Down-home Country Lore

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Here's a home remedy submitted by an Osprey, Florida reader (who claims that it'll provide relief for colds, fever, infections, or inflammations). Before retiring in the evening, Olive Lammon wraps her feet once with lightweight cloth, then places cut pieces of fresh garlic over her soles and wraps the cloth around one more time. Olive then puts socks over the "bandages" and sleeps that way through the night. In the morning she removes socks, cloth, and garlic and allows her feet to "breathe". The Sunshine Stater claims that the garlic actually "draws" sickness and poison from the body.

Anyone who has a small child realizes how difficult it can be to get youngsters to swallow pills. Well, Jane Ratting of Uehling, Nebraska dips her child's medication in butter . . . which allows the tablets or capsules to slide down easily (with the help of a sip of water or fruit juice).

Jerry Severino extends the life of his (non-electric) razor by keeping it submerged in rubbing alcohol when it's not being used. The Chicago, Illinois reader reports that the "bath" keeps the razor sanitary, and slows the oxidation of the blade.

When Margaret Holt is left with alfalfa sprouts that aren't fresh, she tosses them into the pots of her ornamental houseplants. After the sprouts begin to grow in the potting mix, the Van Horne, Iowa reader turns them back into the soil as an "indoor green manure".

"My husband's 93-year-old grandmother always said that the finer a coffee bean is ground, the more flavor it'll release and the less we'd have to use to brew our beverage," writes Betty Sauntry of Blanchester, Ohio. "Nowadays, my husband and I grind our own beans daily, and we've cut our coffee bill considerably."

Winter weather isn't much fun at times, and it can be downright dangerous to travel in. Cindy Wells of Steamboat Springs, Colorado (a town that knows what winter is about) offers the following tips for keeping safe on the road. First, she says, cut open some old inner tubes . . . fill them with sand and tape them closed . . . then put them in your automobile trunk. The weight will help give the vehicle traction, and the sand will come in handy should you need to get unstuck. Cindy also suggests storing a sleeping bag in the car (as "warmth insurance", just in case you have engine trouble and get stranded) and stashing some high-energy health snacks in the glove compartment (to see you through an emergency and help prevent hypothermia).

When winter's chilling winds keep your youngsters indoors all day long, you might want to consider this tip from Lyons, Colorado reader Dennis Ras. It seems that when Dennis was a child, his mother would bring in buckets of fresh snow from the yard and dump it into the kitchen sink. He would then "play in the snow" — never leaving the warmth of his home — until the last flake melted . . . at which point his mom could simply pull the plug and let the water run down the drain.