The story of how Francis Pryor created a haven for people, plants and wildlife in a remote corner of the fens. A Fenland Garden is the story of the creation of a garden in a complex and fragile English landscape - the Fens of southern Lincolnshire - by a writer who has a very particular relationship with landscape and the soil, thanks to his distinguished career as an archaeologist and discoverer of some of England's earliest field systems. It describes the imagining, planning and building of a garden in an unfamiliar and sometimes hostile place, and the challenges, setbacks and joys these processes entail. This is a narrative of the making of a garden, but it is also about reclaiming a patch of ground for nature and wildlife - of repairing the damage done to a small slice of Fenland landscape by decades of intensive farming. A Fenland Garden is informed by the empirical wisdom of a practising gardener (and archaeologist) and by his deep understanding of the soil, landscape and weather of the region; Francis's account of the development of the garden is counterpointed by fascinating nuggets of Fenland lore and history, as well as by vignettes of the plantsman's trials and tribulations as he works an exceptionally demanding plot of land. Above all, this is the story of bringing something beautiful into being; of embedding a garden in the local landscape; and thereby of deepening and broadening the idea of home.

'I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat, which would take flies out of a person's hand.' Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne (1789) reveals a world of wonders in nature. Over a period of twenty years White describes in minute detail the behaviour of animals through the changing seasons in the rural Hampshire parish of Selborne. He notes everything from the habits of an eccentric tortoise to the mysteries of bird migration and animal reproduction, with the purpose of inspiring others to observe their own surroundings with the same pleasure and attention. Written as a series of letters, White's book has all the immediacy of an exchange with friends, yet it is crafted with compelling literary skill. His gossipy correspondence has delighted readers from Charles Darwin to Virginia Woolf, and it has been read as a nostalgic evocation of a pastoral vision, a model for local studies of plants and animals, and a precursor to modern ecology. This new edition includes contemporary illustrations, a contextualizing introduction, and an appendix of literary responses to the book. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Ever since its publication in 2007, Eric MacLeod's memoir of his young family's years reconstructing and living in one of the most remote crofthouses in Scotland has remained one of our most popular titles, selling mostly in Scotland but travelling far and worldwide thanks to the area's many visitors. Sandstone Press is now happy and proud to present a second edition, complete with an additional chapter bringing the story of the family and the house bang up to date.

East Lothian is 'The Garden of Scotland' and the setting for this delightfully idiosyncratic story of country life. Here unfold the ups and downs of four generations of one farming family from the northern Orkney Isles, who move to the little farm of Cuddy Neuk in the south of Scotland just before the outbreak of the Second World War. A young Peter, the 'peedie' (wee) boy who sets his heart on filling his somewhat eccentric grandfather's straw-lined wellies, grows up to run the family farm and become a farmer father to his own sons, putting his ability to see the funny side of things to good use as adversities crop up with intriguing reality along an unpredictably tortuous path through life. Often hilarious, always heartfelt and at times sad, this is a book that will appeal, not only to those who are interested in the Scotland of today, but also to people who recall, or have been told about, rural ways that are gone forever.

