Friday in the Country

Keep fresh flowers longer by adding a wee pinch of sugar and an aspirin to the water.  Change every few days.

Treat both sides of your snow shovel with a generous spray of WD-40™. Hopefully, there won't be any more snow this year, but file this idea for next winter. It makes shoveling snow so much easier. Secondarily, the spray will aid against rust.

Bay leaves for weevils. I put bay leaves in everything and every container that holds a food stuff that attracts weevils: corn meal, flour, cereals, grains and mixes. Additionally, I scatter bay leaves on the shelves in the cabinets where I store these foods. It works!

Some of your favorite pinks fading?  Revive by washing them with your reds. (Just think of this as the reverse procedure for the day you turned your husbands tidy whities into blushing pinkies).

Get rid of odors, including fish AND burned popcorn with this neat trick.  Whole cloves are best, but ground cloves will work in a pinch. Place 6-9 whole cloves or sprinkle 1/4 tsp. ground cloves into a small, DRY skillet.  Heat to lightly smoking (I use my 6" cast iron skillet). "Wave" the skillet around the house, passing through all the rooms, especially in kitchen and entry ways.  Sometimes, if I'm in a hurry, I get the whole or powdered cloves lightly smoking and 'wave' near the intake for my heat pump (of course make sure the fan in blowing to spread). This gets the pleasant fragrance throughout your home.

Keep a book or box of matches in your bathrooms; the sulfur smell of a lit, burnt and blown-out match does wonders to mask the special "fragrances" in that room (wooden matches work best, but a book of matches in a pinch is better than nothing).

And a word of caution: NEVER-EVER toss a hot match stick into your waste basket unless you're prepared to call the fire department.

© 2014 Cat Brennan