Finding a reliable way to provide heat on the homestead isn't always an easy task. Here's what we've found works best for us here at Meadow View Ranch.
One of the core tenets of homesteading is working to become as self-reliant as possible. But sometimes in our quest to grow our own food and live off the land, it's easy to forget about one of the most important things for our survival: heat. Winter in Wyoming means we're often heating our home for at least eight months out of the year. So how do we do it?
How We Heat Our Homestead In The Winter
While there are a variety of ways to provide heat for your home in the winter, we've found one thing that works especially well for our family: firewood. I know what you're thinking—firewood can be expensive! But we're frugal, so of course we've found ways to circumvent the high cost of firewood.
We cut & haul the wood home ourselves
Here in northern Wyoming, we're blessed to be surrounded by mountains in practically every direction. We also have the experience, tools, and skillsets needed to cut and process our own firewood (particularly Ford). With a little help from our truck, 30-foot trailer, winch, chainsaw, and some teamwork, we can load pretty hefty logs and bring them home to Meadow View Ranch.
In fact, we just did exactly that a few weekends ago. We spent a couple of days camped in the Pryor Mountains of Montana with the goal of bringing home enough firewood to heat our house this winter.
Can you imagine trying to load this log onto a trailer by hand? I certainly can't! Somehow, Ford managed to bring home shockingly large logs last year without the help of a winch or a second person. Thankfully, we've since added a quality winch to the homestead and boy, did that change the game for us. Now, hooking the chain to the log, cutting it into six-foot sections, and running the winch remote is about all the work it takes to add a log like this one to the trailer.
After a couple of long days and plenty of snack breaks later, we ended up with about four cords of wood to bring home for the winter.
We were really blessed to be able to pull logs from this pile left behind during fire mitigation efforts a few years back.
And of course, ranch dog Mooch had to regularly check in on his mom to make sure she was doing okay. No matter what, he always seems to have his eyes on me—talk about devotion.
After loading four cords of wood onto the trailer and hauling it over three hours home down bumpy roads, how do we process all that firewood?
We buck and split the wood ourselves
As I've mentioned, we're always looking for ways to decrease costs, so it's probably no surprise that we split all of our firewood ourselves. Not only are we frugal, but it's also empowering to know that you have the skills and abilities to do a task yourself—again, independence is an important piece of homesteading, so we do as much as we can on our own.
There's a lot of truth to the old saying that splitting your own firewood warms you up twice. While we prefer to split the wood before the frigid temps of winter set in, splitting the wood in the late summer and fall is still dual-purpose: it keeps us physically fit and the burning firewood keeps us warm and comfortable all winter long. Plus, it's so satisfying to see the wood stacked up and ready to heat the house.
The Journey Is At Least As Beautiful As The Destination!
There's such an appreciation gained from completing a task from start to finish on your own—not to mention the memories made from undertaking a daunting endeavor like providing 100% of your home's heat for the winter. How much less meaningful would a wheelbarrow full of firewood be if we'd just bought it and had it delivered from a nearby mill? I guarantee that each log we put in the wood stove this long, cold winter will remind us of the fun we had on our camping trip in the mountains or the shared effort we put in to split all of that wood.
No part of homesteading is easy. While it's a simple life, it's by no means an effortless one. But we make the choice to live this way because we believe that putting in the hard work and long hours to do things ourselves leads to a greater sense of pride, satisfaction, and peace. If that means we have to cut, haul, and split a thousand logs to heat our homestead, we're all for it.
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