Backwoods Home Magazine is about to become a print magazine again after a one-year hiatus as a digital-only publication. The person who is making this possible is my son, Sam Duffy, who will assume the role of publisher, a job I have had since founding BHM 29 years ago.… Read the rest
By Krista Lawson
Pull into the driveway of any rural farm or homestead and you are bound to be greeted by a dog or two. Dogs become an integral part of many homesteads as livestock and property guardians or hunting dogs.… Read the rest
By Tom Kovach
Residents of the Great Plains, it is said, had an imagination as fertile as their soil. In trying to get settlers to the Midwest in the late 1800s and early 1900s, a newspaper ad read: “Tickle the land with a hoe and watch your crops laugh all the way through the harvest!”
Would that it would be that easy.… Read the rest
By Charles Sanders
Emergencies happen. Whether you are camping, hunting, fishing, hiking, boating, or just traveling, there may come the time when you are thrust into a real survival situation.… Read the rest
By Rick Brannan
Like most urban homesteaders, I live on a small parcel of earth. Living small means utilizing every square foot of ground to produce food for the table.… Read the rest
By Melissa Souza
When we planted our golden plum tree last year, we got three plums. But this year when the tree bloomed, we never dreamed that every tiny blossom would become a golden plum.… Read the rest
By Melissa Souza
Sometimes when I drive into town I look around and think to myself, “One day this could all be different.” There have been countless zombie apocalypse, EMP blackout, and alien invasion television shows, but it’s doubtful that something like that would really happen.… Read the rest
By Linda Zimnick
It began with the prick of a thorn. Within a few days, the 35-year-old man from South India had an abscess swelling from the fleshy mound on his right palm at the base of his thumb, a raging fever, was exceptionally drowsy, and was having difficulty breathing.… Read the rest
Fire cider is a traditional folk elixir that has been lovingly brewed and used by generations of people across the world as a preventative medicine.… Read the rest
By Tom Kovach
A few minutes spent sharpening garden tools can save hours in the garden. Sharp tools make work easier and safer. A sharp hoe can quickly cut through soil to sever a weed.… Read the rest
By Tom Kovach
There is an old maxim about exercise: “The best exercise is the one you are willing to do.”
For us rural folk, one of the exercises we are usually willing to do is gardening, because it is part of the lifestyle of living in the country.… Read the rest
