No Tools Required! Make A Firewood Holder In Five Minutes

At last, I found an easy, inexpensive, tidy way to store a few days' worth of firewood, just in time for cold weather. And I didn't even need to use any tools to make it, because the lumberyard made the cuts for me.

Our wood burning stove is our primary heat source, and I love it! I'm warmer in winter in this house than I've ever been in any home we've lived in. An old-fashioned box-type stove with no fans or windows or gadgets, needing no special kinds of fuel, it works perfectly to radiate warmth at an even temperature through our main living areas without drafts or cold/hot spots.

We store the cordwood we buy (or that my dad cuts for us) in the alley behind the fence, and I bring up enough for a few days at a time. This is where the problem has been - I've never found a good way to stack the wood I need near the carport door, to keep it off the ground, dry... and tidy.  The log holders sold in stores are either expensive, too small or else way too long for my space, or frankly, most look awfully flimsy.

Then I found this clever idea on Pinterest. Unlike so many of the elaborate projects on there, this looked like something I could actually make (LOL!).

I bought a couple of 8 foot long two by fours (they are actually about 1 1/2" by 3 1/2" because the mill measures before they are planed smooth), and two concrete cinder blocks. The ones I used are about 8"x8"x15".  Two by fours are stronger than one by fours, so they are best for this project.

The nice folks at Home Depot cut the lumber in half for me, so it fit into my Jeep Cherokee easily.

Stand the cinder block on their sides with the holes up, right against each other. They need to be touching in order to keep them stable. You'll need about 48" clearance width at the top.

Drop one four foot 2x4 into each hole and lean it out.  That's it!  Less than 5 minutes, not counting shopping time.  Total cost for everything - $13 and change.

I loaded several sizes of logs into it. You could also make two of them, and have one for large logs and one for smaller pieces and kindling.

Another new thing this year is twig bundles (see them on top?), which I made to see if they are more effective/efficient than just breaking small dead-falls as needed. With 3 full-grown pecan trees and one bur oak in our yard, we have a LOT of small limbs to dispose of over the course of a year. I just wrapped them up with twine. I've used them for my first fire and it certainly was simpler "at the time". My hope is that the twig bundles will work well for those warm Texas winter days we don't need an all-day fire but just need to knock the chill off.  

This little project is already getting our colder season off to a good start.  Thank you for stopping by, and I hope you stay toasty warm this winter! :-)

How To Make An Easy Backyard Wildlife Habitat

This video is one I made in our yard, showing the different elements of wildlife habitat available within it.  I don't agree with everything the National Wildlife Federation does (sadly, they have really bought in to the Global Warming aka "Climate Change" propaganda - so crazy, since of all people the NWF should know that CO2 is not a pollutant but the air plants breathe!), but I have always appreciated their work to encourage micro habitats. I have seen the difference this can make in local wildlife populations and health - it really works when individuals create habitats in their own little areas.

So I went through their certification process for our yard. Believe it or not, this was made easier by the fact that I did no yard work other than mow this year! These items are within reach of almost anyone, and nearly everything they recommend can be done without spending any money.

The certification comes with a subscription to their magazine, but it costs nothing to follow the steps of their program and know you are doing good for God's littler creatures that share our beautiful world. :-)

It's Time! Here's One Way To Start Tomato Seeds

My "determined to learn" project this year is How to Grow Tomatoes. I have not had any luck with tomatoes - poor yields (if any),  plants that turn up their toes too soon, deer harvesting them before I can.... but my neighbor raises loads of lovely red fruit so reliably he even sells them commercially, so I know it can be done.

I joined a Yahoo tomato-growing group and have been reading the archives and listening to advice. One important bit of advice is to listen to growers who are in a climate zone very similar to mine, because tomatos are finicky fruit. One reason there are lots of varieties is that there are lots of variables. The experts tell me that because of our hot, dry summers, we actually have a short growing season where tomatoes are concerned. Thus, they say to look for early varieties that ripen more quickly and heat-resistant cultivars.

One very helpful person advised that I should save my own seed from those that do succeed: he says that after a few years, I will have seed specifically adapted to my location and conditions - a land race version of the type.  That sounds pretty exciting. It means I need to select open pollinated types instead of hybrids, as hybrids do not generally reproduce true to form (not quite a mule, but not predictable either).

