The Practical Guide to Man-powered Bullets

The Practical Guide to Man-powered Bullets

Author: Richard Middleton

Publisher: Stackpole Books

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9780811701563

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People have long been shooting small stones and carefully rounded bullets of clay, glass, steel, and lead from weapons without using gunpowder. And the bow and arrow has been man's choice all over the world and throughout history at times when modern firearms have been unavailable or unsuitable. In America, there is currently an explosion of interest in making primitive archery tackle--wooden bows, flint arrowheads, natural fiber strings. The author has made and shot flint-tipped arrows from many bows of his own making. He first noticed, twenty years ago, that no one has written a book on catapults, and started to keep records of his own experiments in that and other related fields, leading to this book, which explores many of the ways, old and new, in which people have shot bullets by force of their own muscles.


The Organic Farming Manual

The Organic Farming Manual

Author: Ann Larkin Hansen

Publisher: Storey Publishing

Published: 2010-03-17

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 1603424792

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Providing expert tips on tending the land, caring for animals, and necessary equipment, Ann Larkin Hansen also covers the intricate process of acquiring organic certification and other business considerations important to a profitable operation. Discover the rewarding satisfaction of running a successful and sustainable organic farm.


How to Grow More Vegetables, Ninth Edition

How to Grow More Vegetables, Ninth Edition

Author: John Jeavons

Publisher: Ten Speed Press

Published: 2017-07-25

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0399579192

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The world's leading resource on biointensive, sustainable, high-yield organic gardening is thoroughly updated throughout, with new sections on using 12 percent less water and increasing compost power. Long before it was a trend, How to Grow More Vegetables brought backyard ecosystems to life for the home gardener by demonstrating sustainable growing methods for spectacular organic produce on a small but intensive scale. How to Grow More Vegetables has become the go-to reference for food growers at every level, whether home gardeners dedicated to nurturing backyard edibles with minimal water in maximum harmony with nature's cycles, or a small-scale commercial producer interested in optimizing soil fertility and increasing plant productivity. In the ninth edition, author John Jeavons has revised and updated each chapter, including new sections on using less water and increasing compost power.


New Pioneers

New Pioneers

Author: Jeffrey Jacob

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9780271018287

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&"[P]ractically everyone I know is nursing fantasies about escaping the life they're trapped in and creating one that makes more sense,&" writes the editor of Utne Reader in a recent issue. &"The people I most admire, though, are those who actually do it&—who break free and pursue a higher calling no matter how great the risk.&" New Pioneers is about one such group of people&—the hundreds of thousands of urban North Americans who over the past three decades have given up their city or suburban homes for a few acres of land in the countryside. Jeffrey Jacob's new pioneers are ordinary people who have tried to break away from the mainstream consumer culture and return to small-town and rural America. He traces the development of the movement and identifies seven different kinds of back-to-the-lander: the weekender, country romantic, purist, country entrepreneur, pensioner, micro-farmer, and apprentice. From over 1,300 survey responses, interviews, and in-depth case studies, at both the regional and national levels, of representative back-to-the-landers, Jacob analyzes their values, use of appropriate technology, family division of labor on their acreages, and predisposition toward environmental activism. Jacob finds that back-to-the-landers for the most part are not completely independent of the mainstream economy, and consequently, their lives do reflect the contradictions between the available conveniences of a high-technology culture and the movement's goals of self-reliant labor. He analyzes their ambivalent attitudes toward technology&—hoes and shovels versus mini-hydroelectric systems, wood stoves versus microwave ovens, and so on. After examining the experiences of the back-to-the-country people who live on the margins of a postindustrial society, Jacob creates a clearer appreciation of the preconditions necessary to translate the idea of sustainable living into concrete action on a society-wide scale. While New Pioneers describes an important social movement, it also shows how far a group of highly motivated individuals and families can go, by themselves, in breaking away from the prevailing consumer culture. The dilemmas, frustrations, adaptations, and triumphs of these neo-homesteaders offer valuable insights to anyone contemplating a move &"back to the land.&"