About this item
Turn your backyard - no matter how small - into a sustainable and self-sufficient homestead for raising livestock and cultivating homegrown food!Take control of the food you eat and the products you use - even if you live in an urban or suburban homePractical instructions for growing fruit and vegetables, raising chickens and other animals, keeping bees, preserving food, making beer & wine, and moreCovers the laws and regulations about raising livestock in populated areasIncludes information on off-season gardening, plus new photographs and illustrationsThis award-winning book addresses the needs of people who want to take control of the food they eat and the products they use - even if they live in an urban or suburban house on a typical-size lot.
About the Author
I had an exceptionally happy childhood growing up in Wheaton, Ill. where I was free to roam the woods and swamps of Lincoln Marsh, building tree forts, catching garter snakes, and once burning down a meadow. (Grass huts and campfires don't mix.) I think it was on my ninth birthday that my dad gave me a one-volume version Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. I read it again and again. A great local library offered books like Homer Price, The Boxcar Children, Robinson Crusoe--all magical in their ability to create new worlds and fascinating characters. Trips to the Art of Institute of Chicago, one of the world's great art museums, led to an appreciation of the pure craft of art, how line and color could convey mood, character--even temperature. I've earned my living editing magazines and books about home repair and remodeling. They involved the enjoyable challenge of putting something across using text and images--hopefully in an attractive and compelling way. In the course of working on more than 60 books and countless magazine issues, I did some illustrations and enjoyed the process.The Goose that Fell from the Sky is my first picture storybook. It stems from bedtime stories I told our kids--Adam, Betony, and Ben. My influences? Robert McCloskey, Ernest Shepard, James Thurber, Graham Oakley, Raymond Briggs, Jean-Jacques Sempé, Walt Kelly, Norman Rockwell are just a few of the illustrators--some are writers too--that I admire.My wife, Rebecca, and I live in Minnesota with a dog, cat, three chickens, and plenty of squirrels stealing from the bird feeder.
