Magazines for tractor owners or DIY people?

[Domush]

Does anyone have a recommendation for a few magazine to subscribe to which cover hobby farms and general home DIY stuff?

- "Woodworking" magazine is nice, but I'm getting out of woodworking.

- "Handyman" magazine is a great read for little tidbits, but lacks any real substance if you've been a homeowner for any length of time (though it was great when I was a first time homeowner).

Any others to consider?

I see there is a "Hobby Farms" magazine, but the subscription price is a little much for 6 issues. Frankly, it seems any decent magazine I find is $35+ per year, which I guess is why they are decent. It just keeps me out of the subscriber ranks, as that is a lot to pony up for 15 pages of info and 20 pages of ads.

Are magazines just a dead means of information transfer? I really like sitting outside and flipping through one, but I just don't finish them feeling as though I learned anything anymore. Maybe this is just a nostalgia post, as I really miss the days of magazines being sought after. I would linger in the magazine isle for an hour, easy, back then. Now I avoid it. Maybe I just see the commercialism fully entwined in them, now.

There must be a few useful ones left.. anyone?

 

[RollingsFarms]

Do you have a tractor supply nearby? They carry a wide variety of magazines for sale that have to do with hobby farming, old tractors, all kinds of stuff.

 

[jonnyc1999]

Mother Earth News is one of my favorites. If you look around, you can get a yearly subscription for $10. I also really like Grit. Both magazines focus on back to the land, DIY type living, but may not be as project driven as you are looking for.

 

[Domush]

Mother Earth News is one of my favorites. If you look around, you can get a yearly subscription for $10. I also really like Grit. Both magazines focus on back to the land, DIY type living, but may not be as project driven as you are looking for.

I had forgotten about Mother Earth News! I got it a few years back, but the rate went up and I just let it slide. I'll look around for the $10 deal. Never heard of Grit. I'll check it out. Thanks!

I'm not really looking for project based stuff, per se. I normally like 'tips and tricks' type magazines. Family Handyman is that type of monthly, but I'm to the point where I'm seeing the repetition in it, just like Popular Mechanics does. I'm really looking for something which would have a "make your own implements", "diagnosing a sputter" or "how to rebuild your diesel tractor" or similar sections.

Okay, I just subscribed to:

Grit, Mother Earth News, Horse, Hobby Farms and Reason

I'm not so sure about Horse, but for $10 it's not a big risk and if it's boring I can put it in the guest bathroom .

 

[CompactTractorFan]

I subscribed to Hobby Farms for a few years. I ended up ending my subscription, because I did not take interest in much of the content.

Most of the content was about livestock, gardening, cooking, etc...There was not much on tractors, tools, outdoor projects, equipment maintenance, etc (the things that I like )...

 

[forgeblast]

Hobby farms is all fluff and nice pictures, I bought a few but then realized every month was just a different adverstisement.
Mother earth news is good one of our members garygary has been featured a few times in it.
Country side magazine is not too bad either.
I get the baker creek seed company magazine called The Heirloom Gardener great pictures and well written.

 

[Mousefield]

We find Countryside a good magazine for our needs as we have several types of live stock and also grow several types of vegetables. Used to get Backwoods Home but dropped them a couple of years ago, sometimes too much politics in it. Many years ago we used to get Mother Earth News, still have about 100? issues of it, the older ones had better content then the newer ones in my opinion.

 

[JDgreen227]

I formerly subscribed to dozens of different magazines of all types, such as This Old House, Handyman, etc. as well as numerous auto and RV publications but as Mousefield says, the older issues were much better than the newer ones...PERIOD.

Take one, Trailer Life, an RV publication...I subscribed to it from 1994 thru 2008, it used to be an interesting and fact-filled magazine full of helpful tips and the older issues had as much as 135-140 pages and about a third of it was useful content. Skip ahead to 2007, the same magazine had been reduced to 90 pages and maybe 15-20 pages were useful content or reviews, there were over 60 PAGES of advertising alone, and the price had doubled. For the obscene amount of ads in todays magazines they should be giving them away for free, not trying to sell them for $7 each on the news stands.

Tell you guys something, my sis in law works for a magazine clearing house which means I can buy subscriptions to magazines for $8-12 a year, yet I have gradually stopped subscribing to any of them except those published by Hemmings, plus TIME magazine. Today's mags are nothing but ads.

 

[Taylortractornut]

I like Farmshow but the last few yearsa its getting to be more adds. Less smaller farmers and larger ones are making their own stuff. I still like it though and the tips section is great. The other mags I like are Classic Plant and Machinery and Old Tractor mag both out of the UK. CPM is based on the preservation and history of old construction equipment and trucks.

Seems like Mother earth is Al gores love child. I have some old ones that a friend copied that were neat on how to built stoves and green houses and neat stuff like that.

 

[300UGUY]

I like Farmshow but the last few yearsa its getting to be more adds. Less smaller farmers and larger ones are making their own stuff. I still like it though and the tips section is great. The other mags I like are Classic Plant and Machinery and Old Tractor mag both out of the UK. CPM is based on the preservation and history of old construction equipment and trucks.

Seems like Mother earth is Al gores love child. I have some old ones that a friend copied that were neat on how to built stoves and green houses and neat stuff like that.

I've subscribed to Mother, Countryside, Backwoods Home, and a few I can't remember. I am trying to limit my projects now, and I wanted to decrease the amount of junk coming into the house, so I have not renewed my scripts. I get Antique Tractor, but I think I will let it lapse. I like the Old tractor mag from England. I usually read it at TSC!!!