Getting A Little Ready For Winter
It can be hard sometimes to get ready for a thing when the thing you’re getting ready for still feels a ways off. When the thing feels distant and not in the immediate present. But as anyone who has ever homesteaded or farmed or lived closer to the land knows, preparations must be made in order to welcome winter’s reign.
This past week was unseasonably hot for western Montana at the start of September. Normally the average temp is in the 70’s and we were in the 90’s. Our high temps are easing back now, but regardless of the weather, winter is coming. So Mike and I are starting to get ready for it.
We plan on wintering home this year, which will be a first for us since moving to the woods. There will no doubt be a learning curve. For sure there will be things we won’t know we need to figure out until we are confronted with them in the moment. But we are trying to think ahead as best we can. We also won’t be total novices at wintering in the woods, off-grid and without running water, as we’ve been slowly extending our season here over the 3 years we’ve lived here. Last winter we left in November and returned home in February. And it’s worth noting that our slow extension into winter weather here was by design. I’m a big fan of finding and taking small deliberate steps in the direction I want to be going. And my heart has always been set on resuming our habit of wintering home. While I think Mike would be happy to keep heading south, he’s also been missing the hibernation season Montana winters provide, so at least for now he’s glad to stay put.
I’ve been taking cues from our woodland surroundings and starting to collect & stockpile kindling for starting fires in the wood stove inside our cabin. Small sticks are plentiful in the woods, but it takes time and effort to gather them up, of course. Kindling collecting is an activity that both Mike and I really enjoy. It’s one of those simple, satisfying, grounding activities that just feels good to do. It often requires that I rally a little extra energy to get started, but as soon as I am in motion I thoroughly enjoy every part of it.
A few days ago, Mike decided to erect a covered storage area to house the supplies & materials for our compost toilet system. Thus far we’ve been utilizing tarps and scraps of metal to cover our loo buckets, sawdust, and straw bales, but these simple systems will be a hassle when the snow starts flying. The less we have to unearth from the snow to access over the winter the better. We’ve been chatting about possible creative solutions we might apply to managing our loo buckets and compost pile over the winter too. Our loo buckets, when full, will freeze solid when left outside, and our compost pile may freeze through as well. One thought is that we can load the pile much more often than we currently do. Maybe once a week instead of once a month.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve needed to press pause on the wood fire sauna build, but we are now slowly returning to its progress. Mike has done a couple of supplies runs for it and just yesterday we fetched the windows for it from Home Resource in Missoula. Also! Two days ago, we were the grateful recipients of a dozen ponderosa logs from the logging crew working on the national forest land alongside our property border. A member of the crew skidded them down to us and piled them up by our driveway. Mike plans to mill the floor boards for the sauna from some of the wood. So now he is tasked with cutting down the huge logs and moving them to our sawmill to turn into lumber, which is no small task.
One of the many things I appreciate about having a mindfulness practice is that, when time, care & intentional effort is applied regularly & ongoingly in its direction, one can acquire the ability to get in touch with the subtleties of life & living. In regards to preparing for winter, for example, we have the capacity as humans to feel into the small and even microscopic shifts that happen and take place from one season to another. Nothing ever happens as quickly or as suddenly as we think. Summer doesn’t turn into autumn in one fell swoop, just as a young child doesn’t turn into a teenager overnight. The river of life is always in motion.
Developing the insight of interbeing involves and includes many things. One of the aspects is the practice of seeing beyond the surface level of the churnings of daily life. To look deeper into how things come about. When we look deeper into things, it becomes clear that nothing ever “just happens.” Everything that takes place has a myriad of causes & conditions. Every season is in a transitory state of being and becoming. And even when it seems like something is static or fixed in place, the truth of the matter is: it’s just an illusion. Change - however slow & small - is always & forever taking place.
