Home - Backwoods Home Magazine

For summertime baking needs, build yourself an outdoor horno

How to make money from storage building auctions

Woodbarrow

By Setanta O’Ceillaigh When I first abandoned a slum town and fled back to the countryside I gathered and carried firewood with a laundry basket....

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Grow some winter squash this year

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Gardening in the Desert Using Only Rainwater

By Joe Mooney Issue #147 • May/June, 2014 I've always found the use of seasonal rains by native peoples very fascinating. From the diversion of floodwaters...

Rotten Luck: The Skinny on Composting

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

Making and using a solar cooker

Building David’s Cabin, Part One

Build a chicken house in a day

Building a $3,000 Barn

Self-Reliance

How to organize an outdoor canning party

7 Mistakes of food storage

By Vicki Tate Issue #55 • January/February, 1999 If you are going to store food, make sure that the food you store is adequate for the...

Choosing a chain saw

By Steven Gregersen Issue #119 •September/October, 2009 Winter will be here soon and along with winter comes cold weather and high heating bills. Obviously there's nothing...

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

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

Gee-Whiz: Insects

Gee-Whiz: From Paper to Canning

The world is ending! … Again?

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

Quilts — Masterpieces of the heart and windows into women’s history

Biological and chemical weapons through history

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

Doesn’t anyone remember Tom Paine

Firearms

Frontier style handguns for the modern backwoods home

The subtleties of safe firearms handling

By Massad Ayoob Issue #103 • January/February, 2007 There are so many makes and models of firearms in existence that no one has ever counted them...

Firearms — Tools of rural living

By Massad Ayoob Issue #91 • January/February, 2005 So, editor Dave Duffy and I got to talking about guns. We agreed that for some people they...

Catch your own bait

By Gary Gresh Issue #91 • January/February, 2005 Expensive lures and pricey tackle shop baits can sometimes make fishing an expensive proposition, raising the cost of...

Preparedness

Emergency treatment for fire-related injuries

Survival firebuilding skills

Disaster preparation!

Medical kits for self-reliant families

Avoiding heat illness

The fire wick fire starter

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...