Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, a Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese by Brad Kessler

$39.99 NZD

Category: Agriculture

In his transformation from staunch urbanite to countrified goat farmer, Kessler explores the rustic roots of many aspects of Western culture, and how diet, alphabet, religions, and economy all grew out of a pastoral setting.

Healthy Cattle Naturally by Pat Coleby

$59.99 NZD

Category: Agriculture

This volume demonstrates the inescapable link between good land management and raising healthy productive animals. Modern farming practices, including improved paddock and farm layouts, water conservation and the use of soil analyses are examined.

The Biodynamic Farm: Developing a Holistic Organism by Karl-Ernst Osthaus (transl. by Beate Buchinger)

$32.00 NZD

Category: Agriculture

Large-scale agriculture tends to view a farm as a means for producing a certain amount of grain, milk or meat. This practical book argues instead for a holistic method of farming: the farm as a living organism. This is the principle of biodynamic farming. The author, an experienced farmer, takes a down- to-earth approach. Based on an example farm of around 60 hectares, he recommends the ideal numbers of livestock: 12 cows, 4 horses, 6 pigs, 10 sheep and 120 hens. This mix is drawn from Osthaus's deep understanding of nature, animals, agriculture and the cosmos, and from his many years of personal experience as a biodynamic farmer and teacher. The result is a healthy, balanced and sustainable farm. This is an invaluable book for anyone considering setting up a farm, or developing their existing farm with new biodynamic methods. ...Show more

Choosing and Keeping Ducks and Geese by Liz Wright

$29.99 NZD

Category: Agriculture

Ducks and geese make wonderful pets. Not only will they control the insects in your garden and act as handy lawn mowers and watchdogs, they will also provide you with a constant supply of fresh, delicious eggs. With detailed information on over 40 of the most popular duck and geese breeds, this book sho ws you how to select the right breed for you, what you need get started and how to care for your birds so that you get the best out of them from the very start. ...Show more

How to Set Up Your Farm Workshop by Rick Kiubick

$0.00 NZD

Category: Agriculture

Today even the small or hobby farmer has to contend with his or her share of machinery - and keeping that machinery running smoothly can cost far less (and perhaps afford the mechanically minded farmer greater pleasure) if it's done right on the farm. For the new farmer or the urban transplant who'd lik e to do just that, this book offers clear, detailed instructions and plenty of practical advice on setting up a farm workshop. Writing in a straightforward, easy-to-follow style and drawing on a wealth of experience, author Rick Kubik outlines 15 projects that will take you from the planning stages to the workbench. Beginning with such basic issues as what kind of building best suits your goal-should you remodel, add on, build anew?-the book covers every detail of structure, safety, lighting, heating and ventilation, electrical systems, information management, storage, clean-up, and organization. Kubik also includes a list of frequently used tools and equipment. For the farmer who wants to keep his own tractors and implements in tip-top shape, or the country dweller who simply likes to tinker, this comprehensive how-to manual will get him or her started in a workshop that is as useful, efficient, well-equipped, and safe. ...Show more

The Contrary Farmer by Gene Logsdon

$45.00 NZD

Category: Agriculture

Critics of American agriculture bemoan the widespread decline of family farms. Gene Logsdon asserts that the solution to this crisis is cottage farming - farming part-time, for fun as well as profit. For those seeking a saner, more authentic connection with a piece of ground, Logsdon explains ways to co mbine a successful vegetable garden with raising livestock, pastures, grains, and woodlots, the values of pastoral economics ("Stay small and don't borrow money!"), and how to save expenses and avoid erosion by cultivating with hand tools. The Contrary Farmer combines the virtues of a manual for the practicing farmer with eloquent meditations in praise of hard work and pleasure. The book gives its readers tools and tenets, but also hilarious stories and beautiful evocations of the Ohio countryside Logsdon knows as his place in the universe. ...Show more

