Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

Raising cattle on your own place

Help your home survive in the path of a wildfire

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....

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Grow some winter squash this year

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...

Elderberries — Hospitality, Health, And Beauty

Use Non-Hybrid Seeds and Save Big Bucks in This Year’s 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

Dorothy Ainsworth update: Out of the ashes

Build Your Own Car Wash

How to maintain a dirt road

Build a holz hausen to dry firewood

Self-Reliance

The coffee mug knife sharpener

Handy Keychain Mini-Gadgets

By Jeff Yago, P.E., CEM Winter, 2017 I believe when most people think of being prepared, they immediately think in terms of bug-out bags, stored food...

Start a post-construction cleaning business

By Dorothy Ainsworth Issue #76 • July/August, 2002 Wherever construction is going on, there will be a big mess left in its wake that somebody has...

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

A brief history of health and medicine

Gee-Whiz: Dinosaurs

Gee-Whiz: Time

Zombie Apocalypse

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

Gee-Whiz: Presidents

The barnyard scramble

Presidents’ wives of the past Part 3

From Martha and Abigail to Dolley and Louisa, America’s earliest First Ladies were fascinating

Firearms

Use the right ammunition!

How big a gun do you need?

By Massad Ayoob Issue #99 • May/June, 2006 We Americans like to do things in a big way. Big houses. Big cars. Big boats. And, yes,...

1911: The classic homeland security pistol

By Massad Ayoob Issue #83 • September/October, 2003 If you've read American firearms history at all, you know the lore of the .45 automatic. How during...

Firearms handling refresher Part II: Shotguns

By Massad Ayoob Website Exclusive • December, 2003 In Part I, we began a series of refreshers on safety and proper handling of firearms. This time,...

Preparedness

The return of home emergency shelters takes on a dual-purpose approach

Building and stocking your pantry

Prepper power! Part 2

7 Mistakes of food storage

Battery-Powered Tools are Changing

Hypothermia — A real winter danger

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...