Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

Dorper sheep — Revolutionizing the meat sheep industry

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

Propagating Plants

By Jackie Clay Issue #128 • March/April, 2011 We all love the idea of having a big, productive garden, full of all the nutritious, tasty foods...

Making Apple Cider with a Homemade Press

Growing Productive Strawberries

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 compost tumbler

Free pallet wood and birdhouses add up to big country dollars

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

Build a poultry killing cone

Self-Reliance

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

The community treasure chest

By Sandy Coates Issue #114 • November/December, 2008 Do you have odds and ends sitting around that you no longer need? Are you a "green" thinker,...

Make coiled rugs from scrap material

By Robert Van Putten Issue #164 • March/April, 2017 Remember that old rag rug Great-grandma made? Chances are, most country homes have one or two 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

Gee-Whiz: Insects

Gee-Whiz: Trees

Gee-Whiz: Presidents

Gee-Whiz: Bad Fish, Big Fish

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

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

Presidents’ wives of the past Part 4 — Cunning, vindictive, and one may have been a murderess

Grandpa’s justice

Firearms

Firearms — Tools of rural living

The subtleties of safe firearms handling

By Massad Ayoob Issue #103 • January/February, 2007 There are so many makes and models of firearms in existence that no one has ever counted them...

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...

A used shotgun bargain: The Browning Auto-5

By Brad Rohdenburg Website Exclusive • September, 2014 A 1958 "Light Twelve" Browning Auto-5, with a 28" Improved Cylinder barrel and 'Speedfeed' loading. It weighs less...

Preparedness

Power Up

Oregon Trail preparedness: What supplies did the settlers carry?

Homestead security for women

7 Mistakes of food storage

Preparedness for travelers

Prepper power! Part 1

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...