Mrs. D's Picks

This is where you'll find reviews of various media - books, websites, magazines, anything pertaining to homesteading, homeschooling and simple living that Mrs. D is excited about.

February Picks -

Heirloom Skills and Country Pasttimes,  by Deborah Krasner, (c) 1995 - Subtitled "Traditional Projects for Kitchen, Home, Garden and Family.  This easy to read little book, illustrated with the authors own delightful watercolors, is full of common sense and use-what-you've-got simple projects.  Mrs. D has been sewing all her life, yet only in the past few years has she delved into making her own patterns.  Pages 57 and 61 give idiot-proof directions for simple crocheted or knitted sweaters and a sewn skirt that beginners can make right away without a pattern! 

Other short chapters include:  seed starting, gray water, homemade cleaners and flea dip, pickling wood, beanstalk tepees and sunflower forts.  We LOVE this book.  For a jump start on your homesteading adventure, even if you're in an apartment in the city, or a reminder to keep it simple, after you've been at it for awhile, this book has inexpensive projects for everyone.  The Homestead will be on the road more frequently again this year and Mrs. D will be applying some of the container gardening tips to her "RV garden".

Viking Studio Books, published by the Penguin Group, Penguin Books, U.S.A. Inc., 375 Hudson St., New York, New York  10014.

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The Old Schoolhouse Magazine - a great homeschooling resource.  Mrs. D loves their Friday Freebies Newsletter, offering free e-books, unit studies and other free resources weekly.  There are also many opportunities to get free ebooks about Charlotte Mason's methods, teaching math, special needs teaching and much, much more.  Digital or print subscriptions are available, as well as several excellent free newsletters such as special offers, schoolhouse support and teacher's toolbox.  Lots of product reviews, how-tos and blogs.  www.thehomeschoolmagazine.com.

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Websites -

The Homeschool Lounge - a great place to network with other homeschool moms and grandmas.  Lots of homeschool related groups, but also groups for single moms homeschooling, specific issues like boys, french, adhd, etc.  Also groups like Etsy moms, the tea cozy, blogging basics, and work from home moms.  No men allowed.  www.thehomeschoollounge.com.

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The Simple Homeschool - This is an awesome homeschooling site.  Along with tons of tips, J Ann Huss offers a FREE newsletter, which includes monthly FREE unit studies.  Also available are 99cent unit studies, and many choices in more complex unit studies.  Unit studies are a fantastic way to delve deeply into science and history, while enhancing the language arts and math skills.  These print and plop lessons take the tedium out of doing all the research and writing yourself.  Ms. Huss holds a master's degree in biological sciences and is well qualified to present these studies, besides testing them out in her own home classroom first!  www.the-simple-homeschool.com.

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The Good Life Center at Forest Farm, Harborside Maine is also worth a gander.  This is the website for the perpetuation of Nearings' philosophy of simple, frugal, purposeful living.  The real life location of the center is at the last home of the Nearings at their farm in Maine.  The site contains info on current happenings at the farm, a bookstore where many of Scott and Helen's books can be purchased, and other resources and inspiration for simpler living.  www.goodlife.org.

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Grit Magazine - Celebrating rural America since 1882.  What began as a Saturday edition of a daily newspaper, has evolved and morphed into one of the most popular rural living periodicals currently available.  Picking up where another celebrated back-to-the-land publication left off when it started touting expensive, complicated devices to "simplify" the back-to-the-land experience, Grit delivers lots of doable, realistic projects and real-life experiences from "them that's doin'". 

The March/April issue includes informative articles on Angora Goats, electric fencing and windmills.  The online edition offers a wealth of information, including blogs by Grit staffers who tell about their personal gardening and farming adventures.  Reader Blogs feature everything from backyard vegetable gardening to fishing to raising livestock all over the US and Canada.  They are homesteaders, city dwellers dreaming of moving out to the country and doing the best they can with what they've got in town, beekeepers, young couples taking over the family farm, and outdoorsmen and women.  Mrs. D is proud to add that she is one of Grit's Reader Bloggers.  www.grit.com

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www.frugalabundance.com - Miss Maggie, originator of the Hillbilly Housewife site, has passed on ownership of that website to her daughter, maintaining its original purpose and great recipes and menus. This new site continues to promote and support the frugal lifestyle, while reflecting the changes Miss Maggie and her family have incorporated into their lives. While the old site is growing and becoming more complicated by leaps and bound, Mrs. D finds Maggie's simple, uncluttered style refreshing. Too much info and ads on a page, while possibly good for business, make Mrs. D's head spin.

Back to the point, Maggie and her family have gone to a more gluten-free, casien-free diet due to health issues. For others who need to cut out those items, Mrs. D highly recommends Maggie's menus and recipes. They are simple, inexpensive and tasty! Click on the "Food Storage" link and you can find her recipes for Homemade Blender Margarine (imagine - all the benefits without the hydrogenates), Sprout Salad Bar, and an even heartier, yummier (if that's possible) version of her Lentil Chili recipe from the old site. The Frugal Weight Loss section is under construction, offering more excellent low-cal recipes and common sense weight loss tips.

An Old Fashioned Education is now available on this new site. This is Maggie's homeschooling page with links to tons of public domain (free!) texts and books. Maggie shares her lesson plans and philosophy of homeschooling. Lots of advice for homeschooling on a tight budget - Mrs. D wishes she had had this resource with her older children! This page can also be accessed at www.oldfashionededucation.com

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Books -

Continuing the Good Life: Half a Century of Homesteading, by Scott and Helen Nearing, (c)1979
I was looking through old Mother Earth Magazines and in the Sept/Oct 1979 issue I came across "The Fall Garden" by the Nearings, directly excerpted from the above book. As I had had limited success in my garden this year, I was resigned to only being able to use the plant stand in the south facing kitchen window for the next several months. However, this article reminded me of when I read the book, of the success the Nearings had in their winter gardens in Maine! of all places. Now I am encouraged to try some collards, spinach, cabbage and broccoli outside and see how they do. Of course, the book covers far more than just the winter garden and Mrs. D highly recommends it as one of several guides to a more healthy, frugal and sensible living plan.  www.goodlife.org

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Scratching the Woodchuck, Nature on an Amish Farm, by David Kline, copyright 1997

Dew sparkling on spiderwebs, wooly worms racing across the lane, butterflies sipping sweet nectar from the flower garden.  This is life on David Kline's Ohio farm.  And how he glories in it!  During the course of his day he'll discover small animal nests while spreading manure, mowing hay, or just standing up to take a deep breath of fresh air, unpolluted by the noise and exhaust of heavy machinery, gas engines, or radios. 

He doesn't add to his list of birds seen on his property by hiding out with binoculars, he just encounters them while eating lunch, walking to the barn to milk the cows, or sitting on the porch swing, admiring his wife's garden.  When he identifies a species, he includes its Latin name in his notebook.  Walking through the seasons on the Kline farm, Mrs. D developed a new appreciation for rodents and burrow dwellers, as soil aerators.  He brings into focus the relationship between human/agriculture and insect/animal life as he tells of transplanting some wild blackberries without the resulting fruit bearing much resemblance to the parent; apparently he forgot to transplant the necessary pollenators as well.

Without distractions such as internet and television, Mr. Kline has ample time to enjoy the planets and stars, sun and moon, and to study and learn from the rhythms and patterns of life.  His observations are entertaining as well as enlightening, offering a sometimes new perspective on the place and purpose of many creatures we label "pest".

Published by University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA  30602  www.ugapress.uga.edu/0820321540.html

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