So, while I did choose a couple of hybrids, mostly I have heirlooms and varieties developed by Texas seedsmen that are proven to stand up well to our fast-rising heat. I will do another post on the varieties after they get going. I have bought from several sources (Baker Creek, Park, Burpee and Wilhite): a great source for Texas is Wilhite Seed, in Poolville. This old company has good seed for our crazy climates, including Porter tomatoes (Porter was a seedsman in Stephenville TX and his tomatoes are still legendary), their own specialty watermelons, and you cannot beat their prices - even very low shipping too.

Several people have mentioned they use a weak tea to soak or start their seeds, especially old seed.  This method was described by a man named Byron. They make the tea by taking a used teabag and steeping it for a few minutes in a teacup of boiling water, which they add to cool water to make a quart. "Weak tea" is a good word for it, as you can see above. I bet no one ever saw PG Tips as "blond" as that!

 I used the tea to lightly dampen the paper towels I am starting with.....

On advice of friends, as well as Tomatomania, I am using damp paper towels (you could use coffee filters) to start my seeds. Once they sprout (probably in just a few days), they can be transfered into medium by using tweezers to grasp them by the cotoledons (never the stem) and move them into the little sprouting pots.  I've always had a time getting seedlings past the first two leaves in soil, partly because they can take forever to germinate. The friend who told me first about this method said it is much faster than soil-based starting.

 So I lightly dampened a folded paper towel (these are those "half size" towels), laid out six individual seeds of one variety, folded the top over and placed it in a zip lock baggie labeled with the name of the variety.

I then added a bit more weak tea so that the whole towel is damp. I left the top of the baggie "ajar" without sealing it ---- not sure there, and I need to find out whether to seal them or not. 

 I laid all the baggies out on aluminum foil to reflect the light and heat, under a T8 florescent shop light with two daylight bulbs in it, about 4 inches above them. I think this part will need to be played with to get just right for the temps and conditiions here in my house.

 There is the shop light hanging, with a shade made of heavy duty tin foil draped over it to reflect the light and keep the heat in.  The shade is not needed today, but I will need to use it when the weather gets cold again - especially at night when I don't keep these rooms as warm.

Yes, I did put this little grow station right smack on the bar between the kitchen and living room. It is close to the wood stove, and that space is not required right now for anything else. Our sunny, South-facing laundry room would be the perfect place for seedlings, but I don't keep it heated so it would be too cold if it gets down in the 30s or below. I'll move the established seedlings back there as part of their hardening off process later on.

I surely hope this works! It would be so nice to not have to go buy plants! :-)

UPDATE 2/23/14: Part two is up - click here to read the next steps! :-)

UPDATE 3/11/14: Part three is here - click to read! :-) 

Barbarian Days: A Family Doctor's Home in the 1920s & 1930s (the Home of Author Robert E Howard)

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Cross Plains, Texas, and toured the Robert E Howard home as part of their "Barbarian Days Festival".  Howard's father was Dr. Isaac M. Howard. This simple frame house served as the family home, and, also, sometimes, doubled as Dr Howard's office where patients were seen. The home was continually in use as a place to live for various families from the time Dr Howard sold it until Cross Plains' Operation Pride recovered it for preservation in 1989.

 Since that time, they have worked to furnish it with period furnishings and house those artifacts they can obtain (such as the camel inkwell that stood on Howard's desk - a gift from Cecil Lotief, local Cross Plains  dry goods merchant - and first Texas legislator who had been born in Lebanon. He was first elected in 1932). Other furnishings are close copies of items either known to have been there, or true to the period.  Below is a photo of Bob Howard in front of this house, circa 1925.

My main interest was that I enjoy touring simple historical homes: the kind of house in which ordinary citizens lived a hundred years ago. In this case, the home of an ordinary small-town family physician. During that epoch in American history, there were similarities among all Americans of frugality, economy of space and furnishings, and natural closeness of proximity to household members and neighbors, that is readily apparent when we walk through such a home and consider how life would be lived in it.

 By today's standards, the author's cell-like bedroom/study (below) is tiny, cramped, and simple. But by the standards of the day (continuing even up into the 1970s in most of the country), it was probably much like the rooms of Howard's own unmarried peers. The room offered simple comfort, privacy, a bright and airy place in which to write and attend to the voluminous correspondence an author would keep up in that era when postcards and letters would be mailed daily for the same purposes email and messaging would serve today. 

The bare bulb was a common feature of most homes until new homes built in the prosperous 1950s and 60s popularized inexpensive, built-in light fixtures. My grandmother's house had several while I was growing up.  Our current house still had bare bulbs in the mid-1940s during WWII, when Rita's family first moved here, and it was the first time they had electricity. This house at that time had 4 rooms - and her family rented one of them out to a soldier and his wife, who kept all their household goods in that one small bedroom, brought pots out to cook and went back into their room to eat their meals! This gives an idea of how economically indoor space was used during these earlier eras.

