Hi, Phoenix here. As winter weather continues, I’ve been thinking about historical and present-day solutions to the challenges of winter homesteading: short days and long nights; cold weather; and social isolation to name a few. Of course, individuals who don’t live on a homestead also face these difficulties, but I’d like to spend the next few blog posts diving into how they affect homesteading life. In this blog post, I want to focus on the impacts of short days and long nights.

1. K and I have to wait for adequate sunlight before starting our morning chores of feeding the animals and milking the goats. Since we live off-grid, we can’t just electrify our barns and pens. This also limits the time frame in which we can do evening chores. An example is when we’re separating the goat kids from their mothers at night so we can milk them in the morning, or when we’re milking the goats twice a day.
2. The short day also limits when I’m able to plug in my work laptop, so I need to be mindful about making sure I have a full battery to work off when it gets dark. We also need to carefully time other electricity-heavy tasks like pumping water and doing laundry.
3. Finding things to do during the long evenings can also be challenging. Limited solar power in the winter means using small lamps in the evenings rather than large overhead lights. It also means limited time for TV, especially on stormy days when the solar batteries didn’t get much of a charge.
4. Many people struggle with depression during this time of year, and K and I are no exception. I get energy from being outside and interacting with our animals, things we can’t do as often in winter.
5. K and I find it difficult to remain motivated to do tasks when it’s dark out and our bodies are telling us it’s time to sleep. I am especially tempted to go to sleep absurdly early and lay in bed longer in the morning.

Of course, none of these are new challenges to homesteading, and people have come up with creative solutions throughout the ages. For example, farmers in Monastic Tudor times would use candles made out of reeds as light sources. They would also use spherical glass containers filled with water to focus the light on whatever mending or crafting task they were working on. Similarly, in Victorian times, people used candles made out of tallow (animal fat). People across cultures would have community-wide social events and big celebrations to ward off depression and to recharge. 

K and I have adopted some of these strategies, like using oil lamps on winter evenings. I keep myself busy with tasks that don’t require much electricity, like learning skills from an audiobook on my phone. I also have hobbies that don’t require electricity, like doing puzzles or playing cards/board games. We’ve also come up with some of our own strategies, like setting an alarm for unplugging my laptop at 4:30 pm.

Winter homesteading is a struggle, but K and I find it worth the joy and sense of satisfaction we experience both during the winter (snow, in manageable amounts) and the rest of the year.

Next blog post: Part 2: Winter Homesteading–cold weather (by Phoenix)