Monday, January 14th, 2013 by admin | Comments Off
Hello Dave and Annie,
I’ve been a subscriber for a long time and wanted to thank you for publishing such a great magazine.
Today I went to my first gun show and it was great! So many friendly and helpful people. The Appleseed Project had a table there with lots of good information. Front and center on their table was a copy of Backwoods Home (the issue that discussed The Appleseed project). I told them how I learned about them from you. Everyone at the booth had much praise for Backwoods Home and the work you do.
Thanks to organizations like you and Appleseed we are encouraged to keep fighting for personal freedom here in The Peoples Republic of Illinois (the show was in Wheaton).
I am writing to inform you of a major oversight on my order for The Whole Sheebang. You failed to include a warning label or note stating “Contents will cause sleep deprivation, loss of work productivity and social withdrawal from the family. From the minute I received the box of anthologies and books, I can’t put them down.
I read Starting Over by Jackie Clay in one sitting and have not been able to stop from there. My wife stole my Backwoods Home Cooking book before I even had a chance to look at it. My sons each grabbed an anthology and I find them now in every room of the house including the throne. I’ve issued strict orders, not to be used in place of TP.
The articles are educational, thought provoking and inspiring. Last night I read issue #29 and I’m going to ask both my sons to read “You have to learn to shovel crap before you learn to be the boss”. This article should be required reading by any individual born after 1990.
I don’t agree with all the written commentary but I do agree that you are producing the best damn self-reliant living magazine on the market. Keep up the excellent work and please consider my suggestion.
Regards,
Kurt Carlsen
PS. Do BWH paper subscribers have the ability to download the kindle version for free or are we required to pay the $1.99?
Glad you like The Whole Sheebang. Sorry, but only Kindle subscribers can download the Kindle version. Amazon’s rules, not ours.
Thursday, January 3rd, 2013 by admin | Comments Off
I just had to comment on the latest issue. You guys just keep getting better and better!
I first found your magazine via internet 4 years ago and often printed up some of the articles to take home to read to my husband. When I lost him 3 years ago I have been thru a depression and purchased your latest issue last Monday and have not put it down yet! It is inspiring and comforting at the same time. The balance of articles is impressive and I have now dug out the other 3 issues I could purchase and have re read them as well.
When I can purchase a subscription, I plan on your magazine first because I can use the information for so many things.
Wednesday, October 24th, 2012 by admin | Comments Off
Hi,
Thank you for your very informative information about cold storage of food over the winter.
I was given a tip about apples from an elderly gentleman who had an apple orchard. He said to wet a towel and wring it out well and place it over the apples you are storing. It helps to keep the apples crisp. You need to re-wet the towel weekly but it is worth doing.
I tried this procedure. Only thing to emphasize is that you should use THICK cut bacon. The thin bacon had to be scraped off the paper with a fork. In fact, next time, I will probably buy slab bacon and cut it myself to get even thicker slices.
All in all, the procedure worked just fine.
I bought my masking paper at Ace Hardware. It is about $5.00 a roll.
Hi, new to prepping and found your site. Love all the good info there. Read one of the articles on getting logs and thought I would comment. We live in the country in Louisiana and our state has huge pine forest and logging industry. They cut tracks everywhere you look around here. They take some time cleaning up after themselves and sometimes don’t at all. There is so much wood left over it is amazing. You can really get as much as you want. There are a couple of ways to accomplish this.
1. Approach the owner of the land, if clean up was not part of his deal with the paper mill he will gladly let you take what you want for free. Often even if clean up was apart of the deal they will let you take what you want because they usually burn what is left anyway.
2. Approach the logging foreman for the track cut. A case of beer will usually do the trick and you can have all you want.
3. Go in on the weekend and take what you want. They are gonna burn it anyway so no one here minds, usually anyway.
There is allot of all types of wood to be found doing this, including hard woods and pecan. All different sizes and shapes. You can do allot with what you find.
This works well here in Louisiana and might work in other area’s too.
