Preparing For Winter

Already we are lighting Old Rusty, most evenings just before dark, when the sun sinks and the night time chill wraps the it’s self around the old farmhouse like a cozy blanket. If you breathe outside in the evening you may see your breathe in the air. Since last night’s heavy rain, walking about the farm will involve the squishing of your shoes that is the primary feature of mud season in New England. Soon, the wind will sting when it touches your face. Winter is coming quickly now and winter in New England, is not a laughable thing to joke about. In the city, people are marking their parking spots to prevent them from being stolen in snow storms. By the ocean, the last of the summer people are shutting it all down and closing up their homes. Here on little homestead farms we too are preparing for the coldest of the cold months.

This is the time when we go into over drive creating what remains of our needed winter gear. My needles have been clack clack clacking like crazy lately all through the evening hours after dinner and before bed. Winter gear for us takes finished form as do handmade christmas presents for friends and family, in the dim light of the living room lamp and the glow of Old Rusty. My coffee table is covered in knitting patterns much of the time at this time of year. These mittens come from a fabulous book by Laine Publishing titled 52 Weeks Of Easy Knits. It’s about staying warm, not being complicated… I mean I can do that too. But keeping things quick and simple as a one woman homestead farm, can save time for other things. I tend to be more complicated in my knit work when it isn’t winter crunch time.

We take our marching orders from nature here at Wildflower. When the leaves change color it is time to get serious in our preparation. One of the most important things to prepare for is to be able to battle the coming cold. We do due diligence to be sure to have sufficient firewood and that it can be organized for proper care so that it is easy to use and dry for when we need it. This year, Dr. Farmer Moomin, constructed this new woodshed. He worked very hard for some time doing double duty. First work, then home to put screws into this little shed. In this photo he had just finished and we had both worked hard to stack our winter wood inside. Our next job being to clean up the surrounding ground. Some years we cut wood, some years we just order it. This is a great way to utilize dead trees on the property. It also helps the wildlife and the general health of the forest, to take down the dead wood and use it for winter. It also helps the spring garden especially in a place like New England where the soil tends to be fairly acidic. when we clean out Old Rusty, we put the ash in bags being sure it is cool and no longer containing any live coals. We store the ash and in the spring spread it in our gardens and even put some out in the chicken coop also. Some years we mix it with lime. Everything on a homestead is part of a cycle that spans the seasons. All waste or as much as possible, is put to use in some way that actually gives it value.

By this point, The Night Club has been planted and is starting to provide. Already I am getting some carrots, radishes, peas and beans as well as some nice nummy cooking herbs. This is my stash of fresh eats for the winter months. For the cost of seed I eat, even as the price of food sky rockets in grocery stores all across the country. A problem that will not get better with the new incoming regime. You can’t deport that many people and still have folks working the fields so that there is food in the necessary quantity on store shelves. Supply will not meet demand and that will drive up pricing. Not just for produce. But also for feed for livestock. Get ready for meat and eggs to skyrocket in price also. Then it will go sky high again when farmers try to hire labor that doesn’t want to do these jobs, not enough people will be willing to do the work at any price. So now the pricing problem has doubled. Paying people who don’t want to do the work to do it, means paying them at least 3 times as much. Consumers will feel these rising costs for farmers in addition to the continued problem with supply not meeting demand. How do I know this? I am a bloody farmer. That is how. It’s nice to know that as the system that feeds us falls apart, here at Wildflower, we will not be particularly impacted. Watching others suffer is always a difficult thing though. My heart is breaking that people voted to cause these kinds of problems for themselves and for eachother.

In the kitchen, we feel the warmth offered by Old Rusty. Our kitchen is a warm space designed to be high functioning and utilitarian. The heart of our home and homestead. We are trying to get the last few things ready and put up for the winter months. The canner has come out and things are busy in the cozy wooden comfort kitchen.

One of my favorite things when canning is to forgo standard white sugar. Instead, I use what is local that has a 1:1 substitution ratio with standard sugar. Maple sugar. I love maple sugar. It is a staple in my little homestead kitchen. I find it has a warmer sweetness somehow and a cozy quality that sugar doesn’t have. Which I think helps somehow against the winter chill.

Another method we use to hold onto the harvest for the cold months is dehydration. We keep an Excaliber 9 tray however it is spelled. I apologize. I am literally a dyslexic blogger and yes I have 40 years of documented proof of my dyslexia. I don’t use that term lightly. I truly am highly dyslexic, so please bear with me as I do my human best. I enjoy drying apples often I do them very plain and simple. But another favorite yummy  created so far as I know only here at Wildflower, involves mixing cinnamon with maple sugar then sprinkling thinly sliced apples and popping them in the dehydrator to be eaten dry. Very nice little snack weather plain or with maple sugar and cinnamon.

We live in apple country. The apples we use are hand picked from our trees or at a local orchard. Apples play a large roll over winter months at Wildflower. There is always a pot of cider with a couple of whole cloves and about 3 cinnamon sticks hot in a pot on the stove, so anyone coming in from the cold can enjoy the warm feeling of sweet life re-entering their body as they thaw in front of Old Rusty.

Every soft comfortable chair or couch offers a throw blanket. A cannister of salt or ash from last year’s winter wood stove fires is by the door ready to get sprinkled down on walk ways in case of ice. Snow shovels are ready and waiting by the door also. Boots, and winter gear are set up making it super easy to access them as needed… Outside an electric cord is run to the animal’s water dishes. This extension cord allows us to plug in their water dish to keep drinking water ice free…. Christmas books are out and easily available.  Planning for the holiday has begun in earnest. The plow guy is called to ensure he will be coming. We get an oil delivery to ensure we have hot water through the winter. We tend to heat only high enough to prevent frozen pipes and to get hot water. Beyond that heating comes from our wood stoves, the most significant of which we call Old Rusty. It’s name is inspired by it’s ever growing rustiness. We get a gas delivery, to make sure the greenhouse heater runs through the winter so we can eat. We turn off the outdoor water when the ground freezes. Make sure winter tires are on the car. Make sure the horse’s winter blankets are out and ready to go, through the long cold seasons. Check in on elderly neighbors, make sure they are set up for the coming cold season. What is hard on us must be harder on them. A good homesteader especially going into winter never forgets their neighbors and making sure they will be alright.

I take some time to prep my self care needs too for the winter months. This is some herbally medicated lip balm I use as chap stick through the winter. I also make some body lotion as the cold months really dry out my skin.

The last thing to do, is to consider how to grow as a homesteader and as a person when the workload dissipates for the winter. The needs of the garden shrink astronomically. The cold forces us all indoors here in new England. It is important to ask how to use the extra time. One thing I like to do is buy some books on homesteading and things I would like to start or implement in the spring, or learn more about to do better at in the following year. For further self growth I enrolled in online education such as The School Of Traditional Skills. I also add fun books that serve no purpose other than fun. I also usually through the winter am studying a course at some point through The Carter Haugh School as I really enjoy folk lore. Wondrium too can offer some interesting programs of study. When nature stops growing outside it is time for me to start growing inside. These things help me do that. Not everyone shares my interests and that is fine. I am sure there is stuff you can engage with that lines up with your interests in quiet ways over the winter months so that you too can keep growing.

Winter can be a special time if we make it one.
I am looking forward to winter.
I hope you are too.
Thank you for reading
Amanda Of Wildflower Farm