Home - Backwoods Home Magazine

Gabion walls for form and function

Broody biddies make sense on the homestead

Practical Ideas for Self-Reliant Living

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

By John Silveira While we are waiting for the Coronavirus pandemic to subside enough so society can get back to normal, there are powerful and...

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Grow some winter squash this year

Build a Composter

By Charles Sanders Issue #170 • March/April, 2018 As with most of the other facets of homesteading, composting can be as simple or as elaborate as...

Clover — From Livestock Forage to Medicinal Tea, This Humble Plant...

Follow Jackie Clay-Atkinson and her husband, Will, as they homestead a 120-acre piece of northern Minnesotan woods entirely off-grid. Sharing their homestead are horses, beef cattle, a milk cow, dairy goats, chickens and turkeys.

Massad Ayoob on Guns

This blog, from a retired police captain and self-defense instructor, covers the use of different firearms, political musings, and self-defense tactics.

Building

Build this sturdy large-capacity food dehydrator

Build a ski sled

Build a Concrete Root Cellar

Build Your Own Car Wash

Self-Reliance

How to begin taking wildlife photographs

Teach speed reading to your children even if you can’t speed read yourself

By George Stancliffe Issue #59 • September/October, 1999 For over two years, I have had the hobby of teaching speed reading to people in the community...

Better wood heating

By David Lee Shop heater. This example is a 55-gallon drum and stove kit surrounded with leftover concrete blocks. I stack...

Animals

The homestead cat

By Jackie Clay-Atkinson We have had at least one cat in our home ever since I was a young child. So it’s no wonder we...

Cheaper than Store-Bought Eggs

Raising your own beef

Fermenting Chicken Feed

Keeping homestead animals healthy

Science and Education

The coming ice age

Zombie Apocalypse

Gee-Whiz: Alcohol

Gee-Whiz: Dinosaurs

Energy

Solar power for farm and ranch

By Jeffrey R. Yago, P.E. It may be surprising to learn that there are now all kinds of do-it-yourself solar powered devices specifically designed to...

Power-up bag

Amateur Ham Radio – The Ultimate Tool for Survival Communications

Keep the Ice On

Power Up

Americana and History

Presidents’ wives of the past Part 4 — Cunning, vindictive, and one may have been a murderess

Doesn’t anyone remember Tom Paine

the gee-whiz! page: Animals, humans, extraterrestrials, and tools

Declaration of Independence: The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

Firearms

Just because

Teaching a 10-year-old to shoot

By John Moody Issue #174 • November/December, 2018 In my youth, I remember my dad dragging my brother and me out of bed in the middle...

Thoughts on ammunition

By Massad Ayoob Issue #108 • November/December, 2007 Ammunition is to firearms as gasoline is to automobiles. However, with guns and ammo, the fit isn't quite...

How long should your gun’s barrel length be?

By Massad Ayoob Issue #136 • July/August, 2012 The person new to guns is like the person new to timepieces. "How many of these things are...

Preparedness

Buying the right emergency radio

7 Mistakes of food storage

Power-up bag

Disaster preparation!

With commonsense planning, you can survive hard times

Handy Keychain Mini-Gadgets

Articles By Dave Duffy

My View: Call Me Miracle Man!

By Dave Duffy Issue #177 • July/August/September, 2019 Superheroes are the rage these days at movie theaters. Even I am fascinated by them. Old style heroes...