Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

A New Use for Old Tires: A Garden Using Tires

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....

Grow some winter squash this year

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Jackie’s Garden Primer

By Jackie Clay Issue #117 • May/June, 2009 The birds are singing. The sunshine makes the day feel soft and warm. The soil is mellow and...

Gardening in the Desert Using Only Rainwater

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

Making Apple Cider with a Homemade Press

The Forever Floor

Build a compost tumbler

Self-Reliance

Modify an E-Tool to make your own Combi-Tool

In the classroom and at home, this system will help you grow self-reliant kids

By Marjorie (Sultzbaugh) Harrison Issue #42 • November/December, 1996 My husband Allan started teaching sixth grade at the Moreno Valley, California, Unified School District in September...

Just for Kids: Some farinaceous folly

By Lucy Shober Issue #36 • November/December, 1995 Click on pictures for printable, full-sized versions to color. Try this experiment. The next time that you are served...

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

Can we make a Tyrannosaurus rex from a chicken?

A doomsday scenario to sleep on

Gee-Whiz: Insects

Gee-Whiz: Time

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 vanishing outhouse

Constitution of the united States of America

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

Firearms

Tailoring guns to females

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...

Firearms and cold weather considerations

By Massad Ayoob Issue #79 • January/February, 2003 Many of our readers have established their abodes in places which, during the winter months, do not exactly...

Canning game meat

By Linda Gabris Issue #166 • July/August, 2017 Attempting to can meat (or any other low acid food, for that matter) without the use of a...

Preparedness

Prepper power! Part 1

Survival firebuilding skills

Start your food storage on $10 a week

Prepper power! Part 2

Preparing for civil unrest

Food security 101

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...