The 5th R of frugal living..... REACTIVATE IT aka Repurpose it
Next time you need something ask yourself "what do you have around your house that you can put into service to fill this particular need" and save yourself some money in the process.
When you reactivate something you are taking it from it's normal use and remaking it into something else. You might think of reactive in the same thought as repurposing. Quilters do the repurposing thing all the time with their fabric stashes.
Did you ever wonder where the term "crafter" or "crafting" came from? I believe it came from some cleaver frugal person who wanted to put a fancy name on reactivating their stuff. Instead of saying "oh, I'm just reactivating (or repurposing) these old raggedy clothes into a rug" they probably said "I've found a new hobby of crafting rugs" and smiled about it. Instead of saying "I'm going to turn this old driftwood into a lamp because I don't want to buy one" they may have said "I've found a new way of making lamps for a hobby." Yup, I think the terms crafter and crafting came from a frugal person.
Now you know what the 5 Rs of frugal living are all about.
Restore it
Refresh it
Reuse it
Repair it
Repurpose it
Showing posts with label Saving Money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saving Money. Show all posts
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Saturday, July 31, 2010
The fourth R
The fourth R of frugal living is...... RESTORE IT
For generations we have been in a headlong rush to buy, buy, buy. Better Homes and Gardens magazine once called itself "the magazine for people with BUY on their minds." That was a number of years ago and I don't know how they describe them self now. Hopefully, more people are coming to their senses and asking themselves "instead of buying something new, where can I go to find something I can restore to usefulness?"
When my kids were very small, (I only had three children back then) I had a favorite game I played with them. I called it "let's go to the dump day" which was about once a month when we visited their grandparents. The dump was just that. A place were residents in a small country town could take stuff to dump. Old toys, jars, lamps, or anything they couldn't get rid of otherwise. My sons found some pretty good metal toy trucks and cars. A coat of paint and they looked like new again. I found things like lamps and jelly jars. The jelly jars were actually drinking glasses. So many were being produced that many people had started just throwing them away.
Today's version of "going to dump" is traveling through the alleys on junk days three times a year. The good items one finds on junk day is dependant on how fast you get there when stuff is set out. If anything usable is being set out, there is always someone with a second hand store looking for things to sell. Men and women travel in trucks picking up scrap metal too.
Another version of going to the dump is using Freecycle. Anyone who wants to get rid of something can post it on Freecycle. There is almost always someone looking for whatever is being thrown away. From toys, to clothes, to furniture, to cut up downed trees or old bricks.... someone can use it.
A coat of paint and a little glue to restore an item to usefulness is another way of saving money.
For generations we have been in a headlong rush to buy, buy, buy. Better Homes and Gardens magazine once called itself "the magazine for people with BUY on their minds." That was a number of years ago and I don't know how they describe them self now. Hopefully, more people are coming to their senses and asking themselves "instead of buying something new, where can I go to find something I can restore to usefulness?"
When my kids were very small, (I only had three children back then) I had a favorite game I played with them. I called it "let's go to the dump day" which was about once a month when we visited their grandparents. The dump was just that. A place were residents in a small country town could take stuff to dump. Old toys, jars, lamps, or anything they couldn't get rid of otherwise. My sons found some pretty good metal toy trucks and cars. A coat of paint and they looked like new again. I found things like lamps and jelly jars. The jelly jars were actually drinking glasses. So many were being produced that many people had started just throwing them away.
Today's version of "going to dump" is traveling through the alleys on junk days three times a year. The good items one finds on junk day is dependant on how fast you get there when stuff is set out. If anything usable is being set out, there is always someone with a second hand store looking for things to sell. Men and women travel in trucks picking up scrap metal too.
Another version of going to the dump is using Freecycle. Anyone who wants to get rid of something can post it on Freecycle. There is almost always someone looking for whatever is being thrown away. From toys, to clothes, to furniture, to cut up downed trees or old bricks.... someone can use it.
