Garden expert and lovable eccentric Ruth Stout once said: "At the age of 87 I grow vegetables for two people the year-round, doing all the work myself and freezing the surplus. I tend several flower beds, write a column every week, answer an awful lot of mail, do the housework and cooking; and never do any of these things after 11 o'clock in the morning " Her first book about her no-work gardening system, "How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back," was the kind of book people can't bear to return. She reports, "A dentist in Pennsylvania and a doctor in Oregon have both written me that they keep a copy of my garden book in their waiting rooms. Or try to; the dentist has had twenty-three copies stolen, the doctor, sixteen." "Gardening Without Work" is her second gardening book and is even more entertaining and instructional than the first, so hide it from your friends How does it work? "And now let's get down to business. The labor-saving part of my system is that I never plow, spade, sow a cover crop, harrow, hoe, cultivate, weed, water or irrigate, or spray. I use just one fertilizer (cottonseed or soybean meal), and I don't go through the tortuous business of building a compost pile. Just yesterday, under the Questions and Answers' in a big reputable farm paper, someone asked how to make a compost pile and the editor explained the arduous performance. After I read this I lay there on the couch and suffered because the victim's address wasn't given; there was no way I could reach him. "My way is simply to keep a thick mulch of any vegetable matter that rots on both my vegetable and flower garden all year round. As it decays and enriches the soil, I add more." Regardless of topic, Ruth Stout's writing is always about living a joyous and independent life, and "Gardening Without Work" is no exception This book is a treasure for the gardener and a delight even to the non-gardener. First published in 1961, this Norton Creek Press version is an exact reproduction of the original edition. Ruth Stout, who, in her teens helped temperance activist Carrie Nation smash saloon windows, could turn any aspect of life into an adventure. She may have been the only woman who both gardened in the nude and wrote a book on being a hostess ("Company Coming: Six Decades of Hospitality"). She died in 1980 at the age of 96.

"Guess who's coming to dinner?" With Ruth Stout, you never knew Would it be sweet-tempered temperance activist, Carrie Nation, who smashed the windows of illegal saloons with a hatchet? Would it be her younger brother, Rex Stout, who finagled his way onto Teddy Roosevelt's presidential yacht and later became famous for his Nero Wolfe mysteries? Would it be Dr. Poulin, the famous hypnotist? Simple-living guru Scott Nearing? Not to mention friends, neighbors, starving artists, and refugees. Ruth Stout tells the story of her life in terms of who showed up for dinner, and she describes the way she and her husband Fred turned their barn into simple visitor accommodations, turning guests into neighbors and avoiding Ben Franklin's maxim that "fish and visitors stink after three days." The main flaw of this book is that it's too short Major events like Ruth's work in Russia during the great famine in the Twenties are mentioned only briefly, and when we realize that the New York brownstone that they lived in for a while became Nero Wolfe's house in her brother Rex's detective stories, we'd like fuller descriptions and, if possible, floor plans But for everything that isn't there, there's something that is, making the book funny and wise and full of surprises, like all of Ruth's writing. Ruth Stout was a beloved advocate of organic gardening, and her book, "Gardening Without Work," and her magazine articles popularized her style of simple living to millions. "Company Coming" was first published in 1958, and Norton Creek Press is proud to offer it to a new generation. See http: //www.nortoncreekpress.com for our line of classic books.

Have you struggled to expand your initial idea into a complete story? Plotting can be frustrating work What if there were a tool for this very problem, so you could navigate these uncharted waters as quickly as possible? A tool that starts with what you have (a situation, perhaps, or a group of characters) and sets you on the road to new possibilities?Plotto does all this. Created by a master of organized creativity, William Wallace Cook (one of the most prolific writers in history), Plotto has been prized by professional authors and screenwriters since its publication in 1928, and is still in demand today, with copies of the original edition selling for up to $400. This Norton Creek Edition is an exact reproduction of Cook 's work.To keep the book down to a manageable size (300 pages of very small type) while retaining its powerful features, Cook uses a telegraphic format that takes some getting used to, so working your way carefully through the introduction and its examples is the key to professional-quality results.Because Plotto was written in the Twenties, its situations can seem old-fashioned and its terminology politically incorrect, but these problems are more apparent than real. Cook himself wrote both westerns and early classics of science fiction, so you see how replacing stagecoach with star ship or dance hall girl with male stripper are within the reach of anyone using the Plotto system, and, in fact, this kind of substitution is how the book is intended to be used, and is the key to its flexibility and enduring popularity.

