Backwoods Home Magazine - Practical Self-Reliance

Build a Heated Germination Bed

Hog butchering — Using everything but the squeal

Green or Yellow: Grow Your Best Bush Beans Ever

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

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

Use Non-Hybrid Seeds and Save Big Bucks in This Year’s Garden

By Jackie Clay Issue #51 • May/June, 1998 Every person who is striving for self-reliance should, and most do, plant a garden from which to raise...

Build an Old-Fashioned Hotbed and Start Your Seeds in Style

Raised Bed Gardening — Neat and Productive

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

Adventures with a portable sawmill

How to Install a Steel Roof

Rural Building

Trusses — Low cost marvels to roof over most large spaces

Self-Reliance

Teach your kids math with the banking game

Mosquitoes outnumber us and no one likes them

By Tom and Joanne O’Toole Issue #80 • March/April, 2003 Mosquitoes are responsible for irritating bites, cause itching welts, can spread diseases, are a constant aggravation...

Teaching the joy of reading

By Amy E. Peare Issue #96 • November/December, 2005 Most parents want to see their children well equipped to succeed in life, and homesteaders are no...

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: Trees

The coming ice age

The MTHFR mutation and why it may matter to you

Gee-Whiz: Insects

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

Oregon Trail preparedness: What supplies did the settlers carry?

The summer of ’35

Presidents’ wives of the past Part 3

Was the first government gun confiscation attempt foiled by an unsung colonial heroine?

Firearms

An economical battery of guns for the backwoods home

Firearms handling refresher Part I: Handguns

By Massad Ayoob Website Exclusive • December, 2003 One of our readers e-mailed John Silveira to tell him that taking a handgun afield after a long...

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,...

Tailoring guns to females

By Massad Ayoob Issue #131 • September/October, 2011 So, I'm sitting here in a hotel writing this, less than three hours after getting off the witness...

Preparedness

Frostbite — Don’t flirt with this sneaky danger

Handy Keychain Mini-Gadgets

Power-up bag

Caring for wounds in the field

Wildfires: Before, During, After

Circle of friends

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...