A coat of paint and a little glue to restore an item to usefulness is another way of saving money.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
The third R
The third R of frugal living is..... REFRESH IT
To refresh something is to give it new life instead of tossing it and buying new. Whenever something in your house starts to show signs of wear and constant use; ask yourself, "Is there some way this item could possibly be refreshed?" For example, the fabric arms on your couch are getting worn and showing signs of use. Could you make some pretty arm covers instead of getting a new cheap couch?
A few months ago I made this cover for my Gammill chair. The chair was fine except for showing signs of age with a rip in the upholstery. Now it has been refreshed to keep being used as intended.
To refresh something is to give it new life instead of tossing it and buying new. Whenever something in your house starts to show signs of wear and constant use; ask yourself, "Is there some way this item could possibly be refreshed?" For example, the fabric arms on your couch are getting worn and showing signs of use. Could you make some pretty arm covers instead of getting a new cheap couch?
A few months ago I made this cover for my Gammill chair. The chair was fine except for showing signs of age with a rip in the upholstery. Now it has been refreshed to keep being used as intended.
When my husband and I first married we moved into an older rental house. The house had linoleum floors in a pretty pattern. It looked like stones with black grout between them. That floor was fine and looked really nice in all areas except in front of the sink, the stove, and down a hallway where it was showing signs of wear. The grout lines were fading from all the foot traffic in those areas. The stones looked fine. I took a permanent marker and redrew the grout lines. Two years later when we moved, the grout lines were starting to show signs of wear again. I redrew them before we turned in the keys. I had refreshed that linoleum flooring.... twice.
Refreshing is just slightly different than repairing. In repairing I would have patched the chair instead of making a cover. In refreshing the floor I drew the lines but in repairing I might have looked for matching linoleum to patch it in. Get the idea? Refreshing something is more like making it look clean and new again.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
The second R
The second R is...... RE-USE IT
In order to live well, in these uncertain economic times, you should be asking yourselves "What are we in the habit of throwing away after one use that could be used again?" The more times you can re-use something the more money you can save.
My grandmother used to say "She who doesn't throw away, can re-use it another day." If you think about it, our grandparents and great grandparents had very few disposable items. Grandmothers would can their own foods so the jars were used over and over. Disposable dishes were unheard of back then. Use once and throw away was a concept our ancestors couldn't have imagined. I think they would have been horrified at the thought of disposables.
I know we are limited by the manufacturers in what packaging they choose. If we want the product we must buy it in the container they choose to sell it in. We have no control over that. What we can do is choose to limit our own choice of what we use. Washable dishes instead of foam plates to throw away. Use cloth hankies instead of kleenix. Cloth napkins and cloth hand towels instead of paper.
I'm not saying we should all go back to living a colonial life but we can make conscious choices about how much we contribute to landfills. Personally, I would like to see grocery stores go back to using paper trays for meat and deli items instead of foam and plastic. Paper bags instead of plastic. At least the paper won't last a thousand years in a landfill. Metal is recyclable and so is glass providing more is done to recycle it. Newspapers, phone books, and cardboard boxes can be recycled into paper bags instead of cutting down trees.
Look around your house to see what items you use once and throw away. For example; do you have a vacuum cleaner with a paper bag? Cut open the folded end, empty it, fold back and secure it with paper clips so you can empty it several times before tossing. One bag can last a year or longer.
I once bought a mop and mopping cloths for an experiment. I realized I didn't like the mop because it was too heavy with a bottle of liquid on it. I could have thrown the cloths away because they are made to be tossed. I hated the idea of using something once and tossing it so I decided to experiment with washing them. It worked! I've washed them several times now and they are still good. A little ragged on the edges but still functional. I use them on my regular swiffer sweeper. Either for dusting or for damp mopping. Each time I wash these to use again.... I save the cost of buying more.
In order to live well, in these uncertain economic times, you should be asking yourselves "What are we in the habit of throwing away after one use that could be used again?" The more times you can re-use something the more money you can save.
