Getting up our apple supply for winter

Every fall I buy about 175 lbs of apples to get us through the winter for fresh eating, apple pies (I personally don't like apple pie but make it for Husband because he loves them) , fried apples, and applesauce.  I buy directly from the growers and this year found a great deal on Brayburns and Fuji's at 30 cents a pound.  Way cheaper than the dollar or more I'm paying at the store.  Both the apple varieties I chose are excellent keepers so as long as I keep them cool they should last well into next spring.

As to why I do it?  First is because we love apples and my five apple trees haven't started bearing yet. And well hey after all I live in Washington state right?  The apple state. Buying in bulk is cheaper than at the store, might as well take advantage of it.  There are in fact many orchards here in Washington of different fruits, so in season you can find fabulous deals on cherries, peaches, plums, and apricots as well as apples.  It is still however cheaper to grow your own which is why I currently have my five apple trees, two peach trees and a passel of assorted berry's growing.  My goal has always been to grow all my own fruit and veggies, but it is a goal that takes time.

The place I store them is in the unheated back enclosed porch which keeps them extremely cold without freezing them.  This worked out well last year even when temperatures dipped down below zero.

Having a cold room is definitely helpful when it comes to storing produce from the garden that requires cold and slightly humid conditions to keep.  People mostly would use a root cellar or unheated basement.  I have the basement but it stays just a little to warm and way to dry to properly store apples.  It is much more suited to storing onions.  Someday I'm going to build nice looking wooden boxes for storing my apples, carrots, and other root crops in the back porch.  For now though they are simply stored in cardboard boxes with a layer of newspaper on top to keep off dust and keep them a little more humid.  Worked fine last year.

The logistics of keeping warm at night in a wood heated house

Every year we go through the ritual of preparing for winter.  Since we live in a 110 year old house that still has the original windows and doors this process includes lots of sealing out drafts.  To further complicate matters we try to heat our home only with wood heat.  We have a lovely wood stove and small fireplace to accomplish this but it is far from perfect.  However it is allot cheaper than using our furnace in the winter.  Allot cheaper!

So every year we either order wood/get it free by watching craigslist or some combination of the two.  This year it was a combination of getting free maple wood and buying well seasoned apple wood.  Two of the best burners in our opinion.  We don't bother with going up to the mountains to cut for  the very practical reason that is is more expensive when you look at the gas to and from.  We always manage to find deals that are cheaper and the wood is already cut up and ready to burn.

Then comes cleaning the chimneys.  I bought a chimney cleaning kit at a yard sale for five bucks so there is a messy few hours of cleaning to do.

Next on our to do list is caulking windows, sealing drafty doors, and putting up storm windows.

Last but far from least is the annual changing of the bedding from cool cotton sheets and light blankets to thick soft flannels and heavy comforters. This is almost a ritual for me now.  It signals a big change in lifestyle and habits.  Mornings are spent restarting the fire and getting hot coffee, evening comes early and we gather in front of the fire to read or play games. For those in our family who like even more warmth I have been collecting down comforters and feather beds wherever I can find them.  I have four now and when you snuggle in flannel sheets with a down comforter thrown over your guaranteed a warm nights sleep.

I also snatch up all the 100% cotton flannel nightgowns and pajamas at thrift stores I can find.  They are much warmer than standard pajamas, breath naturally and wick away sweat so that your more comfortable.  And then I get out the rice bags.  These are bags of cotton filled with rice that you can heat up in the a microwave or warm oven.  They are like a hot water bottle and are great for heating up cold beds or putting on sore muscles or upset tummies.  These are lifesavers when it gets truly frigid outside.  The kids love them and beg for them at night.

This is very important because all the bedrooms are upstairs far away from the wood heat.  The upstairs stays cool to downright chilly no matter how warm the downstairs is, but as we've all grown used to it we aren't bothered.

The thing about wood heat is that the further from the stove you get the colder it is.  Having a two story house helps a bit because heat goes up.  And having fans helps too.  But still your going to have a big lifestyle change if you go from central heating and air to wood stove heat in the winter.

