Mother's Down-home Country Lore

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Sharon Hornsby suggests that you dripproof your holiday candles this year by soaking them—for an hour or two-in salt water. Use two tablespoons of salt in just enough water to cover the candle. The Mobile, Alabamian also notes that chilling a candle for up to 12 hours before burning it will have a similar effect.

"When I have little or no money for Christmas presents, I find that a homemade booklet of 'promise' certificates can be an ideal gift," writes Mrs. Arden DenBleyker of Hudsonville, Michigan.

"For example, I once presented a neighbor with a certificate offering free babysitting for four evenings. Other 'coupons' that I've given promised snow shoveling, lawn care, and housework. The possibilities are limited only by your skills and imagination. Such presents are especially good for youngsters to give, too."

One way to get bread dough to rise in the winter (if you keep your house too cool to set the yeast to working) is to place it in your car, writes Dawn Zaharis of Princeton, Florida. With the windows rolled up and the sun beating down on the roof, the bread will rise in no time at all, without forcing you to waste precious energy heating an oven or a house!

When Geraldine Skinner's auto heater/defroster quit smack-dab in the middle of winter, she found that she could manage without the heat, but that the windshield couldn't. So the Frewsburg, New Yorker developed a convenient method of removing the ice each morning. She simply places a brick on her woodstove and lets it get hot, then sets it—on a potholder—atop her car's dashboard . . . and tums on the blower. In 30 seconds or so the windshield is clear, even in 10°F weather! And wrapping the brick in foil will keep it effective for up to an hour and a half.

"If you have a small bathroom and very little storage space, roll up your bath towels and keep them in a wine rack," Janice Powers of Independence, Kansas suggests. "Many such shelves are small enough to fit neatly on the back of the toilet, look very cute, and certainly cost much less than a new cabinet."

Some old-fashioned remedies are worth repeating time and time again. Gayle Kessler of Clarksburg, Maryland reminds us that an effective cough syrup can be concocted by chopping up a few onions in a bowl and covering them with sugar. Let the mixture stand for a few hours, and the resulting juice will dislodge congestion better than storebought medicine.

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