Home - Backwoods Home Magazine

Free pallet wood and birdhouses add up to big country dollars

Grow some winter squash this year

By Lisa Nourse I love summertime — I love the green of the trees, the warm weather, and growing my own food. I especially love...

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

The Potato Hole

By Sylvia Gist Issue #137 • September/October, 2012 Carrots go in sand in the green pail and potatoes can be sorted by type into plastic mesh...

Put Your Garden to Bed for the Winter

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

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

Build a compost tumbler

Turning a $10,000 House into a Home — Part 1: Salvaging the Wreck

Herb Boxes from Fence Boards

Self-Reliance

Making apple pectin

The coffee mug knife sharpener

By Michael Cantrell Issue #105 • May/June, 2007 Not too long ago, I watched a man open his pocket knife by pulling it partway open to...

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

By Rebekah L. Cowell Issue #122 • March/April, 2010 In a perfect world, we would get all the nutrients and medication we needed from the food...

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

Gee-Whiz: Insects

Gee-Whiz: Ice Ages, Past and Future

Gee-Whiz: Trees

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

The time-travel ad

Feeling nostalgic? Now you’ll rave! Here’s the story of Burma Shave.

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

Firearms

Firearms handling refresher Part III: Rifles

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...

The M1A — A rifle that makes a statement

By Massad Ayoob Issue #45 • May/June, 1997 I take the Springfield Armory rifle out of the box, and savor it. I seldom do that with...

Tailoring guns to females

By Massad Ayoob Issue #131 • September/October, 2011 So, I'm sitting here in a hotel writing this, less than three hours after getting off the witness...

Preparedness

Prepper power! Part 2

Help your home survive in the path of a wildfire

Emergency planning beyond the bug-out bag

Battery-Powered Tools are Changing

Power-up bag

Survival storeroom

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...