Winter on the Homestead

Winter anywhere in the North is hard, but Winter in Wisconsin, on a Yurt Homestead can pose quite the challenge! When I last wrote, which was awhile ago I know, I wrote about our cold snap and how we successfully made it through!  Well, we have now also made it through several snow storms, as well, and I have to say, we are continuing to stay comfortable ... HOT in fact!  Also, with the consistent temperature, in the big yurt, after the addition of the pellet stove, and more trouble-shooting with the outdoor wood boiler, we no longer have a ton of condensation along the upper walls/roof of the yurt.  This has been a huge relief!  

Although, one challenge remains ... the dome!  We have figure out how to keep the little dome from leaking, but the big dome continues to drip into the house, and down the inside of the roof, into the utility room.  It's not every day, but we had some major rain, a few weeks ago, that resulted in a major leak into the utility room!  We still have no idea where the leak is, or how to fix it!

All in all, we are really enjoying our new home.  We actually really love the functionality of a circular living space, and having so much open field, for our girls to play on, has been such a blessing. It is wonderful to not have to worry about them as they play outside, and wander the property!

We are anxiously awaiting Spring, since it will bring some new animals to our farm!  We are being gifted an Aussie Shepherd/Bernese Mountain Dog mix puppy to our home, when he/she is old enough (around the end of March), from a family we know from church.  I had gifted them a large supply of pumped breast milk for their youngest child, and although they breed and sell their puppies, this was an "accidental" litter, so they are giving the puppies away and wanted to bless us with this gift.  We are blown away by this!  We have been actively looking for a puppy, in the last month, because we have chickens that will be set up outside ,once the ground has thawed, and we can put up fencing.  Most dogs are selling for hundreds of dollars (which we simply can't afford right now) and we have coyotes on our property.  The chickens will be goners if we don't have a dog on the farm!  

Getting a dog is huge for us!  We put our 13 year old, Chow Chow/Beagle, Barley, down in March of 2020, due to cancer, and we have been grieving the loss of our beloved companion ever since.  I can't actually type this without tearing up!

Along with a new puppy we will also be expanding our flock of chickens with some new chicks in late April or May, and today, Matt told me he wants to get piglets this summer! So we will have a lot of activity around here!  We are excited to start doing some hobby farming.  It's been our dream for a long time!  I'll keep you posted as plans progress!

Until next time ...