This magazine-length book reads in the endlessly cheerful, encouraging, peppy kind of voice one might expect from a post-war couple realizing the American dream (If you think I use exclamation points liberally, you've got to see this!). If the chores have you down or it's the long dark winter of mud season, this is the book that will give you back the desire to fix that gate, clean the chicken coop, and organize the larder – and with a sense of pride.

This little book gives an overview of planning, buying, and building on your homestead; raising chickens, geese, turkeys, ducks, squab, rabbits, pigs, dairy goats, milch goats, beef, sheep, beef, and fish; vegetable, herb, small fruit, and orchard gardening; woodlot management, transportation, repair and maintenance around the homestead, and how to make a living on or off your land. I'm pretty sure Ed must have been an engineer, because everything is presented in the most economical of forms – how to most efficiently manage your garden, how to utilize every square inch of your barn, even house plans that reduce “wasted” hallway space to a mere 2% of overall square footage.

If nothing else, this book will make you sniffle with nostalgia for an era when the monthly mortgage payment for a “more expensive home” was $43.36! ( )