Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

Build a 6500-gallon concrete water tank for $1500

Food security 101, part 3: Why I love my vacuum sealer (and more)

Build an Off-Grid Root Cellar, Garage, and Bunkhouse

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

The $1 Garden

By Jonathan Nunan Issue #122 • March/April, 2010 The dollar garden is simple in concept: buy as many seeds as you can for one dollar and...

Use Plastic to Get a Head Start on Corn in the...

Plant Your Irish Potatoes This Fall or Winter

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

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

Determined woman builds distinctive vertical log studio

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

Making and using a solar cooker

A house a tornado helped build

Self-Reliance

Life-saving snowshoes

What to do when there’s no doctor

By Gary F. Arnet, D.D.S. Issue #75 • May/June, 2002 We are used to being able to see a doctor at any time for any reason,...

Annie on Everfree Farm, Part I

By Annie Tuttle Issue #145 • January/February, 2014 So here we are. Truth be told, it was a complete accident that we...

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: Sleep

The world is ending! … Again?

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

Gee-Whiz: Trees

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

The barnyard scramble

Habeeb Salloum — Poet, Traveler, Recipe Writer

Grandpa’s justice

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

Firearms

Hiding a gun — The rules of three

Frontier style handguns for the modern backwoods home

By Massad Ayoob Issue #101 • September/October, 2006 The year was 1873. Samuel Colt had invented the revolveror at least introduced it to Americain 1836. The...

Just because

By Massad Ayoob Issue #144 • November/December, 2013 I generally recommend that people buy guns the way they'd buy power tools, or automobiles, or homes. Assess...

How long should your gun’s barrel length be?

By Massad Ayoob Issue #136 • July/August, 2012 The person new to guns is like the person new to timepieces. "How many of these things are...

Preparedness

Protein — The Cornerstone of a Survival Diet

Avoiding heat illness

Prepper power! Part 1

Bugging out in place

Your survival depends on water

Keep the Ice On

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...