Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

Making a wooden kitchen countertop

Here’s how to make a musical bamboo flute

An Introduction to Small-Scale Home Hydroponics

Practical Ideas for Self-Reliant Living

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...

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Grow some winter squash this year

Tracing a bean

By Wren Everett The beans came to me as an accident. In the early spring of 2023, I was scouring The Exchange (exchange.seedsavers.org/home) — an online...

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

Converting a Gasoline-Powered Rototiller to Electric

Garden Spaces for Small Places

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 a barrel stove

Build a Simple, Inexpensive Greenhouse

Build a Groundhog Snare

Build a chicken tractor

Self-Reliance

Avoiding heat illness

Self-reliance for women — Surviving a biochemical attack

By Kelly McCarthy Issue #94 • July/August, 2005 Three and a half years ago, on the morning of September 11th to be exact, I was just...

Start a post-construction cleaning business

By Dorothy Ainsworth Issue #76 • July/August, 2002 Wherever construction is going on, there will be a big mess left in its wake that somebody has...

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 world is ending! … Again?

Gee-Whiz: Insects

Subduction zone tsunami — What the residents of the Pacific Northwest have to fear

The world is coming to an end… and this time, I’m not kidding

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

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

Catfish Biscuits

Remembering what grandma used

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

Firearms

Frontier style handguns for the modern backwoods home

Military surplus and military “clone” rifles

By Massad Ayoob Issue #116 • March/April, 2009 One reader writes to ask if military surplus rifles are still a good idea for hunting, recreational shooting,...

BHM hosts Appleseed marksmanship event

By Massad Ayoob Issue #139 • January/February, 2013 Long a supporter of the Appleseed concept, Backwoods Home Magazine hosted one in Gold Beach, Oregon, in second...

Firearms handling refresher Part III: Rifles

By Massad Ayoob Website Exclusive • January, 2004 Our three part series on firearms handling ends with this installment. In Part I, we covered handguns and...

Preparedness

Your survival depends on water

Food security 101

Start a fire in any weather

Building and stocking your pantry

Hypothermia — A real winter danger

Buying the right emergency radio

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...