Winter is settling in around my house and I'm curious to see what the weather does this year. I've heard all kinds of predictions that say extra hard to mild. So I guess I'll just have to wait and see. :) The mountains higher than me already have almost 90 inches of snow, but here around my house it's fallen and melted back and fourth a bunch of times so nothing is very deep yet.
I'm finding that being home more is changing a bit how my firewood use works out. Here's a few thoughts on that.
I have now split all that wood that came from the trees that blew over near the garden, but due to increased usage, I'm now anticipating needing a little more than I used last year. So, before the snow gets and deeper, I went out and collected about another cord of logs. Which I am now cutting into rounds and then will split as I have time.
I am totally loving the slightly more relaxed life, at least until there's snow to shovel every day! And as always, I love watching the little creatures that scamper by my place!
Since my last post, there was about one more day of clear skies, but with a pretty hard frost. I was able to get the garden all put to bed for the winter just in time before the real snow and cold all poured in!
And I did a short video on what I've done to try to remedy the poison in the garden problem. And another explaining how my water system works here in my tiny house.
The storm rolling in created a pretty stunning sunset that night.
And the next morning, I woke up in a fairy tail world with snow sticking to everything!
And, then probably my biggest news recently, I quit my job! And did a whole video about how and why.
A few other things I've done recently.... I've had a lot of visitors this fall. Like one of my brothers, my sister-in-law, and newest niece or nephew. Yes, it is possible to have visitors in a tiny house, including overnight guests!
One of my Aunt and Uncles came by for a week as they explored some of the west as well.
And my Grandmother and another Aunt were the most recent visitors.
I've continued to wrap up storing food for the winter. Like canning 23 quarts of spaghetti sauce couple days ago, and working with a friend to put an elk in the freezer (mostly their freezer since my space is very limited) that should provide almost all of the meat for both of us for the next year.
Snow has continued to fall off and on, with I think a permanent white layer having set in for the year now. And with the changing seasons, (which I love!) comes some challenges when you live off a long dirt lane.
And as always, I've been able to see a lot of spectacular wildlife!
And just as a teaser...... I'm working on a video right now on how I handle safety and security as a single woman living in an off grid tiny house. :)
Fall here seems to have come and gone again in about one day this year! Temps went right from warm (in the 80's F, above normal for summer here) to hard freezes and snowstorms in a few days. Making it a bit of a race to get all the food possible preserved before everything froze solid. It looked like the scene above for only about one day before more snow erased all the hints of yellow and gold around my house.
Despite the issues with my garden this year, I did get a good harvest of some things. Like carrots. Lots of carrots, in all kinds of colors.
Also a good crop of onions and leaks, though sadly my pesky voles munched through almost all my garlic. A few peas, and a few green beans which was really exciting since I have planted green beans for three years and always ended up with them being killed by frost about the time they would flower. I also harvested plenty of my reliable frost hardy crops like beets, chard, kale, and other greens.
I found wild elderberries and picked a whole box.
Turning them into quite a bit of juice which is now canned and should last me most of the year.
I made several batches of sauerkraut.
Picked wild rosehips and dried them.
Picked many boxes of apples, off a tree that I'd never seen produce anything before, and made apple sauce. Along with quite a few pies, apple crisp, etc. It seems all the wild berry and fruit bushes produced record crops this year which was great for me.
Which also turned into lots of piles of dishes. I'm so glad I have a double sink in my tiny house!
I got a few potatoes, though most of them did not grow this movie. But again, the ones I did get were all kinds of pretty colors!
Lots of herbs from the flower boxes around the house which I picked and dried for use throughout the winter.
As I wrapped up the garden, I started leaving the gates open in my fence, and it didn't take more than a few hours for the deer to arrive and explore what they could maybe still much on.
And then there have been quite a few more snow storms. The 7 inches above came down in one night!
At this point it just feels like winter here, even though most of the snows have come and gone again down around my house. The mountains are keeping their snow at the higher elevations. What's fall like in your area right now?
Happy first day of fall! Though there's been days of snow here, that's what the calendar says it is. :)
Though it's not firewood destined for my little stove obviously, here's a quick video showing some of the huge variety of chores I help with around the property where I live which vary constantly with the seasons. (If you are new, I do not own the ground where my house is parked, I trade work to the owners for being able to park here.) These logs are headed for a much larger stove in a very much larger house, but firewood is something I really enjoy doing.
As summer wraps up, I've have a few friends over for dinners with a bonfire.
I'm not sure if the weather will allow any more of these this year or not, but maybe if everyone brought a good warm jacket!
And sometimes even in the summer, the cool temps late in the evening make everyone want to hang out inside instead.
The garden and flowers overall have continued to look wonderful this summer. Maybe partly due to having no freezes through out the summer which is more normal.
As things wrap up, I've been busy preserving all the food I can. Pickling, canning, drying, and fermenting as much of what I does grow here as possible. Some day my goal would be to eat almost nothing that is not produced on my own property, but in this cold climate, I don't think I will quite pull that off.
I baked bread for the first time in years. Due to several food intolerance, I'd pretty much stopped eating it for a while. But I do love eating and making fresh bread so I decided to experiment with a much older variety of wheat and see how that made me feel. It turns out I experienced none of the lethargy, brain fog, or indigestion I have normally had when eating most wheat products so this is an experiment I might have to repeat!
While most things are still green, and fall colors never really appear around my house with almost all the trees being conifers, you are starting to be able to see fall colors in the small brush and weeds.
Smoke continued to blanket the area for much of the summer, mostly from more distant fires as there were none very close to my house. And thankfully the smoke was not as thick or choking as it has been in many other places in the west. But still, midday should not look like the above photo.
This is a no filter shot of the setting sun where you can see the smoke is thick enough to even allow you to see sun spots on the lower right side!
And then it turned to winter as you could see in my last video. Washing much of the smoke out of the air and putting a damper on most of the fires thankfully.
And the snow sped up my need to harvest as much as possible from the garden. :) So that's been keeping me busy all week as I try to juggle what to harvest now so as to not loose it to freezing, and what to wait on because if it survives under the garden covers, it may grow and produce a little more.
Enjoy the start of fall whatever the temps in your area!
