A Time To Dream

Tis the season! My entertainment center is again full of tidings and most of the family and friends have checked in. O Wise One is outside burning the christmas trash as I write this blog. A pot of red beans simmers in the crockpot full of onions and smoked sausage and the smell of cornbread baking permeates the house. 

Snow is still on the ground but the sun is shining and it is melting fast. A new storm is predicted for Sunday and we will start all over again. I sit here and listen to the melting snow slide off the tin roof. These are the days here on the homestead for dreaming. A time to plant, a time to harvest and a time to plan and dream. I anxiously pour over the incoming seed catalogs and gardening books. These are the days when I visit my old friends on the book shelf and make new ones. Bookshelves are scattered all over my house. Everyone here is an avid reader. We carry bags of books at a time out of our county library this time of year. Most people go to town for groceries we go to town to replenish our book supplies. 

Bookshelves are tucked in corners all over my house. You can find anything from cooking and preserving to farming, wildlife, trapping, herbs, herbal medicine and insect books. Many we use regularly in our lives here on the homestead, they stand on those shelves waiting for the next dilemma when we come to them looking for ideas and answers.  

A small table sits beside my recliner upstairs and my regulars are waiting there. Mostly gardening books covering everything from passalong plants to garden design. Many of these books and magazines gifts from my own children down through the years.  

And this year I add a new friend to my gardening favorites. Baby O bought me The Planet Whizbang Idea Book For Gardeners by Herrick Kimball.  O Wise One and I have been followers of Mr. Kimball's various websites for years. He is the only other man I have ever met that skins a deer with a golfball like O Wise One. Not only is Mr. Kimball an avid gardener but also an inventor and small business man. Many of his products can be found on his website. The great thing about his products is that THEY WORK!  

Now I have been a gardener since a small child. In my teen years I was a member of the State 4-H Plant Science Team. As an adult the love of gardening stayed with me and for a time my first husband and I actually owned a greenhouse manufacturing corporation. I have been to many agricultural/horticultural trade shows through the years. There is not much that I haven't seen or heard of gardening wise during that time.  But as you can see by the tabs above Mr. Kimball has managed to inspire even a hardened old gardener like me. Those book tabs in the picture above are all ideas I want to try in some form. O Wise One's spring honey do list has just grown by leaps and bounds thanks to this author. 

Now the author did not provide me with this book but rather I put it on my amazon.com wishlist and Baby O purchased it for me as a Christmas gift. This review was my own idea and I have received nothing for it. I will say if you are looking for a good gardening book with lots of useful ideas on gardening this is the book for you. Most of his projects in this book are inexpensive and utilize either things that are already around your garden or things easily available locally. It covers everything from garden trellising to pruning tomatoes to yokes, soil remineralization, hoe care and planting tips.  If you buy the book there is even a (secret) website provided for additional pictures and information supporting the book.  This book will not let you down. I cannot recommend this gardening book highly enough. If you are looking for a gardening book to curl up with and inspire a new spring project this book will not let you down. Your husband may not be happy with the results : )  

You can find the book at the link below or on amazon

http://whizbanggardening.blogspot.com/

If you would like to read more about the author here is the link

http://thedeliberateagrarian.blogspot.com/

You can also find his link daily on my sidebar where it has been for years. Many thanks to Baby O for buying mama the book and to the author for a great self published book. 

I would love to know what is your favorite homesteading skills reference book?

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

Friendly Reminder

Just wanted to remind everyone that I am stopping the drawing at 6:00 pm this evening for the copy of The Funeral Dress book giveaway. If you haven't already don't forget to go over to  this post and leave a comment to enter ! 

http://hickeryhollerfarm.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-funeral-dress.html

Good Luck and thanks so much for all your support and continued reading of the Hickery Holler farm Blog!

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

The Funeral Dress

Having a blog of my own often I am asked to review products. Many of these are books. I try to   limit book reviews to books that pertain somehow to homesteading, gardening, canning and occasionally quilting.  Recently I was asked to review a new book out called The Funeral Dress by Susan Gregg Gilmore. This book really caught my eye because of the subject matter.

