Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, 4th Edition
2014 | ISBN: 1629143693 | English | 456 Pages | EPUB | 76 MB

By Abigail R Gehring

The classic guide to self-sufficiency, with more than 200,000 copies sold-now fully updated!

Anyone who wants to learn basic living skills-the kind employed by our forefathers-and adapt them for a better life in the twenty-first century need look no further than this eminently useful, full-color guide. Countless readers have turned to Back to Basics for inspiration and instruction, escaping to an era before power saws and fast-food restaurants and rediscovering the pleasures and challenges of a healthier, greener, and more self-sufficient lifestyle.

Now newly updated, the hundreds of projects, step-by-step sequences, photographs, charts, and illustrations in Back to Basics will help you dye your own wool with plant pigments, graft trees, raise chickens, craft a hutch table with hand tools, and make treats such as blueberry peach jam and cheddar cheese. The truly ambitious will find instructions on how to build a log cabin or an adobe brick homestead.

More than just practical advice, this is also a book for dreamers-even if you live in a city apartment, you will find your imagination sparked, and there's no reason why you can't, for example, make a loom and weave a rag rug. Complete with tips for old-fashioned fun (square dancing calls, homemade toys, and kayaking tips), this may be the most thorough book on voluntary simplicity available.

Fourth edition. A complete guide to traditional skills. A backyard guide to: buying and working land, raising livestock, generating your own energy, enjoying your harvest, household skills and crafts and more.

The classic guide to self-sufficiency. Anyone who wants to learn basic living skills - the kind employed by our forefathers - and adapt them for a better life in the 21st century need look no further than this eminently useful, full-color guide. Countless readers have turned to back to basics for inspiration and instruction, escaping to an era before power saws and fast-food restaurants and rediscovering the pleasures and challenges of a healthier, greener and more self-sufficient lifestyle.

About the Author
Abigail R. Gehring is the editor of Back to Basics, Homesteading, and Self-Sufficiency, and author of Odd Jobs and Dangerous Jobs. She’s practiced living self-sufficiently since her childhood in Vermont, being home-schooled, home-canning jams and jellies, and enjoying natural crafts. She lives in New York City and Windham, Vermont.