Welcome Winter!

Sunday Dec 7; 31-degrees F (0 C); snow on the ground & a fresh .27” in the rain gauge

Those of us who live in places around the world where distinct seasons exist and the light, weather, and temperatures change significantly throughout the year know full well that the dates posted on the calendar as the official onset of each season don’t necessarily correspond to when each one will start & end. To those of us living boots on the ground, we mark each season by the weather taking place outside. While the first day of winter is set for December 21, which is the day when the sun is farthest away from the earth for those of us who live in the northern hemisphere, anyone who lives in western Montana knows winter has already arrived.

In our last blog post, I shared about how we emptied our rain catchment barrels hooked up to the porch roof of our cabin, but we were running an experiment to see how much longer the other barrel on our shower house could last before we ran into issues with the water freezing. Whelp, the experiment is over. We emptied the cabin barrels on Nov 25 and we wound up needing to empty the shower barrel on Nov 30. When we went to take our weekly showers last weekend on Sunday, Nov 30, we needed to use the blow torch to dislodge the ice from the pipe inside the barrel so water could flow through to our instant hot water unit, from which the shower head plugs into. While we’ve gotten a couple of skiffs of snow, our first “real” snow came calling last weekend. In the past 7-days here at EM, we’ve gotten a total of around 9”. It’s been a winter wonderland here.

Our temps have been hovering at or very close to 31-degrees through both the day and night the past few days. With how much the temperature varies and swings here in western Montana, the steadiness of the thermometer lately has been unusual. It’s felt strange to go to bed and rise the next morning to find the temperature exactly the same. Over the past 2-days we’ve gotten a lot of rain. .72” to be exact. So now we have a mixture of crunchy and sloggy snow around. Walking around outside requires snow boots, and now sometimes an umbrella.

This past week with all the snow, Mike had to pause his work on the sauna build in order to switch into snow management & removal mode. Tuesday (Dec 2) was hitch the snow plow attachment to the ATV day. I was interested in learning how to work the plow and move snow around, so Mike showed me the ropes. I did a little. Mike was out there all day. Since this is our first full winter here on the land, we needed to figure out how much space we wanted to have cleared and where to move the snow to so it wouldn’t be in our way. Between our driveway, our parking meadow, and the walking path that leads from where we park to our cabin, he was moving snow in the neighborhood of 5-hours. Since none of our surface ways are paved and we are situated on 100% earthen ground, it takes extra effort and care when plowing so as to disturb the ground as little as possible.

Since the snow kept coming, Mike spent most of Friday clearing snow too. He also spent time building and installing wooden bracing on the two carport style canopy tents we decided to try leaving up over the winter, with the hopes of helping them to withstand the snow load. One of them serves as our tool & supplies tent, which also doubles as our generator storage area and the place where we keep our collection of sticks and small kindling for the wood stove. The other one is where we have freshly milled lumber stacked to dry as much as possible before we install it in the sauna.

I learned a better method for collecting, storing & melting snow for use as washing water, so I started doing that this week. I was originally thinking it might be easier to just increase my water hauling amount from town, but it’s working pretty well to collect it and melt it down. I continue to be surprised how little water we actually need, both for washing and for drinking/cooking purposes. When living in town connected to a tap, it’s hard to get a good sense of how much one needs on a daily basis. Turns out, it isn’t all that much. I fill just 1 or 2 6-gallon jugs with potable water once a week in town, which meets all of our needs for drinking and cooking for the whole week.

Last week when I was in big-T town (aka Missoula), I picked up a 10-ton hydraulic wood splitter. After finding how hard it was for me to use the axe to cut through the new cord of wood we recently had delivered, we decided to tool up and get a manually operated wood splitter. The splitter can’t make it’s way through everything we have on hand, but it makes the job way easier and can get through most of it. It was hard for me to get on board with getting the splitter at first, because I’ve learned how much I enjoy swinging an axe. But I just didn’t have enough power to get through most of the new wood, so I quickly came around to realizing it was the right move. While chopping wood for the purposes of heat inside our cabin is one of the semi-joint tasks that Mike and I will sometimes tag team together, most often I take the lion’s share of that particular area of household upkeep. His dance card is full enough with other things. And besides. I genuinely enjoy a good healthy dose of manual labor once in a while. It’s good for both the body and the mind.

The woods are slowing down to a winter’s pace here at EM. Hunting season is over and the activity of humans in our neck of the woods has quieted, save for the ongoing logging operation nearby. Winter is here, and will be for a good long while. We are settling in. Learning new things. Changing our activities and patterns of habit to switch gears into winter living mode. It’s early in the season of course, but so far we’re flowing along well with the swing of things.

Winter & Water