Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

Build a cold smoker so you can make delicious squaw candy

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

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...

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Grow some winter squash this year

No Worrying About Fire Blight with Orient and Kieffer Pears

By Alice B. Yeager Issue #52 • July/August, 1998 Everyone likes a good success story, and if I were called upon to name the most successful...

An Introduction to Small-Scale Home Hydroponics

Save Time and Energy with the Fenced Chicken Coop/Garden

A New Use for Old Tires: A Garden Using Tires

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 holz hausen to dry firewood

Dorothy Ainsworth update: Out of the ashes

Build an all-purpose ladder

Renovating old walls

Self-Reliance

The return of home emergency shelters takes on a dual-purpose approach

You could furnish an entire homestead at Lehman’s ‘Non-electric’ Hardware Store

By Don Fallick Issue #47 • September/October, 1997 Let me state my bias right at the beginning: Lehmans Hardware has been advertising in Backwoods Home Magazine...

Homemade skin care products

By Carly Egger Issue #145 • January/February, 2014 When you think of skin care products that soften, moisturize, and nourish the skin, do the words extravagant,...

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 threat of electromagnetic pulse!

Gee-Whiz: Sleep

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

A doomsday scenario to sleep on

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

Emancipation Proclamation by Historical Document

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

Habeeb Salloum — Poet, Traveler, Recipe Writer

Former first ladies — Beautiful, brilliant, crazy

Firearms

Firearms — Tools of rural living

Women and guns

By Massad Ayoob Issue #121 • January/February, 2010 In a time when what used to be called "the women's liberation movement" has achieved many of its...

Bury a gun and ammo for 15 years

(and be assured everything still works when you dig it up) By Charles Wood Issue #115 • January/February, 2009 Back in the early 1990s the outlook for the...

Savage Model 110 — A proven economical backwoods rifle

By Massad Ayoob Website Exclusive • July, 2008 Fifty years ago, Savage Arms introduced a new bolt-action sporting rifle. In the gun world, this was news....

Preparedness

Changing the odds in home fire protection

A survival key ring — Your everyday tool for emergency preparedness

Build a community assistance recharging station

With commonsense planning, you can survive hard times

Use solar landscape lights for emergencies

Protein — The Cornerstone of a Survival Diet

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...