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A Backwoods Home Anthology — The Eighteenth Year
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DEPARTMENTS
6  Publisher’s Note

7  Editorial:
Finally—a disaster that is guaranteed!

71  Ayoob on Firearms:
Avoiding legal traps

50  Claire goes to the movies

30  Ask Jackie:
Hulling buckwheat, uses of wood ashes, celiac disease, country style ham, sailboat living, etc.

16  Irreverent joke page

79  Letters

78   Advertiser Index

90  Classified ads (pdf)

90  Classified advertising form

93-95   BHM anthologies, CD-ROMs, & books

96-97  Order form/Subscription Info

89  The last word:
Republican suicide

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Cover 105
ABOUT THE COVER
This issue’s cover is identical to the drawing accompanying John Silveira’s article, Where our farm animals come from, on page 18, except we’ve deleted the drawings at the top to make room for the magazine masthead. As usual, Don Childers, who lives in Colorado, painted it. It is a watercolor that he scanned into Photoshop, touched up with computer, then emailed to us as a 400 dpi jpeg.

FEATURES

Alternative energy

37  Hydronic woodstoves   By Jeffrey R. Yago, PE, CEM

Building and tools

8  Candles, guns, and knives   By David Lee

David Lee shows us how to keep our most important tools handy when they are needed most.

Garden/Farm

18  Where our farm animals come from   By John Silveira

42  The chicken and the egg   By Allen Easterly

If you’re interested in egg production, here is an article that tells you which breeds are the best layers and how to keep your hens healthy and happy.

Self-reliance

56  Cleaning a well   By Pat Barden

A clean well is important to your health. Pat’s well needed decontamination, purification, and maintenance. He tells us how he did it start to finish.

60  You can safely and easily can your own meat   By Jackie Clay

Don’t be afraid to can meat! Jackie gives us step-by-step instructions on canning a variety of meat, both wild and domestic.

67  Controlling mice and rats   By Erwin V. Cohen

69  Rodents carry disease, ruin food, and gnaw everything   By John Silveira

77  The coffee mug knife sharpener   By Michael Cantrell

Country Living

14  John McCormick, octogenarian   By Dorothy Ainsworth

Here is the first of our new series that highlights memorable country characters.

46  This country job really rocks   By Charles Sanders

Recipes

51  Homemade healthy soba noodles   By Linda Gabris