Home - Backwoods Home Magazine

Emergency planning beyond the bug-out bag

Here’s an Easier (and Cheaper) Way to Make Wooden Beams

Exotic Plants for the Homestead

Practical Ideas for Self-Reliant Living

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....

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Grow some winter squash this year

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Exotic Plants for the Homestead

By Corcceigh Green Issue #85 • January/February, 2004 Isn't it funny how even the things we step on while walking on the lawn have value? I...

Plant Your Trees in the Spring

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

Build a Trapper’s Tilt

How to maintain a dirt road

Make your own effective fishing tackle while you save money and recycle scrap

How to build a good fence for your homestead

Self-Reliance

Drive your own freshwater well

Picking your pressure canner — All American or Presto?

By James Kash Issue #143 • September/October, 2013 The garden is in full swing and you have baskets of vegetables piling up; what do you do?...

Homeschooling your dylsexic kid

By John Silveira Issue #142 • July/August, 2013 I write and edit for a living. I'm the senior editor for Backwoods Home Magazine for which I've...

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

The world is ending! … Again?

Gee-Whiz: Bad Fish, Big Fish

A brief history of health and medicine

Gee-Whiz: Presidents

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

Feeling nostalgic? Now you’ll rave! Here’s the story of Burma Shave.

Presidents’ wives of the past Part 4 — Cunning, vindictive, and one may have been a murderess

Habeeb Salloum — Poet, Traveler, Recipe Writer

The greatest American who was never President

Firearms

Get a piece of history — An M1 Garand rifle

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,...

Military surplus and military “clone” rifles

By Massad Ayoob Issue #116 • March/April, 2009 One reader writes to ask if military surplus rifles are still a good idea for hunting, recreational shooting,...

Bury a gun and ammo for 15 years

(and be assured everything still works when you dig it up) By Charles Wood Issue #115 • January/February, 2009 Back in the early 1990s the outlook for the...

Preparedness

Frostbite — Don’t flirt with this sneaky danger

Prepper power! Part 2

Use solar landscape lights for emergencies

Start a fire in any weather

Moving on: A small town can be a haven during a depression

Help your home survive in the path of a wildfire

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...