Farewell My Subaru

Advance praise for Farewell, My Subaru “Fine is Bryson Funny.” ——Santa Cruz Sentinel “Fine is an amiable and self-deprecating storyteller in the mold of Douglas Adams. If you're a fan of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-style humor -- and also looking to find out how to raise your own livestock to feed your ice-cream fetish -- Farewell may prove a vital tool.” —— The Washington Post “Fine is an eco-hero for our time..” —— Miami Herald “An afterward offers solid advice and sources for learning more.” —— On Earth Magazine, Natural Resources Defense Fund “This is Green Acres for the smart set—: a witty and educational look at sustainable living. Buy it, read it, compost it.” –A. J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically “The details of Doug Fine’s experiment in green living are great fun——but more important is the spirit, the dawning understanding that living in connection to something more tangible than a computer mouse is what we were built for. It’ll make you want to move!” –Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future Like many Americans, Doug Fine enjoys his creature comforts, but he also knows full well they keep him addicted to oil. So he wonders: Is it possible to keep his Netflix and his car, his Wi-Fi and his subwoofers, and still reduce his carbon footprint? In an attempt to find out, Fine up and moves to a remote ranch in New Mexico, where he brazenly vows to grow his own food, use sunlight to power his world, and drive on restaurant grease. Never mind that he’s never raised so much as a chicken or a bean. Or that he has no mechanical or electrical skills. Whether installing Japanese solar panels, defending the goats he found on Craigslist against coyotes, or co-opting waste oil from the local Chinese restaurant to try and fill the new “veggie oil” tank in his ROAT (short for Ridiculously Oversized American Truck), Fine’s extraordinary undertaking makes one thing clear: It ain’t easy being green. In fact, his journey uncovers a slew of surprising facts about alternative energy, organic and locally grown food, and climate change. Both a hilarious romp and an inspiring call to action, Farewell, My Subaru makes a profound statement about trading today’s instant gratifications for a deeper, more enduring kind of satisfaction.

Reprint. Originally published: c2012. With a new afterword.

"Disillusioned with their lives, Linda Cockburn and Trevor Wittmer decide this is how to break the cycle of too much work and too little time for doing the things that are important, like spending time with their son, Caleb. Their idea of living sustainably on a suburban block is simple and perfect. By drawing all their power from the sun, harvesting their water from the rain and growing enough produce to give them variety, they can do something positive for the environment and for themselves. For six months they take it to the extreme - and come up against a drought, an onslaught of fruit fly, and the demands of an unruly goat called Possum. But they also become fitter, healthier and happier, and delight in the simple pleasures of being reconnected with nature. Join them on their journey - share their recipes and tips for how to live more sustainably and learn astounding facts on the state of the Earth. This is a practical, fascinating and inspiring read that will have you looking afresh at your own backyard." -Back cover.

"Just A Couple of Chickens" is a genuinely enjoyable read. Laugh out loud funny, informative and utterly timely. It is a poignant and very real story of one family's poultry raising adventure during a five-year crucible of economic and identity crisis that took on national relevance when their contracting business collapsed under the first wave of the economic crash in 2008. Their story hits home with heart-breaking reality. While getting a couple of chickens may have been Andrew's idea, Corinne was the one who took it over the top with thirty fluffy pheasant, five and twenty chickens, over forty Chukar, and fifteen ducklings. There were also twelve smelly quail, nine girl geese, two roosters, and a partridge in a pine tree. They were farming by Internet on a two-acre parcel near Santa Fe, New Mexico, scrabbling through the canyon that separates knowledge and experience when it comes to raising poultry. Corinne created www.TheFeatheredEgg.com a web-based business that arose like a phoenix from the eggs and feathers from the flock. She approaches her role as mother, wife, and businessman with a unique perspective that she captures with droll clarity and good humor. Chicken farming was only the most recent use of her BA in Industrial/Scientific Photography from the Brooks Institute of Photography. This book is yet another, featuring her portraits of the family's feathered friends.

Now here's a formula for near disaster: East Coast big-city guy, world-traveler, jounalist, and otherwise politically savvy fellow settles down in rural Alaska, where men are many and manly, and women with survival skills are good to count among your friends. He wants to fit in. But how does one learn to be a Mountain Man? By observing, imitating, and making near-fatal mistakes, that's how. The choices a boy has to make. Eat processed food or on-the-hoof food, learn to operate a chainsaw or freeze to death, figure out what a bunny boot is or lose a few toes, and by the way, which end of he barrel points up? This is the story of Doug's first difficult winter in a one-room cabin, trying to stay alive and come out of it with some semblance of Alaska cool. With side-splitting, self-depreciating humor, Doug shares his attempts to elevate himself past his perpetual state of greenhorn-ness by aligning himself with tough sourdoughs to someday claim the title of manly Mountain Man.

Imagine living for an entire year without money. Where do you live? What do you eat? How do you stay in touch with your friends and family? Former businessman Mark Boyle thought he’d give it a try. In a world of seasonal foods, solar panels, skill-swapping schemes, cuttlefish toothpaste, and compost toilets, Boyle puts the fun into frugality and offers some great tips for economical and environmentally friendly living. By following his own strict rules, he learns ingenious ways to eliminate his bills and flourish for free. Heart-warming, witty, and full of money-saving tips, The Moneyless Man will inspire you to ask what really matters in life.

Nio Nakatani, known for her delicate and heartwarming portrayal of girls’ love, presents a marvelous collection of short stories that span her whole career. With works including her striking debut title Farewell to My Alter, enthralling tales from the Éclair anthologies, and a hauntingly captivating piece penned exclusively for this volume, Nakatani explores the deeper nuances of loss, identity, and matters of the heart.

From the author of The Latehomecomer, a powerful memoir of her father, a Hmong song poet who sacrificed his gift for his children's future in America In the Hmong tradition, the song poet recounts the story of his people, their history and tragedies, joys and losses; extemporizing or drawing on folk tales, he keeps the past alive, invokes the spirits and the homeland, and records courtships, births, weddings, and wishes. Following her award-winning book The Latehomecomer, Kao Kalia Yang now retells the life of her father Bee Yang, the song poet, a Hmong refugee in Minnesota, driven from the mountains of Laos by American's Secret War. Bee lost his father as a young boy and keenly felt his orphanhood. He would wander from one neighbor to the next, collecting the things they said to each other, whispering the words to himself at night until, one day, a song was born. Bee sings the life of his people through the war-torn jungle and a Thai refugee camp. But the songs fall away in the cold, bitter world of a Minneapolis housing project and on the factory floor until, with the death of Bee's mother, the songs leave him for good. But before they do, Bee, with his poetry, has polished a life of poverty for his children, burnished their grim reality so that they might shine. Written with the exquisite beauty for which Kao Kalia Yang is renowned, The Song Poet is a love story -- of a daughter for her father, a father for his children, a people for their land, their traditions, and all that they have lost.