I used to dread hearing my father ask my mother where her hair dryer was. He only did it once a year: when the time came to seal our windows under sheets of plastic, closing us off from the cold outside world for the next six months.
I was thankful to be warm, but the plastic was also a sign of isolation and darkness. It literally was one winter, when the plastic went over closed curtains as an experiment in extra insulation.
This fall, my family is preparing for winter in a rural house for the first time in more than a decade after spending years in rentals.
There are so many options and decisions ahead of us, and whatever we choose will affect the rest of our lives here in a big way. But it’s a real gift to have decisions like this to make and know they connect to our future, just like my plans to cut back our blackberry and raspberry canes soon for a better harvest next spring.
We moved in August, and have spent the first fall trying to prioritize the easy fixes that will be the most efficient while we figure out longer term plans.
As we do, I think back to people I’ve met as a reporter in Maine and how they prepare. Some of them close off rooms, stockpile for their wood boiler/stove, put blankets over the windows or, reportedly, place hay bales up to the foundation outside.
We don’t have hay around the house (yet), but one of our family mottoes is to always be prudent, which I think is in a similar spirit: take the time to make the wisest possible use of your resources.
My parents, who are kind enough to let me live with them, are experienced in DIYing home fixes from years when they didn’t have other options. One of the immediate focuses from that is securing the windows, doors and other cracks in the house.
We’ve inspected the window and door frames for spots where cold air can come in, made sure they’re fully closed and used simple insulating foam and putty to shore up the gaps. In the next few years, we’ll work on rehanging them to be straighter in their frames.
For now, as my dad points out, those tiny cracks can add up to a hole the size of a fist for cold air to come in.
Still, we’re better off than in the window plastic days; ours are now double-paned vinyl, instead of the single glass panes in cold metal casing or shrinking wood that we used to deal with.
Our new home doesn’t have gutters or ground drainage to prevent water from getting into our basement, freezing and causing cracks, so we’re making plans to get a drain put in before the ground freezes to avoid big problems later.
As for heating sources, we’ve focused on two options for immediate, efficient backups. We put in heat pumps, and an existing radiant heat system is a second option, although the hot water heats up the floorboard glue and fills the house with fumes.
Our home has propane fireplaces, and we leave the pilot light on so that we can still start them when the power goes out.
In the future, we’re considering more self-sufficient wood heat. When the leaves fall, we’ll inventory our small, long-neglected woodlot to understand how much we could supply for ourselves and go from there.
We don’t have an attic to worry about, but my dad notes that adding insulation batting up there is a simple DIY task that really helps, and is an opportunity to check for insects or critters. People with thinner windows can add inserts or go the trusty plastic route, which works.
Then there are supplies for winter storms and emergencies. We have enough propane to run the generator for two days, batteries, flashlights, hand warmers, extra gas, shelf-stable food and water.
In apartments, the boiler, the insulation, the propane and whatever animal was making that noise in the attic was someone else’s responsibility. I could walk into town for food if the power went out or the snow was heavy.
It made day-to-day life more convenient, but I moved through each year without something real to show for it.
Knowing that there is something greater to figure out how to build here takes away much of that old winter bleakness. I spend my days writing for and about homesteaders, and one question that often comes up is why people choose to homestead — growing their own food, raising their own animals, using fewer energy resources, having more modest homes and living in ways that take more physical work — when they may have the resources to live another way.
The answer is a different story for everyone, of course. But I hear a common thread around the idea of a life that physically builds to something, of actually participating in the creation of your food and your home and the land where you live year after year.
So, winter preparation is a maze we’re navigating gladly — although if you have any thoughts on the wood boiler question, let me know.
