Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

Your survival depends on water

A canoe livery — An honest, clean business

Use Old Newspapers to Make Your Starter Pots

This St. Bernard backwoods hero saved old Grandma’s life

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

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

How to Grow Garlic

By Melissa Souza Issue #167 • September/October, 2017 Garlic is easy and rewarding to grow. I use it throughout the year, as it is extremely easy...

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

Secure and Economical Livestock Feed

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 Kid-Friendly Chicken Coop

A recycled dresser makes a useful bathroom vanity

Build a ski sled

Make a fully functional cold storage pit/mound and enjoy your garden’s production all winter

Self-Reliance

10 day survival pack for your vehicle for just $25

Caring for wounds in the field

By Bill Glade, M.D. Issue #75 • May/June, 2002 The beautiful remote Canadian lake has provided a bountiful supply of fresh fish. You are cleaning the...

Intake and exhaust upgrades for better mileage and performance

By Len Torney Issue #120 • November/December, 2009 Well, it seems the price of oil and gasoline has peaked and plummeted, much like a lot of...

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

How big is the solar system?

Gee-Whiz: Ice Ages, Past and Future

The world is ending! … Again?

Testing Soil

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

Former first ladies — Beautiful, brilliant, crazy

Who were the best…and worst U.S. Presidents?

Constitution of the united States of America

Presidents’ wives of the past Part 3

Firearms

Get a piece of history — An M1 Garand rifle

Consider the 20-gauge shotgun

By Massad Ayoob Issue #120 • November/December, 2009 A year or more ago in these pages, I made the suggestion that sometimes less is more, and...

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...

The time for modern; the time for traditional

By Massad Ayoob Issue #137 • September/October, 2012 Traditional "old skool" guns, or the most modern and efficient ballistic hardware that money can buy? I asked...

Preparedness

Power Up

Disaster preparation!

Changing the odds in home fire protection

Emergency treatment for fire-related injuries

The Five “P”s: A fire evacuation grab ‘n’ go kit

Dollar Store to the Rescue

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...