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If you need just a little illumination in a hallway or other dark area and don't want to up your power bills to the tune of a full-sized light bulb, do what Chester Noga does. The Coral Gables, Floridian just inserts a female plug adapter into the appropriate light socket . . . then pops in a night light, one of the varieties guaranteed to burn for "50,000 hours". The "spook-repellents" use only a fraction of the electricity consumed by even a ten-watt bulb. Furthermore, Chester says one fixture has been in use for four years already and is still going strong!

Reader Mary Ann McCall makes her own fire extinguisher powder from sand and baking soda. The Palo Alto, Californian mixes six pounds of fine silica mason sand with two pounds of sodium bicarbonate. She then stores the dry material in one-pound containers (usually glass or metal) and places the canisters in strategic locations around the house. Mary Ann advises readers to sprinkle the mixture directly on the base of the flame when smothering a fire.

Laura Wolfgang uses an old water heater tank to catch rainwater for her garden in Bally, Pennsylvania. She connected the gutter spouting to the top of the unit and installed a spigot at the bottom. The tank keeps debris out of the water . . . and—says Laura—also prevents mosquitoes from breeding in the liquid.

When Robert Longacre got a job in a small woodworking shop, he encountered the problem of storing electric drills. As soon as the boxes they came in wore out, the tools would usually wind up on a shelf somewhere, vulnerable to bangs and scratches from other implements. So the Stockton, Californian devised holsters for his drills by taking 6" X 8" leather scraps and tacking them onto the workshop wall. Robert bunches the leather together just enough so that the drill slides in with about an inch of chuck showing at the bottom.

"To make an inexpensive wood stain, mix a little roofing tar in a can with some kerosene. By varying the amount of tar, you'll obtain shades from light tan to walnut brown, or even black," writes Thomas Woods of Jefferson, New Hampshire. "The thinned-out tar loses its stickiness, sets up well, and—once dry—is perfectly compatible with clear finishes such as polyurethane or shellac."

An old hot water bottle filled with sand or sawdust makes a good kneeling pad to use when working in the vegetable patch or flower bed, according to Craig Steven of Paramus, New Jersey.

Mrs. Robert Spencer sent us this tip from her home in New Carlisle, Ohio. About the first of August every year Mrs. Spencer plants carrot seeds in her cold frame, leaving the glazed cover open. When the weather turns cold and snowy, she closes the cover . . . and is able to pull fresh carrots out of her mini-greenhouse all winter long!

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