Miles Irving, an internationally renowned wild foods expert who has worked with some of the world's best chefs, reveals the how, why, what and where of foraging - lost art and way of life that is becoming increasingly popular as more and more of us pursue an eco-friendly, cost - effective and sustainable lifestyle. This ground-breaking handbook, complete with over 300 stunning photographs, tells you how to recognise the rich variety of wild food that surrounds us. 'Nature lovers and foodies alike will be overjoyed by this. Combining recipes and folklore, it's a great book for our time' -- The Independent On Sunday 'The definitive guide to foraging in the UK' -- Wall Street Journal 'A unique and authentic guide, assiduously researched, packed with information and enlivened with anecdotes' -- Country Kitchen 'The best on the market' -- ***** Reader review 'Superb' -- ***** Reader review 'Incredibly informative, wide ranging and precise. Very useful' -- ***** Reader review 'Wonderful' -- ***** Reader review 'Totally awesome' -- ***** Reader review 'Marvellous' -- ***** Reader review 'A gem' -- ***** Reader review ******************************************************************************************************* DISCOVER A SECRET WORLD OF EDIBLE POSSIBILITIES - ALL FREELY AVAILABLE... From wasteground to woodland, from clifftop to coastland, edible plants flourish year in, year out. Spring is when wild garlic flourishes in shady woodlands; summer is the time for marsh samphire in the salt-marshes; autumn heralds an abundance of fruits and nuts. Many of these plants - nettles, dandelions, fat hen, sorrel - grow so profusely they are considered a nuisance. Yet they offer fantastic food possibilities and are rich in nutrients. Assiduously researched, packed with information and enlivened with anecdotes and more than 330 photographs, The Forager Handbook marks the way forward for the future of British food. With recipes from award winning chefs, including Sam and Sam Clark, Mark Hix and Richard Corrigan, and coverage of techniques like drying, pickling and making cordials, this book will take readers on a voyage of discovery. Foraging was something our ancestors did instinctively - this book truly connects us with our past and our future.

Jessie Knadler moved away from her small town childhood in Montana to a career in magazines in NYC as soon as possible. Her life was filled with friends, fun and decent food but then on an assignment she met a cowboy named Jake and the two fell madly in love. Jessie decided to give up her city lifestyle and move to the country with Jake. Soon surrounded by chickens and farmers, Jessie initially feels she has lost her identity. In this witty and honest memoir she explores her new life, her love for her husband and how a city girl learns to survive in the country.

Britain's best loved rural writer chronicles the progress of the seasons in the Stour valley village where he has lived and worked among artists, writers, farmers and, increasingly, commuters. For all the changes in the contemporary countryside, timeless qualities remain and both are captured here with a poet's understanding and imagination.
The year takes its shape from the seasons of nature and the feasts and festivals of the Christian year. Each informs and illuminates the other in this loving celebration of nature's gifts and neighbourly friendship. Literature, poetry, spirituality and memory all merge to create an exquisite series of stories of our times.
These short essays first appeared in the 'Word From Wormingford' column, a popular back page feature of the Church Times.

Calming to the soul and good for us all, spending time outdoors offers us precious breathing space away from the stresses and strains of modern life. This inspirational guide celebrates the life enhancing effect of nature and encourages you to try the pursuits that would have been second nature to previous generations - from walking in the dark with only the light of the moon and stars to guide you, to wild swimming, forest bathing and sleeping under canvas. It will inspire you to re-discover the joy of sky and clouds, night and tides, stars and silence. Photography by Finn Beales

So This is Life is a wonderfully evocative account of youth that will surely take its place among the classics of Australian childhood. At age seven, after her parents' marriage broke down, Anne Manne travelled with her mother and sisters from Adelaide to the Central Victorian countryside to begin a new life. So This Is Life is not a conventional memoir but a haunting and luminous account told through stories - unexpected moments of epiphany - where meaning, suddenly and sometimes shockingly, reveals itself. Possessing an astonishingly faithful and vivid memory of the pain, fear and joy of childhood; a sensibility keenly alive to the beauty of the landscape, the fellow-creatureliness of animals and the comedy, tragedy and dignity of the lives of the country folk she grew up among, So This Is Life shows a powerful moral vision being shaped, about the meaning of kindness, and the desolation of grief. It depicts worlds as far apart as the faded gentility of former goldfields wealth, and the patriarchal spivvery of the country racetrack. Full of inconsolable pain but also impish humour, these stories sparkle like gems.