Prepping for winter- Part One- Getting up wood

The first consideration when it comes to preparing for winter is heat of course.  Around this part of Washington the summer can be blistering hot and the winters frigidly cold.  In fact the temps have been into the low 20's every night for a week now.  So instead of flipping on our furnace we choose to heat with our wood stove which even when you consider that we buy our wood its still much much cheaper than the electricity and natural gas to heat our house.

Wood heat has it's special considerations though. First is keeping the chimney pipes clean.  But out here in the middle of nowhere it is obscenely expensive to get a licenced chimney sweep to come out.  We did it the first year we owned the house to have everything inspected properly, but now we clean it our selves with a chimney cleaning kit I got at a yard sale for five bucks.

Next is getting up a wood supply.  This is something we do all summer and fall.  Round here the only wood like stuff that grows is sagebrush.  But about an hour away in both directions is lots of wood.  Towards Spokane you have pine, tamarack, and other sappy woods.  Go the opposite directions and you have cottonwood, alder, and best of all orchard woods such as cherry and apple. 

Apple wood is our wood of choice.  It is THE best burner, smells wonderful, burns clean and long and hot.  But it can be hard to get and expensive.  This year we got three cords of wood for free that was maple.  And I bought another two cords of prime seasoned apple wood for cheaper than it would have cost us for the gas to go cut our own.  This should get us through a winter no problem.

Right now we are spending a little time each week splitting the big pieces and trying to get them all into one pile.

Prepping tip (sort of?) Pre-packaging veggie mix for stews or soups

I'm sure you've experienced what I have.  You buy celery carrots onions and such for stews and only get through maybe half the packages before they wilt or start to rot.  Money down the drain.  For us it takes on an even bigger dimension because I only do a shopping trip into the big city once a month. So I buy several packages of each to get us through. We have only one refrigerator so it is full to bursting with all the food we can use in a month  The only foods I go to our little (and much more expensive market) is things like milk bananas and the occasional loaf of bread.  By the end of the month those packages of celery are unusable, but going to the big town takes allot of gas.  Plus I could use that room in the fridge for other items that have a longer storage life.

So my solution has been to buy several bags of onions, carrots, celery, and corn and then wash/dice/and vacuum seal them and then put them in our huge chest freezer.  We have two big freezers so this makes more room in my fridge.  Also it makes meal prep for soup or stew (which we have once a week) much simpler.  I just dump the pre-measured frozen veggies in the crock pot or stew pot and add my liquids spices and meat and vuala!   I'm done and can move on to other things.

Now I know many people here ask "why don't you can them up?"  Well for those who don't follow my blog I just recently went through a pretty bad health event.  The result being I didn't can anything this summer.  I'm hoping to can up some applesauce this fall because my family rebelled when I tried to serve them store bought.  Be warned that home canning your own foods can lead to your family becoming picky because the homemade stuff is so much better!

I also diced and packaged up bell peppers and onions that I use regularly in recipes because right now the price was so good at 43 cents a pepper.  You can bet they will be over a dollar come winter.

Thinking About Winter - The WoodPile

I know most people are praying for winter to finally end this year in America.  Just this last week we had several mini snow storms, almost unheard of in this area!

So you may think its funny that I am already planning for winter.  However when you heat your house with wood and cook with wood you need allot of it.  If you have ever thought about heating with wood I can tell you that you'll need at least five cords of wood for an average house.  If your planning on cooking with wood you will need even more.

Whenever we find free wood we jump on it. Right now we have at least two cords curing for next fall that we went and cut at a family members home.  This year we want to get up to ten cords.  At least five of that is for "just in case".  We live in an area of Washington that has no natural tree growth.  So if TSHTF and we cant afford to drive to places that have lots of wood we will have at least a years worth.

Getting in a winters supply of firewood is very important and you have to start planning in the spring to assure you have enough for a full season.