Big Snow on the Homestead

Well ,the much anticipated Snow from Winter Storm Jonas,  arrived! I kind of lost count after awhile, but am guessing we were blessed with about 15" of the white stuff.
For those of you who follow our blog, you know that we are within a National forest. We have a 12 mile gravel ( now snow ) commute. The roads are not maintained by the state or county. although The National Forest does hire someone to plow( sometimes). Last time we had snow like this, it was 6 days before our roads were cleared...and a week before our Mail arrived.
They did come through with a plow yesterday when the snow started,but that has since been covered with about 10 more inches of snow.
Hey, it makes for a good hiking trail, when ya cant drive on it!

We have really been enjoying our time snowed in; baking, hiking, sledding , reading. eating and hanging around the wood cookstove staying warm.

Now spring can officially arrive.. *wink

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

Starting a fire, the easy way!

Ok, so after 6 yrs of having our cookstove, you think I would be a pro at starting a fire. Truth be told , I was ok at it. and as a lot of your woostove folks out there,  I had those mornings where all I wanted was a warm house, and I couldn't get a fire started for the life of me ( ok I got it started eventually) without a lot of smoke and generous amount of  swearing mixed in, haha..
My husband tried to convince me to start a fire his way, being stubborn it took me a couple months to agree.. and let me tell you, THIS IS THE WAY to start a fire... set it and forget it,, lights up every time perfect!!
We would like to take credit for this technique, but Robb actually read it somewhere in Countryside Magazine a few years back.....and individual had wrote in , explaining how to start a perfect fire every time..  and he was right, so whoever you are,, Thank you!!

Ok, easy peasy

                                            * set 2 small logs on each side of the fire box

 

 

 

* place newspaper , paper etc in between the logs

 

 



Place Kindling wood on top of newspaper in cross cross fashion. we use stick sometimes, but love cut up pallets for our kindling.

 

 

Light it up!

 

 

Let me know how this works for you!  I don't think I'll ever start a fire another way :)


The Cools

Autumn: Stocking up and winding down

well, We are Finally caught up on the wood situation. Robb spent 2 weeks bringing home truck loads of wood. We live in a National forest with a 12 mile gravel ride through it, so he is fortunate enough to be able to grab a down Tree off the side of the road ( or sometimes in the road, and yes that happens often; he always carries a chainsaw with him) cut it up and bring it home. and it only costs us 20.00 for a wood permit to legally get wood throughout the forest.. pretty cheap heating bill ;)

We heat entirely with wood, with NO back up. all of our hotwater is heated with wood, and we solely cook and bake with wood. So its kind of important to have the woodshed stocked.
AND after 5 yrs of splitting wood by hand or trying to borrow a wood splitter we were fortunate enough to be able to buy one. This has helped Tremendously in saving time. We are by no means done hauling and splitting but feel we have a good handle on it.

The pantry is pretty well stocked too. I still have some more to do . I am hoping we get around to building more shelves. I want to extend the pantry on the right hand side, ( L shaped) by putting more shelves up there. I am running out of room! 

The fall garden is in. I planted Kale, lettuce, carrots beets, broccoli, cabbage, and spinach. My spinach had a heck of time germinating, so I have reseeded it for the 4TH TIME. 

I have more Beans flowering and hope to get a good harvest before frost sets in.

Sweet potatoes still need dug, and I am really trying to be patient and let them grow a little bigger , but am really tempted to go out there and tear things up ;)

Robb did a hive inspection and all the hives look pretty good. Its probably the last inspection for the year before winter sets in.

 Hope everyone is having beautiful weather! Its been an absolute Joy to work outside these past couple weeks. Enjoying every second before the cold sets in!!

Happy Autumn!!!!
The Cools

Homesteading: The true story

Ok, its a little embarrassing, OK, its a lot embarrassing and I am sure my husband is wondering why I would post a picture like this..
If you are wondering what this is, its our wood shed that has somehow turned into a storage shed..
Its the middle of august, and we have NO wood split.. thats right, NONE.

I wanted to show the REAL side of homesteading.  With so many blogs and facebook pages out there showing pretty pictures with lovely quotes attached, I wanted to show what it can REALLY be like....Its not all running through a field of daises, swimmin in the creek  and cookin beans over a cookstove while we all sit around and craft and tell stories and live some laid back fantasy life.. ( well ok maybe in the winter we sit around a bit more;)

This is the reality of having a LOT going on....THIS is the reality of trying to be self sufficient, it can get ugly,, haha

we went from about 20 hives to 60 this year. and between that, gardens, the farmers market, raising a 7 yr old, canning our harvest, and everything else life has to offer, we are just a litttttle behind.

Being completely off the power grid, this is our only source of heat, Hot water and how we cook and bake from about october to may. so we go through A LOT of wood.

Robb assures me we are ok, and he is going to start splitting that big ol pile soon. but thats not even close to what we need . If he have to buy a load this year, I am ok with that.. its  hard to do it all, and we just have to remember that sometimes its not possible...and sometimes ya have to pull out the checkbook to keep your own sanity.....

This is what homesteading looks like at times.. its a never ending battle to keep up!!! But what else would we do if not this??? its our life :)

Timber!

Its been a busy couple of weeks here ... My dad came down for a visit last week :) We ate more than we should have, he got to spend time with his grand-daughter, and ( its never fails when son in law and dad get together) we accomplished a project we have been wanting to get done for a while now.

 

This is how it usually happens ;)
Dad and Husband have a  beer.... Dad and Husband get Bored... Dad and husband start an unannounced project,,hehehee..

I was in the kitchen Baking a pie and canning potatoes when giant branches started hitting the back porch... I ran outside to see what was up. Yep, thats my husband up in the tree, cutting down limbs with a chainsaw ...

They were getting Ready to drop our maple.. This is a beautiful tree, but there were 2 problems: It was blocking the sun for our Solar Batch Collector that will be used to heat our water in the summer, and it was dying at the top.
I will miss the Buzzzzzz sound we heard  every February from the Honeybees collecting pollen. But it had to come down :/

Robb cut and dad pulled with the rope. He told me I might have to help pull, but I ran inside and made myself scarce ..........

I did come outside quietly,  and watch once Robb started sawing, it was scary and kind of exciting... Robb has never really cut down a tree before, let alone one this tall, but my dad talked him through it,, and they dropped it like pro's

 so there ya have it :)  The hot water batch collector will be hooked up very soon. we are currently working on hooking up the cookstove for our hot water in the winter so need to finish that up first.

 quite a bit of wood to heat the homestead too..

 

Until next time :)

 

The cools