Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden

Last night I bought a new book on dehydrating. Drying With an Attitude By Mary T. Bell. At the start of this book she states "One of my mentors has been Buffalo Bird Woman."  She describes this book as "a rare and valuable window into the past by clearly documenting specific details of how Native Americans grew, harvested, dried, stored, and cooked their food." 

This reminded me that A while ago when I read The Resilient Gardener by Carol Deppe. Carol frequently referred to Buffalo Bird Woman’s garden.





Buffalo Bird Woman, a Hidatsa Indian born about 1839, was an expert gardener. Following centuries-old methods, she and the women of her family raised huge crops of corn, squash, beans, and sunflowers on the rich bottom lands of the Missouri River in what is now North Dakota. When she was young, her fields were near Like-a-Fishhook, the earth-lodge village that the Hidatsa shared with the Mandan and Arikara. When she grew older, the families of the three tribes moved to individual allotments on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.In Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden, first published in 1917, anthropologist Gilbert L. Wilson transcribed the words of this remarkable woman, whose advice today's gardeners can still follow. She describes a year of activities, from preparing and planting the fields through cultivating, harvesting, and storing foods. She gives recipes for cooking typical Hidatsa dishes. And she tells of the stories, songs, and ceremonies that were essential to a bountiful harvest.A new introduction by anthropologist and ethnobotanist Jeffery R. Hanson describes the Hidatsa people's ecologically sound methods of gardening and Wilson's work with this traditional gardener.

After reading reviews of this book that glowingly state testimonials such as "As a messenger of the old ways, she detailed how to build drying platforms, the best days to dry corn, beans, squash, buffalo, serviceberries, prairie turnips, and more. She cached food for two years in case the next growing season was a failure."  I knew this is a must read for me.

Each of the pictures of the books in this post are links to amazon where you can purchase them. But if your cheap frugal like me, I wanted to share a link I found where you can download a copy of Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden: Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians for free from the 

Digital Library

 

  Click here to go to book http://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t0sq90970

More Free Crochet Patterns

Has a new ebook out 5 Free Crochet Patterns for Beautiful Handmade Gifts.  I see some more Christmas Crocheting in my future ☻

CLICK HERE TO GO TO PATTERN

Free EBook - 9 Thanksgiving Decorations to Make

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. When I was a child, every Thanksgiving, while watching the parades, I made a potato turkey to grace our holiday table. Mom would help draw his head for me to color and cut out. I would then lay my hand flat on the paper and trace it so I could color and cut out his tail. Cut a diagonal slit on one end of the potato to stick in his head and a horizontal slit on the top of the other end to stick in his tail. Add four tooth picks for the legs and wala you have a turkey to grace your table. This tradition has passed on from my Mom, to me, then my children and grandchildren.  So I guess my love for Thanksgiving crafts is hereditary.

I just downloaded a free ebook from Favecrafts with 9 Thanksgiving crafts to make. I can see some new traditions starting now. Click on the link below if you want to check it out.

CLICK HERE

 





Free EBook ~ Seven Quilted Bag Patterns:

Found these free patterns at Quilting Arts, they say "You can never have too many bags, and here is your opportunity to add seven quilted bags to your collection! Patricia (Pokey) Bolton, Editor-In-Chief of Quilting Arts Magazine® has put together this wonderful free gift for anyone who loves the art of handmade quilting (and beautiful quilted bags)!

Whether you choose to make all of them, or have a special favorite you can't get enough of, Seven Quilted Bag Patterns: Handmade Quilt Bags from Quilting Arts is sure to be the pattern book you turn to again and again. Best of all, it's absolutely FREE!"

Click here to go to the ebook

Why I think my kindle is living from scratch

For Christmas this year, my only wish was for a Kindle and the loves of my life (my husband and parents) went in on it together and bought me one. Considering the $259.00 price tag, this is one of my most frugal items I own. OK, I can hear you scoffing from here, just hear me out.
First let me tell you about my Kindle.
Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines
Lightweight: At 10.2 ounces, lighter than a typical paperback
Books in Under 60 Seconds: Get books delivered wireless in less than 60 seconds; no PC required.
3G Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle; no annual contracts, no monthly fees, and no hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots
Global Coverage: Enjoy 3G wireless coverage at home or abroad in over 100 countries. See details. Check wireless coverage map.
Paper-Like Display: Reads like real paper without glare, even in bright sunlight
Carry Your Library: Holds up to 1,500 books
Longer Battery Life: Now read for up to 1 week on a single charge with wireless on, a significant improvement from the previous battery life of 4 days
Built-In PDF Reader: Your Kindle can now display PDF documents natively. Native PDF support allows you to carry and read all of your personal and professional documents on the go.
Read-to-Me: With the experimental Text-to-Speech feature, Kindle can read newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books out loud to you, unless the book's rights holder made the feature unavailable
Free Book Samples: Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy
Large Selection: Over 400,000 books, including 101 of 112 New York Times® Best Sellers, plus U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, and blogs. For non-U.S. customers, content availability and pricing will vary. Check your country.
Low Book Prices: New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases are $9.99, unless marked otherwise. When traveling abroad, you can download books wirelessly from the Kindle Store or your Archived Items. U.S. customers will be charged a fee of $1.99 for international downloads.
That was all the technical details from the Amazon website.
Now let me tell you what I do with it.
1. I read a lot of free books I find on the Internet. Books ranging from the classics, to how to-informational, and books and short stories posted on websites and blogs by the authors. Now I can download the stories and pdf's and transfer them to my Kindle so I can read them anywhere and not be tied to my computer.
2. When I find a recipe I'd like to try or a free pattern to crochet I can download it and put it on my Kindle. Now I don't have to print it thus saying my paper and the expensive ink cartridges on my printer.
3. I live in a small town where the only book seller is the Walmart. I find that my taste in books is not often what the majority of the public wants to buy, or at least what Walmart thinks we should read. When I'm eagerly waiting for a new release odds are Walmart is not going to carry it. So that leaves me the option of driving 50 miles to a bookstore or buying it off the Internet and paying for shipping. Also I have found that most books I read I don't necessary want to own a hard copy of. As I'm trying to live simply I am trying to keep only my most beloved books in my library. Take the new book Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol . I really wanted to read his new book. It came out before I had my Kindle. The Library had a 5 month waiting list to read it so I bought it from Walmart. I paid something like $18.00 for it on the day it was released. I could of got it from Kindle for $9.60 and even better than that downloaded the first chapter for free and found out that the book was very disappointing and saved my money altogether. Now when I want to read a book I can get it thru my Kindle saving the trees and ink that would go into printing it. If it's one I want to add to my library then I can put it on my wish list at paperbookswap.com (they swap hardbound books also) and get it for free.
4. I even put my presentation for my CPR classes on it. Now when I teach a class I can use this instead of juggling all my notes. I can even load up my grocery and shopping lists on it and since I can add notes right on my Kindle I can keep a price list and update it while I'm shopping.
So this is why I'm in love ♥ with my Kindle, and not to lazy to turn the page as my family jokes.

Books (Free Downloads) GARDENING, WILD FORAGING AND SELF SUFFICIENCY

I found this great website with lots of free book downloads. So far i've downloaded books on candle and soap making, gardening, Weaving loom plans, spinning, The Homesteader's Handbook To Raising Small Livestock, chicken raising, lots of shortwave radio stuff for my husband, The Formula Manual for making your own recipes for almost everything other than food, Natural Dyeing Of Textiles. You've got to check this out, my Kindle is goingto be filled up with losts of free books to read now.

Click here to go to this amazing collection of downloads.