Articles - Backwoods Home Magazine

Switch your family to goat’s milk

Build a Top-Bar Bee Hive

By Jereme Zimmerman Issue #175 • January/February/March, 2019 My journey to becoming a beekeeper has been a long one, and I’m still not quite there yet....

Make your own lumber with a chainsaw mill

Tools and hardware for the backwoods home

Woodchuck-Proof the Garden

By Setanta O'Ceillaigh  Issue #160 • July/August, 2016 The cycle never ends: As soon as one...

Grow some winter squash this year

Want More Fruit From Less Space? Espalier Your Trees!

Rotten Luck: The Skinny on Composting

Garden Spaces for Small Places

The vanishing outhouse

By Tom Kovach Issue #79 • January/February, 2003 A person recently wrote to a large Midwest newspapers' advice column asking for information about outdoor privies. It...

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

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

Presidents’ wives of the past Part 4 — Cunning, vindictive, and...

Cooking from long-term food storage

Drawing the line on timber trespass

Solar power for farm and ranch

Walden Pond, the solar version: Part 1

For a truly independent energy system, your choices are solar, wind, and water

Walden Pond — the solar version: Part 2

A used shotgun bargain: The Browning Auto-5

By Brad Rohdenburg Website Exclusive • September, 2014 A 1958 "Light Twelve" Browning Auto-5, with a 28" Improved Cylinder barrel and 'Speedfeed' loading. It weighs less...

Bury a gun and ammo for 15 years

Inexpensive retired Russian military rifles can be the ideal backwoods meat...

Gee-Whiz: Alcohol

By O.E. MacDougal Backwoods Home Did early man first cultivate grains just to get drunk? The brewing of beer is older than civilization and goes back at...

The world is coming to an end… and this time, I’m...

My View: Three Cheers for Free Enterprise

Concealed carry laws reduce crime

Turn the poor into capitalists

The state of freedom in America

Broody biddies make sense on the homestead

By James Kash Issue #139 • January/February, 2013 Broodiness is an avian behavior that is frowned upon in the world of agriculture. All industrial agriculturalists cull...

Hog butchering — Using everything but the squeal

By Charles Sanders Issue #142 • July/August, 2013 A 450-pound hog will provide a lot of delicious meat. Hogs are raised throughout our neighboring Amish community for...

Forget the dog, chicken is man’s best friend

Switch your family to goat’s milk

This St. Bernard backwoods hero saved old Grandma’s life

How to Resurrect Old, Rusted Tools

Tips for finding your affordable home

Jackie’s tips for hardcore homesteading

Caring for your chickens in winter

By Jackie Clay-Atkinson As winter approaches, we all are thinking of ways to make our livestock and poultry as comfortable as possible when the cold weather hits. Visions of blowing and drifting snow swirl in...

Grow Your Own Dishrags

By Alice B. Yeager Photos by James O. Yeager Issue #85 • January/February, 2004 Some of us are thrifty beyond measure, even growing our own dishrags. None of those flimsy, store bought cotton things for us. Our...