Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

A contrary guide to feeding animals

Build your own log home in the woods

Building David’s Cabin, Part One

Practical Ideas for Self-Reliant Living

Woodbarrow

By Setanta O’Ceillaigh When I first abandoned a slum town and fled back to the countryside I gathered and carried firewood with a laundry basket....

Grow some winter squash this year

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

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...

Leafy Green Vegetables — The Underrated Heroes of the Garden

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

Herb Boxes from Fence Boards

Build a homestead Copy Cart

Dorothy Ainsworth update: Out of the ashes

Radiant floor heating — Alternative to forced-air heating is solar-powered, too An interview with Stephen Heckeroth

Self-Reliance

Homestead burnout — What it is and how to avoid it

Gee-Whiz: From Paper to Canning

By John Silveira (aka O.E. MacDougal) May/June 2017 Backwoods Home The greatest inventions in history are the ones we now take for granted. Fire and the...

10 tips for selling your homemade product

By Lisa Nourse My husband and I purchased our current property when we were young and poor — very poor. Shortly after purchasing the property we...

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

Avian Flu — How afraid of this

A doomsday scenario to sleep on

The many benefits of garlic

A brief history of health and medicine

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

James Polk — A model for modern presidents

Doesn’t anyone remember Tom Paine

Declaration of Independence: The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

Grandpa’s justice

Firearms

How big a gun do you need?

The Appleseed Project

By Massad Ayoob Issue #123 • May/June, 2010 There is nothing else in the shooting world quite like the Appleseed Project, which combines American Revolutionary War...

An economical battery of guns for the backwoods home

By Massad Ayoob Issue #114 • November/December, 2008 Everything's getting more expensive. Food. Gasoline. Guns and ammunition. Not everyone who appreciates the rural lifestyle was "born...

Canning game meat

By Linda Gabris Issue #166 • July/August, 2017 Attempting to can meat (or any other low acid food, for that matter) without the use of a...

Preparedness

Survival firebuilding skills

Build a community assistance recharging station

Changing the odds in home fire protection

Start your food storage on $10 a week

The return of home emergency shelters takes on a dual-purpose approach

Disaster preparation!

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...