Frontier Fridays: Interesting General Tips Around the House

Never Leave a Glass of Water or Medicine Uncovered in a Room:  Water will absorb the gases which a room is filled from respiration or sleeping in a room.  (this has to be a really old thought!)

To Remove the Odor of Onions from Pans:  Fill with cold water kettles and sauce pans in which they have been cooked adding a tablespoon of bread soda and the same of ammonia.  let stand on the stove until it boils.  Then wash in hot suds and rinse well.  A pudding or bean pot, treated in this way will wash easily.  Wood ashes in the water will have the same effect. 

Make Your Own Closet: If you have no closet in your room, get a board, nine inches wide, and three or four feet long.  Put it in the most convenient place in your room on two brackets.  Stain it the color of your woodwork.  Screw into the under side of the board wardrobe hooks.  Now get a pretty piece of cretonne or denim, hem top and bottom, and tack with brass headed tacks to the shelf, having it long enough to come to the floor, and around the ends of the board.  Use the top for a book shelf or hats.  (This is not a closet in my book! Closets, however, are a fairly modern invention.  Our ancestors used trunks or boxes to store clothes.)

To Wash Small Pieces of Lace:  Put in a horse radish bottle, and pour over them - strong soap suds, good and hot, and shake well.  Let stand awhile and shake again.  Rinse in clear, warm water by shaking.  Dry on a clean cloth in the sunshine.  (Probably used for doilies)

Next Friday some old fashioned recipes that you may or may not have heard of! 

Frontier Fridays: Dish Washing Made a Pleasure

I had to chuckle at the attempt to make a housewife love to wash dishes (by hand of course)

First of all remove all refuse from the dishes.  Place them near the sink, large plates at the bottom, then the smaller ones, then saucers.  Have a large pan full of very hot water.  Make good soap suds by using a soap shaker (?).  Wash the tumblers and all glassware first, and wipe at once.  Use a handle dish cloth (which can be bought for 5 cents or less) for these as the water will be to hot for the hands.

Wash the silver next.  Have a large pan in which to place the clean dishes, cups and bowls first.  When all are washed pour over them boiling or very hot water and wipe quickly.  Pans and kettles come last.  Always have a cake of sand soap or a can of cleaning powder (Before Brillo/SOS Pads!) for scouring the pie plates and bottom of kettles.  It is very little work to keep baking tins and kitchen utensils in good condition if washing perfectly clean each time they are used.

Wash the dish towels at least once every day and never use them for anything else.  With clean hot water, clean towels and plenty of soap, dishwashing is made easy. 

If you have a window above your sink, plant nasturiums, a bed of pansies, morning glories and fall flowers, salvia.  These bright blossoms will add to your pleasure while washing dishes.

(ha ha  a big pan of boiling water...sand soap, flowers outside the window, and best of all WASH the dish towel EVERY DAY! - don't you?)

Go make dishwashing a pleasure! ;)

Frontier Fridays: Washday Hints You May Not Know

No Water Softener?  Add  1 cup vinegar to each load for the same results!

Too much soap is every bit as bad as too little.  It makes your whites gray faster by leaving a film.  Try using 1/4 less soap in your next load.

Shirt sleeves won't tangle if you button the cuffs to the front of the shirt before washing.

Every 3 months run your washer through a short cycle with 1 cup water conditioner, and 1/2 cup household ammonia.  It keeps the parts running smoothly longer.

Under your ironing board cover lay a sheet of aluminum foil under the top cover.  It reflects the heats for easier ironing and better results.

If the bottom of your iron is discolored with starch or mineral deposits, gently rub with toothpaste to shine it up like new!

Some of these hints require that you actually do iron!  Personally I hate that past time :) 

Frontier Fridays: Gardening Tips from Our Ancestors

It's SPRING!  Perfect time for some gardening tips from those pioneers. 

*When planting carrot seeds which are so fine, mix with radish seeds.  The radish will be ready to pull before the carrots. 

*Plant radish and cucumbers seeds together to keep bugs off the cucumbers.

