End of Season Tasks

Last week and this, Paul and I have been tidying up the garden in preparation for winter.  Paul took down our birdhouse for winter storage, we gathered up the tomato cages, and covered some of our perennials.  Paul will run the mulching lawnmower over the grass to collect up the leaves on Monday, when the weather is predicted to be "warm".  We also arranged for Sears to come do routine maintenance on our snowblower. 

Paul and I also went through our canned goods, purging any expired ones, cleaning and sorting.  This was not planned; the upper shelf of our Lazy Susan base cabinet shifted down, needing an adjustment, which Paul took care of.  But I have been meaning to go through it, so all was good.  The trick is to use up all of the duplicates I found and didn't realize I had - how much coconut milk can one person accumulate?!  I see Thai food in our future, maybe some Indian or Caribbean as well.  We are well stocked in vegetable soup for the winter.  It feels good to have that done. 

Sadly, there is a frost predicted for tonight.  So I went out and collected the last of the herbs before they are frozen.  Surprisingly, in spite of some pretty cold and awful weather in the past month, three herbs survived: rosemary, oregano, and parsley.  In keeping with my international cooking, I will also need to make some recipes that use parsley and oregano (Italian, anyone?!).  The rosemary I plan on using to make a rosemary hair rinse (link to holistichabits video/prep instructions here).  Rosemary is great for the hair, and has aromatherapy benefits as well, which apparently one will smell while prepping the hair rinse.

Left to right: rosemary, parsley, oregano