We've been busy tending to our tomatoes, peppers and carrots. We've had onions, lettuce, cucumbers and herbs growing inside while we built another raised bed, which isn't done yet.
Over the weekend, I found a magazine with great edible container ideas so I had a good ole time with the half-off plants at the local farm and ranch store and made my own edible container with cauliflower, purple basil, African Blue basil, variegated sage, Swiss chard, and a dahlia. I am over the moon about it, assuming the animals don't find a way to destroy it all. Rest assured there will be more on this edible container project later in the week.
You may remember a post about The Dirty Life, a book on farm life that took me awhile to finish, but I loved it. Absolutely loved it.
So on my flights to and from Virginia at the end of June, I went looking for more. Sadly, I couldn't find anything worth lugging around in the airport bookshops so I opted to do a more thorough book search online when I got back to Montana.
I went looking for Made From Scratch by Jenna Woginrich, but then I went a little wild with the "you might also like" suggestions. All in all, I ordered seven books on farm life, food and making things yourself.
Six have arrived. One isn't even out yet, but I got so carried away that I ordered it anyway. And while most of these books have a theme about our society's unchecked consumerism, I did get most of these books for $3 or $4 each. I didn't pay full price for any of them, not that I don't believe you should pay for great writing, but a spending spree on books about making things yourself would seem a bit foolish. So all totaled, I think I spent less than $50 and had a gift card to cover the entire book haul.
Here's what I got:
Grow the Good Life by Michelle Owens
Made From Scratch and Barnheart by Jenna Woginrich
Growing a Farmer by Kurt Timmermeister
Greenhorns edited by Zoe Ida Bradbury, Severine von Tscharner Fleming and Paulo Manalo
I'll be deep diving into these this week and this stack will likely occupy me for a bit. I'll be starting with the one on top, it was the perfect thing to see in my stack of mail when I got home last night from a particularly stressful day at work.
What are you reading lately? What kind of books inspire you or encourage you to read more of a certain topic?