Winters in Montana are long and cold. The last things we want run out of in a Montana winter are firewood and food. It currently might be the middle of summer with temperatures pushing 100 degrees, but we’re busy preparing for winter. We live in a rural area and have access to a road that eventually gets plowed after a snowstorm so we are able to leave the homestead in the winter. BUT there were a few times last year that the snow fall was so deep that even with 4 wheel drive we couldn’t drive down the road to get to town even if we wanted to.
Knowing we can’t always just leave home and go to town whenever we want or need to means we need to plan and prepare for winter more than folks living in town.
Stocking up on Firewood
The number one focus of our preparing for winter right now is firewood. In the winter we can always drive to the grocery store to buy food if we need to but driving up into the mountains to cut down firewood can be next to impossible. Not to mention cutting down firewood in the snow on a slick mountainside is just dangerous! We know this first hand since unfortunately we did have to harvest firewood a couple times in the winter a few years ago. Since then, we make sure we are well stocked with firewood before the first snowfall of the season.
Last year we split a log truck load of firewood with some friends. We didn’t have time to harvest our own firewood due to remodeling our new homestead and moving. This year finances are pretty tight (thanks to our well pump and pipe that needed to be replaced earlier in the summer!) When I wrote 7 tips to save money heating your house with wood, I mentioned we occasionally find firewood for free on Craigslist. This summer we hit the jackpot for free firewood!
My husband found an ad on Craigslist advertising that a mill about an hour away was giving away free firewood for the month of July. My husband borrowed a friend’s dump trailer, hooked it up to our long bed pickup truck and made two trips. He calculated based on the measurements of the truck bed and trailer that we got about 2.5 cords in each load. That makes five total cords of firewood for free! Well we did have to pay for a half a tank a gas per trip but that’s not bad for all of that firewood! It just happened to be extremely smokey from forest fires in the region when he went so you can see our visibility was quite low due to smoke.
The wood hunks were all various sizes. Some are small enough to fit in the firebox of our woodstove. Some of the wood needs to be cut down, but that’s an easy job compared to having to fell and limb a tree in the mountains!
When we were out huckleberry picking the last few weeks, we actually remembered to bring a chainsaw along. We were able to find a couple dead trees to cut down for firewood. Each time we came home with a couple gallons of huckleberries AND a truck full of firewood! The firewood we got in the mountains was larch and fir, which burns longer than lodgepole. Most of the free mill firewood is lodgepole, which is still a good firewood in this area since hardwoods like maple and oak aren’t native to our state. The larch and fir will be cut and stacked in a separate pile to be used for overnight or those days when we have below zero temps and need a wood that burns longer and hotter.
Stocking up on Food
The other project keeping us busy right now preparing for winter is preserving food. We’ve been busy harvesting and preserving food from our garden, local food given to us and foods we forage in the mountains. In another month, archery season opens. Then we’ll be busy hunting in the mountains for grouse, deer and elk. We always butcher our own animals so that will be another project. Butchering wild game is definitely a welcome project though because the animals we harvest provide enough meat to last us for the whole next year.
I love this time of year since it is so fulfilling to see the pantry shelves and deep freezer fill up with food we preserve. All our hard work this summer will pay off this winter when we’re snuggled warm inside the house during a snowstorm eating our homegrown and wild harvested food!
What do you do to prepare for winter?
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I’m in Western NY so our winters can get us a pretty good storm, but not to the extent Montana gets. We are off lake Ontario, so the ice tends to be the biggest problem. We have a 2nd refrige and freezer in the garage, so we keep that pretty full. I do a lot of canning, though. Mainly of the things we use most, homemade tomato sauce, jams, peaches, applesauce, tomatoes with onions and peppers for chili and a few other things. In the freezer, there’s usually zucchini breads and frozen fruit to make pies, and homemade chicken stock. The garage freezer is usually emptied by January because it gets too cold in the garage and the refrige/freezer shuts itself off.
Our Winters are not as harsh here in Pennsylvania, but we have started stocking wood, preserving the harvest and foraging for berries, and my husband is ready for archery season to keep our freezer stocked.
We are in Northwestern Michigan very near the lake and can have brutal winters with lots of snow. We also heat with wood and are in the process of filling the wood shed. Last year we had to buy additional wood to finish the winter because it was much colder than usual. And due to the deep snow it was difficult to make it back to our barn and wood boiler. So this year we will be prepared with more wood than we used last year which has been harvested from our property and from the huge tree that fell on my brother’s place during a spring wind storm.
We are also preserving food from our garden, lots of canning and freezing. We will have fruits and vegetables to last well into when the garden is producing next year. We will be bartering with friends for some of the vegetables that don’t grow so well at our place like potatoes.
We are salmon fishing now to stock the freezer with fish. Beginning in October we will be hunting to supply us and our son with venison. We will also be buying some beef from a local farmer who raises hormone and antibiotic free, grass fed beef. And our small orchard is loaded with apples this year which will provide applesauce, apple butter, cider and apple wine.
We are also working to have the root cellar done this to provide more storage for produce. Thanks to a friend giving us a trailer full of cement block they no longer need we were able to move that up to this year.
Northern Mrs.
We live on the northeastern side of the mitten. Like you we ran into a shortage last year due to the extreme temps. Already hearing that this winter is going to be a duplicate. I hope not, but it’s better to prepare for the worst case.
Like you we are not too far from the lake so I’m curious about your root cellar. We were also gifted about 80 cement blocks from a friend and I would love a root cellar but the water table here is a concern. How are you building your root cellar?
WOW! That is QUITE the find on the firewood. We just moved from the VA mountains down to the much warmer foothills of NC, so it’s a little weird to not be worried about stocking up for winter in August.
I am in NV. Would also like to know about the root cellar built with cement blocks. Where do you store the food that you can? Are the temperature variations in a garage detrimental to home canned supplies? Thank you. Donna
I’ve had a sense of dread bout winter after last year’s extra long, extra cold winter. I put up extra food and two extra cords of firewood. Good thing – we are in the middle of a nor’easter and it’s only November 2. It’s not really winter, just feels like it at the moment. I’m sure we’ll be above freezing in a day or two.
I found your blog while looking for tips on preparing for winter to be sure I haven’t forgotten something. Very helpful. And good for you on the firewood!
We are very fortunate to have a natural gas well on our property for heat and an ample 20 acre supply of hardwoods for heat. We raise chickens and lamb and fill the freezer with meats from our farm. In addition, we have two freezers full of fermented veggies, such as cabbage, carrots, and cucumbers! a also! have plenty of corn! green beans! tomatoes! and peppers from our organic gardens? We stock dried beans, rice, and spelt flour. Feels good! enough for the two of us , our two sons and their families and my 90’year old mother. It really is ALOT of hard work but so worth it!
Love your blog and helpful tips. I live in St. Regis, Montana and find your comments especially useful as they hit close to home.
Our Montana homestead energy security plan has four elements:
1. This fall, develop our cottonwood woodlot to sustain a firewood supply sufficient for 100% wood-heating of the homestead.
2. This winter, install forced-air wood-burner in garage next to existing natural gas hot-water furnace.
3. Next spring, install Generac electric generator running off natural gas to power just essentials for water and food security: water pump, refrigeration, space heating.
4. Next summer, install photovoltaic panels on south-facing house roof to at least match capacity of the generator, hooked into the electric grid.
This is a great plan, thank you for sharing! We had photovoltaic panels at our old house then we moved and could not take them with us. We’re hoping to one day install them at our new homestead too.