Home - Backwoods Home Magazine

Broody biddies make sense on the homestead

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

Mid-season planting

By Jackie Clay-Atkinson As the saying goes “Life happens…” Maybe events have kept you from getting your garden planted early in the spring. When we...

Elderberries — Hospitality, Health, And Beauty

Plant Your Irish Potatoes This Fall or Winter

Plant Your Trees in the Spring

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

A recycled dresser makes a useful bathroom vanity

Gabion walls for form and function

Stairs — The next level

Build a log crib

Self-Reliance

An easier way to cut firewood By Larry LaVan

Shearing, carding, spinning, weaving and creating with Margaret Boos

By Annie Duffy Issue #52 • July/August, 1998 "If you're going to make something that you want to last, why not start with good quality material,"...

13 steps to a life of freedom

By Mary Ann Wutzke Issue #76 • July/August, 2002 My husband and I have lived in the desert and mountain back country of Arizona since 1988....

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: Trees

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

The coming ice age

Gee-Whiz: From Paper to Canning

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

President George Washington’s Farewell Address

Grandpa’s justice

George Washington Carver — He wrote the book on self-reliance

The vanishing outhouse

Firearms

Big boomer guns

Choose your ammo… police style

By Massad Ayoob Issue #93 • May/June, 2005 One of our greatest modern gun experts, Lt. Col. Jeff Cooper, USMC, Ret., once made the observation that...

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...

The light at the end of the gun

By Massad Ayoob Issue #128 • March/April, 2011 Dave writes, "A few weeks ago I had to shoot a skunk in the chicken house, but the...

Preparedness

Disaster preparation!

Power-up bag

With commonsense planning, you can survive hard times

Your survival depends on water

Bartering for bad times

Avoiding heat illness

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...