I have lived eighty winters on the South Dakota plains, most of them with one wood stove for heat. My granddaughter told me to write it all down before it's gone. So I did, in large print.
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We had three children, one cast-iron stove and a pile of wood that was never as big as I wanted it to be. The snow came up past the windows on the north side. My husband Frank had banked straw and snow against the walls in November, the way my grandmother taught us, and I had made the beds up the old way, from the bottom up.
On the ninth morning a neighbor came across the field on foot to see if we were alive. He found the children asleep in one bed by the stove, warm as bread, and me reading by the window with a blanket over my shoulders.
None of it was about being poor. It was knowing how.
I'm Winona Yellow Hawk. My Unci, my grandmother, raised me through the hardest winters on the plains, and she taught me every way there is to hold warmth in a body, a bed and a house. Most of the people who knew those ways are gone now. This book is everything she taught me, turned into what you can do tonight in an ordinary house or apartment.
Most of the warmth in a house is lost in a few small places. Fix those first and the heat you pay for finally stays with you.
One month of a smaller heating bill pays for this book.
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Most people pile blankets on top and still lie awake cold at three in the morning. The cold is not coming down from the ceiling. It is coming up out of the mattress all night, because your body is pressing the warm air out of everything underneath you.
My Unci put her thickest wool under the bottom sheet, not on top. Do the same tonight: take your heaviest blanket off the top of the bed and spread it over the mattress, then put the sheet over it. You will feel the difference in the first ten minutes.
That's one page. The book has 173, in large print.
Every old way with the reason it works, every step with what to do tonight, every risk with how to stay safe.
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Winona Yellow Hawk · 173-page large-print PDF · reads on any phone, tablet or computer
I'm Winona Yellow Hawk. I was born in the winter of 1946 in a two-room log house along a creek in western South Dakota, and my Unci raised me through winters that would frighten you. I raised three children in the small wooden house my husband Frank built, with one stove for heat. I live in it alone now.
My daughter Rose calls me every evening at seven. My granddaughter Kimi watched me make up my bed one winter and asked me why I did it that way. When I told her, she said, Grandma, write it down before it's gone.
These are my family's ways. I don't speak for anybody else's.
Yes. Every old way in the book comes with what to do in an ordinary modern house or apartment, with things you already have or can buy for a few dollars. You do not need a wood stove.
No, and the book is careful about it. Every chapter ends with what to never do: no flames or charcoal indoors, how to use space heaters and electric blankets safely, carbon monoxide alarms, and the warning signs of getting too cold.
No. There are no recipes. This book is about keeping your body, your bed and your house warm and getting through winter safely.
Yes. It's set in large type on purpose, and because it's a PDF you can make it bigger still by spreading two fingers on the page. It also prints well on plain paper.
No. It's a PDF, 173 pages. It opens on your phone, tablet or computer. Print it at home or at your library if you like paper.
Press any Buy button on this page. Pay once on the secure checkout. The page that opens right after you pay has your download button, and the same link is sent to your email. No account to set up, no password to remember.
No. One payment of $27, one time. No membership and no monthly anything.
The warm bed, the one warm room, the power-out night and the winter plan for living alone. All in one book.
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