The following reviews are books from my own personal library that I’ve collected over the years in a quest to Build Unbreakable Abundance. This article is my impressions of Coffee Table books perfect for gifting to a homesteader or persuading a reluctant spouse of a homesteader. Books are listed in order of preference, with the first book being my favorite of the grouping and so on. This is just my opinion to serve my particular purpose, so I give enough honest feedback about the book that you might find that my last listed book is just exactly what you have been looking for.
“A Rich Spot of Earth”: Thomas Jefferson’s Revolutionary Garden at Monticello One of the most inspiring books in my library. The Monticello visit was even more stirring than the visit to Colonial Williamsburg because everything was done to perfection. Jefferson paid such attention to his garden design that it doesn’t suffer from the common eye-sore issues that usually plague vegetable patches. Page after page of photos give examples of how to layout a vegetable garden to capture the maximum amount of sun and rain while providing a visual feast for the gardener.
American Barns This gorgeous book can stir even the most rigid city dweller to dream of rolling hillsides. The American Barn is the epitome of the Farming Dream, and a lovely barn is the icon. If you are planning your own barn construction project or trying to tempt someone to consider farming, this is a great book to lay out for review.
Robert Mondavi Winery This is a picture book in the purest sense. There are only 5 pages of words. My goal in buying this book was to serve as a bridge for my husband to see ‘farming’ in a different light. A Post-It in my handwriting to my husband fell off the book that read, “Forget ‘Farm’ think VINEYARD!” Even the most stalwart city dweller enjoys a trip to the winery and this experience can springboard into a vision of delightful and elegant agriculture. The winery is a commercial endeavor though, so small scale farmers may not feel like there is not much there to relate to.
Prepping has become incredibly popular over the last decade, but it is a difficult and expensive route to take. Is there a better way to spend your time and money? I would suggest that building a small farm is a much better approach that will cause you less stress in the short run and long run.
Please let me explain: There are several really big categories of prepping, mostly based on ‘scenarios’…economic collapse, natural disaster, EMP, martial law, etc. In each of these big categories the prepper generally makes a decision of if they will ‘bug out’ or ‘shelter in place’. This can quickly spiral into an obsession of purchasing and preparing for every possible eventuality. That is a lot of work that I’ve seen have a detrimental effect on relationships, work performance and life savings.
I went down the ‘Prepper Rabbit Hole’ for a few years. After only a few months I had rejected the idea of storing several years of MRE’s, hundreds of batteries or maintaining a huge cache of drinking water. It became clear that the “Amish Prepper” model was a better fit for my personality. Even with that less wasteful approach and the ability to cover it all with the label of ‘homesteading,’ eventually I had to ask myself some questions:
What will I do with all this stuff if nothing happens? If something does happen, do I have enough to get through a really bad situation? Can I ever have enough to feel secure? Would I really have the heart to turn away people who hadn’t prepared for trouble? What is the long-term effect of dwelling in this ‘lack and fear’ mindset?
The Prepper mindset had been an alarming call to action at first that gave me the motivation to break free from my consumerism mindset. Unfortunately, the thought process quickly began draining my energy and scattering my attention. After rejecting the task of ‘prepping’ I spent about a year researching and planning out a ‘Homesteading’ plan, which was not fear based. However, the wide range of possibilities can still stifle progress. I won’t rehash that, feel free to read my article on homesteading here.
How does a very small farm correct these shortfalls? Quite simply, a very small farm gives you the benefit of the Pareto Principle, better known as the 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of the benefits you seek are met with just 20% of the work you put in. Instead of having to become Bear Gryles, and an organic gardener, and a dairy goat expert, and an Herbalist…you can choose just one thing. Choose the one thing you enjoy. Pursuing one thing will cause you to purchase tools and stock (livestock or seeds) that you might have piled up with regular prepping, but it allows for focused attention and energy to gain the head knowledge and skills it takes to actually make something work.
Lots of business people believe there is a Pareto Principle of the Pareto Principle. Or, in other words, there is an 80/20 inside the 80/20 rule. That means that 64% of the results you want come from 4% of the effort you put in! If you don’t mind, I’d like to give you my opinion on what that might be for the average prepper or person looking for an alternative to prepping.
The number one thing would be real paper books written as tested how-to guides. Not a digital copy…actual paper books. If you can only start with one I recommend this one, but there are so many you can get to create an at your fingertips library. That would be the tippy-top of 4% effort. You don’t even have to read them right away….just have them.
