How Do I
Homesteading or Back to the Farm
Selected Books
Brende, Eric
Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology
HM846.B74 2004
As a graduate student at MIT, Brende was disenchanted with the stresses of technology so he and his wife moved to a mixed community of Amish, Mennonites, and outsiders, ("Minimites") leaving behind electricity, plumbing, and everything else "hooked on the grid," for 18 months.
Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology
HM846.B74 2004
As a graduate student at MIT, Brende was disenchanted with the stresses of technology so he and his wife moved to a mixed community of Amish, Mennonites, and outsiders, ("Minimites") leaving behind electricity, plumbing, and everything else "hooked on the grid," for 18 months.
FoxFire Books
"Foxfire" is the name of a series of books which are anthology collections of material from The Foxfire Magazine. Foxfire Magazine was begun in 1966 by a high school English class to collect stories and interviews about country living gathered from elders in their rural southern Appalachian community. It was named "foxfire" after the glow of bioluminescent fungi that grow on rotting wood in damp forests.
"Foxfire" is the name of a series of books which are anthology collections of material from The Foxfire Magazine. Foxfire Magazine was begun in 1966 by a high school English class to collect stories and interviews about country living gathered from elders in their rural southern Appalachian community. It was named "foxfire" after the glow of bioluminescent fungi that grow on rotting wood in damp forests.
Hubbell, Sue
A Country Year: Living the Questions
QH105.M8 H83 1986
When her thirty-year marriage broke up, Sue Hubbell found herself alone and broke on a small Ozarks farm. Keeping bees, she found solace in the natural world. She began to write and the result is one of the best-loved books ever written about life on the land, about a woman finding her way in middle age.
A Country Year: Living the Questions
QH105.M8 H83 1986
When her thirty-year marriage broke up, Sue Hubbell found herself alone and broke on a small Ozarks farm. Keeping bees, she found solace in the natural world. She began to write and the result is one of the best-loved books ever written about life on the land, about a woman finding her way in middle age.
Kingsolver, Barbara
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
S521.5.A67 K56 2007
Novelist Barbara Kingsolver and her family move from Tucson, Arizona to rural Virginia and vow to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Amusing and informative with a website for downloading recipes. It is also available for downloading as an eBook.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
S521.5.A67 K56 2007
Novelist Barbara Kingsolver and her family move from Tucson, Arizona to rural Virginia and vow to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Amusing and informative with a website for downloading recipes. It is also available for downloading as an eBook.
Minato, Amy
Siesta Lane: One Cabin, No Running Water, and a Year Living Green
HX655.O7 M56 2009
Minato is a poet, writer and teacher based in the Pacific Northwest, and she has written this account of her experiences in a "back-to-nature" community in Oregon where she spent a year without electricity, running water, cell phones or the Internet.
Siesta Lane: One Cabin, No Running Water, and a Year Living Green
HX655.O7 M56 2009
Minato is a poet, writer and teacher based in the Pacific Northwest, and she has written this account of her experiences in a "back-to-nature" community in Oregon where she spent a year without electricity, running water, cell phones or the Internet.
Sheasley, Bob
Home to Roost: A Backyard Farmer Chases Chickens Through the Ages
SF487.3.S54 2008
Each day, Bob Sheasley leaves Lilyfield Farm and heads into the city with a basket of eggs for his coworkers at The Philadelphia Inquirer. In Home to Roost, Sheasley tells of the intertwined relationship between humans and chickens, about how modern farming has changed the lives of both bird and man over the past century. Backyard farmers like Sheasley offer hope for a return to the pleasures of locally grown food.
Home to Roost: A Backyard Farmer Chases Chickens Through the Ages
SF487.3.S54 2008
Each day, Bob Sheasley leaves Lilyfield Farm and heads into the city with a basket of eggs for his coworkers at The Philadelphia Inquirer. In Home to Roost, Sheasley tells of the intertwined relationship between humans and chickens, about how modern farming has changed the lives of both bird and man over the past century. Backyard farmers like Sheasley offer hope for a return to the pleasures of locally grown food.
Ward, Logan
See You in a Hundred Years: Four Seasons in Forgotten America
F232.S5 W27 2006
Adventure travel writer Ward (An Explorer's Guide to the Field Museum) and his lawyer wife and two-year-old son, left high-pressure New York City and moved to a Virginia farm to live (as much as possible) as they would have lived in 1900. The community was Swoope, also home to Polyface Farms highlighted in the Omnivore's Dilemma.
See You in a Hundred Years: Four Seasons in Forgotten America
F232.S5 W27 2006
Adventure travel writer Ward (An Explorer's Guide to the Field Museum) and his lawyer wife and two-year-old son, left high-pressure New York City and moved to a Virginia farm to live (as much as possible) as they would have lived in 1900. The community was Swoope, also home to Polyface Farms highlighted in the Omnivore's Dilemma.
Return to the topWeb Sites
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Farm Blogs from Around the World
The purpose of this blog is to gather in one place the best farm blogs from around the world. -
Grit Magazine
GRIT is a bi-monthly magazine that celebrates country lifestyles of all kinds, while emphasizing the importance of community and stewardship. -
Mother Earth News: Modern Homesteading
Mother Earth News offers many articles on doing things yourself, raising crops and livestock. -
Our One Block Diet
This Sunset magazine blog won the 2009 James Beard Foundation award for food blogs. The project highlighted the satisfactions, surprises (and worries) of producing one's own food: raising hens, keeping bees, making wine, growing food, feasting well, and showing how you can too (well, at least if you live on the West Coast...) -
Tiny Farm Blog
Tiny Farm Blog is one day to the next on a small organic farm in southern Ontario, Canada (Zone 4).
Pittsburgh / Pennsylvania
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Jolico Farm Blog
A sometimes weekly blog about life on a solar and wind-powered Pennsylvania farm
Nearby States
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Lehman's
Located 118 miles from Pittsburgh in Kidron, Ohio (near Canton), Lehman's originally served the surrounding Amish community but eventually went into catalog sales and then to an online store. Read more about it in this October 14, 2009 article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It includes many goods for sustainable living.
