Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

Your kitchen pharmacy — How common culinary herbs and spices can help you feel better

A young couple moves to the country

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...

Grow some winter squash this year

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Build Your Own Hoop House

By Jackie Clay-Atkinson Issue #171 • May/June, 2018 I’ve had my own garden for more than half a century, and I have learned a few things...

Graft Your Own Designer Fruit Trees

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 pallet fence

Build a Heated Germination Bed

Free pallet wood and birdhouses add up to big country dollars

A salvaged oak floor for $5

Self-Reliance

Water: a safe supply when you’re off the grid

Homestead helpers

By Charles Sanders My parents were children of the Great Depression. They learned to get by on very little, to make or repair or reuse...

Pysanki — You can make those biddies pay!

By Amy E. Peare Issue #86 • March/April, 2004 There are usually two problems with raising chickens. a) You have too many eggs, or b) you...

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?

The world is ending! … Again?

A doomsday scenario to sleep on

Gee-Whiz: Presidents

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

Presidents’ wives of the past Part 3

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

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

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

Firearms

Firearms handling refresher Part I: Handguns

Reload your own brass

By Dale Petry Issue #132 • November/December, 2011 Not long ago a friend called to say he had seen an unusual rifle at the local gun...

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...

Canning game meat

By Linda Gabris Issue #166 • July/August, 2017 Attempting to can meat (or any other low acid food, for that matter) without the use of a...

Preparedness

Survival storeroom

Moving on: A small town can be a haven during a depression

Disaster preparation!

Handy Keychain Mini-Gadgets

Oregon Trail preparedness: What supplies did the settlers carry?

7 Mistakes of food storage

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...