Negative 22
At -22 Fahrenheit, we clearly see the difference between the addition
we built and the main trailer. Even though the corners aren't precisely
square in the former, we insulated it like mad and thus find it easy to
keep the internal temperature at a balmy 68 throughout arctic blasts.
In contrast, inside the trailer, I had to keep the wood stove running
full bore from 4:30 am on to maintain a temperature above 40. We sure
would add a lot more insulation to our main living space if our normal
weather regularly dropped down so far below 0.
Despite the momentary discomfort, though, my main concern with this cold snap is fruit trees. Will our Chicago Hardy fig simply die back to the ground
the way it did last year at -12, or will -22 be the death knell for
this Mediterranean fruit? Our current thick snow cover should protect
overwintering garlic and strawberries, but with dormant peach buds
starting to get damaged at -10 Fahrenheit, will we even see a bloom this
spring? I sure am glad I decided to wait at least until March to prune.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Also Anna/Mark - Hubby asked me yesterday "When it's THIS cold out, what ~has~ to be done outside, and how long do you think it will take?"
We ask as not-yet-Homesteaders. We will be following along a path very similar to yours, and would love to know what has to happen on the farm (similar to yours with size, gardens, animals and mechanical systems) when it is bitter outside.
I'd love to hear what you do on days like this. Thank you!
I feel your pain! We didn't get as cold as you guys,,, but it was still crazy cold for us... I'm worried about my figs too... they are my favorite fruit. We wrapped the base up in wool this year left over from last year's dairy sheep raising experiment (which did not go well) to see if that would help! we lost power to the big ice storm and thank goodness we had carried in extra wood. We stayed pretty warm but more insulation would be nice! We trailerstead too