Here's an excerpt from the book : 

A deeply touching Southern story filled with struggle and hope.     Emmalee Bullard and her new baby are on their own. Or so she thinks, until Leona Lane, the older seamstress who sat by her side at the local shirt factory where both women worked as collar makers, insists Emmalee come and live with her.  Just as Emmalee prepares to escape her hardscrabble life in Red Chert holler, Leona dies tragically.  Grief-stricken, Emmalee decides she’ll make Leona’s burying dress, but there are plenty of people who don't think the unmarried Emmalee should design a dress for a Christian woman - or care for a child on her own. But with every stitch, Emmalee struggles to do what is right for her daughter and to honor Leona the best way she can, finding unlikely support among an indomitable group of seamstresses and the town’s funeral director. In a moving tale exploring Southern spirit and camaraderie among working women, a young mother will compel a town to become a community.

We have talked on this blog before about how my mama was a seamstress that worked in a sewing factory in Mississippi during the war. 

And a southern story no less, I have to admit I was hooked. And the main character came from a holler.  I agreed to the review and a week or so later got my book in the mail and Baby O and I laid down on the floor laughing. The book came with a pack of tissue. Really!!

Well ladies we have all read those books. You know the ones! You pick it up off the stand and something catches your eye. Some little thing you can relate to and it pulls you in. The next thing you know it is 2:00 am and you are sitting in the recliner with a pint of chocolate ice cream and a paper back. Yes crying your eyes out. But after all what did I expect. It came with tissue.  Every girl... even us old ones need a good cry every so often. 

This is a great story and a great read. Believable characters and even christian based. I ran through every emotion you can imagine with this story. I laughed, I cried, I was angry and sad and when it was all over I just wanted to hug her. 

If you are looking for a good book to curl up with on a snowy winter afternoon then this is the book for you!  It's not about gardening, or canning, or homesteading it is just about life. It's about being a woman and a mother. 

The publisher will give away one copy to one of my lucky readers. 

To win it leave a comment below on the last book that made you cry. Or maybe the best. 

Friday Sept. 27th I'll draw a name from the lucky readers to win. 

Please leave a valid email address and once I notify the winner they have 48 hours to claim their prize and send me a mailing address to pass along to the publisher. I will email and post the winner on this blog. After 48 hours if no one comes forth I will draw another name and the first will be disqualified. US residents only.  

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!!!!

  Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

The Weekend Homesteader Review and Giveaway

Recently I was asked to review the new book being released by author Anna Hess called The Weekend Homesteader, A Twelve Month Guide To Self Sufficiency. 

This is a great little book broken down into 12 months of projects with a homesteading skill suggested for each weekend of the month. You'll find projects that range from everything from building a clothesline and hanging laundry to no till gardening.  Baking bread, bees, seed saving, food preservation, chicken keeping and much much more. Each project is broken down into goals, costs, time required and difficulty. For the new homesteader this book is a must. Not a book that gets bogged down with too much technical information but rather an introduction to new skills explained simply and concisely from an experienced homesteader and entrepreneur.    

This would make a great holiday gift for anyone interested in homesteading, permaculture, self sufficient living or just general  gardening and food preservation. 

Whether you are a novice or longtime homesteader, rural or urban, there is a project in this book for everyone.  

You can find a link to Anna's blog The Walden Effect listed on my right side bar. 

Skyhorse Publishing has kindly sent an extra copy of The Weekend Homesteader to give away to one lucky reader. To enter the giveaway just leave a comment below about what you think the most important homesteading skills are and what were the easiest and most difficult ones for you to learn.  I'll pick a random winner Monday December 3 from the comments. This giveaway is open to continental US residents only.   

The Weekend Homesteader is now available at Amazon.com for $10.43

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

Great Site With A New CookBook!

If you have been around this blog for anytime you have heard about Thy Hand Hath Provided blogspot before. I am a daily reader of her blog and adore not only her writing style and sense of humor but also her recipes.  She is a canner like myself and one of her greatest posts is a post on Canning Overload Disorder which I am a chronic sufferer of : )

You can find the link to canning overload disorder symptoms  HERE ! 

She has a new cookbook out that would be great for the Holidays....and if you are purchasing gifts I love to help out my fellow bloggers. Besides that she is a great cook and I love her recipes.

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter

Only Cows Allowed!

As the mother of 5 children and the grandmother of almost 4, I have read many children's books, my history of children's books spanning almost 40 years. Yes, I could probably recite Green Eggs and Ham from memory. Recently, I was contacted by author Lynn Plourde about doing an interview and giveaway of her children's book Only Cows Allowed!   

As most of you followers and readers of this blog know, I rarely advertise anything and I rarely do giveaways, but I truly love this book.  So much that I have one coming for my grandson Hank, now 2, who we are desperately trying to teach that zebras and horses really are different. 

