Fall at the cabin means making the most of our days: the days get shorter as winter approaches and there’s lots to do! We’re busy preparing for winter and making the most of the warmer weather before it’s gone.
By the end of fall, there’s a blanket of snow on the ground, the temperature drops and the days are much shorter.
Here’s a sample of what an average day looks like. I’ll walk through a day in mid-November, since that’s when it is now. I’m also a stay at home mom – so this is what having a 5 month old in a cabin looks like:
6:00 AM: Baby (Troy) wakes up. The cabin is one open room: a living room, dining space and kitchen downstairs and loft upstairs. Troy’s crib is in a nook of our living room, so once he starts to make noise, he’s our alarm clock. I sleepily come down from the loft – grab some coffee – and take care of Troy while his dad gets ready for work.
6:30 AM: It’s cold outside and our wood stove is our primary heat source. My husband tends the fire or re-lights it before he leaves for work. We usually have a fire going overnight, but sometimes it’s very low by morning. There’s nothing better than warming up with some coffee by the fire in the morning:
7:30 AM: Sunrise. The sun seems to come up so late during the fall! This is tricky because I like to let our dog out first thing but have to wait for it to get light outside. There’s all kinds of animals that migrate this time of year, and lots of animal activity around the cabin.
We frequently see elk, coyotes, foxes, deer, and even moose in our yard or on our block. The animals seem to be most active at dawn and dusk, which coincidentally is also when we usually let the dog out. Our dog is large and friendly. She tries to play with anyone and everything. Usually I take a good, long look around the cabin for any animals she might try to ‘befriend’ before I let her out. She’s chased elk and deer before… luckily they are all faster than her!
10:00 AM: Troy goes down for a nap. When he’s not napping, most of our day is spent doing the usual baby things 🙂 Playing, feeding, cuddling, changing diapers, etc. When he takes a nap I try to work or get things done around the cabin. Most of the day he is awake and ready to play.12:00 PM: If the weather is nice, sometimes we’ll go for a walk. I put Troy in a baby carrier and our dog on her leash and we head out. Our neighborhood is outside of town (it’s more in the country) so I try to keep an eye out for any large animals or incoming weather as well. It gets especially windy where we live, which can get very cold quickly!
2:00 PM: We only have one car at the moment between my husband and I, and he takes it to work. So during the afternoons I try to stay busy at the cabin (days can get long with a little baby!). I’ll work while Troy plays or take care of projects around the cabin. Most cabin projects are DIY or organizational at the moment.
Here’s a few projects around the cabin we’ve been working on recently:
- Getting all of our winter gear out of storage: no easy feat considering there’s a lot of gear and not much storage currently in our 650 sqft cabin!
- Baby Proofing the cabin: since Troy will start crawling this winter, we’re trying to baby proof things. For example, building a baby gate to go around our wood stove…
- Firewood, firewood, firewood: it’s our first winter here and we’ve got firewood stacked up on our porch that we use daily. It turns out that we didn’t order quite enough firewood initially (it’s only fall and it’s almost gone), so it’s time to get some more! 5:00 PM: Sunset. I’m still getting used to the sun going down so early… The dog goes outside again now before it’s pitch black outside.
5:30 PM: Cook dinner, light a fire. Before we moved to the cabin, we used to go out to eat a lot. One of the biggest changes since moving here is that we eat at home most weeknights. We’re a good ways outside of town, which makes it more convenient to eat at home. I was hoping this routine would make me a better cook – but I fear I still have a long way to go 🙂
I try to cook dinner and get a fire going for the night before Jonathon gets home at 6:00. Of course, this is all if Troy cooperates 😉
6:00 PM: Husband is home and we all eat dinner and spend some time together as a family. These are some of my favorite times: hanging out and talking or watching TV all cozied up in the living room. It’s pretty cold outside by this time, but the wood stove has a nice crackling fire that keeps us toasty. We hear all kinds of animal noises too: an owl that lives around the cabin hoots or there are coyotes howling in the distance. 8:00 PM: Baby’s bedtime. If we’re lucky, Troy goes to bed around this time. Jonathon is a great help with Troy in the evenings, giving me a break or a chance to work on my own projects.
And that’s it! This is what an average day looks like – but there’s also plenty of days that don’t go as planned or unexpected things that come up. To get an idea of some of the most unexpected things, check out The 7 Biggest Quirks of Living in a Cabin.
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