Your Questions About Gardening

GardenersCardiff answers:

Nature hunt. Find acorns, different shaped leaves, pine cones, flowers, etc. Count the different kinds of wildlife you see.

Parade. Make instruments and get dressed up and parade down the sidewalk. Even better if you can get some neighbors to come out and cheer and other kids to participate by decorating wagons and bikes and big wheels.

Homemade salt playdough.

Freeze water in 9×13 pans. Before the water goes in drop some food coloring in and see what happens when it freezes. We did this a lot this winter.

Make obstacle courses to run through – you run them too! Things to climb over, under, around and through.

Find out what free/cheap concerts are available. Many high schools and colleges have band, dance, orchestra concerts that are open to the public. Groups like military bands often play in parks for free.

Picnic. Pack up easy lunches and a blanket and go have lunch out at a park or even in the back yard.

Find your local children’s museum. Even better if it’s rinkydink and hands on. 2.5 year olds don’t need to have the fancy stuff, but I know my son loved petting turtles and using the thousands of blocks (he didn’t have nearly as much at home), playing dress up, playing make believe, and creating art projects.

Cook together. Little kids can add ingredients, stir, put fork prints in cookies.

Help around the house. Seriously? My son used to (and still does) love helping me around the house. From putting wet clothes into the dryer to digging in the garden to being “tool boy” when I was fixing the car…it was great fun for him.

GardenersCardiff answers:

The oldest and longest-used natural degreaser is stale urine in which the urea has broken down to ammonia. Degreasing wool..getting rid of sheep fat and greases, including lanolin prior to spinning and dying was done that way for centuries,
Potash is obtained from burning wood…a pot ash.
Keep ashes covered with water and stir every few days.
A shovel-full of ash to a couple of gallons of water makes a powerful cleaner.
Old way was a water barrel, chuck in all your ashes, keep topping up the water as it gets used, so you have a constant supply of alkaline cleaning water.
Filter, or syphon off the clear liquid, or scoop some out with a jug to stay traditional.
Use rubber gloves when handling it. Dries the skin real bad and can crack it…..very sore.
Dilute around ten to one for the car etc if you have a good strong solution of it in the barrel or bucket.
Good for soaking old gardening gloves, messed up mucky coats used for odd-jobbing , and for cleaning pots for the garden, black ferodo muck on wheels from the brakes, degreasing metal before painting, etc.
Rinse well in clean water after washing, for all items, including the car….hose off if possible.

See here for urine usage,history and washing grease from things….the very long one is mine. See from half way down,at “The urine itself was called lotium…”
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Avkm1pI_nykHMufWbw0TeQYhBgx.;_ylv=3?qid=20100120142520AAoXGP6&show=7 . . . . . . .
Soap is soda boiled with fats or oils. Strong washing soap is made using caustic soda and heavy fats. Lighter soaps are made with baking soda and oils like palm oil.
Lanolin, a natural greasy soapy detergenty squidgy lumps of brown yucky muck from sheep wool is washed from the wool for use in soaps and shampoos.. In it’s raw form it stinks real bad,looks worse, and has stomach turning throw-uppable capabities, but when used in soaps after it’s been processed it is very pleasant….nuffin like truth is there?

GardenersCardiff answers:

I’ve gone to a BBQ restaurant in the south and they serve a pulled pork salad that is to die for.

They top their garden salad (with tomato, cucumber, cheese, etc) with their pulled pork and then mix together Ranch dressing and some BBQ sauce as a dressing for the salad. It is a VERY good and filling meal. I like it with some cornbread too. YUM!

And it’s easy. You don’t even have to cook….

Bon Appetit!