Home - Backwoods Home Magazine

Homestead burnout — What it is and how to avoid it

Raising your own beef for your family

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 Tomatoes

By Jackie Clay-Atkinson Issue #166 • July/August, 2017 Nearly all of us homesteaders grow tomatoes in our gardens. Tomatoes are hugely valuable as a homestead crop....

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

Use Plastic to Get a Head Start on Corn in the...

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

A cabin for one

A river rock shower

Build a graceful footbridge

Tools and hardware for the backwoods home

Self-Reliance

Homestead helpers

The coffee mug knife sharpener

By Michael Cantrell Issue #105 • May/June, 2007 Not too long ago, I watched a man open his pocket knife by pulling it partway open to...

The art of living in small spaces

By Claire Wolfe Issue #92 • March/April, 2005 Long ago, I read that to live in the country...

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: Alcohol

Gee-Whiz: Insects

Gee-Whiz: Coffee

The world is coming to an end… and this time, I’m not kidding

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

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

The greatest American who was never President

Doesn’t anyone remember Tom Paine

From Martha and Abigail to Dolley and Louisa, America’s earliest First Ladies were fascinating

Firearms

Firearms — Tools of rural living

Big boomer guns

By Massad Ayoob Issue #125 • September/October, 2010 For you long time readers, I know what you're thinkin'"Hey, isn't this the guy who within the last...

Inexpensive retired Russian military rifles can be the ideal backwoods meat guns

By Rev. J.D. Hooker Issue #47 • September/October, 1997 Like many another rural person, I've often found a firearm to be my most important tool. No,...

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...

Preparedness

Frostbite — Don’t flirt with this sneaky danger

Use solar landscape lights for emergencies

Circle of friends

Prepper power! Part 1

Caring for wounds in the field

Emergency planning beyond the bug-out bag

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...