My grandmother used to say "She who doesn't throw away, can re-use it another day." If you think about it, our grandparents and great grandparents had very few disposable items. Grandmothers would can their own foods so the jars were used over and over. Disposable dishes were unheard of back then. Use once and throw away was a concept our ancestors couldn't have imagined. I think they would have been horrified at the thought of disposables.
I know we are limited by the manufacturers in what packaging they choose. If we want the product we must buy it in the container they choose to sell it in. We have no control over that. What we can do is choose to limit our own choice of what we use. Washable dishes instead of foam plates to throw away. Use cloth hankies instead of kleenix. Cloth napkins and cloth hand towels instead of paper.
I'm not saying we should all go back to living a colonial life but we can make conscious choices about how much we contribute to landfills. Personally, I would like to see grocery stores go back to using paper trays for meat and deli items instead of foam and plastic. Paper bags instead of plastic. At least the paper won't last a thousand years in a landfill. Metal is recyclable and so is glass providing more is done to recycle it. Newspapers, phone books, and cardboard boxes can be recycled into paper bags instead of cutting down trees.
Look around your house to see what items you use once and throw away. For example; do you have a vacuum cleaner with a paper bag? Cut open the folded end, empty it, fold back and secure it with paper clips so you can empty it several times before tossing. One bag can last a year or longer.
I once bought a mop and mopping cloths for an experiment. I realized I didn't like the mop because it was too heavy with a bottle of liquid on it. I could have thrown the cloths away because they are made to be tossed. I hated the idea of using something once and tossing it so I decided to experiment with washing them. It worked! I've washed them several times now and they are still good. A little ragged on the edges but still functional. I use them on my regular swiffer sweeper. Either for dusting or for damp mopping. Each time I wash these to use again.... I save the cost of buying more.
The idea is to find a way to reuse what you can, as often as you can. You will save money. Money that can be used to pay down debt or save for a special occasion. Hmm.... wouldn't you rather use the money to have a nice vacation instead of spending it a little at a time for disposables?
Let me give you a mental picture to think about. Have you seen the tv commercial of the woman going to the grocery to buy meat. She tells the man to give her a few pounds of something.... but says wrap only half of it and toss the rest in the garbage because that's what she will do anyway. If you haven't seen it yet, watch for it and think about this example.
If you bought one pack of foam plates ($3), 2 rolls of paper towels ($2), and one pack of plastic cups ($2) per week, every week. That's $7 a week. Granted, that doesn't sound too bad, after all you can afford it right? The convenience is worth the $7 a week. But if you really think about it, that's $364 a year.
Now add another $2 for napkins, $4 for mopping cloths, $2 for plastic forks and spoons, and $2 for baby wipes per week. Now you are spending $17 a week or $884 a year for disposables. In other words.... you would be throwing away $884 a year.
Would you really take 8 one hundred dollar bills and 8 twenty dollar bills and toss them into the trash? That's what you are doing when you buy disposables. Think about the real cost of all your disposables next time you put them in your shopping cart.
Hmm... while sitting here trying to think of some disposable items to use for the example I remembered coffee filters and tea bags used to be made of cloth. Did you know that? They were used and washed to use again. Gosh, I hadn't thought of those in years and years. I use instant coffee but if I went back to using ground, I would make some cloth filters. For tea we put a bit of tea into a little bag with a drawstring top. To empty and wash, we turned them inside out.
Even before the days of cloth filters, none were used. Coffee grounds and tea floated in the water. They would settle in the bottom of your cup so you were drinking only the liquid. I think maybe that's where reading tea leaves in cups got started. A game to find a use for leftover tea in cups.
Ok, I've type-talked long enough today. Think about what I've said. Is there some disposable items you can do without? Can you find ways to RE-USE instead of tossing?
Saturday, July 24, 2010
The first R
The first R of living frugal is..... REPAIR IT
Glue, duct tape, and string will fix many things. At first glance you may look at the broken knob on the crock pot and think to yourself..... ok, time to buy a new crock pot. Well, a little thread wrapped around the broken pieces of the knob, add a little glue to the thread, let it set to dry, you now have a knob as strong as it was before it broke.
