Articles - Backwoods Home Magazine

Animals

Bottle-raise a calf

Build a chicken feeder on the cheep cheep cheep

Keeping homestead animals healthy

Raising your own beef

Building

The Mini-Skyline — A homemade yarder to bring firewood up a...

By James F. Deaton Website Exclusive • January, 2006 The need to get firewood from a draw below my house to my woodshed started me on...

Getting logs

Making and using a solar cooker

Build an inexpensive but durable jackleg fence

Free pallet wood and birdhouses add up to big country dollars

Farm and Garden

Your Manure Pile — For Fuel, Fertilizer, and Maybe Even Improved...

By Rev. J.D. Hooker Issue #87 • May/June, 2004 It's been well over a decade now since I first heard my friend Pete voice his amazement...

Leafy Green Vegetables — The Underrated Heroes of the Garden

How to become a backyard beekeeper

Starting a Roadside Farm Stand

Herb Boxes from Fence Boards

Americana and History

Biological and chemical weapons through history

By John Silveira Issue #81 • May/June, 2003 The weather here on the coast of Oregon is nice almost all year-round, and there almost always seems...

Quilts — Masterpieces of the heart and windows into women’s history

Presidents’ wives of the past Part 4 — Cunning, vindictive, and...

Emancipation Proclamation by Historical Document

Was the first government gun confiscation attempt foiled by an unsung...

Food and recipes

These chocolate treats make great gifts and delicious holiday desserts

Potato Latkes

Wild edibles in delectable dishes

Pistachios — Historic and healthy nuts

Self-reliance

Jim Van Camp: Coffee roaster, painter

10 day survival pack for your vehicle for just $25

Storing dry foods

Paring down for off-grid living

Energy

Dim bulbs in California

Solar-powered refrigerators

Build a simple solar-powered outdoor light

Solar-powered water purifiers

Guns and Hunting

The M1A — A rifle that makes a statement

By Massad Ayoob Issue #45 • May/June, 1997 I take the Springfield Armory rifle out of the box, and savor it. I seldom do that with...

Picking a holster

Firearms handling refresher Part III: Rifles

Air power superiority

Canning game meat

Science

Gee-Whiz: Insects

By O. E. MacDougal November/December 2015, Backwoods Home Some 400 million years ago, in the Devonian Period, insects evolved from crustaceans. Since that time, they have...

The coming ice age

The ‘risks’ with Swine Flu

Gee-Whiz: Coffee

Subduction zone tsunami — What the residents of the Pacific Northwest...

Politics and Commentary

The destruction of the mass print media will help save freedom in America

Personal guns getting to be in style

The Coming American Dictatorship Part XI — The Tenth Amendement Movement

Understanding the gun debate, part 1

Animals

Raising quail — A home grown delicacy

By Allen Easterly Issue #101 • September/October, 2006 Raising quail is inexpensive, easy, provides very healthy low-fat white meat, and supplies the fertilizer you need for...

Bovine basics for beginners

By Patrice Lewis Issue #122 • March/April, 2010 Congratulations. You've escaped the city life and are now the proud owners of your little plot of rural...

Raising your own beef for your family

Shearing, carding, spinning, weaving and creating with Margaret Boos

Broody biddies make sense on the homestead

Khaki Campbell ducks — The other egg layer

Self-Reliance

Preserve the harvest naturally through wild fermentation

How to maintain your chimney

Jackie’s tips for hardcore homesteading

The poor man’s ultra-light dual-fuel backpacking stove

Farm and Garden

Leafy Green Vegetables — The Underrated Heroes of the Garden

By Jackie Clay Issue #104 • March/April, 2007 When you mention "garden," everybody immediately thinks of sweet corn, green beans, and tomatoes, with a few peppers and cucumbers thrown in. But a whole lot of folks,...

Read more

Hügelkultur for the Homestead

By Rose Shelton Issue #176 • April/May/June, 2019 Last spring, I finally completed a long-planned homestead project of constructing two hügelkultur beds. What is hügelkultur? It’s basically a method of recycling junk wood to make a...

Read more