Articles - Backwoods Home Magazine

How to butcher a chicken in 20 minutes or less

Chickens — The most valuable animal on the homestead

How to buy your first sheep without getting shorn

Build a lean-to greenhouse

By Dorothy Ainsworth Issue #154 • July/August, 2015 Just thinking about a greenhouse can stimulate the senses. In our minds' eyes, we can see the filtered...

Making Apple Cider with a Homemade Press

Swiss Chard — The Leaf Vegetable That Keeps on Giving!

By Raymond Nones Issue #92 • March/April, 2005 For years every spring I planted spinach in my garden. For those who have never tasted home grown...

Want More Fruit From Less Space? Espalier Your Trees!

No Worrying About Fire Blight with Orient and Kieffer Pears

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...

Biological and chemical weapons through history

Farm baseball … with ghost runners!

Emancipation Proclamation by Historical Document

Walden Pond — the solar version: Part 2

Make your own biodiesel for 80¢ per gallon

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...

BHM hosts Appleseed marksmanship event

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

How to shoot a handgun accurately

Three more ways the world can end … and I’m not...

By John Silveira Issue #155 • September/October, 2015 "What are you doing?" a voice asked. I looked up and saw O.E. MacDougal, Dave's poker-playing friend from Southern...

Terrorism in America — The armed citizen’s view

If you want to survive an emergency, look to yourself, not the Government

Homemade bread: a metaphor for life

Llamas guarding sheep? — Not such a far-fetched idea

By Karen McGeorge Sanders Issue #19 • January/February, 1993 It seems that farmers always need an extra pair of hands, but finding the money to pay...

Cheaper than Store-Bought Eggs

By Kristina Seleshanko Issue #177 • July/August/September, 2019 Something we heard a lot when we first started raising chickens in the suburbs was, “For the cost...

Protein — The Cornerstone of a Survival Diet

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

Where our farm animals come from

How to make money from storage building auctions

Advice from second-time homesteaders

Annie on Everfree Farm, Part III

Intake and exhaust upgrades for better mileage and performance

Gardening with a Chicken Tractor

By Brianna Stone  Issue #161 • September/October, 2016 This spring, my parents let me enlarge my garlic business and till up three 600-square-foot beds for planting...

Prevent Foodborne Illness with Safe Gardening Methods

By Donna Insco  Issue #158 March/April, 2016 According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website, "CDC estimates that each year roughly 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and...