Frugal Friday

[ecosophia]

Welcome back to Frugal Friday! This is a weekly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up every Friday, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course, and I have some simple rules to offer, which may change further as we proceed.

Rule #1:  this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc.  I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #2:  this is not a place for you to sell goods or services, period. Here again, I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #3:  please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about.  Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.

Rule #4: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.

With that said, have at it!

Comments

Gobble gobble

[(Anonymous)]

This year, the big retailers have been dragging their heels on deep discounting their turkeys they didn't sell by Turkey Day. Usually they put them out at 50% off by mid-December but this cycle they waited until the new year before doing so. Patience pays off, as is doing things when nobody else is doing them. Always have faith, they will dump them eventually.

Anyways, now is the time and I'm set for Turkey Day for the next four years at around $7 a turkey. In today's money, that's almost giving them away. Something tells me this won't last but I'm along for the ride as long as it does.

You do need a chest freezer to make this work, or a lot of hungry mouths willing to help you. Hungry for turkey, anyway. Everybody out here in the country gets a chest freezer sooner or later, so it works for me. Next, I find an unsuspecting relative and offer them a FREE TURKEY in early November...

Re: Gobble gobble

[(Anonymous)]

Great suggestion.

I can second the usefulness of a chest freezer. The key is to keep it organized. For that I use thick plastic grocery bags made of recycled plastic, with handles. (The kind you can easily buy at most big supermarkets.) One bag gets meat, one gets breads, one gets veg, one gets fruit. I also use the tray on the top.

But if everything's a jumble down there, you might as well not have anything, in my experience.

Also: rule in my house is, all bags that go into the chest freezer must be labeled and dated. OR ELSE THE WRATH OF ODIN (just kidding).

This year I want to up my game with more 1 cup portions of frozen homemade chicken broth, and also chopped herbs medlies.

I find endlessly useful small portions of sauteed onion, carrot and celery. These go in soups, sauces, omelettes, hot veggie dishes, you name it.

recorder case

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, that takes me back.

That is a cute photo of a Waldorf school classroom with a student knitting a recorder case/bag ( they sew it up along the bottom and one side, draw string top). This is the common, at least in the American Waldorf schools I know of, first knitting project. 2nd grade maybe ?

Anyway, so many frugal tie-ins. Recorder playing, making a solution for keeping it safe between uses, learning a new skill, old fashioned chalk boards and wooden desks, wooden recorders, no media advertising on the childrens clothing at school. They make the knitting needles too, sand a point on the ends of two pieces of dowling and glue a wooden bead on top. Maybe they put the end into the pencil sharpener before they sand...

Alot of reasons for the excercise, a main one being developing the will force. Secondary ones being attention and mood support, nice calm hands on projects to let the academic strain earlier in the day rest. Confidence. etc....

And for me very nostalgic, those recorder bags last forever, there is at least one floating around here on the music shelf protecting a recorder.

Atmospheric River

Re: recorder case

[(Anonymous)]

I made myself a knitted recorder bag, too. And I've sewed a couple of musical instrument soft cases. It's a useful skill if you have and play as many instruments as I do.

The power of lists

[teresa_from_hershey]

Sometime back, someone commented on how they were running out of ideas to post for Frugal Friday.

This leads directly to the power of lists.
Why do I always have something to say every Friday?
Because I maintain a list of topics next to my computer.
When I think of something, I add it to the list. I have TEN (10) items right now.
The list remembers for me.

List-making is a vital skill for thrift and efficiency.
You can't depend on your memory!
And if you did, like my mother, who was incredibly good at it, cruel time will ensure your brain fades and you forget.

Get in the habit of making lists and keeping -- and writing in! -- a small notebook you carry around.

A list on the fridge, a to-do list of household projects, sewing repairs, writing topics, hardware store needs, etc., etc.

Your lists remember for you, so you are less likely to make mistakes and you don't need to run to the store every other day.
Your lists save you money so you don't buy what you didn't need.

Re: The power of lists

[far_to_go7]

Teresa (or anyone), what's your trick for remembering to LOOK at the lists or carry over un-done items?
I love making lists but then they pile up on my desk or get half done and then forgotten. I could really use some list management tips. Thanks!

