Are you ready for winter?

As the leaves start to fall a homesteaders thoughts automatically turn to winter preparations. Are you ready? What are some of the things you do to prepare for winter?

Around here winter preparation tends to center around health, food and shelter for both critters and humans. My animals all get wormed and vaccinated. The healthier they are going into winter the better than handle the harsher weather conditions. I make sure everyones shelter is ready for them.. no leaks, no major holes for winter winds to find their way through.

I dont tend to stock up on food for them since its a rare winter storm that leaves us stranded for more than a few days and they could all survive on their hay for a few days if need be. I do make sure that they all have a full round bale of hay before any winter weather hits. Its not fun to try to put hay out in a snowstorm!

Our pantry is stocked so that no trips to the grocery store are necessary. We butcher in Nov and then the freezer will be full. I always get a little nervous about full freezers since we cant afford a generator yet..but should the power go out for too long we move everything outside til its back on again..so far thats worked for us!

I need to bring wood up closer to the house incase we lose electric in a storm because our heat is electric. But we have a fireplace that keeps us toasty when the power is out. Ive got emergency meds stocked. And candles and flashlight batteries. We need to get some propane for the propane tank for the tractor. Dont want to run out of fuel when we need to be putting hay out for critters either! When we lose electric we have grills to cook on outside and the fireplace inside. So i pick up an emergency stock of charcoal and lighter fluid..just incase. I have a coleman stove but its old and i dont like to use it. I much prefer just to shiver outside long enough to throw some meat on the grill. Hopefully after the next half of the cabin is built we'll get a good wood stove put in and i'll be able to heat soups and stews on there. I used to do that with the old wood stove when the power went out and it worked great.

Everyone is wormed and vaccinated except the horses and we'll do that sunday. The new sheep barn is shelter for them, and hopefully it will be finished completely before the first snow flies..but even if not its got the first floor finished so they'll be warm and dry! Lambing starts in January this year so im hoping the barn will be finished in plenty of time for me to get all my sheepie supplies moved out there.

So.. we're ready for winter..are will be by this weekend. Are you?