Sooner or Later…

Remember those old Organic Gardening magazines & books? or the old Mother Earth News? The ones back in the day when the focus was growing your own food as healthily and cheaply as possible. The days when people were capable of using what was on hand to get where they needed to go. NOT the yuppie ‘the more it costs the better it is’ magazines of more recent times.

Well, if you read those old magazines then perhaps you read Gene Logdson articles and books. A short list of his works:

The Contrary Farmer’s Invitation to Gardening, 1997

The Contrary Farmer, 1995

The Low-Maintenance House, 1987

Moneysaving Secrets: A Treasury of Salvaging, Bargaining, Recycling, and Scavenging Techniques, 1986

Gene Logsdon’s Practical Skills: A Revival of Forgotten Crafts, Techniques, and Traditions, 1985

Wildlife in the Garden: How to Live in Harmony With Deer, Raccoons, Rabbits, Crows, and Other Pesky Creatures, 1983

Organic Orcharding, 1981

Getting Food from Water: A Guide to Backyard Aquaculture, 1979

The Gardener’s Guide to Better Soil, 1978

Small-Scale Grain Raising, 1977

Successful Berry Growing, 1974

Homesteading: How to Find New Independence on the Land, 1973

Two Acre Eden: Finding the Good Life on Your Own Piece of Land, 1971

Ever wonder what he is doing now?

Well for starters he has a blog at OrganicToBe.org. He is still dishing out doses of his contrary advice - contrary if you are an agri-college kinda farmer. Unfortunately many of his books are getting hard to find or expensive or both. I had really wanted to find a copy of his book “Small Scale Grain Raising”. 

So I rambled…

Into an out of the way place that has a legal & free way of posting books that are not old enough to be public domain. It seems that out-of-print gives plus research gives some legal leeway in the offerings. The site is The Soil and Health Library.

Read the front page, scroll down to and click the Personnal Sovereignity link. It will take you to a page that explains the rules & asks for help locating some books they would like to add to their collection. If what you read is agreeable, then click ‘Take Me to the Library.’ I could have posted the direct link but it is a good idea to know what the exact rules are so that the site isn’t forced *out of business*.

Now you should find yourself on the Personnal Sovereignity Library homepage. Read the page. Right up the alley for homesteaders, preppers, and other dyi type people (aren’t those just a list of synonyms?)

Should be obvious to click on the Homesteading link.

Find yourself on the Homesteading Library Catalogue (love that British spelling!)

Start drooling…erm….

Looks like a section of homesteader heaven doesn’t it? Scroll down to see the two Gene Logsdon offerings

• Small Scale Grain Raising
• Getting Food from Water: A Guide to Backyard Aquaculture

If /when you click on a title you will be taken to the Copyright Clearance Form page. READ THIS PAGE. Decide to agree & sign the form or disagree and leave. Yes you will be asked to join for a one time fee of about $15.00 US. I have downloaded one book for free just to see how things worked. It went just as describe and quickly - at least on my line.

Joining gets you a nice thank you and an invite to tea if you are ever in Tasmania. One can dream can’t they?

The site will send a form letter that reads:

 Dear (Insert your name),The URL for your copy of Getting Food From Water is as follows: (address deleted to conform to the rules)

A copy of the item you requested has been made especially for you. To obtain it click the link above.This link will work for only one month from today and then your copy will be removed from our server.

According to Australian library rules you are not allowed to request a copy of the same book more than once.

Please note that this link is for personal use only and may not be distributed.

—————

You have received this email because (Insert your name) requested a copy of a book from soilandhealth.org.  If you did not issue this request, please ignore this email.

Please note that this message has been sent from an unattended account.  Please do not reply to this message.

To contact soilandhealth.org, please direct your browser to the following link:

http://soilandhealth.org/contact.asp

Its a great site and poking around will just add to *must download* list.