Home - Backwoods Home Magazine

Build a portable woodstove for $30

A house a tornado helped build

Practical Ideas for Self-Reliant Living

Grow some winter squash this year

By Lisa Nourse I love summertime — I love the green of the trees, the warm weather, and growing my own food. I especially love...

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Gardening for Treasure

By Alice B. Yeager Tomatoes are a boon to mankind in health benefits. It doesn't matter whether they are the large...

Save Time and Energy with the Fenced Chicken Coop/Garden

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

Cheaper than Store-Bought Eggs

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

Build a Top-Bar Bee Hive

For large quantity food dehydration try this homemade gem from the past

Claw Hammers

Never underestimate a woman

Self-Reliance

What to do when there’s no doctor

Sewing and using cloth diapers is easier than you think

By Annie Tuttle Issue #113 • September/October, 2008 I'll admit that it was the pastoral vision of a laundry line full of sun-bleached diapers above barefooted,...

Homemade pest traps

By Patrice Lewis Issue #164 • March/April, 2017 Last summer, my little compost bucket near the kitchen sink became home to a zillion fruit flies. Once...

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

Gee-Whiz: Insects

Subduction zone tsunami — What the residents of the Pacific Northwest have to fear

The world is ending! … Again?

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

Quilts — Masterpieces of the heart and windows into women’s history

Oregon Trail preparedness: What supplies did the settlers carry?

Presidents’ wives of the past Part 4 — Cunning, vindictive, and one may have been a murderess

Constitution of the united States of America

Firearms

Canning game meat

Affordable firearms

By Massad Ayoob Issue #134 • March/April, 2012 Knowing that frugality is one of the cornerstones of rural living, Editor Annie Tuttle suggested that I tackle...

The Appleseed Project

By Massad Ayoob Issue #123 • May/June, 2010 There is nothing else in the shooting world quite like the Appleseed Project, which combines American Revolutionary War...

The time for modern; the time for traditional

By Massad Ayoob Issue #137 • September/October, 2012 Traditional "old skool" guns, or the most modern and efficient ballistic hardware that money can buy? I asked...

Preparedness

Keep the Ice On

The fire wick fire starter

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

Handy Keychain Mini-Gadgets

Prepper power! Part 1

Your survival depends on water

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...