Articles - Backwoods Home Magazine

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

Where our farm animals come from

New invention— The Fencerunner

By Dietmar Berg Issue #68 • March/April, 2001 Here's a gadget I developed to run barb or barbless wire. You mount it on the back of...

Building and using wattle fences

Build your own home in two years — Get a PhD...

A house a tornado helped build

By Hook or Crook: A Billhook is a Handy Homestead Tool

By R.E. Rawlinson Issue #173 • September/October, 2018 When compared to our ancestors, we are very lucky to have readily-available tools. Stores are full of anything...

How to become a backyard beekeeper

Put Your Garden to Bed for the Winter

Garden Spaces for Small Places

From Martha and Abigail to Dolley and Louisa, America’s earliest First...

By John Silveira Issue #29 • September/October, 1994 (This is a four-part series. Click the links to navigate to parts one, two, three, and four.) It was...

Oregon Trail preparedness: What supplies did the settlers carry?

Biological and chemical weapons through history

Feeling nostalgic? Now you’ll rave! Here’s the story of Burma Shave.

Tasty uses for garden and wild edibles

With commonsense planning, you can survive hard times

Homemade Toys! — Easy to make, fun to play with, and great for gifts!

Here’s how to make a musical bamboo flute

Energy class: Part 2 — Understanding your electric bill

Solar system codes — Build it right!

A used shotgun bargain: The Browning Auto-5

By Brad Rohdenburg Website Exclusive • September, 2014 A 1958 "Light Twelve" Browning Auto-5, with a 28" Improved Cylinder barrel and 'Speedfeed' loading. It weighs less...

How big is the solar system?

By John Silveira Issue #60 • November/December, 1999 In artists' renderings of the solar system we often see the sun represented by a small sphere with...

Gee-Whiz: Ice Ages, Past and Future

The MTHFR mutation and why it may matter to you

Getting the state out of marriage

Gun control, race, and rotten politicians

Where our farm animals come from

Issue #105 • May/June, 2007 We don't know how far back the domestication of animals goes. But we...

Slaughtering and Butchering

By Dynah Geissal Issue #23 • September/October, 1993 Fall is butchering time, a period of joy in the harvest of the year's work and of sadness...

Switch your family to goat’s milk

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

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

I heat my house by burning corn

Getting out of Dodge — 10 Things I am doing to prepare for the move to the country

Mosquitoes outnumber us and no one likes them

Save Time and Energy with the Fenced Chicken Coop/Garden

By John Silveira Issue #44 • March/April, 1997 My engineer father was not fond of wasting time or energy. He was always searching for a better, more efficient way to perform chores, especially chores that reoccurred...

Propagating Grapes

By Sylvia Gist Issue #107 • September/October, 2007 As a kid in western South Dakota, I enjoyed picking wild grapes and using the delightful juice they produced, so when I eventually acquired property in Montana, I...