It’s time once more to lift my head from the HouseWorks salt mines and turn this space over you.
I call this twice-a-year column of reader and Internet wisdom the Followup Files.
Frozen glue
I don’t know whether this actually works, but I was trolling the web one evening and came across a suggestion that you can keep SuperGlue flowing by storing the tube in the freezer.
Apparently, it never dries up and the cap comes off easily, and — if you keep it upright —the spout never gets clogged with dried glue.
Because I always seem to have to buy a fresh bottle on the infrequent occasions when I need SuperGlue, I’m going to give this a shot next time around.
Kitty damage
A column I wrote last winter that suggested ways a reader might eliminate claw scratches on a window pane prompted Sue to suggest: “You might try polishing compound. … It’s the type used for automobiles. Might help — won’t hurt.”
Not a bad idea at all.
Whither whetstone
After reading a nostalgic HouseWorks column about my grandfather’s garage — and the contents thereof — Bill, a retired geology professor, wrote to suggest the limestone sharpening stone I remembered from childhood actually might have been fine-grained sandstone.
“I’ll bet that it originated at the whetstone quarries near Hindustan, Ind. Limestone is soft — much too soft to sharpen steel tools — and sandstone grinding wheels were common on farms before World War II. I remember using the one at one of my grandparents’ tool sheds to sharpen hatchet blades in the 1930s.”
Likely so. The last time I saw that tool I must have been about 10 — so I think I can be forgiven the lapse in memory.
Elementary, my dear gardener
A copy of “Beginner’s Illustrated Guide to Gardening” by Katie Elzer-Peters (Cool Springs Press; $21.99; large-format paperback) kept me amused one evening last winter.
The term “elementary” doesn’t begin to describe how incredibly basic this manual is.
As is to be expected, there are chapters on tools and supplies, selecting and care of trees and shrubs, planting flowers and vegetables, and caring for a lawn and its mower.
But there also are directions for navigating the garden center (including how to read a plant tag or seed packet) and lessons on parts of a tree branch and parts of a seed. I vaguely recall such things from grade school science class.
There’s a whole page devoted to how to spread mulch. Frankly, I challenge you to find a 5-year-old who couldn’t be entrusted with such a chore.
It is very basic.
But …
But if you know someone born and bred in the concrete jungles of, say, Detroit or Chicago, it might not make a bad gift.
Walnut rubout
Some suggestions I made to a reader about repairing scratched paneling prompted Judy to drop a line from Oregon:
“Why not try walnut meat to cover real-wood scratches?” she asked. Not a bad idea, although it might be tough to match the color.
She also said, “I found on the laminate paneling, when it was icky … I just covered it again with Contact paper. That seems to be similar to what it’s covered with in the first place.”
Frankly, that probably would work, but it would take an awful lot of Contact paper to cover a wall — or an entire room.
The natural-er way
Larry, an old college buddy who lives in Aurora, Neb., sent me this suggestion for fruit growers who don’t want chemicals tainting their fresh produce:
“Take a gallon plastic container and fill it with about ¼ water and half a package of yeast. Drill a hole about an inch from the top but leave on the screw top, then hang it in the lower branches of a tree.
“Bugs check in because they are drawn to the yeast smell of rotting fruit, but they don’t check out.”
Hang the containers early in the season, he advised, before pests appear but after pollinators have done their job.
Larry also suggested that those with deer problems might be able to fend off the grazers by hanging bars of deodorant soap (Irish Spring, for example) in the branches of smaller trees. One or two per tree should do it, he said.
Epiphany moment
Now and then I get what I call an epiphany tip from readers.
Such was the case in February, when Rob wrote to suggest yet another use for a one of my favorite tools.
For light snow removal, he wrote, “use a leaf blower instead of a shovel or broom. It’s fairly quick and less laborious.”
Thanks to a record warm winter, we had pretty soggy stuff last year — and precious little of that — so I didn’t get a chance to try out Rob’s idea.
But the next time I wake to find that ice-cold powder covering the walks, I’ll give it a try.
Bleach or not
A column that suggested using bleach to kill mildew spores on outdoor wicker furniture brought a note from James in Corvallis, Ore.
James recommended peroxide as an environmentally safer alternative. His concern was that bleach might harm the water table or a septic system, and he even cited some Extension Service expertise.
Although I doubt a solution of a cup of bleach in a gallon of water would have much effect on water quality, all else being equal, I see no reason not to give it a try.
(Send your questions to: HouseWorks, P.O. Box 81609, Lincoln, NE 68501, or email: houseworks@journalstar.com.)
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