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Roasting coffee on a wood stove

A view of self-reliance from a more timid perspective — A woman’s opinion

How we found our remote backwoods home

Woodbarrow

By Setanta O’Ceillaigh When I first abandoned a slum town and fled back to the countryside I gathered and carried firewood with a laundry basket....

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Grow some winter squash this year

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

The $1 Garden

By Jonathan Nunan Issue #122 • March/April, 2010 The dollar garden is simple in concept: buy as many seeds as you can for one dollar and...

Converting a Gasoline-Powered Rototiller to Electric

Green or Yellow: Grow Your Best Bush Beans Ever

Caring for your chickens in winter

Follow Jackie Clay-Atkinson and her husband, Will, as they homestead a 120-acre piece of northern Minnesotan woods entirely off-grid. Sharing their homestead are horses, beef cattle, a milk cow, dairy goats, chickens and turkeys.

Massad Ayoob on Guns

This blog, from a retired police captain and self-defense instructor, covers the use of different firearms, political musings, and self-defense tactics.

Building

Ambidextrous chainsaw filing

Build a pallet fence

Parge the ugly out of your concrete wall

Building your chicken coop

Self-Reliance

Making maple syrup

Self-reliance for women — Surviving a biochemical attack

By Kelly McCarthy Issue #94 • July/August, 2005 Three and a half years ago, on the morning of September 11th to be exact, I was just...

Homeschooling your dylsexic kid

By John Silveira Issue #142 • July/August, 2013 I write and edit for a living. I'm the senior editor for Backwoods Home Magazine for which I've...

Animals

The homestead cat

By Jackie Clay-Atkinson We have had at least one cat in our home ever since I was a young child. So it’s no wonder we...

Cheaper than Store-Bought Eggs

Raising your own beef

Fermenting Chicken Feed

Keeping homestead animals healthy

Science and Education

Theories of the universe

Testing Soil

Can we make a Tyrannosaurus rex from a chicken?

The coming ice age

Energy

Solar power for farm and ranch

By Jeffrey R. Yago, P.E. It may be surprising to learn that there are now all kinds of do-it-yourself solar powered devices specifically designed to...

Power-up bag

Amateur Ham Radio – The Ultimate Tool for Survival Communications

Keep the Ice On

Power Up

Americana and History

Fly it proudly and properly

the gee-whiz! page: Animals, humans, extraterrestrials, and tools

Presidents’ wives of the past Part 3

Oregon Trail preparedness: What supplies did the settlers carry?

Firearms

Firearms — Tools of rural living

How big a gun do you need?

By Massad Ayoob Issue #99 • May/June, 2006 We Americans like to do things in a big way. Big houses. Big cars. Big boats. And, yes,...

Firearms handling refresher Part II: Shotguns

By Massad Ayoob Website Exclusive • December, 2003 In Part I, we began a series of refreshers on safety and proper handling of firearms. This time,...

Firearms handling refresher Part III: Rifles

By Massad Ayoob Website Exclusive • January, 2004 Our three part series on firearms handling ends with this installment. In Part I, we covered handguns and...

Preparedness

Start a fire in any weather

Changing the odds in home fire protection

Emergency planning beyond the bug-out bag

Handy Keychain Mini-Gadgets

Moving on: A small town can be a haven during a depression

Storm survivors

Articles By Dave Duffy

My View: Call Me Miracle Man!

By Dave Duffy Issue #177 • July/August/September, 2019 Superheroes are the rage these days at movie theaters. Even I am fascinated by them. Old style heroes...