Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

Finding, buying, milking, and living with the family milk cow

Teach your kids math with the banking game

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

By John Silveira While we are waiting for the Coronavirus pandemic to subside enough so society can get back to normal, there are powerful and...

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Grow some winter squash this year

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...

Start a Self-Sufficiency Garden Even in a Cramped Apartment

Seven tactics for planning next year’s garden

Save Time and Energy with the Fenced Chicken Coop/Garden

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

Small engine maintenance for women

Building your chicken coop

Building Eric’s house

Build a deluxe barrel stove

Self-Reliance

Making maple syrup

Homestead security for women

By Donna Insco Issue #143 • September/October, 2013 In these tough economic times, many women are finding themselves alone for long hours on the homestead. As...

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

By Rowena Aldridge Issue #140 • March/April, 2013 In parts one and two (Issues #138 and #139), we covered basics and homemade convenience foods. Now that...

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: Dinosaurs

The coming ice age

Gee-Whiz: Coffee

Can we make a Tyrannosaurus rex from a chicken?

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

George Washington Carver — He wrote the book on self-reliance

the gee-whiz! page: Animals, humans, extraterrestrials, and tools

Biological and chemical weapons through history

Firearms

The M1A — A rifle that makes a statement

Affordable firearms

By Massad Ayoob Issue #134 • March/April, 2012 Knowing that frugality is one of the cornerstones of rural living, Editor Annie Tuttle suggested that I tackle...

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...

Bury a gun and ammo for 15 years

(and be assured everything still works when you dig it up) By Charles Wood Issue #115 • January/February, 2009 Back in the early 1990s the outlook for the...

Preparedness

No dentist? Oh, no!

A survival key ring — Your everyday tool for emergency preparedness

Changing the odds in home fire protection

Bartering for bad times

Building and stocking your pantry

Avoiding heat illness

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...