Re: The power of lists

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Teresa,
You have inspired me to get a small notebook and pencil that can fit in my pocket. I often think of really interesting questions but then can't remember them when I get to the computer.
Maxine

Re: The power of lists

[(Anonymous)]

I run a weekly any-topic discussion via ham radio on Thursday nights, just for a half-hour, and quickly learned to have a written list of things that I want to try as conversation prompts. It's amazing how a thought can simply vanish at the exact moment I push the "talk" switch on my radio's microphone! We talk in rotation, and it's not that rare to hear someone say "you know, I had a follow-up for what you said two turns ago, but I just don't remember what it was now."

Lathechuck

Patio Garden

[kylec]

I am NOT a gardener, but I do have a lovely little patio at my new apartment. It has nothing above it but open sky, however it's on the west side of the building so it only gets afternoon sun. That probably kills my hope of having a kaffir lime tree, but I figured I'd ask the gardeners here what kind of things would work for a low-skill grower. The ground is cement so it has to be in pots. I live in zone 10b.

I'm not necessarily looking to grow my food given the limitations, though a few culinary or magical herbs would be cool if they aren't too fussy. I would like to have lemongrass since that's never at the grocery store anymore, if it can tolerate the morning shade--anecdotes welcome. Other than that, do's and dont's for a shady potted garden are much appreciated.

Re: Patio Garden

[michele7]

Try a tomato or two. Zone 10b is pretty hot, so tomatoes might last longer with the afternoon sun. I'm in zone 9 and by June the sun is burning the tops of our tomatoes. Try perennial herbs like oregano. With pots and your heat, you'll have to water often if not everyday. Seeds are cheap. I say experiment and see what you can grow.

One pot pasta

[michele7]

I had leftover pasta sauce in the fridge, but didn't want to boil water to cook noodles. A quick internet search led me to an easy one pot pasta dish.

8 ounces uncooked pasta (I used rigatoni. The recipe recommended using shaped pasta and not spaghetti.)
1 1/2 cups of pasta sauce
2 1/2 cups water


Throw everything in the pot. Bring to a boil. Simmer until pasta is cooked to your liking.

This was super simple and can be doctored with veggies and protein.

Re: One pot pasta

[p_coyle]

a long time ago i used to do a similar recipe, except it was baked ziti in the oven in a glass dish. i forget the amounts, but it was pasta, water, sauce and grated cheese in a glass serving dish put in an x-degree oven for x-minutes. it usually turned out just fine, and was a time and effort saver.

Colloidal Silver - any warnings?

[(Anonymous)]

I argue this belongs in Frugal Friday because after looking at how much money I lost through skipping work due to illness last year - HUNDREDS upon HUNDREDS of dollars - I think I finally have to leave my comfort zone and try more intensive alternate healthcare.

I've heard mention of "colloidal silver" enough times now that I think it's what I should start to use - it's a spritz in the throat every time you feel a cold coming on, right?

For some reason I'm quite nervous about this, maybe because it's metal, and I've had allergic reactions to metal before (nickel and beryl in cheap jewelry).

I'm sure many readers here have used it before. Any precautions you would give to someone looking to take it for the first time? I appreciate any thoughts, instructions, etc.

Re: Colloidal Silver - any warnings?

[baconrolypoly]

IANAD, but I've used colloidal silver for minor injuries with no ill-effects. Silver seems to be okay for those who can't tolerate other metals. I can't tolerate nickel but silver is fine.

Colds and Winter Illness

[(Anonymous)]

Healing from a Cold.
Wear a warm hat. The slight difference in temperature in your upper sinus area seems to cause a phase change of the snot. It runs instead of coagulates. It really improves quality of life. Warm socks also help. Wear the warm hat and warm socks to bed. You will sleep better. You will feel better in the morning. I started doing this a few days ago, I currently have a cold, it has seriously helped me so much.
Best of Health,
C.A.

Re: Colds and Winter Illness

[michele7]

I once was acquainted with a professional singer. She always wore some kind of scarf around her neck. She said it was to keep her throat and voice "healthy". Wouldn't hurt to wear one when a cold is coming on.

private message -- something to send you

[ilona9]

In the December Open Post, Maurice requested information on growing and using herbal remedies. Today I’ll post an introduction in Frugal Friday. I’ll cover three or four different topics; each topic will get its own headline.