The number two thing I would recommend is spend time only on what is the most likely scenario for your geographic or economic situation, and then walk away from prepping thinking before it drains you dry. Where I live tornadoes are a big concern. Our area lost 250+ homes to tornadoes in 2013, so our family’s buildings must have basements, we keep digital backups of photos off site, crucial documents are stored in a firesafe in the basement, and any tornado warning means everyone dresses in good shoes and weather appropriate clothing and hangs out in the basement together (a little praying doesn’t hurt!). Took a little time to set that up, but we increased our chances of surviving and bouncing back. And I don’t worry as long as all my babies are home when the warning goes out. Decades ago we lived an hour from the coast. In that home hurricane shutters came standard when we bought the house, and our emergency plan was to be the first mini-van to evacuate if a hurricane was called for. Depends on where you live and where your extended family/support is located.
The number three thing I would recommend is part of the original 80/20 rule. The effort for #3 might be beyond a 4% investment if you live inside the city limits, but it certainly falls within a 20% framework. We are talking chickens. If you have your heart set on a different kind of livestock and you are able to bring them home this week then fine. If you have had chickens in the past and hated them then okay. However, let me challenge you to name any other single agriculture option out there that gives you 6-7 grams of protein per day, keeps producing even when it’s cold, known as the farm’s garbage disposal, will forage her own food if allowed, raise 5 new babies each year (more if you use her as a foster mom instead of incubator) and provide a family-sized portion of meat if absolutely necessary. Not every neighborhood lets you, I know….just give thought to how much faster you can be up and running with laying hens than any other livestock or even a garden.
If those two things sound like more than 4%, it’s really not very much compared to full-on prepping. You order the one book, maybe two more that look interesting. Next you decide what your most likely emergency could be and you take a few common steps that your neighbors also know about. The third, a few hens, may be a problem if you live in a subdivision, but gifts of eggs and kindness smooth over a world of potential ruffled feathers. Give it some thought. Once you’ve taken those three steps, you can relax a bit, or you can pursue a small farm knowing you’ve got your basics covered. In my humble opinion, those three steps get you 64% there.
There is a song I can’t help hearing in my head when I’m planning to do something ridiculous. Laverne & Shirley used to sing, “Just what makes that little ole Ant, think he can Move that Rubber Tree Plant? Anyone knows an Ant Can’t move a Rubber Tree Plant. But he’s got High Hopes….” Silly song. I just couldn’t get it out of my head as I moved the chicken coop from the North West side of the Greenhouse to the South East corner. I’ve been called an ‘ant’ often and I choose to believe it was meant affectionately. Often there are faster, better and I’ll admit safer ways to get something done than the way I do them, but I often discover these other ways as I’m doing it the hard way. I’m a woman of average build who has not fully recovered from a broken leg. That puts me below average on the strength scale. Ants get it done Little-By-Little.
The plan to move this chicken shelter down the edge of the field devouring the prairie grass died the first time I moved it six inches. I had made it far too heavy, just as Joel Salatin warned. So, we left it in place all summer while construction continued on the greenhouse. When I broke my leg I continued planning to build a coop at the greenhouse for winter housing, but my leg and strength recovered much slower than I expected. Even after moving the hens back to my subdivision and begging a friend to house the rooster, I still had to scale back my plans even more. Spring will arrive before I could possibly finish a chicken coop and building in freezing temperatures is no fun and more risky to your health.
This heavy summer shelter will have to house the whole flock for another summer season while I figure out the perfect all-weather coop. That means I now need to move the shelter that I decided was too heavy to move months before I broke my leg. Fun!
The edge of the field proved to be too hot as the summer sun beat down. When the corn hit 5 feet the shade made it better, but the East side of the Greenhouse was more pleasant all summer even before the greenhouse was finished. Now that the winter wind whips down the field from the North that edge of the field is frigid; but that same protected spot East of the Greenhouse enjoys wind breaks on 3 sides and can still capture some of the low-hanging Winter Sun coming in from the South. The distance from where the shelter was to where it needed to be was roughly a football field plus the End Zones. Thinking of it as football was helpful.
I had to use scrap lumber as fulcrums and levers to lift the shelter out of the 6 inches of clay and grass roots that had accumulated over the summer. Once the corners were balanced on rocks and boards moving it the first foot almost caught me in the shins. One random rope and one random chain became my hand-holds after that, but it didn’t get much easier. Moving the left corner 9″ forward turned the structure into a parallelogram and put all the metal under stress. Staples popped out of the wood base, wires popped open…it was probably a little bit dangerous. It became a game of inches… a lot like football.
It took a few hours and all forward motion was just 6″ to 12″ at a time, but finally the coop was past the greenhouse. By this time I was convinced that rolling the coop would be faster!
I can say it happened fast…but lots of new things popped loose in the few minutes I rolled it onto it’s back. Getting it upright was not as easy as tipping it over.
It really is no mystery to me why my engineer husband refuses to be involved in my experiments. Lots of safety protocols get ignored.
It’s not exactly where I want the final coop to be, but it will be much nicer for the flock over the summer. I’ll keep checking the coop over the winter to fine-tune the perfect spot for construction…or maybe an even better solution will present itself. Either way, every time I look at it now I start to hum “High Hopes”.
