A Thrifty Good Life: Reflections on My Unexpected Journey Toward Homegrown Simplicity and Healing

A collection of stories and how-to's from her unlikely urban homesteading journey, A Thrifty Good Life is packed with beautiful photos and inspiring, homegrown recipes from a passionate, Italian mother of four. Though Mother Earth News Magazine named Sarah Sailer and her family "Homesteaders of the Year" in 2014, Sarah wasn't raised knowing any of these old-world skills. "I was raised in an affluent family with not much mention of thrift. At my oldest daughter’s age, I knew more about how to pick the right lipstick at the Macy’s makeup counter than how to choose the right poultry breed." Faced with illness and tight finances, she decided to dig up the front lawn and try growing her own food. She had no idea she was about to discover a whole new way to live. Her choice led to healing for their bodies, and the birth of a neighborhood village. She found herself falling in love with a life her Italian ancestors had once lived—a life rooted in the earth and connected to community. Sarah shares honest stories of heartbreak and failure, excitement and thrill as one crazy thing led to another. Growing vegetables led to learning how to ferment vegetables, then the gritty process of butchering animals, building a greenhouse and her own wood-fired oven. This family of 6 didn't leave and buy land in the country. They stayed in their small house just a few blocks from downtown. What began as their own front yard experiment led to them farming the neighborhood in six downtown yards. Far from a typical life, Sarah's four daughters raise backyard animals, help preserve the harvest and bake sourdough in their outdoor oven. "I never expected that moving compost and growing vegetables would become a passion, but I accidentally fell in love with this simple, homegrown life. I'm now convinced, it's the richest life there is." A Thrifty Good Life is an Independent Book Publisher's Association Benjamin Franklin Silver Award winning book for 2017.