In fact, with glue and a few other things, you can fix almost anything around the house that breaks. If you set your mind to it, with the help of a good handyman's book, you can make almost anything last for a very long time. Just because something broke (the day after the warranty ran out) doesn't mean you must replace it.... repair it instead!
If you think about it, there are very few things around the house that can't be repaired. What comes apart can be put back together. All quilters know basically what that means. We cut apart perfectly good new fabric just so we can sew it back together again. What really can't be put back together, to use as it was, can often be put to use in other ways.
A handyman's book of how to do simple home repairs can show you how to repair things around the house. A good handyman's book should have chapters on all the main maintenance crises that can arise in the average home. It should have good pictures with diagrams and clear instructions. You should be able to lean heavily on it for fixing what breaks. I used to have two handyman's books. I haven't a clue where they went. Probably down in a box at the bottom of a closet right now or given away in a fit of "get rid of the stuff" rampage. I may order some replacement ones from amazon if I can't find them. If you don't want to invest in a couple of good handyman's books. Check with the county extension office. They usually have free pamphlets to send you on any subject you may be interested in.
After you've mastered the fine art of gluing, consider the washer. No, not the machine. You know that round rubber thingie that keeps wearing out and the faucets begin to drip. I admit, this is one repair I've never mastered but I'm going to. Get a box of assorted sizes from the hardware to keep with your tools. That way you will always have some handy. Repairing a leaky hot water faucet as soon as it happens can save a lot of money.
Repairing stuff to make it last longer also includes clothing, purses, and shoes. I once knew a lady that would throw out anything that got a small rip at the seams or had a pin head size stain spot on it or lost a button. She refused to learn how to sew on a button or fix a seam. A tiny spot of stain that wouldn't come out and she thought it was horrible. I'm talking tiny, tiny stain or rip.... often in places where others shouldn't be looking in the first place. I'm sure our ancestors would be horrified at the amount of stuff we put into a landfill simply because it broke or got a stain or became last year's fashion. I keep a box of buttons handy although I have no clothing with buttons at the moment. I remember my grandmother's button box. It was fantastic. I spent hours and hours looking at all the pretty buttons. Ladybug now plays with my button box and appears to be just as fascinated with mine as I was my grandmother's button box.
Sometimes shoes can be repaired with a bit of glue to put it back together and some polish to brighten them up. My daughter used to be so embarrassed by my 12 year old sneakers. She's a shoe person and has dozens of pairs. I had two pair. One was the sneakers and the other was sandals I wore in warm weather. As long as I could use shoe polish and some glue to keep those shoes looking half decent.... I saw no reason to replace them. If my daughter hadn't got rid of those sneakers, without my knowledge, and bought me a new pair with her own money, I'd probably still be wearing them in cold weather. When I was a child I got one pair of shoes for winter. Summers we went barefoot. In the summer we had to be very careful to avoid the cow pies when it was time to milk the cows. Eeeewwww! Squishy, squishy.
Stains or tears in clothing can be repaired with a patch if it can't be fixed any other way. Patches should come back into fashion in my opinion. When I was a child my grandmother would go to the rag bag to find fabric suitable for patching the knees of my breeches or the elbows of my shirts. My undies were made from flour sack fabric, thin to begin with, often got holes from washing with lye soap. My grandmother patched those holes with flower shaped patches and some crochet lace. I thought it special to have undies with flowers on them.
Living a frugal life should include learning to make repairs before tossing something out. Anyone who has lost their income, or is in fear of loosing it, should learn to fix things. It may be a long time before our economy is normal again. You will want to hang on to what you have for as long as you can.
Glue, duct tape, and string will fix many things. At first glance you may look at the broken knob on the crock pot and think to yourself..... ok, time to buy a new crock pot. Well, a little thread wrapped around the broken pieces of the knob, add a little glue to the thread, let it set to dry, you now have a knob as strong as it was before it broke.