1) USEFUL BOOKS ON HERBAL REMEDIES

Herbal Medicine: From the Heart of the Earth, by Sharol Marie Tilgner, third edition, 2020.
If you want ONE BOOK on your reference shelf, this is the book. It includes 200 pages on herbs and other useful materials, plus about 170 pages on herbal formulas for various body systems, plus a section on how to make herbal preparations, plus more.

Herbal Antivirals, 2nd Edition: Natural Remedies for Emerging & Resistant Viral Infections
by Stephen Harrod Buhner. This is the MOST USEFUL herbal medicine book on my shelves. He challenges some current ideas. For example, p 39, he says “echinacea purpurea (in the form in use in most of the West) will not work. The Germans use only the fresh, stabilized juice of the stalks, not the root, and it is the root that nearly every American herbalist and company use in their products.” He recommends an herbal tincture combination to fight flu and says “this tincture is useful for stopping the development of a flu infection if you take it at the first signs of tingling or soreness in your throat. The herbal tincture must touch the affected membranes.” When you do develop the flu, he recommends ginger juice from fresh roots, 2 to 6 cups daily. For more details see the book. This guy has got details!!

Buhner also wrote a book titled Herbal Antibiotics, and additional books with very interesting titles. “Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm: Beyond the Doors of Perception into the Dreaming of Earth.” I wonder what that book is about!

Dental Herbalism: Natural Therapies for the Mouth, by Linda A. Straub-Bruce and Leslie M Alexander. This useful book includes chapters on the mouth, common dental problems, a review of helpful herbs for the mouth and tips on ways to prepare them.

The Essential Guide to Adaptogens, by Rachel Rozelle
Adaptogens: Herbs for Strength, Stamina, and Stress Relief, by David Winston
Both books survey herbs that are particularly useful in boosting the immune system and energy levels.

Re: private message -- something to send you

[(Anonymous)]

Hey this is Maurice here. Sorry for the belated acknowledgement. I just now got here. This is a great grab bag of herbal information. Thanks for this! Hope all is well. Stay warm as most everyone seems to be freezing, wet, or sick. Be safe everyone.

private message -- something to send you

[ilona9]

2) RESOURCES FOR GROWING HERBS

Books on Growing Medicinal Herbs
Growing Plant Medicine, Volume 1, Volume 2 by Richo Cech
The Organic Medicinal Herb Farmer, by Jeff Carpenter with Melanie Carpenter

Strictly Medicinal Seeds https://strictlymedicinalseeds.com/
offers a an extremely wide variety of medicinal seeds and plants, interesting books, seed sorting trays, and a tincture press. Look for a particular plant, and the website often has detailed comments on how to grow that plant.

Medicinal herbs are sometimes used as a spray to protect garden seeds from fungus diseases right after they have been planted. Here are two Internet pages to get you started:
https://gardentherapy.ca/chamomile-fungicide-spray/
https://nodighome.com/2017/06/17/horsetail-potions/

private message -- something to send you

[ilona9]

3) AMERICAN BOTANICAL COUNCIL – UNIQUE RESOURCE

The American Botanical Council offers a wide range of scientific information about herbal remedies. It publishes a monthly magazine and a quarterly journal; it offers access to several databases. There are various membership levels, with increased access to information as cost increases. All memberships include online access to the German Commission E Monographs.
Herbal medicine is fully integrated into mainstream medical practice in Germany, and about 70% of the population uses herbal remedies.

For more information about the American Botanical Council see:
https://www.herbalgram.org/get-involved/membership-levels/
https://www.herbalgram.org/get-involved/membership-details/#HerbClip_Level

Here’s an article on the ways Germans access herbal remedies. VERY INTERESTING for anyone who wants to think about possible ways to organize healthcare. System.https://www.herbalreality.com/herbalism/western-herbal-medicine/how-does-herbal-medicine-fit-into-the-german-healthcare-system/

private message -- something to send you

[ilona9]

4) A PLANT I’M GROWING NOW

I’m growing an interesting plant right now – let me tell you about it.

I find daily doses of vitamin C very useful. It boosts your immune system and softens your stool. But most of the vitamin C we buy here in the United States has been manufactured in China. I’d like to have a source of vitamin C closer to home.

