It may not qualify as a necessity, but one of the things Jack and I most enjoy related to homestead interests is homesteading magazines themselves.
It’s hard to believe there was a time I was not even aware there were such, and I had to content myself with Martha Stewart Living, Country Living, Better Homes and Gardens, and Southern living…all greats in their field, but still leaving me wanting…something. Jack will always have his favorites…Popular Mechanics, and scientific magazines. We both love National Geographic. But where were the magazines telling us how to do the not-so-mainstream projects, sharing collections of anecdotal advice, not vilifying the process of raising/slaughtering/cooking a home-grown chicken? I was probably the last person on earth who didn’t know about Mother Earth Magazine…
Some years back, as I tried to trim budgetary extras, I pretty much left behind reading things that encouraged me to seasonally redecorate the entire house, buy fancy imported foods, or make continual crafts projects. I love decorating, but couldn’t spend much time reading about it without wanting to spend…and that went for a lot of other subjects, too. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy them…I really did, but I didn’t NEED them. I bypassed magazine reading for many years simply because I had a problem being content with what I had, and reading certain things regularly didn’t help with that.
That’s before I discovered homesteading magazines. They don’t show up in the stores around here very often, but for some reason I seem to have H-mag radar. I can pick a cover featuring pygmy goats out of a wall of fashion, auto, and fitness magazines, pronto! Same thing for anything with a cow, horse, chicken, goose, or sheep on it…or solar panel, cordwood house, period clothing, loom, cast iron kettle or cookstove, or piles of fresh produce. Zing! Somehow I can justify buying THAT sometimes because I will reread the thing till it’s worn out, and even then it’ll be saved in a stack of other mags to be returned to later. Spotting the word “compost,” or “artisanal,” or “pastured” on a front cover kicks my adrenaline up to a really happy place moreso than seeing any youthful Hollywood star or airbrushed abs ever will.
After marrying Jack and having many of the same interests in common as well as more ability to access the internet, we began looking for great homesteading magazines, and I feel we hit the Mother Lode. Maybe there are simply more of them out here now. Maybe more folks are interested in homesteading, or we’re only now just aware of these great mags that’ve been out there all along, I don’t know…
It helps that Jack loves them as much as I do. They are in our vehicles, my handbag, bedside tables, bathroom, bookcases. We discuss a lot of things we find in them, and the articles or readers’ letters spark an interest in something we can go look up further on the internet. Whoever gets first dibs on a new one found in the mailbox has a limited time before they have to relinquish it for a read by the other…ha! It may not seem practical, but when the necessary is also something you love, as are so many areas of what we consider a homesteading lifestyle, magazines that touch on a wide range of these are simply a delight to relax with.
This article is not to promote a particular publication, and any specific ones mentioned herein are ones we’re familiar with…but no, I don’t get any money for endorsing them.
Some of the topics that better-known publications only skirt, homesteading and ag magazines indulge thoroughly. How do you make a really good butter? Can I clean a cast-iron skillet with oven cleaner? (the answer is No) What do you do for certain chicken diseases? Is the avian flu publicity accurate? What are fermented foods and what are some easy ones to make? How to utilize that jumbo crop of zucchini? How do you build a homemade chicken coop, nesting box, meat smoker, chicken plucker, water storage system? What are the pros and cons of the different solar products out there? 10 tried and true recipes for (fill in the blank with the featured veggie of that month). How do I extend my growing season? What’s an heirloom plant, a heritage animal? There are articles on tiny houses, planted roofs, wildflower meadows, lowline and heritage cattle, companion planting, herbal tinctures, quilting, necessary and unnecessary tools. Want to raise llamas? miniature animals? meat animals? dairy animals? Which chickens lay those fabulous deep chocolate-colored eggs, or the pastel ones? How can I control poisonous snakes, ticks, mosquitos? How high does a fence need to be to be deer-proof? What plants are deer-resistant?
There are magazines specific to pasture-raising livestock. Others are general and comprehensive, covering many homestead subjects and interspersing the featured articles with favorites such as recipes, how-to sections, letters from readers, Q&A, and photos, not to mention the great ads and upcoming events. Love poultry? There are poultry mags. Hobby farms? Ditto. The same thing can be said for Organic gardening, Herbals and herb gardening, specific types of livestock, farm equipment, homeschooling, homemaking, alternative energy, construction, homebuilding, and so on.
