Late November 2022| Practical Self Reliance

Feasts, Harvests and First Snow

Winter doesn’t officially start for another 3 weeks, but winter always comes early here in the North Country.

The week of thanksgiving almost always means a snowstorm here in Vermont. The Tuesday or Wednesday before the big day, we’ll see our first sticking snow. Just enough to make things feel winter-y and enough to tie up the roads on the busiest travel day of the year.

We weren’t worried about thanksgiving travel, but the week of thanksgiving usually means a scramble to get things hunkered down and stored before we’re under snow for the season. We’ll put away the wood chipper and pull out the snow thrower, and try to shove another cord of firewood into every nook and cranny in the woodshed.

It also means time to harvest most of our cold-hardy vegetables, anything we do not intend to overwinter in the garden.

While we’ve had frosts for at least 6 weeks now, there are plenty of crops that just go on growing until they’re buried in snow. We were harvesting everbearing strawberries and Alpine Strawberries until mid-November, and greens like cilantro, arugula, tatsoi, beet greens, kale, brussels sprouts, and countless others just don’t care at all about early frosts.

Still, once things start to get snowy, it’s time to start bringing things in for storage. Carrots and beets will either stay in the garden for winter, to be dug during warm spells or in the spring. My Brussels though, are coming in for the Thanksgiving table.

We’ll roast them right on the stalk in the oven while the Turkey rests before carving, and then serve them before the meal as an appetizer. (Brushed with olive oil, then roasted at 375 for about 45 minutes, turning the stalk every 15 minutes.)

They’re amazing dipped in a flavorful aioli with either garlic and lemon, or sriracha.

Anyhow, if you still haven’t found a way to enjoy brussels sprouts, you’re missing out. We harvest so many each year that I put together a list of more than 50 delicious ways to cook Brussels sprouts…they’re all good. Just don’t boil them!

Once the Thanksgiving feast is cleared, we head out for a little exercise…usually splitting wood. That’s next year’s wood, and we’re splitting what we’ll be burning next Thanksgiving now.

The phrase “winter is coming” (said any time of the year) just suddenly became really popular after Game of Thrones, but we’ve been saying that for a decade. First day of spring? Winter is coming.

Once we get all the wood into the woodshed for this year, usually sometime in late summer or early Autumn, the cycle begins again, and we start splitting and stacking next year’s wood to dry.

We work together, with one of us splitting by hand, and the other running the hydraulic splitter on the tractor. We’ll switch off, so nobody gets too tired, and so the machinery (human or diesel-powered) is always moving at peak efficiency.

The person hand splitting takes the straight-grained trees like ash, which pop open with a quick flick of the wrist. The hydraulic splitter takes on the gnarly twisted trees like ironwood, which have a lot of BTU’s…but are a bear to split.

We got through about 2 chords this week, and we have perhaps another 4 to go.

This time of year also means my canning kitchen goes into overdrive.

As I write this, I’m listening to the jiggle of the canner weight on my pressure canner full of black bean soup. I’ve got 16 pints loaded, and that means 16 heat-and-eat lunches ready to go during the busy time of year next spring and summer.

Toss on a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of cilantro from the garden, and it’s ready to eat.

This week I also did canner batches of chili con carne, pulled pork ribs, braised beef cheek, and even beef tongue. Beef tongue sandwiches with horseradish are delicious, and beef tongue tacos are spectacular. It’s a long slow braise normally, and too much to take on for a quick meal…but it’s ready to heat and eat right out of the canning jar.

Nose to tail, right in a canning jar…

Home-canned beef tongue

In December, the canning kitchen will slow down a bit to make space for Holiday crafts, and we’ll get to work on homemade vanilla, maple candy, and Kahlua (coffee liqueur) for gifts, as well as handmade candles and soap.

If you’ve never made soap, here’s a beginner’s guide to soapmaking (cold process method), or you can also try a simpler version with melt-and-pour soaps (no lye).

For candlemaking, here’s candlemaking for beginners.

What are you harvesting, preserving, building, or exploring on your homestead this week? I’d love to hear about it!

Leave me a note in the comments…

(Comments only, please. Emails tend to get lost in my inbox, and as much as I’d love to get back to each and everyone, my screen time is very limited…and things fall through the cracks, and emails get buried in my inbox. If you comment here, they’re all in one place, and it’s much easier to get back to every single one.)

Until Next Time,

Ashley at Practical Self Reliance