Carla Emery - The Encyclopedia of Country Living, 50th Anniversary Edition: The Original Manual for Living off the Land & Doing It Yourself

So many people have helped me during the years Ive been working on this book, I cant begin to list everyone here. Please forgive me if you should be named and you arent.

Thank you, God.

Thank you, all of my original subscribers. You bought into a dream, not knowing it was then just a dream and not yet a book. Thank you, everyone who worked so hard in those early days to help me make that dream a reality. All of youand everyone who ever bought a book from memade it possible for me to keep writing new, improved editions.

Thank you, everyone who ever bought a book from me or by me. You supported a good cause and made it possible for me to continue a life of researching and writing.

Thank you to everyone who contributed a recipe, a piece of advice, an anecdote, picture, paragraphs, criticism, or suggestions (whether I was able to include them or not). You each taught me something.

Thank you to all those unsung heroes who, over the 30 years of this books production, have helped to prepare, print, or market various editions.

Thank you to Mark Boseck of Sunset Graphics for making me learn to use PageMaker 6.5.

Thanks to Mark and Stephanie for months of painstakingly erasing dots and strengthening weak lines in pictures by Cindy Davis, imported from the old mimeographed versions of this book.

Thanks to Valerie Touchstone for patiently bringing revised indexes.

Thank you to my husband, Don DeLong, for keeping my computer and printer going, my morale up, and for loving this unrepentant workaholic.

Carla Emery

Here are some poems readers have shared with me. A dear lady named Maude Dougharty sent the first one to me back when I was first publishing this book, and its appeared in every edition since. The second poem was sent to me in January 1994 by Julie Ryan of Connecticut. I love it!

Mamas Mama, on a winters day,

Milked the cows and fed them hay,

Slopped the hogs, saddled the mule,

And got the children off to school.

Did a washing, mopped the floors,

Washed the windows and did some chores.

Cooked a dish of home-dried fruit,

Pressed her husbands Sunday suit,

Swept the parlor, made the bed,

Baked a dozen loaves of bread.

Split some wood and lugged it in,

Enough to fill the kitchen bin,

Cleaned the lamps and put in oil,

Stewed some apples she thought might spoil,

Churned the butter, baked a cake,

Then exclaimed: For Mercys sake,

The calves have got out of the pen!

Went out and chased them in again,

Gathered the eggs and locked the stable,

Returned to the house and set the table,

Cooked a supper that was delicious,

And afterwards washed all the dishes,

Fed the cat, sprinkled the clothes,

Mended a basket full of hose,

Then opened the organ and began to play,

When You Come to the End of a Perfect Day.

Anna Rees Henton, Age 85, 1953

The little cares that fretted me,

I lost them yesterday,

Among the fields, above the sea,

Among the winds at play;

Among the lowing of the herds,

The rustling of the trees,

Among the singing of the birds,

The humming of the bees.

The foolish fears of what may happen,

I cast them all away

Among the clover-scented grass,

Among the new-mown hay.

Among the rustling of the corn,

Where drowsy poppies nod,

Where ill thoughts die and good are born

Out in the fields with God.

Author Unknown
Attributed to Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Imogen Guiney