 Porches were converted into bedrooms more often than not - and existing windows and doors were just left intact. During pre-electric times, such windows and doors still had use for ventilation and light, just like the transoms found above interior doors in so many old homes. If not needed to carry daylight and breezes, these unused windows and doors were often covered permanently with a heavy curtain or drape to block light and drafts, and furniture would be placed in front of it as though it were a solid wall.

My mother's house, of similar or slightly earlier vintage as this one, has two such converted porches: one very similar to this one resulted in her kitchen having a window-to-nowhere (well, technically, a window-into-the-next-room). Her kitchen also has another window that faces into the remaining screened "sleeping porch" that could have been, if needed, similarly converted. The other converted porch left a door-to-nowhere behind the sofa in her living room (but alas, there is no "door into summer"!).

Not only were bedrooms added to accommodate growing families, but also young adults tended to live at home until they married, and were given their own space by adding a room or converting a porch. Our house has a converted porch that we now use as the laundry room. but which once turned a crowded 4-room house into a three-bedroom home  and housed a family's sons, who had previously slept in the living room.

From the back, it is each to see the flat roof of the addition - also very common for what is known as "lean-to" add-ons. Our house has a similar flat roof over the portion added in the 1970s.
 

 I was particularly interested to see the plate block for Dr. Howard's original bookplate (or Ex Libris as some call them). It is a linoleum cut and bears the doctor's own signature. A corresponding print from it is framed with it, but I couldn't tell whether the plate was designed to make prints onto gummed paper for application, or to print directly onto a book's fore-leaf.

 The docents at the museum, all members of Cross Plains' Project Pride, were wonderful, and I appreciated their friendly guidance through the tour. Here is one of these nice ladies with the Cross Plains Centennial Quilt, displayed in Mr and Mrs Howard's bedroom of the home, to which she had contributed a square. Each block was made by local women to celebrate the town's history, and its recovery from the devastating wild fires that burned 130 homes and killed two people in 2005.

 We wrapped up the day with the Barbarian Festival in a lovely, oak-shaded park, complete with live music, free watermelon (courtesy of AMA-Techtel), Conan the Barbarian artwork, and fabulous food. There was even a car show. This is an annual event and it was a lot of fun. I hope we will be able to go again from time to time!

Much more about Howard, his writing, his family, and life can be found at various places, including REH: Two-Gun Raconteur, REHupa (the Robert E Howard United Press Association), and the Robert E Howard Foundation.

7/4/12 Update: Thanks to OpiningOnline.com for the link! :-)

Computer Failure and Summer Pleasantries

My trusty Dell Inspiron lies comatose, due to hard drive failure. It is 6 years old, so unlikely that we'll have it repaired. I'm going to ask Devin to look at it, and if it is costly to fix, he can have it for parts. There go all my bookmarks, photos, blog notes. C'est la vie. We won't replace it soon, there are more important priorities. For the time being, Paul is letting me share his computer - which is also our tv source.

So blogging will be lighter, but will not disappear. This blog has done well as an outlet for me and I enjoy my readers and the friends I've made through it.  I'll simply be posting once a week instead of 2 to 3 times. Maybe the quality will improve! Ha! :-)  Anyway, thanks for reading and for continuing to follow along. In the meantime, feel free to visit our sponsors.   :-)

It's actually been pleasant to be without a laptop.  At Paul's urging, I've resumed an old hobby, making costume jewelry and stringing beads - and making beads. When we met, I sold my jewelry in a couple of shops and did shows, but had let the hobby fall to the wayside long ago. Expect to see some pieces here at some point.

I've also been working on a big project that has been sitting and waiting for a couple of years: a tiny Cardinal travel trailer, vintage late 1960s. It had been gutted and I guess used as a food cart or something so it was a real mess! We aren't "restoring" it as such, but making it liveable as a secure place to sleep. Whereever we camp will certainly have "facilities" with showers and clean toilets, thank you very much! I am a big fan of hot water and indoor plumbing even when roughing it.  Paul shored up the inside and got the tags on and will take care of the electrics. My brother in law is going to paint the outside of it for us when we get to that point. Yesterday I finished the second coat of paint on the interior and now I'm searching for curtain material. It needs to have a touch of the avocado green of the naugahyde cushions, have a little blue, either  beachy, tropical or mid-century modern pattern. I lost the "before" pics on my computer, but I'll put up some "in progress" ones soon.