About your “squatter” article, I wanted to thank you so much for writing it. You are very compassionate and that is refreshing to see. Also, you did not hold back on the legalities of “squatting”. That is good for all to know more about. I watched a movie last night that had me in tears. It’s called “Missing in America”. It’s been around awhile but Danny Glover was in it and some other pretty, well known actors. It was about an area(looked like around Ranier in the movie) where a few veterans were living in the woods.I couldn’t stop thinking about it this a.m. so I just googled “living in the woods” or something like that, and found your article. Anyway, all I wanted to do was let you know I read it and appreciated it so much. I am almost 60, returned to college for a 2 year degree in Medical Administrative Assistant so I can hopefully get a decent job for as long as I can keep working. I am unmarried(divorced 16 years now)no children and I stayed in a homeless shelter recently just so I could get my bearings and figure out what to do next. I don’t drink, do drugs or smoke, but yep, I was among the homeless. If I were not a woman I might try living in the woods but also, I have always tried to be law-abiding and do respect others rights and properties.
I hope all the info you provided gets around to as many as possible. Caretaking could be a good thing for both parties. It’s hard to think about the millions of homeless though and especially those that can’t bear to trust or be near people anymore. I can relate a little but I know they have been through much more than I ever will experience.
I enjoyed reading your article. Having lived in W.AZ and then NM, I could relate so much of it. I am surrounded by trees in E. VA now but would rather be back in the high desert anytime.
One thing I noticed not mentioned in your article was the tendency of those traveling through, not to, the high desert, have a tendency to have thief dogs get “lost” or just plain let them loose to fend for themselves. Which leaves us with packs of wild dogs not afraid of humans, unlike healthy coyotes. That was one of the main reasons we used to go armed. Hell, the local authorities sometimes even [provided] the ammo we used on wild packs. It was that bad when the main roads weren’t that many miles away. I can only imagine how bad it is now, with the current economy, foreclosures, and job losses.
Just received my first copy of backwoods home. I had no idea that there was a real magazine publisher left. It was refreshing to read very fine articles without the magazine slant to the far left (or right). I and my wife loved it, and you can guarantee on my renewal. Can’t wait for the next issue. Please, please, keep up the great work.
Thursday, March 29th, 2012 by admin | Comments Off
I have just discovered Backwoods Home and am thoroughly sold on this magazine. The articles by Jackie Clay-Atkinson are wonderful. I can’t say enough good things about them. They are clear, concise, down-to-earth, sensible solutions and information for those of us with some experience and newbies alike! I have gained more usable information from them than many books contain.
I will be subscribing to your magazine and plan on giving 2 gift subscriptions…one to our public library and one to my daughter.
A rule we are taught our entire life is to never point a gun at anything we do not intend to shoot. With that said, when carrying a handgun in a pocket-style holster, the gun is at times pointed in a direction of people, like if sitting in back seat of car, or across from someone at dinner, or on a livingroom couch across from someone else, etc (a similar situation that I think about is a shoulder holster that happens to point the gun backwards)
I feel uneasy when this occurs because essentially, the gun is aimed in a direction I don’t want it to shoot. But yet, the gun is not in hand, finger is not near trigger, and is essentially secure in my pocket holster.
What is your response to this?
Thank you for your time!
Kevin McCubbin
Hi Kevin,
The direction of the gun’s muzzle, as seen in safety rules, is read as intentional pointing. If a police officer is standing on the second floor of the police station, the muzzle of his holstered service pistol is indexed in the direction of those below him on the first floor. The guns lying flat on tables at a gun show have their muzzles in a direction that countless visitors will walk past or through. If your hunting rifles and shotguns, and mine, are standing upright in gun safe or gun, they’re in line with passenger planes crossing over our house.
So long as other safety protocols assure that the gun will not discharge wrongfully or unintentionally, and so long as the gun is not intentionally pointed at another person except in legitimate defense of self or others, I call it good.
Went to vote before work this morning. Back when the candidates on the ballot were announced, there was a big brouhaha in the Republican Party about being forced to sign a statement supporting whoever is the eventual candidate. I didn’t have to sign anything today, I was just verified as a registered voter and off I went. So please let your Virginia readers know: don’t be intimidated, just go out and vote your conscience.
