ENSLAVED BY DUCKS

Enslaved by Ducks caught my eye as I was working in the stacks today. It grabbed my attention because my next door neighbor has a duck that has quite a nice coop, his own pool, and great veterinary care. This book contains humorous stories of a city guy who came to the country and ended up with quite an unusual group of animals to care for, including rabbits, geese, ducks, parrots, and cats. Also by Bob Tarte: Fowl Weather.

What was that book?

I just learned about a cool web site called Fresh Fiction. If you've ever watched or listened to a program on the tv or radio, and heard about a book you want to read, but then you forget the title or maybe you can't remember which show it was on, this site is the place to go. From a drop down menu, you can choose a program, and then it will show a list of books going back as far as 2005 in some cases. Or, you can search a book or author, and it will show which programs are reviewing it. Nice!

THE BACKYARD HOMESTEAD

The Backyard Homestead is a new book edited by Carleen Madigan. It describes how to grow "all the food you need on just a quarter acre." A significant number of pages are dedicated to vegetable gardening, but there are also sections on growing your own grains, raising poultry for eggs and meat, and even beekeeping. I've included a photo of my own backyard homestead. I'm growing some fall veggies under cover-beets, kale and spinach. I don't think I'll expand into urban chickens, but if I do there are books for that as well. Try The joy of keeping chickens by Jennifer Megyesi or How to raise chickens: everything you need to know by Christine Heinrichs.