Yesterday morning after I got off work, we went to Cross Plains Texas to Robert E. Howard Days (aka Barbarian Days). I've been wanting to go to that since I first heard about it but something always interfered. We toured the author's house, bought various bits of Conan the Barbarian comic art, took pictures (I'll add them in a later post), and went to the Barbarian Festival. Cross Plains has a great, oak-shaded park for this kind of event. It was cool and comfortable. Live music, great Fair food, free watermelon and neat tshotshkes. One book I bought was "Lone Scout of Letters", the collected correspondence of Herbert C. Klatt, who died at 21 on 1928. Not only for those interested in Boy Scouts history, the Lone Scout organization, or the history of amateur journalism, the book also gives a glimpse into the life of a teenaged boy in rural Texas in the early part of the last century. 


We'll pick up the grandkids today to come spend a week or two. They are older, and they come each summer to help with the community Vacation Bible School. They always have a lot of fun, and we are so happy to have them. 

Now, off to church. Dinner on the ground and baptisms this afternoon, as more people answer Jesus' call to "Come, follow me."   


God bless you this Sunday, and through your week!

Display Ideas For Vintage Recipe Booklets

A lot of my collections are made of paper. Vintage advertising recipe booklets are one such, and I have a few I just couldn't part with. Colorful and witty, those cute little recipe folders are just too fun to leave in a drawer.

I mean, in our Tex-Mex kitchen, who could resist 1920s and 1930s "Tasty Tested Anglo Recipes", "Gebhardt's Mexican-Style Foods" and "Walker's Red Hot Chile Con Carne"? The Walker's one, red with a bright green sombrero, is actually from 1918, the WWI era.

The company was based in Austin, Texas. Gebhardt is also an old Texas company - I still use their chili powder today for general cooking (I use Morton's Chili Blend for actual chili). And Anglo not only made canned hams and corned beef, but also advertises Deviled Ham, Deviled Tongue and Liver Spread!

One of the little projects I've had on my list was to find a way to display them that didn't take space away from some other wonderful thing that needs a prominent home!

Inspired by my new cabinets, I finally got around to it last month.

This is a super-simple project. I used the hard clear cases that sports cards collectors use, and glued a piece of sheet magnet on the back. It's a good use for those magnetic business cards we keep long after the realtor pictured has moved on.

Voila! (which is how the word "Walla!" is spelled!)

Refrigerator magnets that can be changed out, and the keep the booklet available, just in case we suddenly decide to try that recipe for jellied liver tea sandwiches.

Aren't they cute? If you have other ideas for showing off vintage paper, please share! There's always something cute that needs just the perfect treatment....

Proud Mom Says "Hello Beautiful New Kitchen! "

Kids. You bring them into the world, feed them their spinach, teach them the things you know, worry about them constantly, and what do you get?

Well, this summer, I got a gorgeous new kitchen!

And all I asked Devin to do was to take off the old counter top and put down new cement board so that I could tile the counter.

Did he listen? Nooooooo. He said we needed new cabinets, nicer ones. I said we couldn't afford that. He said That's ok, he would build them. And he did.

Aren't they marvelous? They have a kind of Arts & Crafts character that fits well with the house, and help the tiny kitchen feel more substantial. I still need to paint the ceiling and do a few other things but couldn't wait any longer to share the pictures!

He raised the upper cabinet on the far left so that Paul's Kitchenaid mixer would fit under it. So finally, we don't have to store it elsewhere and haul it over to the counter to use it. As a result, I've used the stand mixer more in the past couple of months than I did in the past five years!

The glass doors were his idea too. That lets us show off some of the vintage dishes we've collected, and that we use daily.


The kitchen sink was the only splurge I made (it cost more than the dishwasher - which, BTW, I got from a small Sears Catalog Store for a very good price). Originally, I wanted an undivided deep sink, but no porcelain enamel ones were available locally, so I settled for this one, which has a low divider only a few inches high. It really gives us the best of both worlds! Our largest bowls and cookie sheets will fit under the faucet, yet we can still run a sink of dish water.

It's a good thing Devin is strong... he swears the sink weighs 300 pounds!  Can I help it if cast iron is heavy? ;-)

The tile work was a joint Son/Mom project and I did a lot of the work (Devin made the complex cuts and laid the straight lines). I still have to finish the trim tiles around the top of the back splash - couldn't install them until he'd completed trimming out the cabinets.

