Articles - Backwoods Home Magazine

Shearing, carding, spinning, weaving and creating with Margaret Boos

Dorper sheep — Revolutionizing the meat sheep industry

Finding, buying, milking, and living with the family milk cow

Easy awnings

By Dorothy Ainsworth Issue #149 • September/October, 2014 A window without an awning is like a lamp without a shade bare and glaring. In my...

Making a wooden kitchen countertop

Pruning Blueberries

By Kristina Seleshanko When we purchased our mountaintop homestead, I was excited to discover four blueberry bushes that were already established on our property. Not...

Gleaning — An Old Tradition Made New

Leaf Mold is Another Way to Build Your Soil

Oregon Trail preparedness: What supplies did the settlers carry?

By Don Lewis Issue #176 • April/May/June, 2019 The year was 1834, a year that didn’t really stand out as all that particularly important in American...

Who were the best…and worst U.S. Presidents?

President George Washington’s Farewell Address

Homemade Cottage cheese, rhubarb pie, lemon custard pudding cake, pasties, beef stew, biscuits, butter, grouse breast

SARS — Is this a glimpse of the future?

Turn your passion into a business

Preparing for a Temporary Catastrophe

A guide to buying silver and gold

A small creek provides plenty of power for this off-grid home

Installing your own small, remote off-grid solar system

Design calculations for no-head, low-head waterwheels

Reload your own brass

By Dale Petry Issue #132 • November/December, 2011 Not long ago a friend called to say he had seen an unusual rifle at the local gun...

Bury a gun and ammo for 15 years

An economical battery of guns for the backwoods home

How to shoot a handgun accurately

Testing Soil

By Tom Kovach Issue #119 • September/October, 2009 Testing the soil content of a garden is very important and is quite easy to do. Soil tests...

Avian Flu — How afraid of this

Golf’s critical life lessons are under threat

My View: Three Cheers for Free Enterprise

ID cards are an idea whose time should never come

Animal disease traceability

By Patrice Lewis Issue #137 • September/October, 2012 In 2009, small farmers and ranchers breathed a sigh of relief. So did people worried about another curtailment...

Goat birthing and raising kids

By Jackie Clay Issue #112 • July/August, 2008 Dairy goats form one of the cornerstones of our homestead. Not only do they provide milk, cheese, ice...

Finding, buying, milking, and living with the family milk cow

Shearing, carding, spinning, weaving and creating with Margaret Boos

Step onto the ice and catch tonight’s dinner

How we found our remote backwoods home

Picking your pressure canner — All American or Presto?

By Joel Winters Issue #142 • July/August, 2013 I live in a small clearing in a big forest. This is on the rainy side of the mountains in the Cascade foothills. Slugs are underfoot nearly year-round...

Gardening in the Desert Using Only Rainwater

By Joe Mooney Issue #147 • May/June, 2014 I've always found the use of seasonal rains by native peoples very fascinating. From the diversion of floodwaters in earthen berms to irrigation via "aquaduct," it seemed incredible...