Who out there is ready for winter?!

I can hear the groans and frustrated sighs already.

Winter in a remote setting, miles from civilization, can be absolutely overwhelming.  I personally enjoy the serenity and complete silence when winter blankets the world in snow.  The cold is nature’s way of sorting life.  The struggle makes the remaining life stronger in the Spring.  

Winter also forces us to assess our weaknesses.  It reminds us to prepare each year or face the consequences.  Winter is unforgiving.  Winter gives us all a chance to reset our lives around the demands of the wild.  If you live off grid you soon adapt or suffer.

Step 1. Make sure you have shelter.  Although there are parts of this world where you can easily exist in the elements all year, it only takes one bad storm to kick us in the teeth.  There is a reason the meteorologists record and remind us about 50 and 100 and 1,000 year storms. 

Building even a primitive shelter can mean everything.  If you have a family to shelter it IS everything.  Insulate your shelter.  The old timers used anything they could shove into the wall cracks.  Newspapers, old rags, straw, hay, leaves.  Waterproof your shelter.  Cedar shakes or a natural alternative can mean a great deal of protection.  Being cold is bad enough.  Being wet and cold will kill you quickly.  

Use natural terrain features to shield your structure from the elements.  Trees break up the wind.  Lower foliage breaks it more along the ground.  If you plan your shelter in the right way the snow itself will build a crust around you and shield you (for free!).  Snow acts as an insulator.  I have personally had fantastic nights of rest sleeping in thermal shelters at negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit. 

 

Step 2. Without water we die.  The average person in a temperate climate drinks approximately 15.5 cups or .9688 gallons of water per day.  In extremely cold climates your body needs more water to retain heat and maintain a functionally healthy body temperature.  The ability to keep the body warm also reduces fatigue.  Water is extremely important (never ever forget that).  Just as important:  You must prepare your water system in the unfrozen months to sustain you in the frozen months.  Why do I refer to “unfrozen” and “frozen?” as if they are two distinct seasons?  Northern Alaska along the Arctic Circle.  In Alaska your entire planning cycle revolves around the seasons and the unexpected yearly surprises they bring.

Step 3.  Food, Food Storage, Food Safety.  Having a solid pantry and root cellar is good but you often have to adapt.  Most starter homesteads you have very little secure space to keep out the wildlife that wants your food.  Preserving food for winter is everything.  Keeping your food from spoiling is not as easy when you don’t initially have a refrigerator.  One of the ways you can get around this is to have a sealed in space and use pass-through pipes (I like 2-3 inch PVC or Poly) so you can actually introduce cold outside air into your food storage space in the winter.  Having a nice cold spring – that flows throughout the year can also give you a way to extend your natural preservation.  Having that cold spring water circulate through a coil of pipes through your storage container can help.  Take advantage of snow and cold spikes.  Having a well insulated pantry can trap out the heat and keep the cold in.  

Step 4. Security.  Animals, including predators, survive by conserving their energy.  A large animal ahead of winter is saving up for the brutality of the cold, so they will take the path of least resistance.  On our own homestead, we setup diversion obstacles to encourage animals to walk around us.  Fence is a key part of this.  Gates are great, but when the snow is four feet plus deep you sometimes regret that decision when you are forced to expend energy to dig it out.  

Step 4 Part B.  Weapons/Ammunition.  Not everyone has to keep firearms but they sure are handy.  Large caliber weapons are great but when the cost is high each round can cause you to develop a tic when you expend it.  Smaller frontier loads, .410 shotgun, 22 LR are great to have on hand for emergencies.  By emergency I mean times you literally are buried in snow, realize you are stuck in place for months not days, and need to keep your strength up (food plus security).  This part fits under steps 3 and 4, but I decided for now to categorize under security (if you plan your food stores it becomes your backup.)

Step 5.  Medical.  You can never ever have enough medical supplies.  Ever.  Not just for major injuries, but also for minor illnesses, which if left unattended can become life threatening.  Antibiotics, Vitamins (unless you like scurvy and ricketts), bandaids.  The big items you want, but need to ration.  I have sutured myself.  I have been incapacitated and crawled to food.  

Step 6. Access.  Think about clearing a helispot if you can.  In an emergency a helispot (area cleared to allow helicopters to life flight you to a hospital) can mean life versus death.

Always improve your homestead.  If you walk past something that needs to be done, you are wasting energy in that you will have to walk past it, walk elsewhere, then eventually have to remember it, then walk back.  Just do it when you see it.  Prioritize and get the key things done as soon as you think about them. 

Step 7. Heat.  Heat is critical if you are in a cold climate. Plan your heat source carefully.  If you are far enough north you need to plan and ration your firewood or other fuel source.  If you have to rely on propane at any point in the year, don’t wait until one week ahead of snow to call for a refuel.  I have done that myself recently trying to take care of all of my clients.  We rationed and carefully logged our fuel usage to get through it.

Step 8. Spare parts.  Spare parts for everything.  Two not one.  If you only have one set of spares, at some point Murphy’s law will factor into a failure of your redundant systems.  

Step 9. Power.  Most of my clients might think I would place this near the top of the list.  I install and build power systems.  However, I was raised without it.  Humanity only tamed electricity recently in our history.  It might seem like the most important thing, but it is not.  Power is nice though.  It extends your work day into the shadows of nightfall.  It allows you to prepare earlier for the work day.  It also helps out greatly with step 9.  Incidentally, this is where I will tell you that going cheap on a battery bank always becomes a regret at some point.  Unless you teach yourself to live without it.  

Step 10. Communications. You can survive just fine without your rectangular digital device.  If not the human race would have fallen away long ago.  That said they are handy for emergencies.  If you are on a property that once had a buried phone line think about the benefits of getting that activated.  Cell towers can fail.  Buried landlines are a great backup.  With no black rectangles (cell phones) and no land lines (old desktop or wall phones) you can still get by.  Citizen band radios, Ham Radios are good redundant systems.

Step 11.  Keep good written records.  Knowing how you adapt and shift priorities over time can help you plan more efficiently.  If someone finds you unconscious you definitely want them to find information about any allergies you have, as well as blood type, emergency contacts etc.  If, for some unknown reason, the wilds of your homestead dreams takes you permanently, having a Will and other important estate documents where they can be found may help your family considerably.  Monitoring and recording your weather patterns is important.  Knowing what seasonal changes might indicate your water source is going to be drier than normal can help you get ahead of water loss so you can store for emergencies.  Water storage, especially buried water, is very important.

Step 12.  Waste Management. Trash.  Human waste.  Outhouses.  All are important parts of planning for your homestead.

Step 13.  When in doubt plan for the unexpected.  Every person’s individual priority list will be slightly different.  

Never be afraid to ask advice from more experienced homesteaders.  Always learn.  Always absorb the knowledge you can from those around you.  Learn from your mistakes.  Don’t repeat one because you are stubborn.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.  We aren’t robots, we all make mistakes, but you can recover from them if you learn humility.  

Thanks for reading!  We appreciate all of our family, friends, and clients.  Good Luck!

Rick