A complete and authoritative guide to the tools and techniques necessary to build dry stone walls as our ancestors did.

Portable fences; drying flowers; building a grape arbor; weaving baskets; painting patterned floors; working with a draft horse; reclaiming an apple tree; sharpening tools; making bricks; root cellars.

A practical guide to simple stone building projects for your yard Nothing matches the look and feel of stone structures in and around your home. Yet most people are intimidated by the very thought of masonry, despite the obvious rewards. In Stone Building, Kevin Gardner distills his decades of experience building and maintaining iconic New England–style stone walls into this concise, informative guide. Gardner offers step-by-step instructions for building everything from flagstone walkways to classic patios and ornate fire pits. He also offers time-tested tips to help care for your stone, as well as repair and restoration advice for existing structures.

General directions for making and processing 136 treasured family recipes that turn almost every fruit and vegetable there is into delicious pickles, condiments, bottled sauces, beverages, and syrups.

The story of Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, an American genius & his principles of fireplace design which have remained unchanged for 174 years.

There once may have been 250,000 miles of stone walls in America's Northeast, stretching farther than the distance to the moon. They took three billion man-hours to build. And even though most are crumbling today, they contain a magnificent scientific and cultural story-about the geothermal forces that formed their stones, the tectonic movements that brought them to the surface, the glacial tide that broke them apart, the earth that held them for so long, and about the humans who built them. Stone walls layer time like Russian dolls, their smallest elements reflecting the longest spans, and Thorson urges us to study them, for each stone has its own story. Linking geological history to the early American experience, Stone by Stone presents a fascinating picture of the land the Pilgrims settled, allowing us to see and understand it with new eyes.

Over 200,000 copies sold—fully updated! Dye your own wool, raise chickens, make your own cheddar cheese, build a log cabin, and much much more. 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.

Dry stone walls – the thousands of miles of stone ribbon stretching across the landscapes of the Scottish Highlands, Yorkshire Dales and Cotswolds – use construction methods which have existed for thousands of years. Indeed, dry stone structures in the Orkney Islands and Ireland are even older than the Egyptian pyramids. A dry stone wall is more than a pile of rocks. It is a carefully built combination of specialized stones, each co-operating with the other to create something useful, strong and attractive. No mortar is used. The wall relies on friction and gravity, and the skill of the builder, to keep it together. The basic building principles are easily learned and this book provides step-by-step instructions to develop the skills to build many different types of wall and structure. With nearly 200 photographs and diagrams,