*Two tablespoons of Epsom Salts and 1 tablespoon soda to a gallon of water as a spray for the bean beetle.

*To keep worms off cabbages - 1 pint saltpeter and 3 pints of salt.  Dissolve in 6 gallons of water.  Sprinkle on cabbage as needed as a never fail proof against cabbage vermin.

*Before working in the garden or doing other rough work rub your finger nails over a piece of soap.  This will prevent earth getting in under your nails and the soap will help clean your hands more easily.

*If dogs prowl across your flower bed, stamp a few moth balls into the ground around your favorite bed and they will avoid it.

*Turn fruit jars oover earliest planted vegetables.  The will come up quicker.

Try some in your garden!  Happy Spring :)

Frontier Fridays: Economical Hints

One thing to be said for our ancestors - they wasted nothing.  Here are some old time hints on saving money.

Save small pieces of soap in the bathroom by placing a cup or small box and filling until you have a cupful.  Add a little water and boil a few minutes.  When nearly cool press with hands and you have a new cake of soap.

Do not throw the white papers around crackers.  They are good to clean irons and will save buying ironing wax.  If irons are dirty put a good layer of salt on newspaper and rub the irons back and forth.
Remember the irons they had back then were iron, not electric and care was different for them.
 
Save the strong string to wrap around packages going by parcel post.  Also fold nicely for further use your clean wrapping papers.  Make a bag of pretty cretonne hang it in the kitchen or cellar way to keep the string and wrapping paper in.  You will find it very convenient.

Do not throw away any small pieces of bread.  Save them for plum pudding, queen's pudding or dressing for fish or fowl.  If broken into small pieces and browned in the oven, it is nice to eat with soups.  Or dry well, roll find and keep in a glass jar to be used to bread pork chops, croquettes or oysters.

Frontier Fridays: Requirements of an 1869 Kitchen

Requirements of an 1869 Kitchen

If parent wish their daughters to grow up with good domestic habits, they should have, as one means of securing this result, a neat and cheerful kitchen.

A kitchen should always have, if possible, entirely above ground and well lighted.

A kitchen should have a large sink, and with a drain running underground so that all the premises may be kept sweet and clean.

If flowers and shrubs be cultivated around the kitchen door and window, and the yard near them is well turfed, it will add much to the kitchen's agreeable appearance.

The walls should be clean often and whitewashed to promote a neat look and pure air. The floor of a kitchen should be painted, or where it is better, covered with an oil cloth.

Every good pioneer woman had a apron!

Frontier Fridays: How to Keep Fresh Butter Sweet

How to Keep Fresh Butter Sweet

Take care that the butter is made in the best manner, and the buttermilk entirely worked out of it. Lay it in a white-oak firkin. Make a strong brine of salt and water, and put it into another and larger firkin, and set the one containing the butter into the one in which the brine is. Let the brine come up very near to the top of the butter firkin. Lay on top of the butter a white bag with fine salt in it, cover it close, and then put on the cover of the outside firkin.  (Firkin refers to: Small cask used for liquids, butter, salt, and sometimes fish)

If you have never made homemade butter - it's a treat.  Get a glass jar, fill with heavy cream and shake, shake and shake some more until butter forms.  It is a great project for kids in the winter months! 

 

Frontier Fridays: Uses for Hay in the Oven

To remove the iron taste from new kettle, boil a handful of hay in it  and repeat the process if necessary.

Hay-water is a great sweetener of tin, wooden and iron ware.

Who knew? :) 

Frontier Fridays: Preventing Bedtime Cold Feet

Prevent Cold Feet at Bedtime - Draw off your stockings just before undressing, and rub ankles and feet well with your hands for 5 to 10 minutes as hard as you can bear the pressure. (How about leaving our socks on?)

Other old ideas for warm feet included placing baked potatoes at the foot of the bed, and placing a hot water bottle at the foot of the bed.

No Central heat in those days!

