Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

Buy your country place from the government

Vermicomposting — Raise Worms to Consume Waste, Amend Soil, and Earn Income

Practical Ideas for Self-Reliant Living

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....

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

Gardening Tips and Tricks

By Charles Sanders Issue #99 • May/June, 2006 Gardeners are an ingenious lot. Trial and error, time, study, observation, and experience all help us to come...

Raised Bed Gardening — Neat and Productive

Gardening in the Desert Using Only Rainwater

An Introduction to Small-Scale Home Hydroponics

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 deluxe barrel stove

Build a compost tumbler

Making and using a solar cooker

Make your own effective fishing tackle while you save money and recycle scrap

Self-Reliance

Preparing for winter

Just for Kids: Visit the great prairies

By Lucy Shober Issue #35 • September/October, 1995 Did you ever get an urge to just take off and go someplace exotic? Maybe the North Pole...

Power Up

By Jeffrey R. Yago, P. E., C.E.M. Spring, 2019 During any emergency or related power outage, the most important electronic device you need to keep operating...

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

Gee-Whiz: Ice Ages, Past and Future

A doomsday scenario to sleep on

A brief history of health and medicine

Gee-Whiz: From Paper to Canning

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

The barnyard scramble

The vanishing outhouse

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

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

Firearms

Sight and sound enhancement

Firearms handling refresher Part II: Shotguns

By Massad Ayoob Website Exclusive • December, 2003 In Part I, we began a series of refreshers on safety and proper handling of firearms. This time,...

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...

Hiding a gun — The rules of three

By Claire Wolfe Issue #140 • March/April, 2013 My friend Jack pulled the car into a grassy clearing. We donned rubber boots, fetched a metal detector...

Preparedness

Disaster preparation!

With commonsense planning, you can survive hard times

Your survival depends on water

Survival infection control

7 Mistakes of food storage

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

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...