Talk:Guides/Winter Guide/@comment-67.238.15.211-20160427012308

Live near a swamp so you can lure hounds and other aggressive animals (such as the pine trees that awake occasionally when you cut down a tree) into the tentacles (which are very common in swamps and deal very high damage). If you're Webber, or if you have a crockpot to use monster meat, build a spider nest near some tentacles in the swamp as well. At sunset, the tentacles and the spiders will begin to fight. If a spider is killed, its monster meat will drop. (Note that other spiders will try to eat this monster meat, so you should be quick in picking it up.) This also provides you with silk (used for various survival tools) and spider glands (used for healing). You can survive winter without walls and with limited food sources if you use this method. I also recommend building a pine forest on the border of the swamp, so you can cut trees there (to get fuel for fire during winter) and just run in if a tree monster attacks. Note that fishing ponds can be found in the swamp as well, so if you're running low on food (or, specifically, meat if you're Wigfrid) you can go there to fish. (Frogs will attack near ponds during day, while mosquitos will attack near ponds at sunset/night.) If you're looking for a better hunting/attacking weapon to kill frogs and mosquitos (such as the spear), dead tentacle monsters will drop a tentacle spike which is highly effective.

Obviously this all will only work provided that you have (all the other obvious things that other people have mentioned:) an ice box to store food, warm clothes to keep your temperature high, and something to keep your sanity up. You should also have a spare set of armor just in case you're going into the swamp and you don't want to risk getting hit by the tentacles.