Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

Start your food storage on $10 a week

I heat my house by burning corn

For summertime baking needs, build yourself an outdoor horno

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...

Grow some winter squash this year

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Put Your Garden to Bed for the Winter

By Jackie Clay Issue #95 • September/October, 2005 During the crispy fall afternoons, we listen often and intently to the weather forecasts. "It's going to be...

Graft Your Own Designer Fruit Trees

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 barrel stove

Build a ski sled

Save Time and Energy with the Fenced Chicken Coop/Garden

Self-Reliance

Make elderberry syrup for flu season

Help your home survive in the path of a wildfire

By Brent Stainer These firefighters fought hard to save this house, but the best...

Teach speed reading to your children even if you can’t speed read yourself

By George Stancliffe Issue #59 • September/October, 1999 For over two years, I have had the hobby of teaching speed reading to people in the community...

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

Testing Soil

The gee-whiz! page — Cats: Why they rule our world

The ‘risks’ with Swine Flu

Gee-Whiz: Alcohol

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

Doesn’t anyone remember Tom Paine

Biological and chemical weapons through history

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

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

Firearms

BHM hosts Appleseed marksmanship event

Picking a holster

By Massad Ayoob Issue #69 • May/June, 2001 One good thing about being out in the boonies by yourself is that you can carry a gun...

The M1A — A rifle that makes a statement

By Massad Ayoob Issue #45 • May/June, 1997 I take the Springfield Armory rifle out of the box, and savor it. I seldom do that with...

Inexpensive retired Russian military rifles can be the ideal backwoods meat guns

By Rev. J.D. Hooker Issue #47 • September/October, 1997 Like many another rural person, I've often found a firearm to be my most important tool. No,...

Preparedness

Start your food storage on $10 a week

Dollar Store to the Rescue

What to do when there’s no doctor

Wildfires: Before, During, After

Frostbite — Don’t flirt with this sneaky danger

Gee-Whiz: From Paper to Canning

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...