The Oxenholme Hounds is a fascinating narrative of The Oxenholme Stag Hounds. It introduces the reader to the participants of the hunt and their adventures and misadventures as they hunted during a six-month period during 1934-5 over large areas of Cumbria and Lancashire. The hunt was comprised of members of some of the most influential families who lived in Kendal and the surrounding area at that time and this book offers insights into some colourful characters and lively accounts of the meets they attended. The Oxenholme Hounds, which is illustrated with photographs and charming paintings, perfectly captures the atmosphere and the camaraderie of a past generation as they indulged in what is now a forbidden pastime, (although, contrary to popular belief, the hunt rarely resulted in a kill). After a long history the hunt was eventually dispersed at the start of World War II and was never restarted. The Oxenhome Hounds, however, remains as an absorbing and enchanting social record of a bygone era.

Susan Farrell's evocative account of what it was like to grow up in rural Armagh and Tyrone, a world rooted in tradition and in the seasons. Beginning with her grandparents, Susan uses food to trace the legacy of her upbringing: Nanny Wylie, 'quick as a magician', making bread; her aunts cycling twenty miles to the Irish border to buy butter, dried fruit and sugar for her parents' wedding cake; food remedies and broths; and the endless supply of home-made apple pies, jam and soda farls. But by the late sixties this way of life is changing - Camp Coffee, salad cream and books like Madhur Jaffrey's 'Eastern Vegetarian Cooking' herald a new way of life and a new kind of cooking. And on the horizon is the shadow of the Troubles ... Warm, authentic and often funny, 'My Homeplace Inheritance' is a vivid evocation of place and a celebration of the rich legacy that comes from the cooking and sharing of food.

Sallyann J. Murphey and her husband did what a lot of us have dreamt of but never quite built up the courage to do. In 1990, Murphey, who was a successful BBC producer, and her husband, Greg, a commercial photographer, left their high stress, hectic life in Chicago and moved to a dilapidated 40-plus-acre farm in Brown County, Indiana, hoping to raise their daughter in a more natural and less stressful environment. In Bean Blossom Dreams, Murphey warmly and humorously details life on the family's farm. Though Brown County might not offer the idyllic country life they were expecting, Sallyann and Greg have realized through trial and error, laughter and tears, that they made the right decision to relocate. A delightful fish-out-of-water story

Features a collection of sixty "Word From Wormingford" columns from the back page of the "Church Times," published in the autumn of 2006. This work presents mini essays that reflect the natural landscape, the changing seasons, village life, art, poetry, the stories that ancient churches tell.

Canterbury Press is proud to have acquired these backlist Ronald Blythe titles, consisting of illustrated collections of the authors regular weekly column on the back page of the Church Times where, with a poets eye, he observes the comings and goings of the rural world he sees from his ancient farmhouse in the South of England. Each volume was critically acclaimed on publication.

Canterbury Press is proud to have acquired these backlist Ronald Blythe titles, consisting of illustrated collections of the authors regular weekly column on the back page of the Church Times where, with a poets eye, he observes the comings and goings of the rural world he sees from his ancient farmhouse in the South of England. Each volume was critically acclaimed on publication.

Canterbury Press is proud to have acquired these backlist Ronald Blythe titles, consisting of illustrated collections of the authors regular weekly column on the back page of the Church Times where, with a poets eye, he observes the comings and goings of the rural world he sees from his ancient farmhouse in the South of England. Each volume was critically acclaimed on publication.

Animal Tracks and Signs was first published in English in the 1970s, and immediately established itself as an all-time classic. Totally unique in its accessible, down-to-earth approach and detailed coverage of more than 200 creatures, it is the only book in print that enables readers to determine which animals have passed through the countryside by examining the traces they have left behind, opening up a captivating new world that might otherwise remain unseen.
Whether following footprints in mud, sand, or snow, feeding marks on cones, nuts, trees, and animal remains; homes and hiding places above and below ground; or feathers, pellets, and droppings, readers are taught how to identify the bird or mammal that has been before them, aided by hundreds of beautiful, informative colour photographs, line drawings, and diagrams, and clear descriptions of the anatomy, behavior, movements patterns, and habitat of different species.
Quick-reference place sections compare actual-size prints, pellets, and droppings for fast identification on the move, covering such diverse wildlife as the shrew, hedgehog, fox, elk, and bear; the sparrow, kestrel, and eagle owl.
The new reissued edition includes a new Foreword by Ray Mears, who has found this book to be an invaluable point of reference throughout his career, and recommends it to students on his Bushcraft and Survival courses.

