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 of Vermont, it was with some trepidation and a little...
Self-reliance for women — Surviving a biochemical attack
By Kelly McCarthy
Issue #94 • July/August, 2005
Three and a half years ago, on the morning of September 11th to be exact, I was just ending a White House tour with my husband, children, and...
Seed art — It’s fun to collect the seeds and create these unusual pictures
By Alice B. Yeager
Issue #42 • November/December, 1996
Seed art is an old craft going back to long, long ago. Where the art of turning seeds into pictures first began is obscured by time, and...
The raging torrent — Respect it even when you play
By Scott Stoddard
Issue #70 • July/August, 2001
Years ago, while learning to sluice gold from a swollen mountain stream in southern California, I saw something that immediately sickened my stomach. The limp body of a...
Jackie’s tips for hardcore homesteading
By Jackie Clay
Issue #62
Many of us have a garden and enjoy fresh vegetables during the summer and fall. Maybe we even have a few chickens for eggs and meat. But many of us may...
Food security 101
By Rowena Aldridge
Issue #138 • November/December, 2012
These days a lot of people are concerned, and rightly so, about their family's economic stability and security. Recently I've become aware of the ways in which I,...
Homestead helpers
By Charles Sanders
My parents were children of the Great Depression. They learned to get by on very little, to make or repair or reuse almost anything, and never throw anything away — it might...
Digging a shallow well
By Jackie Clay-Atkinson
Issue #165 • May/June, 2017
When we first looked at the land which is now our off-grid homestead, the realtor mumbled an apology for an old gravel pit on the property from the...
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 to clean up. That somebody can be you, and you...
The return of home emergency shelters takes on a dual-purpose approach
By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM
Issue #74 • March/April, 2002
After September 11, 2001, all of us became much more concerned with protecting our families from biological, nuclear, and terrorist attacks. However, if you followed up...
Shopping to beat inflation
By Darlene Campbell
Issue #85 • January/February, 2004
Most of us who read BHM agree that self sufficient living can be debt free, but we also worry about inflation. The word inflation is used to describe...
Kick the credit card habit and learn to stash cash
By Claire Wolfe
Issue #107 • September/October, 2007
My friend Jeanie, a professional woman, whips out her credit card at every spending opportunity. Wal-Mart expedition? Credit card. A week's worth of groceries? Credit card. DVD rental?...
You could furnish an entire homestead at Lehman’s ‘Non-electric’ Hardware Store
By Don Fallick
Issue #47 • September/October, 1997
Let me state my bias right at the beginning: Lehmans Hardware has been advertising in Backwoods Home Magazine for a long time, but I made my first purchase...
The many benefits of garlic
By Joe Knight
Issue #113 • September/October, 2008
Garlic, used throughout the world for the taste it adds to foods, is also well known for its medicinal benefits. Known as Allium sativum in the botanical world,...
Pump water for free
By Kai Moessle
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Issue #158 • March/April, 2016
I opened the valve on the output side of the pump slowly, like the instructions said, and after a few more starts it ran just by itself. Still...
For health & comfort, try wild herbal teas
By Cynthia Andal
Issue #76 • July/August, 2002
The mention of herbal teas brings to mind pleasant conversations in a warmly scented kitchen, aided by the fragrant steam of a cup of Fireweed tea.
Completely aside from...





























