Storm survivors
By Anita Evangelista
Issue #71 • September/October, 2001
First couple days of June, 1998, weather pretty good, a bit wetter than it is now. Clear day, clouds moving in during the afternoon. By suppertime, the sky...
Choosing a chain saw
By Steven Gregersen
Issue #119 •September/October, 2009
Winter will be here soon and along with winter comes cold weather and high heating bills. Obviously there's nothing new about any of this but with the current economic...
Here’s how to make a musical bamboo flute
By Robert E. Kramer
Issue #42 • November/December, 1996
Materials
1 propane or butane torch or campfire to heat up metal rod.
1 steel rod at least 1/2" diameter
1 oven mitt or heavy cloth
1...
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...
Caveman walking stick
By Jim Van Sant
Issue #108 • November/December, 2007
The lake near our rural home has a long hiking trail that winds around its shore. We walk on this path in the morning through the oak...
The poor man’s ultra-light dual-fuel backpacking stove
By Rick Brannan
Issue #124 • July/August, 2010
For as long as I have been venturing into the backcountry, which is a pretty long time, I have been on a quest for the perfect backpacking stove....
Drive your own freshwater well
By Len McDougall
Issue #128 • March/April, 2011
The well point's slotted holes permit water to enter, while stainless steel mesh inside keeps out abrasive sand.
X marks the spot. How "witching" for water works is a...
By Hook or Crook: A Billhook is a Handy Homestead Tool
By R.E. Rawlinson
Issue #173 • September/October, 2018
When compared to our ancestors, we are very lucky to have readily-available tools. Stores are full of anything you could need and with online shopping, you don’t even...
Get out of debt, stay out of debt
By Darlene Campbell
Issue #67 • January/February, 2001
Decades ago it was advised of young high school graduates to deposit a set amount of money into the bank each month, and when they retired they would...
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,...
Pysanki — You can make those biddies pay!
By Amy E. Peare
Issue #86 • March/April, 2004
There are usually two problems with raising chickens. a) You have too many eggs, or b) you aren't getting enough eggs to warrant shelling out the bucks...
The saga of Benjamin, the backwoods, homeschool boy who wanted to get a job
By Margaret Wright
Issue #37 • January/February, 1996
Raised in the woods of Northern Idaho, home schooled by loving, protective parents, he was a happy, carefree child for the first sixteen years of life. The sixteenth...
Woolen winter mittens in minutes
By Anita Evangelista
Issue #84 • November/December, 2003
There's nothing so comfy and warm in the snowy dead-of-winter as a pair of thick, soft woolen mittens. Many of us have fond childhood memories of a favorite...
Swedish log candle
By Nick Weston
Issue #138 • November/December, 2012
At my Hunter-Gatherer school, we are constantly experimenting with different methods of outdoor cookery, from underground ovens (umu or hangi) to smoke roast tipis and run-of-the-mill fire pits....
Funerals don’t have to be expensive
By Kelly McCarthy
Issue #95 • September/October, 2005
Being of Celtic extraction, I am naturally disposed to dwelling on the blacker side of life. I started to wonder what would happen to all the dead bodies...