In fact, with glue and a few other things, you can fix almost anything around the house that breaks. If you set your mind to it, with the help of a good handyman's book, you can make almost anything last for a very long time. Just because something broke (the day after the warranty ran out) doesn't mean you must replace it.... repair it instead!
If you think about it, there are very few things around the house that can't be repaired. What comes apart can be put back together. All quilters know basically what that means. We cut apart perfectly good new fabric just so we can sew it back together again. What really can't be put back together, to use as it was, can often be put to use in other ways.
A handyman's book of how to do simple home repairs can show you how to repair things around the house. A good handyman's book should have chapters on all the main maintenance crises that can arise in the average home. It should have good pictures with diagrams and clear instructions. You should be able to lean heavily on it for fixing what breaks. I used to have two handyman's books. I haven't a clue where they went. Probably down in a box at the bottom of a closet right now or given away in a fit of "get rid of the stuff" rampage. I may order some replacement ones from amazon if I can't find them. If you don't want to invest in a couple of good handyman's books. Check with the county extension office. They usually have free pamphlets to send you on any subject you may be interested in.
After you've mastered the fine art of gluing, consider the washer. No, not the machine. You know that round rubber thingie that keeps wearing out and the faucets begin to drip. I admit, this is one repair I've never mastered but I'm going to. Get a box of assorted sizes from the hardware to keep with your tools. That way you will always have some handy. Repairing a leaky hot water faucet as soon as it happens can save a lot of money.
Repairing stuff to make it last longer also includes clothing, purses, and shoes. I once knew a lady that would throw out anything that got a small rip at the seams or had a pin head size stain spot on it or lost a button. She refused to learn how to sew on a button or fix a seam. A tiny spot of stain that wouldn't come out and she thought it was horrible. I'm talking tiny, tiny stain or rip.... often in places where others shouldn't be looking in the first place. I'm sure our ancestors would be horrified at the amount of stuff we put into a landfill simply because it broke or got a stain or became last year's fashion. I keep a box of buttons handy although I have no clothing with buttons at the moment. I remember my grandmother's button box. It was fantastic. I spent hours and hours looking at all the pretty buttons. Ladybug now plays with my button box and appears to be just as fascinated with mine as I was my grandmother's button box.
Sometimes shoes can be repaired with a bit of glue to put it back together and some polish to brighten them up. My daughter used to be so embarrassed by my 12 year old sneakers. She's a shoe person and has dozens of pairs. I had two pair. One was the sneakers and the other was sandals I wore in warm weather. As long as I could use shoe polish and some glue to keep those shoes looking half decent.... I saw no reason to replace them. If my daughter hadn't got rid of those sneakers, without my knowledge, and bought me a new pair with her own money, I'd probably still be wearing them in cold weather. When I was a child I got one pair of shoes for winter. Summers we went barefoot. In the summer we had to be very careful to avoid the cow pies when it was time to milk the cows. Eeeewwww! Squishy, squishy.
Stains or tears in clothing can be repaired with a patch if it can't be fixed any other way. Patches should come back into fashion in my opinion. When I was a child my grandmother would go to the rag bag to find fabric suitable for patching the knees of my breeches or the elbows of my shirts. My undies were made from flour sack fabric, thin to begin with, often got holes from washing with lye soap. My grandmother patched those holes with flower shaped patches and some crochet lace. I thought it special to have undies with flowers on them.
Living a frugal life should include learning to make repairs before tossing something out. Anyone who has lost their income, or is in fear of loosing it, should learn to fix things. It may be a long time before our economy is normal again. You will want to hang on to what you have for as long as you can.
Friday, July 23, 2010
The five "R"s of frugal living
Remember this saying?
Use it up;
wear it out;
make it do;
or do without.
