Mother Earth News - Mother Earth News 1994

The following housekeeping tips and other bits of country lore were submitted by readers.

If youvey ever handled fresh fish before, you know that it can be almost impossible to remove the stinky odor from your hands. After years of fishing, I have finally come up with an easy solution: toothpaste. Squeeze a small amount of toothpaste onto your hands, moisten with water, and gently rub your hands together to create a lather. Then rinse the odor away.

-David Kelly
Spokane, Washington

Heres a way to keep paint in good condition after youve opened the can. Before sealing the lid and storing the paint, take a good-size breath, hold it for a moment, and then breathe into the can. The carbon dioxide will displace the oxygen that causes skin to form on the paint.

-John W. Klase
Fiddletown, California

Heres a way to rejuvenate the wooden handles of old tools that have become dry and brittle. Remove the cap from one end of a 2.5 PVC pipe (approximately 4.5 long) and fill it up half way with boiled linseed oil. Then insert the handle of the tool (rake, hoe, shovel, etc.) into the oil. Tie the pipe to something sturdy (I use a post in my cellar) and continue filling the pipe with the oil until all of the wood is sitting in it.

Check every few days. Youll notice that the oil level will go down as the wood soaks in more and more of it. Fill the pipe up again and leave for at least two months. I usually have a few pipes working their magic at a time. After youre finished, put the cap back on the pipe and use again next year. The results are terrific!

-Ellie Spada
Brick, New Jersey

Years ago I spread the excess ashes from my wood stove on my garden during the winter. Unfortunately the garden was so big that I never had enough ashes to cover it entirely. So I spread the ashes on only certain areas. To my surprise, the next growing season there was a definite lack of grubs and pests attacking my root crops (potatoes, carrots, etc.) on the plants near the ashes. I marked out where the ashes were spread that year and planted all my root crops in those areas the following planting season. Voila-no bugs!

-Candy Homer
Baltimore, Maryland

Heres a cheap way to collect compost. Bring plastic containers into your office and place them near coffee-break areas. Ask your co-workers to discard their fruit peels, vegetable scraps, and coffee grinds into your containers. This waste makes perfect compost.

-Angel Gonzalez
Colonia, New Jersey

Dont throw away the lint that collects in your automatic clothes dryer. It makes a useful wiping cloth for cleaning dirty shoes and also helps to wipe up oil and gas spills.

-L. A. T.
Morristown, New Jersey

Does snow stick to your snow shovel? Wax it! Warm the shovel over the kitchen range or wood stove and then coat the metal with household paraffin wax. (Wax is measured in cakes and can be found in the canning section of the supermarket.) We bought a one-pound box of wax, which contains five cakes, for less than a dollar. In addition to eliminating the snow from sticking, it protects the shovel from rusting.

-Keith Bellinger
Warren Center, Pennsylvania

Recently I found that the plastic tip on the end of my caulking tube wouldnt reach the area I needed to caulk. What I needed was a flexible tip extension. So I visited the hardware store and bought a piece of plastic tubing that would slip over the caulking tube tip. I beveled the end and it was ready to go.

For a more rigid tip extension, cut an appropriate length of small copper or plastic tubing so that it will slip over the caulking tube tip. If you cant seem to make the fit snug enough, cement the extension in place.

-Hugh F. Williamson
Tucson, Arizona

ILLUSTRATION: RICK KIRKMAN

A dab of toothpaste lathered up in your hands will wash away fish odor.

MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

Ashes spread in her garden turned out to be an effective root crop pest deterrent.

MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

Snow wont stick to a snow shovel blade if you coat it with a thin layer of wax.

The following news items were sent in by readers.

In the April/May 1993 issue of MOTHER EARTH NEWS the community of Wessington, South Dakota made an unusual request: it was looking for a family.

Specifically, they wanted a motivated family seeking a child oriented community.

What Wessington got were 40 to 50 responses. Seems many people are looking for a quick escape from hectic urban life. But Kathy and Ed Abbey of southern California were motivated enough to get there first-and they had their reasons. They were tired of fearing drive-by shootings and witnessing sidewalk drug deals; they longed for a laid-back lifestyle where their six children would be safe.

So they called the listed phone number, which turned out to be the local high school, and spoke with Naomi Reinhardt, a volunteer on the town development committee. She explained the towns motivation: residents were fighting to keep the local school open. To receive allocated state funds, enrollment needs to be at least 35 children. That wasnt a problem until the superintendent of the school moved away at the end of the school year, taking his children-who were students-with him.

In return for more students, Wessington could provide a friendly, safe community. Naomi spent a good deal of time on the phone with the Abbeys and then sent them a 15-minute video of their potential house and a tour of Wessington. According to the Abbeys, it was no slick film footage-just your average persons drive around town. For Ed and Kathy it was love at first sight. They paid off their bills, withdrew their retirements, packed up the car, and took off for South Dakota. When they got there, three weeks later, they found a pleasant surprise.

When our son saw the video, he wasnt crazy about the houses green paint. He told Naomi that over the phone, says Ed. Well, when we got to Wessington it was no longer green. A bunch of people from town had voluntarily painted it white with black shutters. They even painted the inside of the house.

The Abbeys enrolled two of their kids in the local high school, thereby preventing it from shutting down. Were no heroes, says Ed. These people are incredibly resourceful and werent about to let their town die.

Their biggest challenge so far was finding work. Kathy and Ed-who were both elementary school teachers in California-could find no teaching positions to fill in Wessington. Kathy decided to try something new: she opened a cake-decorating/catering service. Ed is currently working as a sales associate at a department store. But he misses putting a finger on a childs future and hopes to get back to teaching.