I went searching for a rugosa rose I could grow in my backyard. All rugosa roses have high levels of vitamin C in the rosehips – the fleshy seedpods that develop after the flowers bloom. However, the species grows 15 feet tall. It’s the kind of thing you might plant to stabilize sand near the ocean, but it’s not suitable for our ordinary backyards.

I found a smaller rugosa rose called Fru Dagmar Hastrup, or sometimes it’s called Frau Dagmar Hartopp. It grows about 6 feet tall and 6 feet wide. It bears red rosehips an inch in diameter. Once you have the plant growing in your backyard it sends out runners, and it’s easy to dig up the new plants and share them with friends. To find this plant, check with rose nurseries where you live.

private message -- something to send you

[ilona9]

5) USING MEDICINAL HERBS

You can use the leaves of these plants for tea. Many medicinal herbs are also used as salves or tinctures, or in other forms. When I attended the 2010 NW Herb Fest, one of the speakers, Cascade Anderson Geller, offered clear useful instructions on how to prepare tinctures, how to gather herbs at the best moment, and much more. I found her exceptional! Unfortunately, she never wrote a book. YouTube does have many videos of her teaching.

Here’s a book that was assembled by her friends: https://mickelberrygardens.com/products/a-lifetime-of-herbal-wisdom-the-inspiring-teachings-and-plant-knowledge-of-cascade-anderson-geller

You can order MP3 files of the complete 2010 NW Herb Fest here:
https://treefarmtapes.com/search?q=2010+herb+symposium
or just go to
https://treefarmtapes.com/search and type in her name. They have 52 tapes on a wide range of subjects. (While you’re there, browse through all the other subjects they cover.)

Searching for information about Cascade Anderson Geller brought me to another website
https://youarethehealer.org/
This is what the person who organized the 2010 NW Herb Fest is doing now.
The website includes many posts on how to use herbal medicines including how to make tinctures. See https://youarethehealer.org/herbal-medicine/making-herbal-products/
also books, “food as medicine,” and more.

Also see: https://blog.strictlymedicinalseeds.com/pressing-herbal-tinctures-lessons-learned-and-questions-answered/

private message -- something to send you

[ilona9]

6) YOU KNOW WHAT WE NEED?

As you can see, medicinal herbs, how to find them, grow them and use them – it’s a vast subject. A person could spend their whole life focused on medicinal herbs, and many people have.

I wonder if one or two or three people reading these words have extra time in their lives, and could offer to serve as “herbal resources” for the ecosophia dreamwidth community?

I’m picturing a person or a team who would welcome questions from people who want to learn about medicinal herbs, and then go find the answers. Perhaps they might feature one herb each month. They would get a subscription to the American Botanical Council and search the databases there for useful information.

This information shouldn’t actually be posted on ecosophia.net. It would become a publication on somebody’s dreamwidth page. I suppose that person would function as the principal editor, and other people would send stories. Need to think about layout, design, format....

I have some experience working as a journalist. I might be useful to help brainstorming this project. I could describe the needed skills – how you persuade someone to be interviewed, how you summarize what they said. I cannot take on this project myself because I AM 82 ½ NOW, and my main focus at this stage of life is LEARNING HOW TO DO LESS. But perhaps I could be useful in brainstorming/encouraging/sharing “how-tos”. Think it over.

Best wishes for the New Year!!

Recipe: Pudding mix

[(Anonymous)]

While I like pudding, I hardly ever make it, and if I do, I just make it from fresh milk. But, I recently saw this post of a recipe from a 1976 newspaper for homemade dry pudding mix and decided I had to try it. I well remember 1976, I was 15years old, President Carter was elected 6 weeks or so after this was printed, times had been tough for the last 3 years in the country, oil embargo of '73 and the fall out from all that. Frugal was the word.

A difference between then and now is that non-fat dry milk powder back then was much less expensive than liquid milk, and today they are very similar priced. In a changing world, it may again be that drymilk is the available or cheaper option. Certainly it is shelf stable indefinitely if in airtight packaging, or certainly years (non-fat dried), so a good item to store for supply disruptions. And it is a good source of calcium, protein, and pudding can cheer up otherwise difficult times.