It was a saying that came to be chanted during the great depression and continued through the shortages of WW11. Almost everyone has heard of it. My grandmother taught it to me. I guess you can sort of tell that my grandparents were financial heroes to me. I loved the way they lived and have tried over the years, from time to time, to live the same way. I kept falling for the hype of spend, spend, spend until I came to my senses and tried to go back to the old ways. In my latest venture to seek a less complicated life; my grandparents are more on my mind than usual. Maybe it's true that as we get older we do go back to our youth.
Anyway, my grandmother also taught me the five "R"s of being frugal. I've decided to share those five Rs in this blog. Some people will recognize the 5Rs while others may not have given them much thought. Before I start sharing those 5Rs let me talk a little about history. History of the frontier days.
In frontier days there weren't all the modern conveniences of mega stores and mega malls. Almost everything they used was made right at home. Animals were raised to provide food. When they butchered an animal they saved the tallow for making candles and soap. The hide was saved to make saddles, shoes, and other items. They sheered their own sheep, carded the wool, spun it into yarn, and knitted it into stockings, mittens, sweaters, scarves, and caps. The family loom was kept busy weaving materials like cotton to be made into dresses, shirts, pants, and diapers. Houses, barns, and sheds were made from whatever material was available to build with. It could be mud, sod, stones, wood, or even digging into the side of a hill.
Very little was wasted because the people knew how much hard work went into producing it. I don't think you would have found our ancestors filling up a landfill with last year's fashions. Especially when the clothes they wore might have taken months and months to make. A year of waiting for the cotton to grow or the sheep to grow more wool. Weeks of carding and then the spinning and weaving. Next the careful cutting and sewing to make a garment. Grandma would have been horrified to see all that work tossed aside like it was nothing. Grandma would have saved the worn out clothes to be cut into usable pieces to make a child's outfit or cut it into strips to make a rug or a warm quilt. Even flour sacks were saved to make undergarments.
Grandpa would have tanned the hides; made the shoes or saddles; dug the potatoes, carrots, and beets from the garden; stored them in the earthy smelling root cellar; and if he couldn't make the house comfy during the winter he had no one but himself to blame for not cutting enough firewood.
Life was harder in some ways back then; but, they had the satisfaction of creating things with their own hands and using their ingenuity to provide for the needs of the family. Everyone in the family helped with the work. Boys learned the farming skills from their fathers. Girls learned the hand working skills and cooking skills from their mothers. Children were taught to do their part of the work as soon as they were old enough to walk. Children didn't set around vegetating, they learned to grow vegetables. Even a very young child could learn to toss a handful of corn to the chickens and gather the eggs.
Gradually, families started moving off the farms into cities. They no longer had to use the farming skills they knew. There were no occasions to teach the skills to the children or to the children's children because none of it was done anymore. So the skills are forgotten (or never learned) by those of us today.
I believe, with the world's rapidly expanding population and dwindling supply of natural resources.... and because many of us are tiring of plastic manufactured products that all look the same..... many of us may want to relearn some of the old skills. Of course we can't all go back to raising sheep and dipping candles but we CAN learn to live a more simplified life. Most likely we can't set up in a weaving loom in the spare bedroom to weave our own cloth; but, we can learn to reuse the clothes we were planning to toss out. Girls.... and boys.... can learn the skills of the 5Rs.
The tv news is not good. Right now the powers in government are trying to decide whether to extend unemployment benefits to the millions out of work. History repeats itself. Isn't that what the government did to get people back to work during the depression? They started the WPA project. Their version of unemployment benefits. Well, in my opinion, their version was better than unemployment checks. At least the people had to actually "work" to get the money. I believe if the government of today were to set up a new WPA fixing things like roads and sewer lines and electric lines it would do more for the economy than just handing out more checks. BUT, who is going to listen to me? I'm just a little old lady with a goal. My voice won't carry all the way to Washington and it certainly won't land at the ear of the president.
Ok, I'm getting off subject. I guess it's time to go put some of the things I want to do....to actual use.
Use it up;
wear it out;
make it do;
or do without.
