Mother's Down-Home Country Lore
Kay Roads, using bubble bath as an insulator to keep the bath water warmer longer; Carlton Rhyne, using a coin to restrict water in the shower head; Michelle McLean, reusing long johns by turning them over; John Balser, getting more life out of long johns; Larry A. Spanish, using a cotter pin on a grain scoop shovel to protect the floor; Cheryl Tavares, saving information in daily diaries; Mr. and Mrs. Charles Anderson, make postcards from Christmas cards; Leonard Sotz, making a newspaper log roller; Mrs. J.A. Oppert, opening a fireplace's trap door as an oxygen supply, Maye Pigg, using a turkey baster to siphon off gasoline; Robert Redig, clamp a 2 x 4 on a ladder leg to improve stability; John Gaston, putting a light in a skunks den to make them move; Lydia O'Callaghan, observe the reflection of the board being cut by a hand saw to cut it straight.
November/December 1979
By the Mother Earth News editors
We'll let Antioch, California's Kay Roads tell you about her "all-wet" idea herself: "I firmly believe that warm water has deeply therapeutic qualities . . . in other words, I love to soak in a bathtub. During the winter, though, the soothing liquid needs to be heated up-all over again -every 15 minutes or so. Such continual `recharging' can get downright inconvenient (and costly) so I `dipped' into my childhood past and came up with the perfect tub-lover's energy saver. bubble bath.
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"Yessir, the billions of floating orbs make such an effective bath insulator that I can sit back-with a few current issues of MOTHER-and soak my bones for a leisurely hour and a half... without ever adding more hot water!
"Besides all that," confesses our California tubber, "bathing with bubbles is fun!"
Canton Rhyne of Asheboro, North Carolina knows how a lot of shower-loving folks can save energy, too! Carlton's figured out how to make a homemade water-saver (a device which may cost as much as $15.00 in stores) for 10¢ or less!
All you have to do, the thrifty Tarheel advises, is unscrew your current shower head and see if a dime or penny can be snugly placed into the water sprayer's connector piece. If either coin fits, drill a 1/16" to 1/8" hole in the appropriate disc, plop the coin into the connector and then screw the head back on. Your revamped shower will give a fine, high-pressure spray (perfectly good for bathing) that uses less water than its old "gusher" head did ... while you save on your monthly water bill and avoid shelling out money for a "brand name" water-saver device.
Out in Cohasset, Massachusetts the winters tend to drag on . . . and long johns tend to wear out! But Michelle McLean has a clever way to recycle the lower half of those body warmers . . . by turning the bottoms into tops! When the torso part of her winter wonders gets ail stretched out-and the leg sections shrink up to the length of knickers-Ms. McLean cuts and hems a neck opening where the crotch used to be.
She then turns the garment upside down and pulls it over her head!
John Balser has another commonsense way to stretch the life of old long john drawers .. . and his tip can expand the usefulness of thermal tops and holey wool socks, too! The Lafayette, Colorado resident cuts the foot sections off of four worn-out woollies and sews the still-good tubes onto the shrunken ends of his long johns' sleeves and leggings. This grafting technique puts new life (or should we say length?) in his short-limbed winter underwear . . . and gets extra use out of old socks in the bargain.
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