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Kinder goats — A small breed for milk and meat

The coffee mug knife sharpener

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

How to become a backyard beekeeper

By Sheri Jones If you’ve been intrigued by the idea of becoming a beekeeper but think you don’t have the space, resources, or knowledge, you’re...

Starting a Roadside Farm Stand

Build an Old-Fashioned Hotbed and Start Your Seeds in Style

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

Three Raised Bed Designs

Ambidextrous chainsaw filing

Build Your Own Hoop House

Trusses — Low cost marvels to roof over most large spaces

Self-Reliance

Jackie’s tips for hardcore homesteading

This country job really rocks

By Charles Sanders Issue #105 • May/June, 2007 Down here in the hills and hollers of southern Indiana, there is...

Start a fire in any weather

By Charles Sanders Issue #161 • September/October, 2016 Most of us living in the backwoods are comfortable with utilizing fire as a tool. We use fire...

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: Insects

The world is ending! … Again?

Theories of the universe

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

From Martha and Abigail to Dolley and Louisa, America’s earliest First Ladies were fascinating

The barnyard scramble

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

Grandpa’s justice

Firearms

How to shoot a handgun accurately

Answering some well asked questions about personal defense

By Massad Ayoob Issue #97 • January/February, 2006 Jeff Yago, Backwoods Home's energy writer, recently completed a couple of concealed carry handgun courses. The classes apparently...

Of guns and snakes

By Massad Ayoob Issue #151 • January/February, 2015 Mas safely kills a rattlesnake in a populated area. (Note angle of gun and trajectory.) Pistol is a...

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,...

Preparedness

Circle of friends

Use solar landscape lights for emergencies

Start your food storage on $10 a week

7 Mistakes of food storage

What to do when there’s no doctor

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...