An improperly installed roof can lead to extensive damage. But now homeowners can learn how to do the job right with Smart Guide: Roofing. It shows readers how to install all of the most popular roofing materials correctly and efficiently. Through easy-to-follow, illustrated instructions, readers learn how to estimate the amount of materials needed for the job, install roofing and flashing, and find and fix roof leaks. Tips provide important information to those looking to hire a contractor. Additional chapters address ladder and rooftop safety and proper attic and roof ventilation.
We once had a flock of brown-egg chickens. We called them our "illicit biddies" because they weren't strictly legal in town. My wife and kids and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, relishing the fresh eggs and delighting in the antics of the hens. They were great fun to work with, grateful for weeds and vegetable scraps, donating manure for the compost pile, meticulously scratching up insects and grubs. Our flock inspired me to contact Creative Homeowner about doing a book on chickens. They had a better idea, a book on the broader topic of food self-sufficiency. Backyard Homesteading is the result. I hope you find it a useful introduction to the joys of raising your own food.
I thoroughly enjoyed working on the book because I got to visit scores of backyard farms and talk with people passionate about things like top-bar bee hives, heritage tomatoes, and pygmy goats. Their hard-won knowledge and canny tricks of the trade were invaluable in putting this book together.
That exposure dovetailed with the summers I spent on my grandparents' farm in west-central Illinois. The farm was that rarity, a diversified farm, with not just row crops like corn and soybeans, but fields of alfalfa, oats, and hay, as well as chickens, hogs, and steers. In addition, a huge garden yielded a cellar full of canned vegetables. I watched my grandfather butcher chickens, using the axe and chopping block method. The smell of scalded chicken feathers is something you don't forget. That farm gave me an early exposure to how our food is produced and a lifelong love of working the soil. It also taught valuable lessons about the ingenuity and hard work self-sufficiency requires--and its substantial rewards.