I used plain white 4"x 4" tiles. At 16 cents each, they are a great bargain. The glass mosaic accent tiles came in 12x12 sheets and we cut them apart to highlight the backsplash.We learned long ago to never never never use white grout! The grout used here is called "earth" color: it is exactly the same color as coffee stains. On purpose. I sealed it anyway but with that dark color, no matter how much coffee we manage to spill all over the counter the grout will always look good. :-)

Instead of using tile to edge the countertops, Devin used wood trim, stained and finished to match the cabinets themselves. As a result, the whole thing looks like a piece of furniture with the top integral to the base.

When I got ready to tile the divider that separates the kitchen from the living room (the only remaining original cabinet), the sheets were on clearance, so I was able to get enough to complete the entire top for about $30. It is dressier than the others, so makes for a nice transition.

I've shared Devin's handiwork on here before. He and Nicolas both enjoy woodworking. Their great-grandfather taught them the basics in his shop from the time they were small. Watching either of them work, I'm reminded of how Nandy worked: patient, methodical, thoughtful. Devin made an interesting observation while he was here. He commented that he's come to realize that Nandy was "a practical carpenter" - his work was always made with an eye to being useful, good for its purpose, rather than designed for appearance.


Devin's artistic talent joins his practical heritage in the things he builds, so the results reflect fine design and lasting beauty, as well as being perfectly formed for their function.

Devin and Sandy are moving in about a month to the Irving Texas area. Sandy has started a new job, and we thought for a while they would move far away. After he rushed to complete the kitchen before their move, they learned that instead she can work from Texas. So Irving it is. We are so delighted they will still be nearby.

And not just because he keeps remodeling the house for us! Heh!

Bluebird Bathroom Remodel

This house is over a hundred years old, and when we bought it, we locked the door on the old smallest bathroom until we could get it redone. As it turned out, my eldest, Devin, took the bull by the horns and rebuilt it. What a wonderful thing a son is! :-)

Here's the finished product:

And here's the scary "before":

The old floor had rotted, except for that under the cast iron tub, so he took it down to earth and built a new subfloor for the main part of the room. While the floor was out, he also did some leveling and reinforcing.

Tearing into an old house is always an adventure. (Maybe I'll post pictures nexxt Halloween ;-) )The original wall is solid wood boards, and backs up on a bedroom. Not wanting to lose space in either room by messing with the wall, we made the choices to limit what we did there. Thus, the single high electrical outlet is still the only one; and the medicine cabinet hangs on the wall instead of being recessed.

The room is 3 feet wide by 8 feet long, not counting the tub enclosure/hot water heater closet. Replaced the toilet and added a small pedestal sink to free up as much space as possible, but removing half a ton of bathtub wasn't happening, so I refinished it (more on that later, in my next post).

The new window went into the same hole the old one came out of - again to avoid a cascade of consequences: the solid wood exterior wall, the exterior siding, and more important, the location of structural elements.

We did add a shower, which this bath had never had, and the window placement presented a clallenge there. The window extends into the shower enclosure past the edge of the tub, so there isn't a wall area to attach a curtain rod on that end.  We handled that by using a curved shower rod - worked like a charm!

Paul said "I can't believe you actually had a laundry bag with bluebirds on it!"  It has been in the laundry room for a while but it never really "fit" in there - this is a much nicer spot for it. It pays sometimes to be a packrat.

The pale baby blue and white are comforting in such a small room. The curtains are a pair of crisp cotton pillowcases with a rod pocket sewn into the top. The soft vintage embroidery at the wide hem is touched with blue.

These little sconce shelves are made of metal - iron, I think.




This little guy is from the 1960s heyday of ceramic and chalkware figural wall art. He's made of ceramic and I love his pretty googly eyes!

This glass Blue Bird of Happiness hides in the medicine cabinet, along with an antique Victorian Sunday School card and assorted pretty guest soaps,  ready to promote a smile from a visitor.

The bluebirds were a sort of accident - I didn't have to buy a single one. Who knew there were so many blue bird themed items lurking around my house?

The famed Bluebird of Happiness does live in one's own backyard... and kitchen cupboard... and desk drawer... and linen closet... and laundry room... Hee!

The entire project took Devin several days of hard work over the course of a couple of months  - rushing down here to work on his days off when he wasn't needed at home (he lives four hours away).  The demolition was the most difficult part. What an amazing rennovation once it was complete!

What an amazing son to do this for us. Thank you so much Honey!