This year we’ve got the harshest, most wintery winter we’ve had for many a year. Real snow for several months, Arctic temperatures and bitterly cold wind. The world is white, white, white.
Life changes when all is snow and ice. Even walking is different, and driving more so. We haven’t seen temperatures above zero for 2 months and we’ve had periods of minus 25, not including horrific wind chill. This is the inside of my kitchen door:
As we stayed at the house over Christmas and New Year, wood played a major part in our daily ritual. Chainsawing and chopping logs in subzero temperatures is like hacking at concrete. This is my eldest boy, Brano, chopping away with a splitting axe:
Just before the snow began falling in November, I went up into the hills to the forest with both my sons and the village tractor driver to load up on logs for next year:
However, doing our daily walk (5 0r 6 kilometres up and down a hill) provided us with a mesmerizing fairytale landscape, regardless of how difficult it is to walk in deep snow with an ice crust.
This is real bushcraft.
Just wish my Discovery’s clutch was fixed as this winter I really, really need her…
You can read a more detailed description of our life below zero in the upcoming Winter issue of Bushcraft Magazine
