Home - Backwoods Home Magazine

Breastfeeding — Babies love it, and for good reason

Broody biddies make sense on the homestead

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

Practical Ideas for Self-Reliant Living

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...

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Grow some winter squash this year

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...

Swiss Chard — The Leaf Vegetable That Keeps on Giving!

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

Build a holz hausen to dry firewood

Gabion walls for form and function

Build Your Own Hoop House

From triumph to tragedy to triumph again. Dorothy Ainsworth makes her valiant comeback

Self-Reliance

Building and stocking your pantry

Avoiding heat illness

By Dr. Gary F. Arnet Drink early and often to avoid dehydration. The body normally needs two to three...

Just for Kids: Some good clean fun!

By Lucy Shober Issue #24 • November/December, 1993 Click on pictures for printable, full-sized versions to color. When a chill hits the air and the first cool...

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: Insects

Testing Soil

Gee-Whiz: Alcohol

Science and truth. Are they related?

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

The summer of ’35

Biological and chemical weapons through history

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

Firearms

How to shoot a handgun accurately

Firearms — Tools of rural living

By Massad Ayoob Issue #91 • January/February, 2005 So, editor Dave Duffy and I got to talking about guns. We agreed that for some people they...

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...

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

Bartering for bad times

Survival firebuilding skills

A survival key ring — Your everyday tool for emergency preparedness

7 Mistakes of food storage

Buying the right emergency radio

Wildfires: Before, During, After

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...