Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

Constitution of the united States of America

Just for Kids: Some good clean fun!

Build a chicken house in a day

Practical Ideas for Self-Reliant Living

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

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Grow some winter squash this year

Tea for the garden

By Lisa Nourse We have poor soil and do our best to amend it with compost and manure every year. However, we feel our plants...

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

Building a $3,000 Barn

Eye-catching signs with mirrors

Rural Building

Claw Hammers

Self-Reliance

Roger Clark: Cane syrup maker

Start a post-construction cleaning business

By Dorothy Ainsworth Issue #76 • July/August, 2002 Wherever construction is going on, there will be a big mess left in its wake that somebody has...

Seed art — It’s fun to collect the seeds and create these unusual pictures

By Alice B. Yeager Issue #42 • November/December, 1996 Seed art is an old craft going back to long, long ago. Where the art of turning...

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

The world is coming to an end… and this time, I’m not kidding

Gee-Whiz: Coffee

Three more ways the world can end … and I’m not kidding

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

Declaration of Independence: The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

Grandpa’s justice

The time-travel ad

Feeling nostalgic? Now you’ll rave! Here’s the story of Burma Shave.

Firearms

Get a piece of history — An M1 Garand rifle

Frontier style handguns for the modern backwoods home

By Massad Ayoob Issue #101 • September/October, 2006 The year was 1873. Samuel Colt had invented the revolveror at least introduced it to Americain 1836. The...

Canning game meat

By Linda Gabris Issue #166 • July/August, 2017 Attempting to can meat (or any other low acid food, for that matter) without the use of a...

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...

Preparedness

Changing the odds in home fire protection

Wildfires: Before, During, After

Keep the Ice On

No dentist? Oh, no!

Prepper power! Part 2

7 Mistakes of food storage

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...