I did the math and made a single batchs worth of the mix to test, and did it plain vanilla, usually I would do it with added cocoa. I liked the flavor, I used dry nonfat milk, arrowroot powder, sugar, homemade vanilla and butter.

SO, from Sept 29, 1976, "Pudding it all together...from scratch. A poll taken even a few years ago might have found few persons who had any recollection of corn starch puddings made from 'scratch'. But all that is changing now with the return to more basic cooking at home....
Basic Pudding Mix
4C nonfat milk
1 1/3C sugar
1 C corn starch
1/2t salt

Stir together, store in tightly covered jar. Makes 6 batches of 4 servings.

Vanilla Pudding from Basic Mix
1 C Basic pudding mix
2c Water
2T margarine
1t vanilla

In medium saucepan stir together pudding mix and water until well mixed. Bring to a boil over medium heat stirring constantly, and boil 1 minute. Stir in margarine and vanilla. Pour into individual serving dishes. Chill. Makes 4(1/2 cup) servings. "

For chocolate pudding, add 2T cocoa powder and maybe another T or 2 of sugar to the one cups worth of basic dry mix in the pot when you make a batch.

And, however you make it, the money savings but even more so the health savings, are immense verses the packed "dry mix" on a supermarket shelf. The prepacked mixes do not even contain any milk, which is the most expensive part of making pudding ! I looked up Jello Instant Pudding mix. You get sugar, starch, and a bunch of artificial flavors, artificial colors and weird additives for $2. In the homemade recipe that is 4 1/2T sugar, 2 1/2T starch, 1t real vanilla and a pinch of salt -- which costs much less than $2. This is also part of the whole "Make America Healthy Again" point. We dont need yellow 5 and 6 and artificial flavors and the rest -- pudding itself is not inherently unhealthy, if you arent allergic, it can be part ofa healthy diet.

Atmospheric River

[prayergardens]

This is fantastic! I bookmarked for when I do my next Azure order in the spring. They have good quality powdered milk.

A few months ago, I found a neglected food storage box in my basement from a while back including some Jello Instant Puddings. For the record, they were expired about 4 years and taste exactly the same. :(

Other than wondering what prompted me to buy those in 2017 (?), I thought
1- Pudding is awesome, we should do this more and
2- These ingredients are a trainwreck, I would never buy Jello brand again. TBH, 2017 is actually the last time I bought those!

But this mix with a couple of packets of biscuit cookies like Biscoff and a jar of jam you would be most of the way to a passable icebox cake from your food storage in a pinch.

brown sugar

[far_to_go7]

You don't need to buy expensive brown sugar or run to store if out.
Take whatever amount you want (start small like 1 - 2 c)
and add molasses. Abouuut 1/2 t per c of sugar but it's pretty flexible.
Mix. It takes a LOT of mixing, at first it looks like it's not working but the molasses will finally get very evenly distributed over the sugar. Et viola, brown sugar!
It really is the exact same thing the store sells.

Re: brown sugar

[(Anonymous)]

Wow! Love this. I had always wondered what to do with molasses.

[(Anonymous)]

I like my flatbread, but in Sydney's humid weather store-bought bags go off within days (or 24 hours on one particularly soggy day recently). Storing them in the fridge means they go hard. Homemade would be the go, but the one recipe I've tried (using yoghurt in the dough) was tasty but too much of a mess to be useful.

Enter Sydney local Nagi Maehashi and her excellent RecipeTinEats website for a cheaper, weather-proof recipe.

https://www.recipetineats.com/easy-soft-flatbread-yeast/

The no-yeast dough comes together like a dream and can be refrigerated for three days -- so you can cook them fresh (takes a couple of minutes). They are pillowy and delicious. I gave one I made yesterday a round of applause :)

flatbread

[kallianeira]

It is funny that your post appeared while I was at the store hassling the staff as to why the Simson's wraps were not on the shelf every time I came in and that they were meant to be on special this week but there had not been a delivery since 8 December... then when someone checked in the storeroom there were plenty and I bought 5 packets! They keep all right unopened in the freezer.

They are always overpriced though. It looks like yours might have cost 25c each while commercial ones are 50c upwards.

Recipe Tin has provided much of our recent culinary information too. The butter rice is wonderful.

