Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

Build an Old-Fashioned Hotbed and Start Your Seeds in Style

A determined Rose Bley escaped the city

Yurt Magic — Building an Enchanting Instant House

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

Grow Your Own Dishrags

By Alice B. Yeager Photos by James O. Yeager Issue #85 • January/February, 2004 Some of us are thrifty beyond measure, even growing our own dishrags. None...

Plant Your Trees in the Spring

Garden Seeds — A Great Winter Pastime

By Hook or Crook: A Billhook is a Handy Homestead Tool

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

Turning a $10,000 House into a Home — Part 1: Salvaging the Wreck

Make your own lumber with a chainsaw mill

Build a portable woodstove for $30

A simple backwoods hay baler

Self-Reliance

Call me plumber

Preparing for winter

By Jackie Clay-Atkinson Issue #161 • September/October, 2016 In some climates, winter's no big deal — just a little rain and cooler weather. But for the...

Storm survivors

By Anita Evangelista Issue #71 • September/October, 2001 First couple days of June, 1998, weather pretty good, a bit wetter than it is now. Clear day,...

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

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

The gee-whiz! page — Cats: Why they rule our world

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

Habeeb Salloum — Poet, Traveler, Recipe Writer

The Great Depression — A reminiscence

President George Washington’s Farewell Address

Gee-Whiz: Presidents

Firearms

Sight and sound enhancement

Reload your own brass

By Dale Petry Issue #132 • November/December, 2011 Not long ago a friend called to say he had seen an unusual rifle at the local gun...

Affordable firearms

By Massad Ayoob Issue #134 • March/April, 2012 Knowing that frugality is one of the cornerstones of rural living, Editor Annie Tuttle suggested that I tackle...

An economical battery of guns for the backwoods home

By Massad Ayoob Issue #114 • November/December, 2008 Everything's getting more expensive. Food. Gasoline. Guns and ammunition. Not everyone who appreciates the rural lifestyle was "born...

Preparedness

Medical kits for self-reliant families

Solar-powered water purifiers

Preparing for civil unrest

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

Stashing Junk Silver for Bad Times

Your survival depends on water

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...