Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

Start a post-construction cleaning business

Small engine maintenance for women

Practical Ideas for Self-Reliant Living

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...

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Tea for the garden

By Lisa Nourse We have poor soil and do our best to amend it with compost and manure every year. However, we feel our plants...

Build an Old-Fashioned Hotbed and Start Your Seeds in Style

Starting a Roadside Farm Stand

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 wood crib with free materials

A cabin for one

Build Your Own Hoop House

A Kid-Friendly Chicken Coop

Self-Reliance

Growing and Using Bamboo on the Homestead

Start a fire in any weather

By Charles Sanders Issue #161 • September/October, 2016 Most of us living in the backwoods are comfortable with utilizing fire as a tool. We use fire...

A survival key ring — Your everyday tool for emergency preparedness

By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM Issue #117 • May/June, 2009 If you saw the movie, "Castaway" starring Tom Hanks, you might remember that his character always...

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

The ‘risks’ with Swine Flu

Gee-Whiz: Trees

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

The coming ice age

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

Emancipation Proclamation by Historical Document

Presidents’ wives of the past Part 3

President George Washington’s Farewell Address

Firearms

Centennial of the All-American .30-06

Just because

By Massad Ayoob Issue #144 • November/December, 2013 I generally recommend that people buy guns the way they'd buy power tools, or automobiles, or homes. Assess...

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...

Teaching a 10-year-old to shoot

By John Moody Issue #174 • November/December, 2018 In my youth, I remember my dad dragging my brother and me out of bed in the middle...

Preparedness

10 day survival pack for your vehicle for just $25

Food security 101: part 2

Prepper power! Part 2

Wildfires: Before, During, After

Bugging out in place

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...