Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

For summertime baking needs, build yourself an outdoor horno

Teach your kids math with the banking game

Practical Ideas for Self-Reliant Living

Grow some winter squash this year

By Lisa Nourse I love summertime — I love the green of the trees, the warm weather, and growing my own food. I especially love...

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Grow Open Pollinated Seeds for Self-Reliant Gardening

By Jackie Clay Issue #56 In the past I've grown hybrid vegetables, mostly the varieties that have been developed to produce early yields. Because of this,...

Elderberries — Hospitality, Health, And Beauty

Want More Fruit From Less Space? Espalier Your Trees!

Prevent Foodborne Illness with Safe Gardening Methods

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

Installing a steel roof

Build a wood-fired stock tank heater

Dorothy Ainsworth update: Out of the ashes

A cabin for one

Self-Reliance

Food security 101

Commonsense preparedness just makes sense

By Jackie Clay Issue #48 • November/December, 1997 What if that snowstorm turned to a blizzard or an ice storm lasted for days, knocking out the...

The community treasure chest

By Sandy Coates Issue #114 • November/December, 2008 Do you have odds and ends sitting around that you no longer need? Are you a "green" thinker,...

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

A doomsday scenario to sleep on

Theories of the universe

Testing Soil

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

Gee-Whiz: Presidents

Farm baseball … with ghost runners!

The Great Depression — A reminiscence

Catfish Biscuits

Firearms

A used shotgun bargain: The Browning Auto-5

1911: The classic homeland security pistol

By Massad Ayoob Issue #83 • September/October, 2003 If you've read American firearms history at all, you know the lore of the .45 automatic. How during...

Consider the 20-gauge shotgun

By Massad Ayoob Issue #120 • November/December, 2009 A year or more ago in these pages, I made the suggestion that sometimes less is more, and...

Sight and sound enhancement

By Massad Ayoob Issue #71 • September/October, 2001 Enhancing vision and hearing can make you a safer, more effective shooter, and sometimes can save human lives. Captain...

Preparedness

Emergency planning beyond the bug-out bag

Caring for wounds in the field

Stashing Junk Silver for Bad Times

Help your home survive in the path of a wildfire

Wildfires: Before, During, After

Homestead security for women

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...