Lost, Friendless, and Outgunned. Young Beverly di Mendoza knew something was up when her father cut short their Terran layover and changed their route to pass through Barigost, a planet she had never heard of. But she did not expect events to lead to murder and betrayal. "One Survivor" is set in a richly textured future, amid the picturesque flotsam of the Terran Empire, now four centuries gone. Robert Plamondon is a writer, farmer, and engineer. He lives in Oregon.

Ten years after Henry David Thoreau learned how to be a poor farmer, Edmund Morris learned how to be a good one. Ten Acres Enough is the personal story of how Morris quit the publishing business and achieved happiness and prosperity by farming ten acres of fruits and berries. Rather than glorifying poverty and isolation, Ten Acres Enough shows farming as the path to financial security, while still providing all the benefits of country life-provided that the farmer understands that the key lies in producing crops of the highest possible quality, while living within striking distance of a major market. Five Acres Enough has left its mark on generations of back-to-the-land farmers. Its influence on both the title and the contents of M. G. Kains' classic Five Acres and Independence (1935) is obvious. And it is benefiting readers today, whether as a piece of Americana or as a source of small-farm ideas and inspiration. Through nearly 150 years old, Ten Acres Enough remains a fascinating book. However, the passage of time is making the original edition increasingly inaccessible due to its archaic vocabulary and style. This "Revived Edition" has been copy-edited to restore its clarity.

Through Dungeons Deep delves into the art of role-playing, showing players and Game Masters how to have more fun and excitement with fantasy role-playing games. First published more than 25 years ago, this book was an instant classic. Long out of print, the original edition sells for several times its cover price. This Norton Creek Press reprint makes the book available (and affordable) again. Robert Plamondon wrote Through Dungeons Deep after realizing that the most important part of role-playing games-role-playing-is barely mentioned in gaming systems. When it is, it is often confused with rules. But role-playing really boils down to make-believe, and the real fun in role-playing games comes from unlocking your imagination. But it's also important to carry a length of rope and wear shoes you can run in.

Fresh Air or Bust To stay healthy, your chickens need plenty of ventilation probably more than they re getting today. This was discovered over 100 years ago, but has been largely forgotten. Today s small-flock housing tends to be dank, dark, and smelly. Chickens, like miners canaries, are easily harmed by poor air quality. Wet litter breeds disease. Darkness forces chickens, like parrots, to be artificially inactive. Dank, dark, and smelly is a deadly combination Closed chicken houses are so harmful that knocking out a wall can cause an immediate improvement, even in winter. Chickens, after all, have a thick coat of feathers to keep them warm, but are vulnerable to poor air quality and pathogens in the litter; and their unwillingness to eat in the dark means they can starve in the midst of plenty. Fresh-Air Poultry Houses was written by Dr. Prince T. Woods, a noted poultry health expert. Dr. Woods describes not only his own poultry houses, but those of many of his clients, giving the book a breadth of experience that makes it a unique resource. This 1924 book is old-fashioned and a little eccentric, but in a good way. Fresh-Air Poultry Houses is a good example of the Norton Creek Press motto: Most of the best books are out of print and forgotten, but we can fix that See our Web site at http: //www.nortoncreekpress.com

THE DOLLAR HEN is America's classic handbook on free-range egg production. First published in 1909, it walks the reader through valuable concepts available in no other source. With an emphasis on simplicity, practicality, and synergy between hens, crops, soil, and farmer, the book is a timeless guide to poultry farming as it ought to be practiced.

Baby chicks can anything be more adorable? So cute, so soft, so helpless Give your baby chicks a great start by reading the only book devoted to them, Success With Baby Chicks. Robert Plamondon had to read over a hundred poultry books to discover the sure-fire techniques in Success With Baby Chicks, and he tested them on his farm to find the ones that will work for you. Learn how to choose a good hatchery and a good breed, what kind of heat source to use, how to prepare the brooder area for your baby chicks, what to feed them, and how to avoid common mistakes. All of this is explained so clearly and completely that it has received praise from children, hobbyists, farmers, and poultry scientists alike. Whether you brood five chicks or five thousand at a time, this is the book for you, because its practical methods work with flocks of any size. And it will save you money. Learn how to build an insulated brooder in two hours for $20, keeping your chicks warmer and more comfortable than with overhead heat lamps, and saving two-thirds of the electricity into the bargain Robert Plamondon is a writer/farmer/engineer who has been awarded 17 U.S. patents and raises free-range chickens on his farm in Oregon.