Grandpa,
I really liked your story about the tent out behind the house in winter with snow machine access. That is the life.
It was a neat place. It was on a leased pasture or I would have a cabin there, right smack in the middle of an aspen grove. There was a 300 inch spring right close with the water coming out of the ground at about 54 degrees so it didn't freeze. I built a wood bridge over the stream so we could just dip a bucketful at a time and not have to thaw it.
Once the snow got over the sagebrush we had a great tubing hill. I would haul the kids up on the sled and they could tube back down. We also bordered right on the forest so it was a five minute ride into the pines for sled touring. Once there, I knew trails we could ride for 60 miles without hitting a road, as long as the trails had been broken. Those old heavy sleds back then couldn't handle the powder like todays light sleek models.
The old sheepherder stove could only be banked for about a 4 or 5 hour fire so I would have to get up in the night and stoke it up again, but the kids were comfortable in regular sleeping bags.
I still keep a straw bale hut over in the old orchard for the grandkids to camp out in during the winter. It's just right for about 5 sleeping bags on top of a foot of barley straw with a tarp over the straw. Can't have a fire in there so it is cold but the kids love to hunker down under the covers and tell stories.