The big book of self-reliant living: advice and information on just about everything you need to know to live on Planet Earth (2nd ed.)

Rural homesteaders and urban apartment-dwellers alike will find a mother lode of practical information packed into this completely revised and updated edition of the ultimate how-to handbook for all generations.

A selective compendium of public-domain documents, it brings together in one volume a wealth of knowledge and useful instruction on just about every imaginable aspect of self-sufficiency-from building a dwelling and growing food to raising children, using tools of all kinds, and, yes, getting more mileage out of your car.

Readers will learn how to: build a greenhouse; administer first aid; stock an emergency shelter; survive in the wilderness, at sea, and in the city; plant, buy farmland; grow plants indoors and out; read architect's drawings; care for household pets; repair clothing; hunt, trap, and fish; repair a screen or leaking faucet; butcher and store big-game kill; relieve allergy symptoms; control insects; stay safe during storms and floods; can and freeze fruits and vegetables; take your own blood pressure; and much, much more!Praise for a previous edition: "How we have survived this long without [this book], I don't know.

The concept is brilliant and simple. . . . If we had lived in a rural community a century ago, much of the knowledge gathered here would have been in our bones."-Harper's