Book Review: At Home at Dogwood Mudhole

Usually Schoolhouse Review Crew products are for the kids. Or for the "teacher" part of my job description. But this final review product of 2013, was just for me!

At Home in Dogwood Mudhole Volume 1: Nothing that Eats by Franklin Sanders is the first of three volumes, consisting of the newsletters that Franklin Sanders sent out to subscribers to his Moneychanger newsletter over a period of seventeen years.

When the book begins, Franklin is, as many of us were, concerned about Y2K. Partially motivated by these concerns, he and his wife buy land in Tennessee and end up moving not only themselves and their still-at-home-age children, but also some of their older, married children onto this property and begin moving toward a more self-sufficient lifestyle.

In case you were wondering where the title comes from. Dogwood Mudhole is where the Sanders family lives. I'd say "only in Tennessee" except since I live in Pennsylvania where we have towns named everything from Bethlehem to Blue Ball, I guess I can't really say much about Tennessee's interesting addresses, hee hee.  The first volume gets it's subtitle "Nothing that Eats" from the frequent plea of Sanders' wife, Susan whenever he and various of their children attend livestock auctions or flea markets. Despite her plea, they seem to always come home with more livestock or pets and many of the stories in the book revolve, not surprisingly, around those animals, including various dog stories, and many humorous incidents revolving around the family's attempts to figure out how this whole farming thing works, from raising pigs to plowing fields with, not-well-broken, very LARGE, horses. . .

This book was unlike anything else I've ever read. It is humorous, and "down-to-earth" and in many ways like sitting down and listening to an interesting granfatherly-type tell stories of his family.

Franklin Sanders is an interesting guy. He, and several members of his family, enjoy participating in Civil War reenactments as confederates. He provides a fascinating, more pro-confederacy, perspective on the war, the reasons behind it, etc. Definitely not what you're likely to read in any textbooks :)

You can purchase At Home in Dogwood Mudhole Volume 1: Nothing that Eats for $22.95 for paperback or $16.95 for Kindle/ePub/PDF. This is a good book for older teens and adults, I don't think my ten year olds would enjoy it yet.

If you're looking for an entertaining book about life in Tennessee and interesting tips and tidbits on a variety of topics, I'd recommend this book, as a great read!

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All prices are accurate at time of posting.