Home - Backwoods Home Magazine

Build an Old-Fashioned Hotbed and Start Your Seeds in Style

PVC pipe in the home, garden, farm, and workshop

Practical Ideas for Self-Reliant Living

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

By Linda Gabris When I was growing up in the rural woods, Grandpa and I did a lot of fishing from spring through fall so...

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Grow some winter squash this year

By Hook or Crook: A Billhook is a Handy Homestead Tool

By R.E. Rawlinson Issue #173 • September/October, 2018 When compared to our ancestors, we are very lucky to have readily-available tools. Stores are full of anything...

A Small Space Yields a Big Crop of Garlic

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

Here’s an Easier (and Cheaper) Way to Make Wooden Beams

Build your own home in two years — Get a PhD in homebuilding

Build a log crib

How to Install a Steel Roof

Self-Reliance

Dealing with heat stress

Seventeen great tips for caring for windows, mirrors, and other household glass

By Sandy Lindsey Issue #43 • January/February, 1997 1 To make windows and mirrors sparkle, dip a clean cloth in a 50/50 mixture of borax and...

Life-saving snowshoes

By Len McDougall Issue #126 • November/December, 2010 If you live in or drive through places where winter generally means having snow on the ground from...

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

The many benefits of garlic

Gee-Whiz: Ice Ages, Past and Future

Gee-Whiz: Coffee

Can we make a Tyrannosaurus rex from a chicken?

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

Grandpa’s justice

The time-travel ad

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

Fly it proudly and properly

Firearms

Building the coyote rifle

How to shoot a handgun accurately

By Massad Ayoob Issue #85 • January/February, 2004 "I want you to do an article on how to shoot a handgun accurately," Dave Duffy told me....

Hunting, processing, and serving black bear

By Linda Gabris Issue #162 • November/December, 2016 Bear was a popular meat in our house when I was growing up in the rural woods. Black...

Savage Model 110 — A proven economical backwoods rifle

By Massad Ayoob Website Exclusive • July, 2008 Fifty years ago, Savage Arms introduced a new bolt-action sporting rifle. In the gun world, this was news....

Preparedness

Preparing for civil unrest

Use solar landscape lights for emergencies

Power-up bag

Dollar Store to the Rescue

Buying the right emergency radio

Survival firebuilding skills

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...