Yesterday it was 30 degrees when I woke at 4 a.m.  The house was still holding the heat, but last night before hitting the hay it was 34 degrees so my wonderful mountain man lite our 1st fire for the season.  Good thing too, this morning it was a mere 28 degrees.  The chickens and the rabbits are learning to hunker down at night.  🙂

I am sure most of you will agree that the warmth and glow of a fire is all it takes some times.  What a wonderful feeling!  I absolutely LOVE this time of year.

Because of our location we really need to do a lot of foraging for winter which happens to include firewood.  We don't call the firewood man to deliver a cord – we hit the wilderness in search of dead timber which we then fall, cut to the appropriate length for our stove, toss, gather and stack in the truck to bring home.  Then once home once again toss the wood on a pile which will later need to be chopped and stacked in our wood shed.

It is quite the process, but it feels good and it is even a better feeling when you look out at the full wood shed and know that you won't have to go gather firewood once the snow flies.  Homesteading and pioneering is very rewarding, but it does require some planning ahead.

Our 1st year here we were unable to drive out of our location for over 8 1/2 weeks.  It was an ABSOLUTELY amazing time.  We spent the 8 1/2 months prior to these weeks building our house and there was no time to gather our firewood for that winter therefore we spent the winter gathering firewood a little at a time as our piles ran low.  It was a harder way to do things so to be able to have our woodshed filled so full already in September is an absolute blessings!

Blessings…  More to come – some highlights on our current project…  Stay tuned….

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