First Snow of the Season

The second week of December we had a major snow storm come through and dump about 20 inches of snow overnight.  This winter has been the snowiest we've seen in a while.  

Just a couple weeks earlier we were hit with an ice storm and lost power for almost 5 days.  Already this is more a winter than we usually see. 

Caring for critters in crappy weather is my least favorite part of homesteading. Although, i think i do prefer the snow to the usual ice and mud.  Our winters typically tend to be 99% mud.  There's not much worse than a muddy chicken coop.

Although our wood was covered in snow, we stayed nice and warm inside while husband kept the fire fed.  Thankfully, he'd brought plenty of wood inside before the storm started, so we had plenty of dry wood to last as long as needed.

Our bees are tucked into their hives for winter, and we are hoping they over winter well. This will be our first winter with bees, and so far it's been a pretty cold one.  We made sure they had plenty of honey/pollen frames to feed them over the winter, and we'll be checking on their food stores on the first warm days we get when temps are over 50 degrees.

 It's been very mild the past few years.  The snow helped me get into a holiday spirit a little quicker than normal.  On years where we get no snow in December, it just doesn't feel very festive. It was nice to hunker down and just enjoy the peacefulness the snow brings.