Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

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

Plant Your Trees in the Spring

Use Old Newspapers to Make Your Starter Pots

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

Grow some winter squash this year

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Three Raised Bed Designs

By Joe Mooney Issue #150 • November/December, 2014 When it comes to gardening, almost anything can be used to create a raised bed. Tires, blocks, rocks,...

Grow Garlic and Reap Health Benefits

The ‘Chocolate Tree’ Isn’t Just for Kids

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

Building and using wattle fences

Rural Building

A salvaged oak floor for $5

Our Unconventional House

Self-Reliance

Annie on Everfree Farm, Part II

Fire resistant property

By Jacob Duffy Summertime is fire season. Red-Flag Warnings abound and many property owners surrounded by acres of forest or tall grass often become acutely...

Harvest your own firewood

By Pete Earl Issue #83 • September/October, 2003 Harvesting firewood has many rewards: exercise, satisfaction, saving money, and the security of having your own fuel supply...

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

Avian Flu — How afraid of this

Gee-Whiz: Bad Fish, Big Fish

The coming ice age

Subduction zone tsunami — What the residents of the Pacific Northwest have to fear

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

Emancipation Proclamation by Historical Document

Presidents’ wives of the past Part 3

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

Former first ladies — Beautiful, brilliant, crazy

Firearms

The M1A — A rifle that makes a statement

Frontier style handguns for the modern backwoods home

By Massad Ayoob Issue #101 • September/October, 2006 The year was 1873. Samuel Colt had invented the revolveror at least introduced it to Americain 1836. The...

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,...

Answering some well asked questions about personal defense

By Massad Ayoob Issue #97 • January/February, 2006 Jeff Yago, Backwoods Home's energy writer, recently completed a couple of concealed carry handgun courses. The classes apparently...

Preparedness

Bugging out in place

Commonsense preparedness just makes sense

Circle of friends

Survival storeroom

Power Up

Wildfires: Before, During, After

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...