this side of heaven

:: farm arts category
:: Christian Homesteaders Association
:: Complete Guide to Country Living
:: DMOZ Homesteading
:: DMOZ Voluntary Simplicity
:: Homestead.org
:: Homesteading Today forums

We found this little volume (now in a reissued paperback) at a yard sale the year before we moved to the country. We constantly referred to it. The author edits Countryside & Small Stock Journal, our favorite homesteading magazine.
:: Backwoods Home magazine
:: Countryside bookstore
:: Farm and Ranch Index
:: Home Meat Processing
:: Old Timers Page
:: Raising Milk Goats
:: Small Farm Today
:: Small Farms Library
:: Lehman's non-electric catalog
:: Murray McMurray Hatchery

There is no one volume book that covers everything you need to know to be truly self-reliant. That is why having five or six of the one-volume "everything you ever need to know" books in your library is important, along with subscriptions to Countryside and Backwoods Home. All taken together, they provide the necessary knowledge we have lost in the last hundred years of industrialiazation.
:: Encyclopedia of Country Living
:: Self-Sufficient Life
:: Storey's Basic Country Skills
:: Handy Farm Devices

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:: home work category
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:: homeschooling category
at a little perspective
:: 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum
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:: garden arts category
:: Biblical principles of organic gardening

This reference serves as the indispensible backbone of our gardening library. I couldn't garden organically without it.
:: Organic Gardening Magazine
:: Holistic Gardening
:: Rodale Institute's New Farm

Healthy garden plants (thus healthy food) begins with good soil which promotes life. The organic gardener must compost; this book is the invaluable standard.
:: Compost Guide
:: Home Composting
:: Mastercomposter.com
:: Pay Dirt by J.I. Rodale

To garden organically, you cannot only promote life. You must also deter the effects of the curse on creation, which means, control pests, disease, and weeds. This book gives you the knowledge to successfully do that.
:: Pest and Disease Solutions
:: Integrated Weed Management

:: weight control ::

Discover the connection between body toxicity and weight control. Once I detoxed my body, following Dr. Gittleman's easy two-week plan, I lost 45 pounds in 2005.
:: Aspartame Toxicity
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(at a little perspective)
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:: simplifying christmas ::

:: non-commercial christmas category
:: Christmas nostalgia & mincemeat
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:: Simplifying Christmas links

:: tips ::

We were given this book for Christmas, and it is packed full of interesting and useful information. Over 2,317 tips to save time and money!
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:: needle arts category
:: Ten ways to recycle a favorite sweater

:: quilting ::

:: Quilting favorites
:: Memory quilts

This book is not the most comprehensive how-to guide (that is this book). It is not chock full of patterns (that is this book). This is, however, the most satisfying quilt book I own: a history of hand quiltmaking, with myriad photos illustrating techniques. It is the most relaxing quilt book I own.
:: American Patchwork & Quilting
:: Basic quilting lessons
:: Jinny Beyer
:: Buggy Barn
:: Color Confidence for Quilters
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:: Foundation paper piecing
:: McCall's Quilting
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Prolonging cut flower blooms

posted Tuesday 20 June 2006 :: 2:01 PM

I am posting the bare bones information from an article in the May issue of Better Homes and Gardens -- a magazine my mother subscribed to her whole adult life -- so I can keep the information, but not the magazine. I save quilting magazines, and that is quite enough! The name of the article is Prolong the Bloom by Suzy Bales about horticulturalist Allan Armitage.

1. Pick in flowers in the bud stage for the longest cut flower life.
2. Put freshly- cut flowers up to their necks in deep, cool water, to activate the water rising up the stem.
3. Keeping the flowers in the refrigerator for six hours before they are arranged triples the life of most flowers.
4. Recut stems at an angle just before placing them in the water in the vase.
5. Keep the water in the vase six inches deep or less to promote air circulation.
6. Use floral cut flower preservative to prevent bacteria from rotting the stems.

Variations on these generalizations:

Astilbes: place them in hot water first, allow it to cool, and then refrigerate them until they are ready to display.
Daisies, and any in the daisy family: flowers should be fully open before cutting.
Delphiniums: there should be a few flowers on the spike fully open before cutting.
Lilacs: lightly crush the base of woody stems with a hammer to improve their water intake.
Poppies and other flowers with a milky sap: seal the stems over a candle flame.

More information on specific flowers is posted online.

category :: garden arts
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Hi, my name is Christine. My husband and I have been married for 24 years, and we have three grown children and one grandson. We live in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies. Homeschooling led us to homesteading! We moved to the country in 1996. Thank you for stopping by!

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:: Joy of Cooking

Packed full of nutrition information, and recipes for everything normally commercially prepared (apple cider vinegar, sauerkraut, ketchup, salad dressings), this cookbook is indispensible for those needing to ensure their families are eating chemical- and additive-free foods.
:: Homegrown Pure & Simple

This wonderful cooking magazine contains no advertisements, just page after page of product reviews, basic cooking lessons, luscious recipes, and tips and techniques from America's Test Kitchen. This is my favorite "cookbook" besides my family recipes. (If only America's Test Kitchen would publish a cookbook ... oh, they just did!
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I am gluten intolerant.
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The authors connect the dots between gluten allergy and many degenerative illnesses common in our society. Did you know that genetic markers for gluten sensitivity occur in 43% of the US population? Find out if that might be you or your family, and reduce your incidence of GI distress, mental, emotional or behaviorial problems, diabetes, heart disease, cancers, arthritis, and more.
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:: the msg-free life category
:: sneaky tricksey food manufacturers!
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:: MSG Truth
:: Why be MSG-free?

Dr. Blaylock is a board certified neurosurgeon in private practice for 24 years who serves on the editorial board of the official journal of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. This is his first book, which explains the potent neurotoxins known as excitotoxins (MSG and aspartame), and demonstrates the link between them and degenerative disease.

:: sugar-free cooking ::

:: the sugar-free life category
:: On natural sweeteners

My health improved so dramatically after implementing Dr. Gittleman's detox diet, that I was ready to listen to her about the dangers of refined sugar. This is the year we will, with God's help, get the sugar out of our diet.
:: 10 ways to sweeten w/o sugar
:: Ask Dr. Sears: Sugar
:: The Bitter Truth About Sugar
:: Little Sugar Addicts
:: Potatoes Not Prozac
:: Radiant Recovery
:: Rapadura whole cane sugar
:: Really Raw Honey
:: Technorati Low Sugar Tag
:: The Saccharine Disease
:: Shake Off the Sugar
:: Sugar Blues (online)
:: Sugar Blues (book)
:: Wholesome Sweeteners sucanat

:: Homecanning.com
:: National Center for Home Preservation
:: Root Cellaring
:: Old Timers Root Cellar

This was another yard sale find, but has consistently provided the best, clearest, most comprehensive instruction I have seen in print on putting food by; and covers not just canning, but also drying, freezing, root-cellaring, curing, and sprouting.
:: Recipe Source Jams & Jellies
:: Making Sugar-free Jam