How to get over 300,000 miles on a car

[slclaire]

It is quite possible to keep a car going for over 300,000 miles through maintenance and also through changing some of the bad habits of mind that consumer culture teaches us. My husband's and my 1999 Dodge Caravan minivan has 323,000 miles on it, of which we've put on all but the first 29,000 miles (we bought it used in 2005 from my parents, its original owners). This is our only car, and we drive it locally and on road trips. Here's how we do it for all of you that want to do the same.

If you have a garage or covered parking area, keep your car there. It astounds me how many people who have garages leave their cars outside to be exposed to upholstery-eating and paint-fading sunlight and vulnerable to vandalism or theft. The car is more valuable than anything else you have in the garage, especially if you want to drive the car for long past 100,000 miles.

For the first 100,000 or so miles, follow the maintenance schedule in the owner's manual. This will aid you in getting the most possible miles you can get on the engine. In particular, change the oil, or have it changed, on the schedule in the owner's manual, as has often been discussed here. You can have the dealer do this if you bought the car from a dealer, but I recommend getting to know and trust a good local mechanic during this time by having them do the scheduled maintenance.

After you've accumulated more miles on the car than are listed in the service schedule of the owner's manual, the dealer is no longer your friend. Dealers want you to buy a new car at this point, not to suck up bay space that people who bought new cars from them need for maintenance on their cars. On the other hand, your local mechanic knows that your car will need more work done on it as it ages; keep bringing your car to them and being a friendly and understanding customer, and both you and your mechanic will reap the benefits.

At this point, keep up with the recommended schedule of oil changes at a minimum, and start paying attention to your car for early signs of problems so you can bring it to your mechanic to fix them. Call your mechanic to schedule any work done if you can; it helps them to fit in more work, and in return they'll be willing to get to your car quickly in emergencies, like breakdowns. In general, the better you treat your mechanic, the better your mechanic will treat your car and you.

You also need to perform an attitude adjustment on yourself as the miles accumulate past 100,000. I've heard people whose cars have hit 100,000 miles say that they no longer trust their cars and that's why they buy a new car. It's true, as the miles roll on parts and subsystems will begin to wear out, and you will need to spend money to replace them and to be without the car for however long it takes to do the maintenance. Yes, on a road trip you may experience a breakdown; it's happened to us. Your attitude adjustment needs to include all of these and how to handle them in order to keep your car going and you happy past 200,000 or 300,000 miles.

For the money part, remind yourself of how much a new, or for that matter, a decent used car costs. You either have to buy it with cash (do you have that much on hand?) or get a loan, which costs you more than the agreed-upon price. However, even when you get to the point of needing multiple repairs in a year, which is where we are, we still don't spend as much on the minivan in a year as the total payments on a car loan would be in that time. Our minivan is sound, and it lacks the expensive electronic gizmos that new cars come with that are expensive to replace. I'd rather keep fixing the minivan than spend a lot of money on an unknown.

For maintenance, as the car gets older, parts get harder to obtain and come from farther away. Sometimes it takes multiple tries to figure out what is wrong and get it fixed for good. Trust your dealer and make sure you have alternate ways to get where you need to go when your car spends a few days getting diagnosed and fixed.

For the breakdowns, before your car passes 100,000 miles, ask your mechanic for the number of a good tow truck, and keep it in your wallet, so if your car breaks down in town, you know who to call to get it towed to your mechanic. Get used to the idea that breakdowns happen more often as your car ages and make sure you are ready for them at any time. If you are out of town, ask the local people for recommendations for mechanics and tow trucks, and thank them for doing so. Our experience has been that explaining to the mechanic that you are from out of town and thanking them for being willing to take your car on short notice goes a long way toward the mechanic doing their best to get your car fixed quickly. We always take possible breakdowns into effect when we travel - we figure it'll take us longer to travel a given distance if we have a breakdown, so we plan to return home a day or two or three before we have to be back home. That allows for time that might be needed to fix an issue. Sometimes we've needed it, but this past summer the car performed beautifully on our road trip.

Body work and interior upholstery work will likely be needed as the car ages; we've had some of each done on our car. Again, ask your mechanic for recommendations when this comes up.

