Home - Backwoods Home Magazine

Swiss Chard — The Leaf Vegetable That Keeps on Giving!

Boost your immune system with fast and easy fish dishes

By Linda Gabris When I was growing up in the rural woods, Grandpa and I did a lot of fishing from spring through fall so...

Grow some winter squash this year

Vitamins D and K — way more important than you thought

The Best City Garden

By Anita Evangelista Issue #103 • January/February, 2007 City gardens and country gardens are differentnot only in the amount of space...

Leaf Mold is Another Way to Build Your Soil

Caring for your chickens in winter

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

Tools and hardware for the backwoods home

Build a wood-fired stock tank heater

Building Eric’s house

Build a ski sled

Self-Reliance

How to Resurrect Old, Rusted Tools

The art of living in small spaces

By Claire Wolfe Issue #92 • March/April, 2005 Long ago, I read that to live in the country...

How to begin taking wildlife photographs

By H. Bumper Bauer Issue #120 • November/December, 2009 If you want to get into wildlife photography, your timing could not be better. Many serious amateur...

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

Subduction zone tsunami — What the residents of the Pacific Northwest have to fear

Science and truth. Are they related?

Theories of the universe

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

Presidents’ wives of the past Part 3

Oregon Trail preparedness: What supplies did the settlers carry?

Farm baseball … with ghost runners!

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

Firearms

1911: The classic homeland security pistol

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,...

Of guns and snakes

By Massad Ayoob Issue #151 • January/February, 2015 Mas safely kills a rattlesnake in a populated area. (Note angle of gun and trajectory.) Pistol is a...

The light at the end of the gun

By Massad Ayoob Issue #128 • March/April, 2011 Dave writes, "A few weeks ago I had to shoot a skunk in the chicken house, but the...

Preparedness

Preparedness for travelers

Stashing Junk Silver for Bad Times

Emergency treatment for fire-related injuries

Use solar landscape lights for emergencies

Caring for wounds in the field

Your survival depends on water

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...