The Complete Guide to Country Living

Table of contents

About this work

This is an e-book series in progress. I am writing it online to provide immediate information to those who seek it. Truth be told, I hope it is never finished but rather constantly updated and enlarged. You will find finished paragraphs, blank areas, journal notes and cryptic thoughts. Try to not be scared off by the way my writer's mind works.

This material is an expression of community. Contributions of notes, articles, and all types of illustrations are welcome, needed and solicited. Send to genegerue@ruralize.com or via snail mail to HC 78, Box 1105, Zanoni, MO 65784. Please provide your name so proper credit may be given. Don't hold back because you feel your grammar is bad--I can rewrite. (My grammar is imperfect; copyeditors are welcome to send corrections.) You will be credited for information--I will be responsible for mistakes. Most valuable are first-hand experiences.

These four parts, or books, are e-book seeds. When they have grown and matured they might someday be published as paper books--presuming that paper is still used in that far distant time. More likely, they will stay right here, with material continually added, refined, updated. You are most welcome to this information but you may not publish any of this copyrighted material without documented permission.

About Carla Emery's book, THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COUNTRY LIVING
In my opinion Carla was a national treasure and her book should be the first book you purchase as a country living resource. Some overlapping between her book and this work will be impossible to avoid, but, for what it's worth, I don't do recipes. I do make an acclaimed pizza, so I may slip that in somewhere. Let it be known that I had the highest regard for Carla and was depressed to learn of her death. Here is Carla's personal Web page. Please purchase her book through my Country Bookstore.

Introduction to The Complete Guide to Country Living

Rural life for many is a wonderful alternative to city crime, crowding and cost of living. The majority of rural counties are gaining population. Those moving from city to country are often ill equipped for their new lives. From a place of public utilities they now find themselves in charge of their own water and waste systems. Enthralled with the concept of self-reliance and by acres of space they plant huge gardens and bring home cute kids, calves, colts, and shoats. The garden grows, goes to weeds and bugs, the veggies rot. Cute little animals become seriously large charges that injure themselves, get sick, resist confinement, and eat horrendous amounts of expensive feed. Delight and amusement changes to consternation and disenchantment.

Let us have none of that. With knowledge, planning, and appropriate action, the garden is the right size and pretty much weed-free, the animals have suitable quarters and fenced pastures, feed is grown on the homestead or bartered from neighbors. In these books you will learn how all this happens.

There are hundreds of books available on design, building, gardening, raising animals and maintaining community, although not enough on the last. Our design here is to bring together the essential elements of all of these subjects in four comprehensive books. Here you will learn how to observe and assess your property, make a master plan, how to provide for utilities, how to build roads, houses, barns, other outbuildings, plus fences and walls. You will learn garden design, how to grow vegetables and fruits, how to raise animals for food and pleasure. The reasons for growing as much of one's food as possible include optimal health from eating non-poisoned food and from performing useful exercise. Homegrown food also contains more nutrients, is fresh and tastes better. Homesteaders eat better than Bill and Melissa Gates. And you will learn the ways of rural neighbors and communities. Taken all together, you will learn how to live happily ever after in the country.