Home - Backwoods Home Magazine

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

Livestock fencing for the small homesteader, part 2

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....

Grow some winter squash this year

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Fermenting Chicken Feed

By Melissa Souza Issue #174 • November/December, 2018 On our homestead, we eat yogurt, kombucha (fermented tea), sauerkraut, and kimchi to add probiotics to our diet....

Start a Self-Sufficiency Garden Even in a Cramped Apartment

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

Shake update

Build a Concrete Root Cellar

Renovating old walls

Building a $3,000 Barn

Self-Reliance

How we found our remote backwoods home

Make coiled rugs from scrap material

By Robert Van Putten Issue #164 • March/April, 2017 Remember that old rag rug Great-grandma made? Chances are, most country homes have one or two of...

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...

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

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

Gee-Whiz: Dinosaurs

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

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

Constitution of the united States of America

Remembering what grandma used

The Great Depression — A reminiscence

Oregon Trail preparedness: What supplies did the settlers carry?

Firearms

How to shoot a handgun accurately

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,...

Thoughts on ammunition

By Massad Ayoob Issue #108 • November/December, 2007 Ammunition is to firearms as gasoline is to automobiles. However, with guns and ammo, the fit isn't quite...

Reload your own brass

By Dale Petry Issue #132 • November/December, 2011 Not long ago a friend called to say he had seen an unusual rifle at the local gun...

Preparedness

Avoiding heat illness

Wildfires: Before, During, After

The return of home emergency shelters takes on a dual-purpose approach

Dollar Store to the Rescue

Buying the right emergency radio

Build a community assistance recharging station

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...