to identify them, and more
• How to prepare and serve the fruits of your foray, plus more than 30 delicious recipes
• Plus, dozens of colorful, priceless anecdotes from living the mushroom lifestyle

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In the latter half of the twentieth century, the percentage of the total American population living in suburbs grew to nearly 50 percent. Fossil fuels were cheap and plentiful, and car-dependent, energy-intensive lifestyles came hand-in-hand with this demographic transition. In the age of Peak Oil, environmental catastrophe and a failing economy it is imperative that we transform the suburbs into sustainable communities.

Surviving the Apocalypse in the Suburbs envisions a suburban evolution -- from isolated cookie-cutter houses with manicured lawns and 2-car garages to small, closely packed, productive, interdependent homesteads. This guide to simplifying suburbia and adopting a lower energy lifestyle breaks down all our basic needs and describes how they might be met after the loss of the modern conveniences we currently take for granted. From small-space gardening techniques and a guide to small livestock, to tips on cooking, heating, and sanitation options and much more, this is a complete guide to becoming more self-sufficient wherever you live.

Required reading for anyone interested in increased self-reliance and a lower carbon footprint, Surviving the Apocalypse in the Suburbs will help you look past the white picket fence to a new world of possibilities.

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Stories and poems about working border collies, sheep, family and life on the land. For anybody who loves and works with border collies and sheep will read this beautifully written classic over and over.