Another Day in the Country: Maybe you should clip this out and save it
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
There is something frugal in my genetic make-up that has come down through the generations. I save things that ordinary people would throw away. For instance, I save scraps of old partially used candles to remelt and dip into lovely tapers. I don't know that my grandmother ever made candles, but she did save the paraffin off the top of jelly jars to re-melt and seal next year's jam.
Grandma always made soap from the lard and grease drippings that she carefully saved. She saved flour sacks and exchanged them with her friends to make dresses. She saved scraps of cloth and worn out clothes to make quilts. She saved feathers from chickens and geese and made pillows and feather ticks.
I save feathers from dead birds that the cats drag onto the porch. I save perfect corn husks, bits of leather from old worn out boots and horse hair. I save beads and tiny buttons. These things eventually turn into lovely cornhusk Indian dolls.
There is an uncommon joy that springs up when you make something out of nothing. OK, it isn't nothing; it's just something someone else in their right mind would have thrown away. Sometimes this habit of saving gets to be an annoyance — especially to the souls who live with you! It also can be a personal burden because I can see a future use for almost anything — including road kill.
Whenever I go to the beach or wade in a stream, I'm picking up rocks. It's a form of saving.
"More rocks?" my kids would say. "What are you going to do with them?"
In the 1960s I painted them. They became owls and ladybugs to clutter my desktop. In the 1980s I made retaining walls and flower beds. In the 1990s I got smart and just put them in a shallow clay dish and watered them. The true character of some rocks only comes through when they are wet. In 2000 I made a patio behind Cousin's Corner out of Kansas rocks!
Genetics never had been blamed for my rock collecting until we returned from a recent trip to Wyoming.
"I found some rocks," said my 87-year-old mother.
"Save room for them when you're packing the car," she ventured a sly smile.
"Good thing Dad's not here," I thought to myself as Jess and I started loading rocks into corners of the trunk and the floorboards in the back seat. She had quite a collection — several hundred pounds, I'm sure.
This skill of seeing the potential in discards is akin to the country skill of making-do. I'm good at this, too. Perhaps it comes from a long line of ancestors who honed the talent. I believe you need to have a penchant for country living in order to do this innately. My sister, born and bred in the city doesn't have it. She's more like Dad — who ruins my theory since he was raised on a farm. She likes new fresh things, preferably store bought. Throw it away is her motto.
"If you can't use it now, get rid of it, "she chants as she views the over-stuffed fridge.
Just give me a day or two! That broccoli I saved becomes yummy broccoli soup, if I can salvage it before Jess throws it away. Old tortillas and cheese that is threatening to mold turn into enchiladas with the addition of a delicious make-do sauce made out of tomato paste and saved salsa. Scraps of cooked vegetables become minestrone with the addition of a hand full of pasta and the right seasoning.
Inspiration comes from cleaning the refrigerator — which I don't do often enough, according to my sis.
Mom saves potato water that most folks pour down the drain for gravy or soup stock. She saves cream that has turned sour for any number of delicious causes and left over mashed potatoes become the best bread in the world!
It's another day in the country and today Mom bakes bread — can you smell it? I bet if we could just save that smell, we could sell it!
