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After enough years of living close to the seasons, getting ready for winter stops feeling like a separate project and starts feeling like just part of late summer and fall. The herbs get dried because they’re ready to dry. The fruit gets dehydrated because there’s more than we can eat fresh. The firewood gets stacked because the wood is there and the weather is still good. None of it happens all at once or on a schedule. It just accumulates, a little at a time, until one day the pantry is full and the woodpile is solid and winter feels less like something bearing down and more like something you’re ready for. These are the things we do most years, done in small bits alongside everything else the season brings.
Dehydrate Some Fruit
A jar or two of some dried fruit can go a long way into making oatmeal slightly tastier and more comforting. Dried fruits can easily be tossed into muffins, cookies, and more. They also make for lovely snacks or trail mixes.
These days there are so many options for dehydrating – an electric dehydrator, the oven, some air-fryers, even the oven can be used to dehydrate fruit.
The great thing about dehydrated food is that it tends to be quite compact meaning you can often get quite a bit into a quart jar.
Prepare for Sore Muscles
Fall likely means raking of leaves and winter can mean shoveling snow. Be ready to treat those sore muscles by making a few home remedies now. Most of these are super easy and fairly hands-off.
Birch leaf infused oil is an amazing and simple remedy. Simply infuse those leaves in oil for a bit. Strain and then massage into sore muscles later.
Make Sandwich Condiments
Think ahead to all those feast leftovers. Those sandwiches from the turkey or ham, deserve a little something special to dress them up. Most of us can make just a small batch of each of several different kinds and be set for the whole season.
A batch of homemade relish is ideal for hot dogs, mixing into salads, and more.
Homemade pickles are perfect for burgers and other sandwiches.
Comfort Food Preparation
Winter is the season of comfort food but that doesn’t mean it can’t be healthy and homemade too. Get ready for those warming, comforting meals now by taking advantage of this season’s abundance.
Make and freeze pesto from excess herbs, garden weeds, and more.
Can up some homemade pizza sauce.
Batches of soup broth can be made from scraps and frozen or canned for warming meals later.
Herbs for Tea & Flavor
Dry herbs for making homemade teas or seasoning food. Bits of oregano, mint, rosemary, and more can make for flavorful hot drinks that soothe colds, ease nerves, and more while also adding flavor and depth to our homemade meals.
Don’t forget to infuse some honey with herbs for extra flavor and sweetening to your teas.
Be Baking Ready
Whether you do a big batch of holiday baking for the holidays or just enjoy small bits of baking now and then, winter is an ideal time to get the oven on and baked goods made. You can make those baking sessions full of homegrown ingredients and flavor even if the ground is covered with snow.
Make simple infused sugars for extra flavorful cookies, cakes, and more.
You can also make your own baking extracts for stronger hits of flavor.
These simple homegrown, local, and fresh flavors will give all your baked goods an extra special touch whether you keep them for yourself or give them away.
Gather Aromatherapy Supplies
Winter often means closed windows and less fresh air. Combat the staleness and dryness of winter air with some homemade potpourri.
Take some time now to gather a basket or two of supplies to have on hand for later. Gather pine cones, dehydrate fruit peels, and harvest fragrant flower petals to dry.
Later this winter, toss these ingredients into some water and simmer on the stove or in a slow cooker (with the lid off) for some naturally delicious smelling steam to fill the house.
It’s much more frugal to do it this way than buying essential oils and adds a layer of simplicity to your own life.
Prepare for Winter Heating
Start getting ready now. However you heat your home, get prepared in advance.
Gather or buy firewood. Get it split and stacked and ready to use. Order propane or heating oil and get your tanks filled. Buy and replace furnace filters.
It’s so much nicer to be prepared ahead of time for any unexpected cold weather that might show up early. It might also be more frugal to do it early rather than waiting and competing with everyone else who waited.
Keep it Fun
None of these activities have to take up a bunch of time. Each individual thing can provide us a level of security and self-sufficiency that feels good later but there is no reason for it to get overwhelming or stressful.
Have fun making small batches of things and watch your pantry and home get filled up slowly with comfort, flavor, nourishment, and more for the season ahead.
If you enjoy slowing down and staying connected to the seasonal rhythms throughout the year, The Seasonal Whisper might be worth a look. It’s a quarterly print newsletter that arrives near each season’s start with recipes, simple living encouragement, and a personal letter. You can learn more here.
I love the idea of drying fruit for oatmeal fixings. Question: when you’re cooking rolled oats (regular, not instant or quick cooking) do you just add the dried fruit in with the oats, and it’s all ready together, or do you add it partway through cooking?
We discovered this summer that pesto makes a delicious sandwich spread, especially with homemade focaccia. This is the first year we’ve managed to save enough basil from the bugs to make pesto, instead of using it more sparingly, and it’s been such a delight.
I toss the dried fruit in with the rolled oats and let it all cook together. The fruit gets soft and it even sweetens up the oats a bit from the natural sugars in the fruit soaking through the cooking water. Yay for that pesto!
That is a lot of firewood! Is that yours? I haven’t read “about” yet; you must be in Canada or the artic – heehee.
Great list.
Northwest Montana and it is a lot of firewood. Several seasons worth actually. Got a good deal kinda thing and figure it’s better than money in the bank.
That first pictures of the white berries looks like a shrub growing here in the south. love reading your posts!
Thanks so much for reading. Those are western snowberries, they’re not edible. I’ve read that maybe they can be eaten cooked but no one does that I know of anyway. I think they’re pretty however.
It is hard to think of winter here in the South of France when the temperature reaches the 40c’s, but the wonderful abundance of local and homegrown fruit and veg deserves to be preserved and eaten when the temperatures are not so high by a roaring log fire with friends and family.