If I’d read this list to the man on the street, most likely I’d get a concerned stare…heehee! But it’s questions like these I’m HUNGRY to read more about…both in magazines and here online. Magazines are simply easier to get comfy with when we’re unplugged, which we try to stay most of the time. They can be dog-eared, highlighted, flagged with sticky notes, and passed from person to person. Homesteading magazines are one of our ways of satisfying some of that enthusiasm to see what others are doing and learn so many things.
This is the sort of enjoyment that is so much fun, we don’t even realize how much we’re learning. Someday, we’ll have an opportunity to put more of those things into practice, but we can’t underestimate the impact they’ve had on us now. Along with the voices of blog friends documenting their own homestead particulars, these magazines have rounded out our enjoyment and learning in practical ways.
Our only potential problem is addiction. Now we have so many favorites, we simply can’t afford subscriptions to more than one or two at a time, so we rotate a bit. Some of the ones we’ve enjoyed in the past include Mother Earth News, Countryside & Small Stock Journal, Back Home, Grit, The Stockman Farmer, Acres U.S.A., Backyard Poultry, Down to the Roots, Backwoods Home, Farm Show (a favorite of Jack’s).
The enjoyment of these is right up there with the happiness of hours spent poring over stockpiled seed catalogs, another favorite seratonin boost…
Do you enjoy a favorite ‘Steading or farm magazine? I’d love to know what’s on your coffee table along those lines…you know, so I can feed the addiction!
Thanks for the list. Now I have to figure out a way to subscribe to one on a tight budget. 🙂 I am sure I can get it figured out OK. 🙂
I get Mother Earth News and have Countryside on the way!
I am frustrated with many of them that you have mentioned. Too many are leaning towards the whole green moevemnt and forgetting about where their readers are coming from. I have gone off on my own blog about some of the articles, like saving on your vacation to (insert an exotic place that many of us will never see), and DIY projects that still cost in the thousands to produce.
Yet, there are still some informitive articles in these rags. I will not tell you which ones I do read, but therea re two I get current and 1 that I only get the older copies of from friends that had parents into simple living.
Thanks for the post! I’ve been trying to google these type of magazines but I had not found all of these. Now they’re safely bookmarked and I’ll probably subscribe some. What would you recommend for someone not living in US? Which ones have most neutral information that isn’t all about marketing services or products only available in the States? Which one has the best pictures (silly, but I just really like inspiring pictures)? And personally, I’m definitely interested in the green stuff, so the more environmentally aware the mag is the better it is for me.
I always save my gardening, animal, house building/renovating and nature related magazines and return to them over and over again. We don’t have “homesteading” magazines as such so it would be fun to read one that combines all the things I’m interested in.
LOL Robbyn, I’m glad I’m not the only one with stacks of magazines everywhere. DH and I fight over certain ones and have been known to hide the newest issues. 😉
I would mention Small Farmers Journal, marketed as a Draft Horse magazine, but filled with reprints of older farming and homesteading articles of all types.
Stockman Grassfarmer and Acres are two of my favorite along with Home Power magazine. Permaculture activist is pretty good too—and offers a differing perspective with more depth than some of the other magazines.
I too am a magazine fanatic. Always have been. Always probably will be. Love them.
P.S—Don’t forget to donate those oldies to your local “friends of the library” to sell and or lay out. Help others become exposed to these great magazines.
I used to have the addiction too!! Now, I’m kind of feeling some are just too mainstream for me, for many of the reasons phelan’s already mentioned. I’ve cut back. But, I think many of them still have great articles from the archives and offer them on discs…..A whole new addiction, my friends! 🙂
I’m another homesteading mag junkie, LOL! Like you, I can only afford 1 or 2 subscriptions, so I rotate them as well. Of course, then I am tempted to buy them whenever I’m in the farm store and could have saved money having a subscription in the first place. I read all the ones you mentioned (although Down to Roots is not one I am aware of. I just recently subscribed to Permaculture Activist (published right here in Indiana) and there is a great British equivalent (that looks even better than PA). I also love the one MoH mentioned, but I only buy them once in awhile.
I found out a co-worker of mine likes some of the same titles and we have been exchanging magazines. This is working out nicely. We just tell each other which ones we want back and whenever we see each other (he works on the other side of the state), we bring mags.
Also, this is just an idea, but I received an incomplete set of three decades of Mother Earth News from someone off of Freecycle! Maybe put an add up and you might be surprised!
