Articles - Backwoods Home Magazine

This St. Bernard backwoods hero saved old Grandma’s life

Finding the best dog for the country life

How to maintain a dirt road

By Marjorie Burris Issue #48 • November/December, 1997 It is our job to maintain two and one half miles of dirt road if we want to...

Build a cold smoker so you can make delicious squaw candy

Build an attached solar greenhouse

Making a wooden kitchen countertop

Garden Seeds — A Great Winter Pastime

By Jackie Clay Issue #67 • January/February, 2001 Start your garden this year while the snow is still on the ground. I start all of my...

A Child’s Garden — More than Child’s Play

Put Your Garden to Bed for the Winter

The time-travel ad

By John Silveira Issue #125 • September/October, 2010 It's become a minor Internet phenomenon. The ad reads: It's also been read by Jay Leno on his late...

George Washington Carver — He wrote the book on self-reliance

Emancipation Proclamation by Historical Document

Former first ladies — Beautiful, brilliant, crazy

Brining pickles by the quart or gallon

Start your food storage on $10 a week

Intake and exhaust upgrades for better mileage and performance

What if the electricity GOES OFF?

Firearms and cold weather considerations

By Massad Ayoob Issue #79 • January/February, 2003 Many of our readers have established their abodes in places which, during the winter months, do not exactly...

Frontier style handguns for the modern backwoods home

How long should your gun’s barrel length be?

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...

The gee-whiz! page — Cats: Why they rule our world

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

Paying for social security with worthless $

The Electoral College — How we elect the President

Bovine basics for beginners

By Patrice Lewis Issue #122 • March/April, 2010 Congratulations. You've escaped the city life and are now the proud owners of your little plot of rural...

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...

Mountain lions — Attacks are still rare, but just in case…

How to buy your first sheep without getting shorn

Chickens — The most valuable animal on the homestead

Hog butchering — Using everything but the squeal

The coffee mug knife sharpener

Learning to love the high desert

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 of raising those birds, you could buy an awful lot...

Naughty Peppers

By Alice B. Yeager Photos by James O. Yeager Issue #62 • March/April, 2000 If you are prudish, narrow-minded or puritanical, read no further as this article may offend you. If, however, you enjoy a good laugh...