Home - Backwoods Home Magazine

Water development for the homestead: Ponds, cisterns, and tanks

Build A Hybrid Go-Kart For Kids For $150

Adventures with a portable sawmill

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

Use Old Newspapers to Make Your Starter Pots

By Darlene Polachic Issue #49 • January/February, 1998 Why spend money buying plant starter packs when you can make all you need from old newspapers? The...

Time to Forget About Snail and Slug Bait

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

Tools and hardware for the backwoods home

A recycled dresser makes a useful bathroom vanity

Build a lean-to greenhouse

Making and using a solar cooker

Self-Reliance

Intake and exhaust upgrades for better mileage and performance

How to organize an outdoor canning party

By Jennifer Grahovac Issue #119 • September/October, 2009 When my husband and I decided to return to Ohio after living for 15 years in the mountains...

Better wood heating

By David Lee Shop heater. This example is a 55-gallon drum and stove kit surrounded with leftover concrete blocks. I stack...

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

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

A brief history of health and medicine

Gee-Whiz: Time

Gee-Whiz: Dinosaurs

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

Biological and chemical weapons through history

George Washington Carver — He wrote the book on self-reliance

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

The time-travel ad

Firearms

Just because

BHM hosts Appleseed marksmanship event

By Massad Ayoob Issue #139 • January/February, 2013 Long a supporter of the Appleseed concept, Backwoods Home Magazine hosted one in Gold Beach, Oregon, in second...

Firearms and cold weather considerations

By Massad Ayoob Issue #79 • January/February, 2003 Many of our readers have established their abodes in places which, during the winter months, do not exactly...

The time for modern; the time for traditional

By Massad Ayoob Issue #137 • September/October, 2012 Traditional "old skool" guns, or the most modern and efficient ballistic hardware that money can buy? I asked...

Preparedness

Food security 101

Handy Keychain Mini-Gadgets

Stashing Junk Silver for Bad Times

Start your food storage on $10 a week

Storm survivors

Oregon Trail preparedness: What supplies did the settlers carry?

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...