Liz, some of them offer free sample copies if you request them, and then you’ll see if it’s something you really like 🙂
Carolyn, fun!!
Phelan, I agree that a lot of the bent seems to be towards stuff that is impractical to us…the green “movement” and its yuppie status is exploited to simply sell more stuff, and not affordably at that. Plus, how much of it is really necessary? I enjoy a range of magazines because they each seem to have something to offer, but we only get a couple subscriptions a year (we switch around). All of them, to me, beat what I see on store shelves, unless you’re talking a farm store 🙂
Em, I’ll throw those questions back to the readers, who have many more years familiarity with these…can anyone make suggestions for a good all-round homesteading mag, or overseas one? It’s really a matter of personal preference, but again, getting a free sample issue is sometimes the way to go. There’s also a big difference in what some folks call “green” and environmentalism. Green is now a catchword that can include a lot of upselling but not necessarily adoption of a self-sufficient lifestyle with common sense. There’s a lot of innovation that is going on, whether it’s considered Green at the moment. When WalMart began touting itself as Going Green in order to appeal to a niche market, I realized how invested companies are in changing the Big Sell to suit trends, but not caring much about helping people return to simplicity. Again, personal preference will figure in greatly 🙂
Nita, Small Farmers Journal…thanks for mentioning it…I’ll check it out!
Monica…donate…DONATE?? That would imply wrenching them out of my hands and actually cleaning out my bookcases…ha! 😉
Angie, I’ve seen those disc of archives advertised. They’re on my Drool list for someday in the future 🙂
Gina, great idea for freecycle! I think I’d actually like the older ones better in somc cases. There is a permaculture magazine I haven’t ever seen, but have seen mention of. I’ll haveto check out the Permaculture Activist one you mentioned…I haven’t heard of that one, but I’m new to most 🙂
How about finding a like minded neighbor and sharing subscriptions? Or reading at the library?
EJ, good ideas 🙂 Haven’t run into any of my own neighbors as yet who like these things…I’m not exactly in the country at present. Library is always a great idea, but at mine they only have one of the ones mentioned above. Does your library carry any of the others?
i love backwoods home!!!
Countryside and Back Home (not to be confused with Back Woods Home) are the 2 I can’t seem to NOT buy. I keep thinking I should just break down and get subscriptions for each of them to save a bit of money, but then I think I’m not going to buy it any more…sigh.
I know what you mean about homesteading magazine addiction. I could stand in the aisle at our local food coop for hours paging through, trying to decide which “one” to buy.
We’re really getting into livestock (chickens and goats) and by far the magazine that has helped us the most is Hobby Farms. Speaking of addiction — there’s cheese! I’m hoping to learn more about making cheese (from goat milk, even) and Hobby Farms has talked about this (Or is it HObby Farm Home? I’ve seen it by Hobby Farms before, but I don’t think it’s available by subscription — tho’ I hear it might be offered by subscript in 09. That one as lots of how twos on making cheese and lots of stuff for thehome.
Acres and Stockman Grassfarmer will send out a free sample, and both have great online sites for free.
While it can be a bit yuppy-ish, an somewhat decent one is Mary Jane’s Farm magazine. (Like a cross between Country Woman (before it went to pot) and Country Living, with a fair bit of the pages dedicated to her catalog, as well as the magazine articles. However, the Farmgirl forum is pretty decent (a good online read), even if populated by a lot of women that seem more “townies who want to be farmgirls” than actual farmgirls.
Amanda, me too! I’ve only had a few of that one before, havent read it in a while
Carla, these are the two beside MEarthNews that my bookstore will sometimes stock…I really enjoy them 🙂
Sally, on their website they have this article on cheesmaking. Including it here in case it helps you find what you were looking for: http://www.hobbyfarms.com/food-and-kitchen/cheese-making-14872.aspx
Nita, free samples, yay! good sites 🙂
Kati, we received a couple of copies of the Mary Jane magazine in the mail, not sure how. They have a different emphasis than some, but I found a lot to like about them…sort of a Martha Stewartized farm girlie mag
All good ideas! I think I’ll post at FreeCycle and see what happens!
Hobby Farm Homes just recently became available by subscription. This is the magazine I most enjoy for what my focus is. Great read. You can find the subscribe link on their website.
I’m really enjoying your comments. All real and informative!