And yes, I voted for Ron Paul. I will never vote for Mitt Romney.
I love your recipe for laundry detergent and have been using it for several months now. I blogged about it and mentioned your website and magazine in the blog. Thanks so much for sharing the recipe for free for us! It has saved me so much money and it is earth friendly. Love it!
No sane person could disagree with your editorial (guess that leaves out congress critters and bureaucrats), but does anyone in their right mind believe Congress or anyone else in a “position of authority” would allow these problems to be mitigated or eliminated? One small example; a huge proportion of the country did not want a debt limit hike this last year. Poll after poll, etc. showed this. Guess what happened? And, if there was ever a more pathetic example of a leader than John Boehner, I’d be hard pressed to even imagine him. Our last, best hope was the Republican majority in the House of Representatives and they have completely and utterly failed us at every turn. Don’t even mention my home state senator, McCain, and his authorship of detention under NDAA.
Yes, the problems are easy to enumerate, but I don’t see them getting anything but worse. Anyone that thinks a “major event” will be anything but cause to bring out more force is strictly an overactive “rose colored glasses” optimist. Worst part is, I think most of our country could care less.
Enough ranting from an old guy. I remember, with sadness, the title of G. Gordon Liddy’s book, “When I Was a Kid, This Was a Free Country”.
I enjoy your articles and agreed with all your points regarding real problems we face. I would have been happier to see you mention the demographic time bomb America faces from massive and totally unnecessary immigration. The only people in favor of massive immigration, benefit from it and pass on all the economic,social and environmental costs to the communities.
I think we will soon become a divided ethnic and tribal nation, unable to govern or agree on anything and become a weak nation ripe for the picking. Diversity does not make a nation stronger, Unity does.
Thursday, February 16th, 2012 by admin | Comments Off
Mr. Silvira;
In your article you stated a good amount of junk silver to have would be around $300 to $400 dollars worth. My question is, is that amount in face value of junk silver or would that be the amount you would spend to have some junk silver?
Thanks
Grant Underwood
Grant,
That’s my mistake. I should have stated it clearly that that’s $300-$400 in face value in junk silver. Nowadays, you’ll spend a several thousand to get it.
Monday, February 13th, 2012 by admin | Comments Off
I don’t have the best eye for these things, but [in his Feb 13 blog post] are those 9mm rounds laying next to a 38 special revolver on the cover of that report? That’d be funny.
Regardless, thanks for all you do. I am an avid reader of your work. It’s changed how I live my life and think about how I go about my day as a responsible member of society. You’re a great American and I’m a huge Mas Ayoob booster whenever I speak to anyone on the topic of firearms, personal defense, and the legal considerations associated with both subjects.
Friday, February 10th, 2012 by admin | 1 Comment »
Mr. Duffy,
Thanks for your excellent article defending Ron Paul. Things don’t look good for Ron now, but November is a long way off. During the 1996 campaign, I “cursed” a friend of mine for voting for a third-party candidate instead of Bob Dole. I told him to vote for Bob Dole in order to keep Bill Clinton from a second term. Well, this year it is I who will be doing the protest vote. If Ron Paul wins the nomination, I will vote for him. If he runs as a third party candidate, I will vote for him. If he doesn’t even run the race, I will still vote for him. If he dies before November 4th, I will still vote for him.
The only thing that can save America is a return to the Constitution. Ron is serious about the Constitution. We moderns are great at technology, sports and conventional warfare. However, the people of the 1700s were superior to us in politics, education, marriage, family life, art and music. The Constitution can’t be beat. Only the Bible is superior, but most people won’t follow the Bible, and they fight about it.
Here’s an idea; have the people in the states decide controversial issues like abortion, gun control, drugs and other things. That way, conservatives can move to conservative states and live under laws they like. Liberals can move to liberal states and live under laws they like. Isn’t that the way the Founders wanted it to be anyway?