For Yvette Verner, there is nothing to compare with the unspoiled beauty of an ancient meadow on a hot summeris day. Here she shares her passion for English meadows with gentle humour and wonderful lyrical prose, drawing you into the spirit of these special places, and showing you what flora and fauna to look out for. Through evocative descriptions of different types of meadow and the activities surrounding them, English Meadows gives a detailed picture of country ways of life going back to Medieval times, including: farming, buildings, tools, crafts, traditions, wildlife and a list of national meadow reserves. Drawing on personal experience of managing her own meadow, the author discusses the importance of meadows to wildlife today, and the vital nature of the conservation work that is carried out in preserving them.

New Jersey is a state of surprises. Did you know there was a castle in Passaic Country? Or that Essex County's Branch Brook Park, rather than Washington, D.C., has the largest concentration of flowering cherry trees outside of Japan? Did you know you could walk through a bamboo forest on the Rutgers University campus, dig for fossils in Middletown's Poricy Brook, visit an owl haven on the site of the Battle of Monmouth, or see wild river otters in Salem County? Despite its proximity to major urban areas and its high population density, the state has dozens of absolutely marvelous natural areas and preserved spaces. It boasts something for everyone, from Atlantic seashore to rugged mountains, rolling farmland to winding canals, historic trails to formal gardens, birdfilled marshes to hardwood forests, pine barrens to fragrant vineyards and orchards. There are outings for hikers, bikers, beachcombers, gardeners, power-walkers and strollers of all kinds, and A Guide to Green New Jersey is your key to finding it all. The book is conveniently organized into forty geographic areas, spotlighting more than 200 nature walks. Each entry includes a description, visitor hours, fees, driving accessibility, and other pertinent information for walkers. At the end of the book, the authors provide an index with the names of each site, and their guide to choosing an outing according to individual tastes and interests. They identify sites that are wheelchair accessible, especially fun for kids, best for bicyclists, and those that are particularly physically challenging. Newcomers to the state will find the book indispensable, and long-time New Jerseyans will find it a pleasantly eye-opening guide to wonderful walks right in their own backyards.

In this classic of American literature, Thoreau gives an account of his two years experience of the 'simple life' in the woods, telling how he sought and found material and spiritual sustenance in the solitude of the cabin which he built for himself on the shore of Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts.

A captivating journey to uncover the essence of wilderness, by one of this country's most original nature writers. In The Wildest Place on Earth Mitchell sets out on a journey to uncover the essence of wilderness. Instead of traveling to remote, untamed parts of the world, Mitchell ends up exploring the green realms of his childhood and the gardens of Italy. He is pulled inward and toward home, back to what Thoreau called "contact"--an abiding, enduring, and daily connection with the world. He comes to realize that the wildest place may be right in his own backyard.A Merloyd Lawrence Book

This volume of seven essays and a late lecture by Henry David Thoreau makes available important material written both before and after "Walden." First appearing in the 1840s through the 1860s, the essays were written during a time of great change in Thoreau's environs, as the Massachusetts of his childhood became increasingly urbanized and industrialized.

William Rossi's introduction puts the essays in the context of Thoreau's other major works, both chronologically and intellectually. Rossi also shows how these writings relate to Thoreau's life and career as both writer and naturalist: his readings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charles Darwin; his failed bid for commercial acceptance of his work; and his pivotal encounter with the utter wildness of the Maine woods. In the essays themselves, readers will see how Thoreau melded conventions of natural history writing with elements of two popular literary forms--travel writing and landscape writing--to explore concerns ranging from America's westward expansion to the figural dimensions of scientific facts and phenomena.

Thoreau the thinker, observer, wanderer, and inquiring naturalist--all emerge in this distinctive composite picture of the economic, natural, and spiritual communities that left their marks on one of our most important early environmentalists.