Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

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

The art of living in small spaces

A determined Rose Bley escaped the city

Practical Ideas for Self-Reliant Living

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

By John Silveira While we are waiting for the Coronavirus pandemic to subside enough so society can get back to normal, there are powerful and...

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Grow some winter squash this year

Grow Garlic and Reap Health Benefits

By Alice B. Yeager Photos by James O. Yeager Issue #98 • March/April, 2006 Garlic is one of our oldest herbs on record. Anyone can grow garlic...

Garden Seeds — A Great Winter Pastime

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

How to build a good fence for your homestead

Build Your Own Car Wash

The poor man’s ceramic knife sharpener

Choosing a chain saw

Self-Reliance

Preparing for winter

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...

10 country do’s and don’ts

By Julie Crist Issue #96 • November/December, 2005 When we moved from the city to the mountains, I kept my eyes open and my mouth shut...

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

Science and truth. Are they related?

Gee-Whiz: From Paper to Canning

Can we make a Tyrannosaurus rex from a chicken?

The many benefits of garlic

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

Fried chicken for breakfast

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

Remembering what grandma used

James Polk — A model for modern presidents

Firearms

How to shoot a handgun accurately

Consider the 20-gauge shotgun

By Massad Ayoob Issue #120 • November/December, 2009 A year or more ago in these pages, I made the suggestion that sometimes less is more, and...

Firearms handling refresher Part I: Handguns

By Massad Ayoob Website Exclusive • December, 2003 One of our readers e-mailed John Silveira to tell him that taking a handgun afield after a long...

Firearms handling refresher Part III: Rifles

By Massad Ayoob Website Exclusive • January, 2004 Our three part series on firearms handling ends with this installment. In Part I, we covered handguns and...

Preparedness

Prepper power! Part 1

Dollar Store to the Rescue

With commonsense planning, you can survive hard times

Avoiding heat illness

Bartering for bad times

Changing the odds in home fire protection

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...