When I stepped outside this morning I couldn’t believe how cool it was. The summer heat just seemed like it would never end this year. We all kept saying…..it’ll cool down eventually, we know fall is coming, this has happened before. You know how it is- all the things you say to make you feel better about what was happening right then. And low and behold- it’s happened! The hot weather has finally broken and we have cooled down. Our temperatures are back into the mid to upper 70’s for highs, and our lows are starting to dip into the 50’s. I know, for some of you this is not cool at all compared to what your fall feels like, but for us this means it’s time to get ready for winter! Fall doesn’t last long here and we will be having winter weather and temps before we know it.
So as I took my morning walk around the homestead I started thinking of the things we need to accomplish to be ready for those colder temperatures. We do live in a pretty mild climate, but things change in the winter for us, for the animals, and for our house. So there are certain things we don’t think about in the summer that we need to get prepared now before the cold hits.
Here are the top 5 things, in no particular order, that we will do to winterize our homestead. We hope this helps you out!
Firewood– this is big for us here at One Ash. Our home has central heating but we also have several fireplaces and our beloved wood cook stove. While the central heat is wonderful, it also costs a lot to run. There are lots of days in our climate that we just need something to “cut the chill”, especially in the mornings. That’s where the fireplaces and cookstove really help out. There is nothing I like more than getting up on a chilly morning and lighting the wood cookstove in the kitchen. Not only does it cut the chill out of the air, the crackling and radiant heat take me to a different time, when things were so much more simple. And of course, there is nothing like breakfast cooked on the wood cookstove…..and those biscuits…..yum!
you can find some really good tools for helping you with firewood here!
Feed for the animals– when you have a farm or homestead, your livestock and animals are one of the most important parts. We are fortunate to have a long growing season and some great pastures that everyone from the goats to the guineas get to enjoy eating from throughout the summer. But as soon as the evening temperatures start to drop, the protein and nutrition in those pastures goes down. So the animals won’t thrive on eating just that old grass. That’s why we have to prepare for feeding during the winter months.
We have a part of our dairy barn that houses the feed for the livestock. We place pallets on the floor to elevate the bags of feed and we flat stack as many bags as we can to avoid trips to the feed store all the time! We have kept records of how much our animals have eaten in the past and are able to calculate how long a bag of chicken, all stock or dairy feed will last. We try to have at least a weeks worth on hand at all times. That way if we do get bad weather, we won’t run out of food and have to try to rush to the feed store.
The other thing we stock up on is hay. Where we are the hay of choice are round bales of coastal bermuda. We have already put a couple of these out for the goats, sheep and cows. And we have watched, and figured out how often we will have to feed them the round bales. By doing that, we know how many round bales we will need for the entire winter season. We have started gathering these, and have a corner of the homestead where they are being stored to use as needed.
do you need some new feeders, maybe a water trough heater? you can find some good stuff HERE!
Protect the Pipes– If you live anywhere that the temperatures freeze, even if it’s just for a few hours at night, you know what can happen here! A lot of our pipes that run water to the dairy, the barn, and all the waterers have sections that are not buried underground. That means that as soon as temperatures drop below freezing there’s a good chance these pipes will freeze and burst. And if that happens we will have a huge mess on our hands, and animals with no water. So we make a point to go around the homestead before winter and wrap all the pipes, the anti-siphon valves, and any water connections. We use a lot of foam pipe wrap, duct tape and zip ties. But it works. And whenever we miss a spot, or get caught by an early freeze, we have issues that we don’t want to have to deal with.
if you need to get some pipe insulation products you can find them right HERE!
Repair and Enclose Animal Shelters– We have some good shelter for our animals on the homestead. But in the summer and warmer months these shelters are rarely used. So when we get to the fall and head toward cold weather it’s up to us to make sure the shelters are prepared for the animals. We load up our hammer, nails, drill and screws. We take plastic and extra boards with us. And off to the shelters we go. This year we will need to replace a few boards that have come loose, and will put new plastic around the chicken coop where the wire lets the cold air come in. We love being in a warm and dry home when the weather turns bad, and we believe our animals deserve to have a warmer and drier spot as well.
we’ve tried all sorts of tools on the homestead over the years and we absolutely love our Milwaukee products. You can find them if you click HERE!
Store Outdoor Furniture and Decor– We like to have comfy chairs, pretty pots and welcoming decor around the homestead. Every spring we love to clean off the porch, and put out everything that stands for “life outside”. But if we want to have those items every spring, it’s important that we clean them off and put them in a shed for storage during the inclement months. So it’s time now for us to take away the pillows and cushions from the porch swings and benches, clean out the flower pots where the summer flowers have stopped growing, stack the outside chairs, and make sure any other decorative items are cleaned and put away. I know when we start to feel the sunny warmth of spring I will want to pull these items out and get ready for outdoor living!
Covering your outdoor furniture and decor is easy with some of the products HERE!
Is it time to get ready for winter on your homestead? We hope our list of 5 ways to Winterize your Homestead has helped you out. Comment below and let us know what else you do to get ready for the change of seasons!
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