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You can easily provide shelter and protection for your outdoor dog during the cold season by making the canine a hay house! Giovanna McCall, who lives in the Allegheny Mountains near Hightown, Virginia, made her "Shep" a warm, snug home by stacking six bales of hay as shown above. The bales block chilly nighttime winds . . . and come spring they make good mulch for the garden.

There is a cure for the common cold, according to Ed Robertson of Richmond, Virginia. When Ed feels the all too familiar symptoms coming on, he avoids high protein foods and grains . . . and consumes only raw vegetables such as carrots, lettuce, and celery. Ed contends that cold viruses thrive in the body's naturally acidic pH. By temporarily altering the balance with alkaline foods, he claims; he produces an environment in which the viruses can't survive.

Carl Lucker had a door that wasn't good enough to use as a door but was still too good to just throw away. Well, the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho resident also had need of a table that he could use to keep his work safely out of his "helpful" three-year-old's reach. Carl soon devised a solution . . . he hinged the door to a wall in his basement! The Gem Stater first nailed a sturdy board onto the studs of a wall partition and screwed hinges to it. Then, instead of adding legs to his door/table, he supported the front with chains which attached to the floor joists overhead. When extra floor space is needed, the table can be neatly swung up against the wall and held in place with an eye hook.

"My parents' favorite (and now expected ) Christmas gift is a homemade calendar with the grandchildren's pictures decorating each month," submits Kay Johnson of Omaha, Nebraska. "We start the annual project each January by taking a photograph of the children bringing in the New Year, and every month thereafter we do a 'shooting' appropriate to that month. In December we have the pictures enlarged and assemble the calendar, using the photos and colored paper. Since we don't live near either set of grandparents, these presents have always been especially welcome."

"Give your cats something other than already established houseplants to play with," Barbara Kelly of Evansville, Wisconsin suggests. "Avocado pits make excellent toys . . . and felines find them fascinating because the lopsided seeds never roll the same way twice."

Cabool, Missourian Clark Shannon wrote to tell us about a radio program broadcast from the heart of the Missouri Ozarks. "Tradio" is a free service, offered by an area station, that both allows listeners to locate or sell particular items and publicizes folks who are willing to barter. The Show Me Stater recommends that other MOTHER-readers petition their local radio stations to start Tradio programs, as well.

"I've always enjoyed MOTHER'S center spreads ... but I used to get frustrated leafing through back issues in search of a particular one," writes Mrs. Stan Sell of Brook, Indiana. "Now, though, I sandwich each colorful, useful chart between sheets of clear contact paper, and transform them into place mats. They provide handy information, motivation, and conversation.

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