It’s so close! The weather stayed at a consistent sunny 60s for almost a solid two weeks after we got back from Cali. I’m not saying that doesn’t make for beautiful days and all… but… it was the end of October. Growing up in CO you come to expect the cold and snow before, and particularly ON, Halloween. Nope, sunny and 60s!

Then, finally, on November 4th, it got cold! Rainy, cold, muddy, wonderful-Fall-ness. Snow in the higher elevations. FINALLY, fires in the woodstove, cooking in the dutch oven, cuddling in the warm coziness of our tiny house. I love Winter, and being fully prepared ahead of time this season, as compared to a year ago this time, makes it that much better. This time last year it was colder, and we didn’t have our woodstove installed, a toilet inside, or any lights. We were scrambling to get firewood. Our ceiling wasn’t finished. We have come a long, long way in a year, and are totally loving our off-the-grid living. We are Off-Grid Vets (as my brother calls us); though I also like Professional Hippies.

Here are a couple of over-due pictures of when we swept our chimney:

A couple interesting things happened at the ol’ homestead while we were gone for 10 days. Two days before we got home, our neighbor, who had been keeping an eye on the place for us, texted me telling me he found our front door open that morning on his way to work. Said he didn’t see anything out of place or missing, but that he closed the door and would check on it again on his way home. It was a little alarming, but we have also had to re-level the house twice in the last year, and it has been so bad before the front door won’t latch. So it is entirely possible that it popped open. We also don’t really have anything of value in there anyway. I had him check the place again, he said everything looked fine, and he re-locked the door.

So we get home a couple of days later, go inside, and remember my wonderful mammoth sunflower seed harvest? My hundreds of sunflower seeds? Knocked over and all of them eaten. Some roseberry seeds R had harvested, also gone. Our dried asparagus, eaten up. Ok, so obviously an animal got in. There were also a few pictures knocked over on a shelf, up high. Also, rat turds and a big ol’ rat nest on our porch. Most probable scenario: wind or something blew the door open, and the rat had a hayday, but how did the pictures get knocked over? Other possible scenario: a large animal like a bear or deer came in, started eating, bumped into the wall–knocking things over–spooked, and left. Either way, I’m glad the front door didn’t close behind it! Can you imagine a big spooked deer STUCK INSIDE our tiny house?! No thank you.

The other interesting event was what happened inside our greenhouse. When we left, we had 3 tomato plants and a zucchini plant that were all producing quite well. Then we were gone, so, zero care, zero water, all that. We come back to this!

So that was pretty cool.

The cold rainy weather didn’t last long though, and now it’s back to 50s and 60s and sunny. No snow in the forecast yet. With the weather being so weirdly nice, we’re still working outside when we can. We also replaced our squeaky brakes on Maximus and are generally preparing for Winter. Nice to feel so prepared. Now where’s that snow?!