Storey's Basic Country Skills: A Practical Guide to Self-Reliance

This book is so informative. Not only the reading material but the references and resources as well. As beginning ruralists this was great.

The astonishing amount of information in this book scratches the surface on most every aspect of country living. It is a terrific primer for someone considering a move to the country with the idea of developing a certain amount of self-sufficiency, but is also a great reference for someone in the country who is interested in taking on the occasional new project. This is great place to start. I won't be building an old-fashioned woodshed or digging a well (!) but if I wanted to do either of these or hundreds of other things from making curtains to cheese, butchering game to canning garden produce, building a fence or a root cellar, it's all here. Even though this is a yellow pages sized book, there is such a wide variety of topics, the information can only go so far. It is far enough, however, to satisfy the curiosity and/or get you started. Obviously if you intend to keep cattle, for example, and have little knowledge on that subject, you'll need to learn more than this book offers, but there's enough here to get you thinking.I found the information on gardening to be the most useful and feel some level of comfort that I have a place to look should I want to take on other projects or look for tips of various sorts, like how to discourage bugs naturally or what tools to use for what, what to look for when buying a tractor or tackling weed problems. There is a very good index at the back so looking up a topic is easy and there's also an index of more detailed books on various subjects if you want to go to the next level. There are plenty of illustrations to make things clearer. I don't see myself needing most of the topics (need to know how to sheer a sheep?), but you never know. A local hunter recently gave me a goose he'd shot and guess where I looked to learn how to clean it. That was something I never expected to do. Whether you're just daydreaming about country life or trying to determine what you can and cannot undertake yourself, this book has value and a lot of good information.

I bought this book after reading Gregg Perry's review of the book (read review below mine). I have to say he was right on the money. This book has way more in it than I thought it would. How to raise goats, chickens/chicken problems, ducks, geese, how to buy the right land, home maintanence, septic systems, composting, how to store grains, and how to farm to to cover the tip of the ice berg. I own a lot of other Storey books, and this book takes a lot of the information from those books and just gets down to the nuts and bolts. My review simply can't help but fall short of just was useful, and how much information is in this book. This is one of the best book purchases I have ever made, and this is coming from a guy who owns multiple books on these subjects. Had I found this book first I could have saved myself a lot of time and money. Do yourself a favor buy this book you won't regret it.

I am looking at how to revive a pasture with poor soil. When looking up info in this book, I found all the pages I needed were completely non-existent. So disappointing. I paid for a whole book.

I was a suburban kid, so I didn't have a whole lot of experience with gardening, carpentry or the skills/knowledge contained in this book.This book has so much useful information in it it is astounding! My daughter [6] and I are going through it and have many projects to do on the weekends now. The information on gardening alone is well worth it. I am just beginning to learn about gardening and am very pleased with the information.I read through the section on plumbing and it gave me the information I needed to fix our running toilet. They even have a few pages on how to build a tree-house. This book is well worth the price and the time to read it. I find it hard to put the book down.Highly recommended!

If you live in the country or, if you hope to, someday, take this book with you -you will appreciate it week after week! Not the only game in town on the subject, but easy to navigate, straightforward articles make it a true leader in the field. Remember, living in the country doesn't always provide good internet access, and while you may be able to find this same stuff on Google, if the server's down and you're caught in a blizzard, you'll be glad you made the investment. My advice -go for the cheap reader copy. It's bound to get that way eventually anyway -save yourself some dough.

Outstanding guide. My sister recommended the book as a guide to recall how we used to do many of the categories listed. I recommend it highly to those youngsters out there that want to learn country skills and self-reliance and you don't have to live in the country to benefit from this book. Our grandparents trained us on self-reliance and we were taught is that we had to grow food to last us from harvest to harvest on a farm and what we learned could be adjusted for use in town. Outstanding as a gift idea for anyone.

A must have for homesteaders or preppers. A good overall information collection. As a city girl preparing for country life I find this to be invaluable. If you were born and bred on a farm perhaps you know this stuff already, but I'm a novice, so I loved it. Keep in mind I have other books to help round out my information, but this one is one of my favorites!

Great book. A big thick book with loads of information on numerous topics relating to doing things for yourself in your backyard or farm. Want to build a chicken coop? Garden? This might be for you.

Bought this for a friend who decided to isolate himself on the Yorkshire Moors and he thoroughly enjoyed it. I was worried at one point that he didn't as when I asked him how he found it he said; "One problem - it ends. More please!"

any thing with storey on the tittle has to be worth is costs, this is no different a great book with lots of points on lots of subjects which is also its greatest weakness, well apart from being americian lol, no i must admit i own this book and i am glad i spent the money on it just see it as a basic primer as some times you have to go past the book to find more or better information

Fantastic book, excellent resource. Came well packaged and in a reasonable time period. This is a must have for any hobby farmer or homesteader.

love this book!! so much useful info and fun things in this book!! it's going to be well used!!!!