It was a saying that came to be chanted during the great depression and continued through the shortages of WW11. Almost everyone has heard of it. My grandmother taught it to me. I guess you can sort of tell that my grandparents were financial heroes to me. I loved the way they lived and have tried over the years, from time to time, to live the same way. I kept falling for the hype of spend, spend, spend until I came to my senses and tried to go back to the old ways. In my latest venture to seek a less complicated life; my grandparents are more on my mind than usual. Maybe it's true that as we get older we do go back to our youth.
Anyway, my grandmother also taught me the five "R"s of being frugal. I've decided to share those five Rs in this blog. Some people will recognize the 5Rs while others may not have given them much thought. Before I start sharing those 5Rs let me talk a little about history. History of the frontier days.
In frontier days there weren't all the modern conveniences of mega stores and mega malls. Almost everything they used was made right at home. Animals were raised to provide food. When they butchered an animal they saved the tallow for making candles and soap. The hide was saved to make saddles, shoes, and other items. They sheered their own sheep, carded the wool, spun it into yarn, and knitted it into stockings, mittens, sweaters, scarves, and caps. The family loom was kept busy weaving materials like cotton to be made into dresses, shirts, pants, and diapers. Houses, barns, and sheds were made from whatever material was available to build with. It could be mud, sod, stones, wood, or even digging into the side of a hill.
Very little was wasted because the people knew how much hard work went into producing it. I don't think you would have found our ancestors filling up a landfill with last year's fashions. Especially when the clothes they wore might have taken months and months to make. A year of waiting for the cotton to grow or the sheep to grow more wool. Weeks of carding and then the spinning and weaving. Next the careful cutting and sewing to make a garment. Grandma would have been horrified to see all that work tossed aside like it was nothing. Grandma would have saved the worn out clothes to be cut into usable pieces to make a child's outfit or cut it into strips to make a rug or a warm quilt. Even flour sacks were saved to make undergarments.
Grandpa would have tanned the hides; made the shoes or saddles; dug the potatoes, carrots, and beets from the garden; stored them in the earthy smelling root cellar; and if he couldn't make the house comfy during the winter he had no one but himself to blame for not cutting enough firewood.
Life was harder in some ways back then; but, they had the satisfaction of creating things with their own hands and using their ingenuity to provide for the needs of the family. Everyone in the family helped with the work. Boys learned the farming skills from their fathers. Girls learned the hand working skills and cooking skills from their mothers. Children were taught to do their part of the work as soon as they were old enough to walk. Children didn't set around vegetating, they learned to grow vegetables. Even a very young child could learn to toss a handful of corn to the chickens and gather the eggs.
Gradually, families started moving off the farms into cities. They no longer had to use the farming skills they knew. There were no occasions to teach the skills to the children or to the children's children because none of it was done anymore. So the skills are forgotten (or never learned) by those of us today.
I believe, with the world's rapidly expanding population and dwindling supply of natural resources.... and because many of us are tiring of plastic manufactured products that all look the same..... many of us may want to relearn some of the old skills. Of course we can't all go back to raising sheep and dipping candles but we CAN learn to live a more simplified life. Most likely we can't set up in a weaving loom in the spare bedroom to weave our own cloth; but, we can learn to reuse the clothes we were planning to toss out. Girls.... and boys.... can learn the skills of the 5Rs.
The tv news is not good. Right now the powers in government are trying to decide whether to extend unemployment benefits to the millions out of work. History repeats itself. Isn't that what the government did to get people back to work during the depression? They started the WPA project. Their version of unemployment benefits. Well, in my opinion, their version was better than unemployment checks. At least the people had to actually "work" to get the money. I believe if the government of today were to set up a new WPA fixing things like roads and sewer lines and electric lines it would do more for the economy than just handing out more checks. BUT, who is going to listen to me? I'm just a little old lady with a goal. My voice won't carry all the way to Washington and it certainly won't land at the ear of the president.
Ok, I'm getting off subject. I guess it's time to go put some of the things I want to do....to actual use.
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