How to Burn Candles Safely

How to Burn a Candle Safely

Candle safety is mostly about common sense. If you keep in mind that a candle is an open flame and take the proper precautions, then your candle burning experience will be pleasurable and safe. Here are some important safety tips:

• Never leave a burning candle unattended. Extinguish candles when leaving a room or before going to sleep.
• Burn candles within a one foot "circle of safety", free of anything that can burn. Be certain that drapes or curtains cannot be blown into the candle flame.
• Keep burning candles out of the reach of children or pets.
• Do not move a candle while it is burning or if the wax is still hot and liquid.
• Burn candles on a flat, stable, heat-resistant surface.
• Place candles at least three inches apart so they don't melt one another.
• Candles are a safe product when used properly. Burn them responsibly, and your candles will bring you hours of serenity and pleasure.

Frontier Fridays: Removing Wine Stains

Well the Turkey dinner is over and Uncle Ray spilled wine over your brand new tablecloth?  Here is the pioneer's remedy for removing wine stains...

Fresh Wine Stains on TableCloths

Cover stain with table salt and dampen with hot water at once. As soon as possible, pour boiling water on the stain at a height of 2 to 3 feet from a teakettle.

Probably not best to do this while the tablecloth is on the table!  ha!

Frontier Fridays: Keeping the Parlor Tidy

Keeping the Parlour Tidy

The parlour should be swept once a week using a whisk broom and a dust pan. You should cover the sofa, piano, chairs, table, and mantel with old cotton kept for this purpose. Remove rugs and shake them, dust the walls, window sills, and doors. Move every article as you sweep, and dust the furniture with a dust-brush and old piece of silk if available. Use a small brush to dust the crevices and ledges. Shake dust cloths often. Also desirable is a feather duster for books and ornaments.

Note:  The parlor later became the "formal living room" (as many of us remember from childhood) which were rarely used.  

Frontier Friday: Making Cheese

How to Make Cheese

Strain the night's milk into the tub, in the morning stir in the cream (if you want rich cheese do not let any of it be taken off), and put part of the milk over a clear fire, in the brass kettle. Heat it enough to make the milk which is still in the tub quite warm, but not hot; pour it back into the tub, and strain in the morning's milk. Put in 1 to 2 teaspoons of rennet (stomach of calf), stir it well, and let it stand 1/2 hour undisturbed. If the curd does not form well by that time, put in more rennet.

To prepare rennet: See if there is anything inside the calf's stomach as sometimes there is a piece of curd left which is the best part. Soak the rennet in 1 quart of water, then salt it and hang it to dry where the flies will not find it, keep the water in a jar or bottle. There is a great difference in the strengths of rennets, some will make 1000 weight of cheese, while others will scarcely make 50. Experience will teach you exactly how much to use.

Next time...MIA Walker?

Frontier Fridays: Keeping Meat in the Summer

To Keep Beef in the Dog Days

Any kind of meat will keep longer even in the hottest summer weather if it is put in an earthen ware jar, sprinkled with charcoal, and covered with netting to admit air and keep out flies.


(This is BEFORE refrigeration and was a problem on the frontier... I wouldn't suggest this now, maybe if you lose power due to a storm you could try it to prolong your food supply, but thank goodness we have ice!)

Washing a Feather Tick Pillow

The Pioneer Household made our Spring Cleaning seem pure laziness!!   Scrubbing down floors, walls, furniture, windows (if present in the home) ...add to that the linens, rug and pillows.  Here is the correct way to wash and refill a  Feather Tick Pillow.  Providing, of course, you collected the feathers for your whole family's pilliows!



Washing the Tick of a Feather Pillow - Have the pillow tick washed very thoroughly and rinsed in plenty of water. When it is entirely dry, melt together bar soap and beeswax in the proportion of 2 parts soap to 1 of wax. Mix it well, then, having laid the tick inside out upon a large table or ironing board, spread the mixture on it with a knife as thinly as possible. Even a thick tick, when it is washed, does not hold the feathers as securely as before and the use of this mixture is to remedy this defect. 

Do you have a Frontier Household Hint?  Some your grandparents passed down to you?  Leave a comment below and I will publish it on the next Frontier Friday!