Prepping for winter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought I would give you a quick run down of how we prep for winter here......

Prepping for winter at our homestead is a year long process. From the first seedling that emerges from the soil in late winter, to the sweet potato harvest just before frost, it takes a whole year to get to this point.

Our pantry is chock full of ; Beans, Tomatoes, salsa, pickles, pickled peppers, carrots, chicken stock, all sorts of jam, apples, peaches, applesauce, apple cider, grapejuice, and I am sure I am missing something ;) We will be adding more shelving this winter as well. As you can see I am running out of space!
We have about 70 lbs of potatoes , along with some winter squash, some crazy gourd that voluntarily took over half my garden, and have yet to pull our sweet potatoes(note the empty basket),
All of this is grown right here on our homestead.

We have about 15 chickens in the freezer currently and have 15 more meat birds arriving next week. We may end up canning some of them as freezer space is limited. Being off the power grid we only have a small freezer above our fridge, so processing chickens in batches of about 15 is how we are doing things for the time being.
Chicken sausage is on the to do list as well....

I just finished up canning some  apple cider today ( stay tuned for that post), and we are going to whip up some hard cider next ;)

Hauling, cutting and stacking wood is a constant around here. It seems we fall behind during the summer months as we are so busy with the bees ( busy as a bee?? hehe) that time just slips away from us, and then before you know it we are scrambling to catch up.
Robb is amazing at "catching up" . Every year he manages to haul, unload, split and stack between 9-11 cords..I suppose when its your only source of heat, hot water, baking and cooking, you find a way to make it happen.

We have loads of honey, no shortage there !( that is what all those buckets are on our cookstove)
I believe we have 3 =5 gallons buckets left. Enough for us and plenty left over to sell...

and of course, eggs from our layers.....

Next, I will make a trip and stock up on rice, beans, sugar, flour, coffee and other essentials ..

A batch of Meade from our honey is on the list as well. This will probably happen after wood is done being split and bees  season is completely done.

As summer winds down,and the Farmers market comes to an end next month and our income dwindles a bit our goal  is to be as self sufficient as possible during the winter months while we do not have that extra income coming in.
Having a limited weekly grocery bill ( about 40 dollars/week) and limited bills in general( no electric, heat , water, garbage, cell phone , cable etc) allows us to live fairly comfortably on a smaller income.

Feeling pretty confident in our food and wood stores, ready for the snow to fly.  It was 41 degrees here this morning, time to fire that cookstove up!


Blessings
Jaime