Home - Backwoods Home Magazine

Start a Self-Sufficiency Garden Even in a Cramped Apartment

Forget the dog, chicken is man’s best friend

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

Plant Your Trees in the Spring

By Tom Kovach Issue #61 • January/February, 2000 Winter is a good time to plan your spring tree plantings, deciding what and where you want to...

Want More Fruit From Less Space? Espalier Your Trees!

Here’s a Mighty Creative Way to Protect Your Plants from Animals

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

Make adobe bricks

Here’s an Easier (and Cheaper) Way to Make Wooden Beams

Build your own portable forge

A Kid-Friendly Chicken Coop

Self-Reliance

Cash in on your household junk

Space heater safety tips

By Tom Kovach Issue #90 • November/December, 2004 If you are going to try to take the chill out of your home without turning on your...

The raging torrent — Respect it even when you play

By Scott Stoddard Issue #70 • July/August, 2001 Years ago, while learning to sluice gold from a swollen mountain stream in southern California, I saw something...

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?

Zombie Apocalypse

Science and truth. Are they related?

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

The summer of ’35

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

Biological and chemical weapons through history

The Great Depression — A reminiscence

Firearms

Centennial of the All-American .30-06

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...

Sight and sound enhancement

By Massad Ayoob Issue #71 • September/October, 2001 Enhancing vision and hearing can make you a safer, more effective shooter, and sometimes can save human lives. Captain...

Women and guns

By Massad Ayoob Issue #121 • January/February, 2010 In a time when what used to be called "the women's liberation movement" has achieved many of its...

Preparedness

Hypothermia — A real winter danger

Survival infection control

Start your food storage on $10 a week

Preparing for civil unrest

Your survival depends on water

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...