Homesteading - What does it mean & how do we do it?
So when I started this blog, I had the thought that I would include a few posts about homesteading, and how we were doing that. I quickly realized, however, that people have very different ideas about what homesteading is, and what it entails. People's opinions vary from those who believe it's as simple as having a small garden to grow some of your own food, to those who see it as living off the grid. We fall somewhere in between.
Probably one of the best definition of homesteading that I have heard describes homesteading as seeking self-sufficiency, or, how I would describe it, trying to make the most out of what you've got. We do not live "off the grid" by ANY stretch of the imagination. We enjoy Netflix, the internet, and our creature comforts far too much to achieve that. We do, however, own quite a bit of land, and believe in living off that land as much as possible, as much for our own good, as for being good stewards of what we have been given.
So, that being said, what can you expect to see in this section of the blog? Just that. I plan to share with you the different ways we are trying to live off our land, whether it be starting a garden, raising chickens (or other animals ... we will see what happens there), or using our wood to heat our home.
Speaking of our wood, that is probably the biggest way that we actively homestead over the cold winter months. We aren't gardening then, and we still don't have any animals (besides our outdoor cat), but we do heat our home with a wood/electric furnace, and we use our own wood. The previous owners before us were cutting down a few trees on the property every winter (2/3 of our land is forest), to be used for heating purposes, so we already had a shelter on the property for stacking and drying purposes.
When we first moved in last winter, we didn't know how to "lumberjack," but with a lot of research and even more help from a few people who know what they are doing, we (and by we, I mean my dear husband) have been learning how to safely and effectively use this wonderful resource!
So, in the winter months, once every week or two we go out to our wood shelter, fill up a load (more like 5) onto our toboggan, and toss it into our basement.
Since moving in last winter, we've upgraded our furnace. The original was old, and not very efficient. I would be going down every two hours to stoke the fire, add more wood, and no matter how big of a fire we made at night, by morning it was dead. After doing quite a bit of research, in the fall we bought a brand new system - still a wood furnace, but with an electric backup (so we can leave the house in winter without our pipes freezing), and with an A/C attachment for in the summer (yeah!). With this new furnace, we have been using less wood, and even on our coldest -30C days, I have only had to add wood to the fire about 3 times a day - AND it stays warm overnight!
Even with the warmer weather coming, in the next few weeks we will still have lots of wood related work to do. Now we start the process of pulling out the wood that was cut over the winter months to stack it up nice and pretty to dry out in the sun.
Ideally, you want to be two winters ahead in your wood supply to make sure it's nice and dry, and burns more effectively; but we aren't quite there yet - almost though! We are VERY low tech in our operation, and hand stack everything into a large cart that we either pull back to the shelter with the help of a garden tractor. It makes for lots of outings to the woods with the whole family, though, and at least for now, that's much more fun than a more efficient operation could ever be.
~Cheryl~
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than a more efficient operation anyhow.
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