I am honored to have had my first book signing event at Powell’s City of Books in Portland this past Sunday. When I arrived, I saw my name on their list of author events and my nervousness was replaced with excitement.My mind raced immediately to that scene from the movie The Jerk. Steve Martin’s character gets the new phone book, sees his name and starts
Poultry-Proof Garden
We love having our chickens free-range in our backyard. They eat a wider range of food, which saves us some money on chicken feed and also makes their eggs taste ten times better. But they can be really destructive in the garden beds – trampling seedlings in search for the next great worm. It’s even more important for backyard ducks to have some free-range access,
Visit Me At Powell’s
Come say hello and talk homesteading with me! This Sunday, April 17th, from 4:00p-6:00p I will be signing my new book at Powell’s downtown location on Burnside. It’s such an honor to be invited for an event at Powell’s. I blush just thinking about it and need to pinch myself to see if I’m dreaming. I am fortunate to have a really supportive community in
Share Your Homesteading Tips
The fine folks over at Fulcrum Publishing are offering a giveaway for my book, Modern Homestead. All you need to do is comment on their blog or Facebook page offering one of your best homesteading tips. Tonight at the dinner table I was talking with Jay about how I approach moving into new digs. Step one is to set up a compost system. The compost
My Book: Modern Homestead
I am very excited to share the news that I wrote a book that will be released shortly! The book is called Modern Homestead: Grow, Raise, Create. The book is designed to give readers everything they need to know to get their homesteads up and running or expand their current homesteading horizon with new, fun projects. My inspiration for the book came from you guys
Making a Dill Crock
I got really excited earlier this week when I was flipping through my Stocking Up book on the bus into work. In this book, they reprint an excerpt from Euell Gibbons in which he describes a method of making a large dill crock. Essentially, a dill crock is one giant container of mixed crunchy vegetables that sits in a brine for about 2-3 weeks, allowing
Saving August
The month of August in our garden means produce bonanza. This year I vowed to preserve the bounty better than years past. There have been three books on preserving that have been constant fixtures in our living room, where I thumb through recipes planning how to make the most out of our garden. In case you are interested, these are the three I am using
Farewell Steve
I am looking forward to a Sunday evening when I am not butchering livestock in my backyard. For the past week I have been trying to find Steve a new home. And to no avail. Sadly, you only need one male for every 20 something females in multiple species, and chickens are included in that formula. This evening we returned from a vacation to Bend,
New Additions
I spent my Sunday afternoon at the downtown Powell’s bookstore and came away with a couple new and exciting additions to my book collection. As I went in search of the permaculture books in the gardening section, I realized there is a whole new addition in the area called “Sustainable Living”. I just about screamed in joy at this discovery! It’s a whole aisle of