Farm by Vaughan Yarwood

$69.99 NZD

Category: Agriculture

This year, highly regarded journalist Vaughan Yarwood and photographer Arno Gasteiger travelled through rural New Zealand, visiting and staying with a range of farming families, on properties as diverse as a Waikato dairy farm, a Canterbury wheat farm, a Southland sheep farm, a Central Otago merino run and a North Island high country station run by a Maori incorporation. Out of those visits comes another magnificent Godwit book, Farm, which in a thematic way, grouped in five substantial essays, tells the story of our farmers' relationship with the land. It addresses the legacy of history, the necessity of constant adaptability and enterprise, the issue of succession as one generation hands on to the next, the grappling with sustainable land practices and conservation requirements and the pressures encroaching urban society can put on rural areas. Accompanied by glorious photo-spreads that capture the spirit of the rural New Zealand way of life, Farm is both a serious piece of writing but also a book that is luscious to dip into. Above all, it celebrates farming as the foundation stone of our economy and our national identity. ...Show more

Wisdom of the Bees by Erik Berrevoets

$39.99 NZD

Category: Agriculture

While the benefits of Steiner's research into agriculture and education are increasingly recognized, his research into the nature of bees has had limited impact on beekeeping practices and on our general understanding of nature. Wisdom of the Bees examines Steiner's insights and research into the nature of bees and their implications for the future of beekeeping. Today, more than eighty years after Rudolf Steiner presented his lectures on bees, we are confronted with a serious decline of honeybees around the world. This fact alone justifies Wisdom of the Bees, a practical and timely introduction to biodynamic beekeeping. Erik Berrevoets revisits those seminal lectures and reexamines Steiner's observations and insights in the context of today's dire situation and provides practical advice for modern beekeeping practices. Wisdom of the Bees is an accessible and essential introduction to the urgent subject of holistic beekeeping practices. ...Show more

Soil Management by Davies B

$59.00 NZD

Category: Agriculture

Handy Farm Devices and How to Mke them by Rolfe Cobleigh

$39.95 NZD

Category: Agriculture

Handy Farm Devices and How to Make Them, a classic from the Golden Age of American Farming, is as useful and pertinent for homesteaders and small-scale farmers today as it was when it was first published more than seventy-five ago. A wealth of labor- and money-saving projects fills its pages: spill-proo f chicken waterers; a portable chicken coop; a lightweight orchard ladder; a small truss bridge; an easy fence-post and stump-puller; gates that don't sag; gates that lift over snowdrifts; a handy wood splitter - even a bicycle-powered washing machine. Handy Farm Devices and How to Make Them is a rare and engaging combination of nostalgic Americana and helpful instruction, sure to appeal to everyone inclined toward self-sufficiency and the country life. (4 1/2 X 7, 290 pages, b&w photos, illustrations, diagrams) First published 1909; this edition 1996. ...Show more

Raising Chickens For Dummies by Kimberly Willis

$45.00 NZD

Category: Agriculture | Series: For Dummies

Practical how-to advice for raising chickens in virtually any backyard! Raising chickens on a small scale is a popular-and growing-pastime. And Raising Chickens For Dummies provides an up-to-date, thorough introduction to all aspects of caring for chickens, including choosing and purchasing chickens, co nstructing housing, and proper feeding. Raising Chickens For Dummies provides authoritative, detailed information to make raising chickens for eggs, meat, or backyard entertainment that much easier. ...Show more

The Chicken Chronicles: Sitting with the Angels Who Have Returned with My Memories: Glorious, Rufus, Gertrude Stein, Splendor, Hortensia, Agnes of God, The Gladyses & Babe: A Memoir by Alice Walker

$25.00 NZD

Category: Biography / Memoir

When Alice Walker grew up in the deep south of America, her family always kept chickens - for meat and for eggs - and her job was to chase down the Sunday dinner! In later life, when she settled in Mexico and was growing her own food, she realised how much she missed keeping them and decided to get a brood of her own. So into her life came Gertrude Stein, Babe, Babe 2, Hortensia, Splendor, Glorious, Rufus and Agnes of God, not to mention a few others. She discovered a deep contentment in keeping chickens, looking after them and watching them develop. This experience also made her think about her own life - her occasional eating of meat, meditating on the interdependence of humans and animals, and brought back severed memories of her childhood. This book isn't a 'how to' on keeping chickens, although there is plenty of detail about the practicalites; it is a warm memoir chronicling her journey and the way in which keeping chickens led her to a fuller understanding of herself. ...Show more