Winter is coming and it is time to start preparing.  How can that be, you may ask, it is only the end of September.  When you live at 6800′ in Colorado, the weather can change very quickly.  This morning it was 33 degress with an expected high of 55, and I had a fire going in our wood burning stove.  Tomorrow it is supposed to reach 82 degrees. The kittens were on our front porch all piled on top of each other to keep warm.

Before moving to the ranch, prepping for winter meant changing out my closets and drawers from summer clothes to winter clothes and maybe putting antifreeze in the radiator.  Nowadays, it is a bit more involved.

 

Hay needs to be stockpiled. Our 30 alpacas and two horses eat about 85 pounds of hay a day…hard to believe!  Assuming we feed hay from September 1st thru May 1st, and that is a very conservative estimate, then that is a whopping 20,500 pounds of hay.  It makes my head hurt to even think about that. 

We had 21,000 pounds, yes, pounds, of hay delivered last week, with each bale weighing 800 pounds…with any luck we will make it until spring when the grass starts popping up.  If not, we will need to buy more hay, but by that time, the prices will be greatly inflated.

There are many ranchers who grow and put up their own hay to feed their animals. Some years they have enough to get through the winter, and some years, like this one, mainly due to our dry summer, they do not.

 

Wood for the stove needs to be delivered, cut and stacked up. Our house uses propane to heat it, but we much prefer to use the wood burning stove whenever possible as it not only provides a lot of heat, and costs less than propane, but I think it makes the house feel nice and cozy.

 

What do you do to get ready for winter?  Would love to hear about it so don’t forget to comment below.

Until next time, Happy Trails!

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