So, I sent Lynn a few questions and asked her to share with us about the book: 

To start us off, Lynn, tell us a little about your new book.

Only Cows Allowed! is a silly farm story filled with puns like “the cows wouldn’t moooove” and “the horses came up with a whinny-ing plan.” The story takes place on a new farm where the cows are the first to move into the barn. They like their new home so much they don’t want to share it with the all the other farm animals that arrive. Will they get their “bossy” way in the end?

Illustrator Rebecca Harrison Reed has the cows paint the “Only Cows Allowed” sign with their tails dipped in paint along with many other fun and foolish details. She studied the cows at Frying Pan Farm Park in Virginia as her models for the cows in the book. 

What got you into writing children's books?

I started writing children’s books when I was married 28 years ago and got three- and four-year-old stepsons as part of my new ready-made family. I went from someone who lived alone to someone who had two little boys to read to at bedtime. I would take a huge bag of picture books out of the library, and the boys would fall asleep after two or three books. But I sooooo loved the books I would tiptoe out of their bedroom and continue to read all the books in the bag. That’s when I started to dream maybe I could write children’s books. And I did—after thirteen years of rejections! I’ve now had 27 children’s books published

Your book is about the farm. Did you grow up on or around a farm? Do you own any farm animals of your own?

I grew up in a small rural town in Maine, but not on a farm. I had classmates who lived on farms, and we’d visit a great-uncle who had a farm—I loved the rope swing in his barn! My dad lived on a farm as a boy, and he just glowed when he reminisced about his adventures there. My mom had an inside-the-house pet pig as a girl. I remember “dreaming” about farming as a girl—my three siblings and I got a toy farm set one Christmas and we’d play with it for hours pretending we were real farmers.

There still are many farms in Maine, and my Uncle Dick works on one. The family joke is that he loves the cows more than his wife! He let me visit his cows when I wanted to have an author photo taken for this book. Oh my! Oh moo! Cows do NOT stand still to have their photos taken. My husband told me to keep looking at the camera so he could “click” whenever a cow happened to wander into the picture. And so when I wasn’t looking, the cows would sneak up behind me (how can a cow be sneaky?!) and lap my fleece jacket. I kept jumping and laughing hysterically. My husband said the cows were more cooperative than I was!

What was the inspiration for this book?  

This book had a two-part inspiration. I worked as a speech-language therapist for 21 years and so I like to weave word play into many of my kids books. I wanted this book to be filled with puns—or as I like to say make it a “punny” book. Farm animals are a natural for puns—horses moved into the NEIGHborhood, the hens knew EGGSactly what to do, the cows were UDDERLY serious. Farms seemed to have more pun potential than any other topic. Secondly, I was one of four kids growing up and I always shared a bedroom with my older sister. Our house was a hubbub of activity, and sometimes it was a challenge to find my own space. Just like me as a kid, the cows want their own space! 

Is there anything else you would like to share? 

Two things . . . I pride myself on being a TEACHING author. I want my books to entertain kids; but if they learn something along the way, that’s a bonus. And so for all of my books, I have learning activities based upon the books on my website. On my Only Cows Allowed! webpage (http://www.lynnplourde.com/index.php/books?bid=10), you’ll find activities for this book. Also, Cows takes me full circle. My very first published book in 1997 was Pigs in the Mud in the Middle of the Rud—also a FARM book. Pigs was inspired by eight piglets who ran down the middle of my road one day. I had two farmer neighbors at that time, but none with pigs. Today, I have no idea where those piglets came from—but they launched my career as a children’s book author and I’ve decided it must have been SWINE intervention!

Here you can listen to Lynn read her book Only Cows Allowed!

Not only has Lynn graciously agreed to our interview but also provided an autographed hardback copy of her book to give away. 

So if you would like a chance to win just leave a comment. 

I tell you what, just leave a comment and tell me your favorite children's book of all time. That's all it takes to enter. 

I will keep this give away open for 7 days. At the end of 7 days I'll let Baby Hank draw a comment number out of the basket for a winner. 

Just that simple! 

I'll email the winner so make sure to leave a return email for those of you who comment anonymously so that I can contact the winner.  

And if you don't win you can purchase Lynn's book at the link below 

http://www.amazon.com/Only-Cows-Allowed-Lynn-Plourde/dp/089272790X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344882729&sr=8-1&keywords=only+cows+allowed

A special thanks from Hickery Holler to Lynn Plourde.

And don't forget to read to your child early and often. It makes a huge difference.

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter