New Book Focuses On Self-Sustainability

“Made from Scratch” by Jenna Woginrich, 2008, Storey Publishing, $20.95/$28.95 Canada, 192 pages: Eggs have gone up in price. So have fruit, milk and cheese. Vegetables, too. In fact, everything you put on your table costs more these days than it ever did before. You try to bargain shop and get the best deals, but budgeting is a sure challenge.
And clothes? Don’t even mention clothes. Every lost mitten or cap, every outgrown pair of jeans means a needed replacement, and replacements aren’t exactly free.
Another trip to the store gets you thinking. Maybe you could start a garden somewhere. You could learn to sew. Or, if the timing is good, you could shuck the city and move to a homestead where you’d live like a pioneer. It might be cheaper, right?
Cheaper, maybe not. But definitely more satisfying, as you’ll read in the new book “Made from Scratch” by Jenna Woginrich.
After moving from Tennessee to Idaho for the sake of a job, Woginrich began to think about self-sustainability.
Tired of processed bread and big-box stores, the idea of homesteading appealed to her. She imagined what it would be like to bake bread, make her own clothes and live on a little farm with gentle cows, fluffy sheep and a few hens scratching in the dirt.
Woginrich found a like-minded mentor at, of all places, her “day job.” Diana and her husband, owners of Floating Leaf Farm, invited Woginrich to enjoy the drama in their barnyard (“Farm TV,” as they called it) and dream of her own homestead. It was there that Woginrich decided she wanted chickens first.
The baby Silkies (a type of chicken) came to the post office, peeping among 50 other fluffballs in Diana’s shipment of chicks. Woginrich whisked her babies home but alas, her Husky dogs found them, and there were no more chicks.
Undaunted, Woginrich borrowed older chickens and was delighted by different-colored eggs. She then tried gardening: hand-hoeing first, then learning to grow food on raised-bed plots.
Her backyard soon hummed with Italian honeybees, and Angora rabbits followed not long after. Woginrich also learned the hard lesson that being a steward of live creatures isn’t always easy.
In her zeal to get back to a simpler life, Woginrich learned to sew and bake using antique kitchen tools. Finally, she learned to put more excitement into winter by using her Huskies to mush in the slush.
When the world is going in a direction that many people don’t like, it’s appealing to think about turning back the clock. “Made from Scratch” makes the yearning a little keener.
Author Woginrich is charmingly naïve but eager to learn in each chapter, and readers will cheer as she stumbles through her projects.
At the end of the chapters are hints and tips for city dwellers and farm-newbies. That makes this book of no real help for experienced farmers, but Woginrich’s enthusiasm is still too fun to miss.
No matter whether you’re a farmer or a farmer-wanna-be, plant yourself in a chair and grab this book. “Made from Scratch” is something you’ll be itching to read.

‘ALEX’ REVIEW
“Alex & Me” by Irene M. Pepperberg, read by Julia Gibson, 2008, HarperAudio, $29.95/$31.95 Canada, 5.5 hours/5 CDs: According to a recent poll, more than two-thirds of us pet owners believe we know what Fido and Fluffy are saying by their woofs and meows. Most people also say their animals understand English and recognize lots of words.
But how intelligent are animals? Pet lovers are adamant that their four-legged friends are smarter than scientists are willing to admit, but everybody knows that pets can’t say human words.
Or can they? What if your non-human family member told you to “Chill out!” or said “I love you, be good”? In the new audiobook “Alex & Me” by Irene M. Pepperberg, you’ll learn about a bird that was definitely no birdbrain.
When Pepperberg was a small child, her beloved father gave her a pet bird.
While she doesn’t remember the creature’s name, she remembers the impact it had on her: that bird, and all those which came after it, were her constant childhood companions.
Although she later had her sights set on a career in chemistry, Pepperberg says that many life-events pointed in a direction that she should’ve heeded long before she did. She had always loved animals – birds in particular – and they seemed to trust her completely. When the then-new science of human-animal communication began to catch the fancy of researchers and animal lovers, Pepperberg immediately wanted in on it.
In June 1977, she adopted an African Grey parrot she named “Alex,” which, she says, was an acronym for Avian Language (later, Labeling) EXperiment. Pepperberg set about teaching the bird to “label” items. Because scientists often hate anthropomorphization, Pepperberg says she was reluctant to call Alex’s abilities “language.”
Either way, the bird was a willing pupil.
Although Pepperberg says that Alex’s brain was approximately the size of a walnut, he learned to distinguish colors, shapes, sizes and differences. He was able to use phrases in correct context. He made jokes and knew how to annoy Pepperberg and her assistants. Alex had attitude, smugly correcting other birds in the lab when they were wrong and demanding treats when he wanted them. As Alex’s abilities increased, so did his fame: when he died, his obituary was seen around the world.
“Alex & Me” in audio starts out clunky. Much of the first disc is a confusing maelstrom recounting the days after Alex’s death, including several notes to Pepperberg of grief and support from parrot lovers. It sets the stage for what’s to come, but it could have been shortened by half. Get past that, though, and you won’t mind the clunkiness because you’ll be too busy being charmed.
Author Pepperberg’s story is one of perseverance, determination, steadfastness in a scientific world that said she couldn’t do what she did and – most of all – a love story to a lab partner with a wicked sense of humor and very definite opinions.
Animal lovers, open-minded scientists, and anyone who refuses to accept the words “dumb animal” will love this audiobook. Pick up your own copy of “Alex & Me.” It’s a story you’ll squawk over.

TERRI SCHLICHENMEYER has been reading since she was 3 years old and never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 11,000 books.