Wednesday, September 23, 2009

First Snow- Winter's Shot Across the Bow.



Here we are a mere day past the autumal equinox and winter has fired her first shot across the bow. We awoke to 4" of heavy fall snow and it continued most of the day. I'm not kidding myself because this will be short lived; but it is fair warning that this place is about winter in a serious way.
We set the pup out in it for his first foray into snow and the result was quite hilarious. Later in the morning Evan and a friend went out and built a snowman- a rare treat in the Interior. For most of the winter the snow is far too dry and powdery to form any sort of snowman or even a decent snowball. It was a stern reminder to finish up my pre-winter chores.

4 comments:

R. Gabe Davis said...

I don't know about eveyone else but I would like to hear about preparing for winter in that northern wilderness all of us Tennesseans dream of and swear we will visit one day. How do you heat? How much food to you store for times it is to nasty to get out? call me crazy I am just curious.

hodgeman said...

We primarily heat with diesel- I like to have 500 gallons on hand at the start of winter and that might see me through until New Years. I generally burn 1000 gallons a year overall. Wood stoves are quaint and I really want one but they don't work so well with modern efficient houses so I'm waiting. Planning on getting a wood boiler when they figure out they're not gold plated.

We typically keep 3 months of food on the shelf- maybe more, some things like meat or flour, rice we buy in larger quantities due to economics.

We have a small store in our town that we can get essentials and we go to Fairbanks ever month or so for a change of scenery and picking up stuff we can't find here.

Surprisingly- the colder parts of winter are easier for travel. Roads are drier and the snow is more powdery. Spring and Fall can be icy and harder to get around during. For backcountry- winter is the time to go. Everything is frozen- take a snowmachine and just go!

JJP said...

Great job with your outdoors/ hunting blog- it's great to read, very well written and well considered. I'm glad to have stumbled across it, and have subscribed to it via RSS. Just wanted to say thanks for taking the time with it, I know it can be a pain.

hodgeman said...

Thanks JJP, nice to receive some positive feedback.