Saturday, October 21, 2017

Farm and Garden Picks: Storey's Illustrated Breed Guide to Sheep, Goats, Cattle and Pigs


From the large-tailed Karakul sheep to the floppy-eared Gloucestershire Old Spot pig, North America is home to an extraordinary array of livestock.

Storey’s Illustrated Breed Guide to Sheep, Goats, Cattle, and Pigs features full-color profiles of 163 livestock breeds. Whether you’re looking for a gentle domestic backyard animal or are hoping to introduce a rare heritage breed on your farm, you’re sure to find an animal that’s perfect for your needs.

If you need solid, up-to-date information on common domestic animals or you are hoping to introduce a rare heritage breed to your farm, this definitive guide has the information you need on the animals that interest you.

Storey's Illustrated Breed Guide to Sheep, Goats, Cattle and Pigs
163 Breeds from Common to Rare
by Carol Ekarius
Storey Publishing, 2008

Animal Husbandry Books
Husbandry
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Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Farm and Garden Picks: Grow Native.


Learn how to transform your yard into a beautiful landscape using native plants. In master gardener Lynn Steiner's book you'll find guidance for planting stunning gardens using native species that support your local ecosystem. Organized in an easily accessible way, the book offers instructions for planting, maintenance instructions, helpful tips about soil, watering and fertilizing as well as gorgeous photography. With guidance about how to weave native plants into your landscape and replacing common ornamentals with natural plants, this book should have a place on every gardener's bookshelf.

Grow Native combines inspirational garden shots of native landscapes with plant specific chapters and photos.

Grow Native
Bringing Natural Beauty to Your Garden
by Lynn M. Steiner
Cool Springs Press, 2016

Home Grown
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Farm and Garden Books

Sunday, October 15, 2017

Now Cooking with The Scout's Deck of Outdoor Recipe Cards


Packed in a heavy-duty cardboard box, this Campsite-Cooking Card Pack contains 64 trail-tested and Scout-approved recipe cards for every meal and snack that both boys and Scout leaders will love come chowtime.

Also, inside each box, pre-wrapped in its own plastic bag, is a rugged metal carabineer.

Each Campsite Recipe card comes a pre-punched corner hole so Scouts and pick and choose what recipes they’ll enjoy on a camping trip, clip them together on their carabineer, and have a ready-made meal plan and ingredients list.

The Scout's Deck of Outdoor Recipe Cards
by Christine and Tim Conners
Falcon Guides, 2015
Cookbooks
Recipe Archive
Outgoing

Friday, October 13, 2017

Good Guides: The Backyard Field Guide to Chickens


This is a guide for backyard chicken keepers in search of chickens that best fit their needs.

Each breed of chicken listed in the field guide is thoroughly described and is illustrated by color photos. The book tells you all about the bird, detailing each breed's particular usefulness, adaptation to climate, coloration, number of eggs typically laid, foraging ability, temperament, and unique qualities.

Chicken Breeds for Your Home Flock
by Christine Heinrichs
Voyageur Press, 2016

Animal Husbandry
Guidebooks and How-to Titles
How To Do It Books

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Review: Red 4WD Tractors


"All the colors of tractors and the people who made them have good stories, and those stories share a common thread: innovative farm boy geniuses who built solutions to a problem rooted in the growing American farm," writes Lee Klancher in his introduction to this substantial history of high-horsepower four-wheel-drive tractors manufactured by International Harvester, Steiger, J.I. Case and Case IH.

This history covers six decades from the winter of 1957 -- when Douglass and Maurice Steiger converted a Cat DW-15 scraper into a high-horsepower farm tractor in their dairy barn in order to make their Minnesota family farm more efficient -- to the present day.

by Lee Klancher
Octane Press, 2017
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Tractor Books
Tractors and Tractor Parts
Artwork: Case IH Steiger 620 Quadtrac Tractor

Friday, August 25, 2017

Farm and Garden Picks: Red 4WD Tractors


In this book, the story of the four-wheel-drive tractors built by Steiger, International Harvester, Case and Case IH is told in dramatic fashion. Starting with the development of early four-wheel-drive systems at International Harvester, it traces the evolution and design some of the most powerful and capable tractors of the 20th century.

The book includes the complete story of Steiger tractors, which were originally built and designed in the barn of John, Douglas and Maurice Steiger located near Red Lake Falls, Minnesota. With interviews with more than 50 of the people who built Steiger from a barn to a world leader, Red 4WD Tractors traces the evolution of the lime green Steigers in engrossing detail. .

by Lee Klancher
Octane Press, 2017

Outrider Reading Group
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Tractor Books

Sunday, August 6, 2017

Reading the History: Talking Machine West.


This book brings together for the first time the variety of cowboy, cowgirl, and Indian music recorded and sold for mass consumption between 1902 and 1918.

In the book’s introductory chapters, Michael A. Amundson explains how this music reflected the nostalgic passing of the Indian and the frontier while incorporating modern ragtime music and the racial attitudes of Jim Crow America. Hardly Old West ditties, the songs gave voice to changing ideas about Indians and assimilation, cowboys, the frontier, the rise of the New Woman, and ethnic and racial equality.

In the book’s second part, a chronological catalogue of fifty-four western recordings provides the full lyrics and history of each song and reproduces in full color the cover art of extant period sheet music. Each entry also describes the song’s composer(s), lyricist(s), and sheet music illustrator and directs readers to online digitized recordings of each song.

A History and Catalogue of Tin Pan Alley's Western Recordings, 1902–1918
by Michael A. Amundson
University of Oklahoma Press, 2017

Out of the Past
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History and American West Titles