At some point, the engine may lose its get-up-and-go. The right mechanic can replace an entire engine for much less than a replacement car. We had this done with the car we had before the minivan and were pleased with the results. So far the minivan's engine is as good as it was when we bought it from my parents, but we'll be ready to replace it when needed.

Re: How to get over 300,000 miles on a car

[(Anonymous)]

There is a problem if you live in snow country where they put down road salt, that stuff literally eats the underside of your car. Nom nom nom. Cars up there last about 6 years and then they're hopeless piles of rust. Funny, that's the typical length of a car loan, innit?

But if you live south of the snow, it is entirely possible if you keep up with maintenance, to drive the same car for 20 years or more.

Solid Hand Cream/Body Bar

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Fellow Gardeners and Similar,
A friend gave me a puck of the hand cream and I simply love it. I work outside gardening and with animals and then come inside to cook and wash heaps of dishes. My hands need a lot of protection.

After using this bar or puck on my hands and feet since Christmas, I can tell you that my hands look as if they belong to a winsome girl of thirty rater than a woman of sixty. My feet, usually dry, have responded by becoming beautifully smooth.

I hope you will consider cooking some of this lovely stuff up for yourselves.

In a double boiler, or if you o not have a double boiler, use a small mixing bowl set over a pan of simmering water, place 3 oz. grated or chopped beeswax, 3 oz. of cocoa butter, 11.2 oz. coconut oil, 11/2 oz. grapeseed or olive oil, 11/2 Teaspoons of arrowroot powder and lavender essential oil until it smells right to you. Once it has all melted together pour it into muffin tins or silicone moulds and let it set.

I will be taking some of these pucks to Garden Club as raffle prizes. This would be a great product to sell at a Farmers' Market.
Maxine

Kombucha

[ecosophia]

I've had such good results making other fermented foods at home -- I make my own kimchi and natto -- that I'm considering trying homebrewed kombucha. Since this forum attracts a fine crowd of do-it-yourselfers, I figured I'd ask -- do any of you have experience with homebrewed kombucha, and if so, do you have any advice for a newbie to booch?

Re: Kombucha

[(Anonymous)]

Overall it was good, and inexpensive and tasty. I also need to start it up again before summer. I moved the Kambucha fermenting jar out of the kitchen in case something from the kitchen like yeast couldnt get into it. But maybe that was over worry. Likely it could have stayed in the kitchen. I used black teabags and regular sugar. The chickens liked to eat the excess mother when I took off the old ones and just left the new, because it grows that, it puts a new layer on each ferment, and gets thicker and when you run out of people to give them away to, then you either compost them, or as I found out, feed them to the chickens. It is very frugal and very good for health and is refreshing to drink.

Atmospheric River

On ghee and popcorn

[(Anonymous)]

For some time, I've relied on pouches of buttery popcorn ready to pop in the microwave oven to give the kids a relatively sugar-free snack while they watch a movie. However things are never quite that simple: the pouches contain seed oil and the butter flavour is artificial (of course). So in trying to simplify and reduce cost, I bought a $4 bag of pop corn and followed the instructions, which said to use 3 tbsp cooking oil in a stove top pot. I used rapeseed oil (I won't call it canola oil because that hides how awful it actually is) since that's what I had on hand, but since generally I use very little seed oil, I noticed how sensitive I have become to the smell/taste it gives off when it starts going bad. I compared with my DH who didn't notice it, but I'm assuming he hasn't quite stayed away from seed oil as much as I have.

So I decided to switch to make popcorn with butter. But I can't use butter directly to cook popcorn, so tonight for the first time, I made some ghee using, as guide, a video online. It turned out ok for a first try, and I'll definitely try again.

I then made popcorn with some of the ghee, and it tastes very nice. The corn is particularly inexpensive, but the butter is more expensive than seed oil. However, overall, using these ingredients and this cooking method is definitely cheaper than microwave popcorn pouches, and once you have the ghee made, it's not even much more time consuming.

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On a separate note, I've gotten my 1936 hand crank Singer sewing machine to work, and started learning how to use it. Learning to use it is easy (even for me, a male in early 40s), however like anything else, using it well will take time and experience.

Re: On ghee and popcorn

[kallianeira]

Why can't you use butter?

I have no trouble cooking popcorn on a gas stove using real butter; it burns much more easily on an electric stove top but there are some people who can make it work.