Abigail R. Gehring

This book is full of superficial information on a great number (far too great a number) of topics, many of which have very little to do with homesteading per se. Gehring does admit to a nonstandard definition in which homesteading means pretty much anything you want it to, thus the large amount of fluff included in the book (yoga? aromatherapy? really?). I'm adept in a number of crafts, but again, although I can dig clay from a riverbank, fashion a pot and fire it in a handbuilt kiln (which you will NOT learn in this book), I don't see pottery making as a part of homesteading; and (unless you can go sheep-to-shawl as the saying is), I would deem knitting as a homesteading skill only in a peripheral way. Even so, it would take a book as large as this on any of these specialized topics to make a start. Meanwhile, the book suffers from a lack of space to cover vital core homesteading topics such as gardening - and, in the case of gardening, there is a willingness to accept chemical solutions unquestioningly. I'm writing this review without actual access to the book, which I borrowed from the library and within 20 minutes realized would be of no help whatsoever to our family homesteading endeavours.

Taken as a book of aspirations to read about natural living and dream that you could be a homesteader someday, it's not bad (although I would still take issue with the chemical gardening). But what it is not, is a practical book for people actually involved in homesteading.… (meer)