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Blessings of Habit, Homemaking, Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom, Wives

Gramma’s Wisdom – Spring Cleaning

Posted on October 7, 2010November 29, 2016 by Katharine

They tell me old timers used to practice Spring-cleaning every year. My mother did. For a long while, I felt guilty when I failed even to nod in that direction. Now I realize why they did it and why they had the energy.

And what a blessing it was, in disguise.

They had to. Winter warmth cost them more than just the husband’s fuel bill. The fuel deposits carried an extra annual cost for the wife: Spring-cleaning. Smoke from wood or coal settled ash onto every surface, even walls, curtains, and ceiling. Humid breezes from spring’s open windows melded with this deposit, forming mold. It was clean or die, and they knew it. Hence the motivation to have some energy.

I recently heard from some beautiful elderly women who remember their grandmothers’ Spring-cleaning. Drafting every member of the family and any neighbors who wanted to trade services, they ordered every piece of furniture outdoors. I know why. Every piece needed cleaning, fore and aft, inside and out, yes.

However, the carpet, itself, also had to make that trip outdoors for a good scrubbing and sunning, and to grant that sub-floor its own turn with the soap and scrub brush.

Everything, everything, in the house was clean as new, only one week later.

Usually they worked together, neighbors helping each other by turns, just as the men often did the harvest. Spring-cleaning and the harvest were equally essential to life, and they knew it. God had told them in Leviticus 14, and, of course, lately we’ve learned He was right, that a moldy house is bad, but back then they didn’t have any better sense than to believe God.

Well, of course, that was the right thing to do, but to believe Him so much that they would act on it by actually removing mold or even the potential for mold, was their only recourse, lacking today’s science.

Well, of course, today’s science isn’t so advanced if they actually already knew these things back in our great-great-great-grandmothers’ days, but it just proves that those verses actually were right.

I mean, to invest an entire week of hard work into believing that a few Bible verses might be right, was the best they could do. They had no way of knowing the dangers of mold or the importance of washing things

Oh.

I think I’ll go dust for a while. ‘Bye, now.

_________________

Katharine is a retired home educating mom who writes about all things “woman”, from a Godly viewpoint, here on this site, and at The Conquering Mom. Her writing appeared in several magazines for 15 years, and she is currently working on several books. She loves to write, speak, teach, cook, garden, spoil her hennies, and watch old movies with popcorn.

Inspiring, Wisdom

Gramma’s Wisdom – Chicken Sense

Posted on October 6, 2010November 29, 2016 by Katharine

Last spring we had tried repeatedly to coax our new hennies to venture outdoors. They’d spent their short lives huddled under a warming lamp and were afraid of anything but their gloomy four walls. Staying cooped up weakens their health. They were late in maturing, they ought to have been laying by then. We were hungry for noodles.

I had their permission to lure them as far as the door, those days. In fact, they ate from my hand at the door, but refused to exit. They eyed the outdoors with that silly, sidewise, one-eyed glare you get from a chicken. Nope. Not going out there.

The outdoors abounded with tempting, green treats, some of which I picked for them, to expand their experience and make them curious. Nope.

Once we offered our leftover popcorn, hoping this sacrifice would impress them. A few blown kernels in line along the threshold indeed proved tempting. The small pile of them on the ground outdoors, though, went to the goldfinches, far smarter birds.

The hens in our last batch had been glad to fly out the door when I’d opened it. I had enjoyed the humor of their clucking and lining up in pecking order to be the first ones out. The old rooster, which I named “Woozie”, always stood sentinel and nipped at the slow ones, commandeering them out the door.

Now we have a new rooster, unaccustomed to adventures. This new Woozie stands furthest back, threatening the door person, crowing and posturing, loud and comical. Oh, the trouble this new Woozie spends, protecting this harem from the dangers of goldfinches!

That spring day, I’d planned a feast for them—trimmings from the previous night’s nachos and fruit salad. They are chickens. They should love, even fight over, tomato and apple cores, wilted grapes, and taco chip crumbles, in spite of never having tasted these treats before. I should have been able to open their exit, toss the scraps on the ground, and watch them swoop into it. Nope. They were totally timid. And I was totally frustrated.

And we can be so like them.

How we sometimes prefer the confines of a gloomy Christian box! Rather than jumping at the chance to breathe the giddy air of adventures for Jesus, we give most Godly endeavors that stubborn, cockeyed look. The royal treats just on the other side of the threshold should propel us, should be our delight, but we sternly refuse to budge. Often, what ought to be the fearless leader, instead, stands behind us and squawks about the dangers of leaping over the edge.

And the hand we say we trust—the hand of the One who feeds us all—shuts the door every evening on the same timid group, the same frustrating flock of loons. And the treats go to smarter birds.

___________________

Antique mug from diner; antique drip coffee pot.

Blessings of Habit, Coffee-ism, Inspiring, Wisdom, Wives, Womanhood

Gramma’s Wisdom – Are We Disposable?

Posted on October 5, 2010February 23, 2025 by Katharine

Today while I was tidying the kitchen, I made fresh coffee in my favorite two-cup pot. It’s an old-time drip-through I found at a garage sale, stocky and leaky, but it makes the best couple o’ cups around.

It made me think of me. Not as shiny as I used to be, out of order, and never did produce a lot in the first place—did I disparage myself for a minute?

Yes, until I realized something: I love that old pot.

I’ve loved coffee since I was so young I had to beg for sips. I knew it was good for us then, before the scientists did. I’ve had every sort of coffee brewing experience on earth, I think. I’ve bought and pitched overpriced, electric, coffee-making gizmos until I was ashamed. I’ve brewed it through paper towels in emergencies and even had the old kind with raw egg and shell stirred in the bottom.

I collect coffeepots just because they once belonged to someone whom I know I would have loved: a coffee-ist. I own the carafe my mother first used in her married life. I own a two-gallon, granite-ware coffeepot for over the campfire. I own a cute percolator from my paternal grandparents’ estate. I’ve scouted out the glass parts from several identical glass percolators, a full set with parts to spare. My husband even brings them home from antique stores to surprise me. The day my sister-in-law introduced me to the two-cup, drip-through oldie in her kitchen, however, was the day I began the real search.

When I finally found it, my feelings were hurt—someone had used “my” darling pot for straining drippings from grease, and it wasn’t even for sale; he had planned to throw it out. I actually had to ask him to sell it to me and he valued it at only fifty cents. I lovingly sudsed and scrubbed it until it no longer stank like grease and then my kitchen filled with the wondrous aroma of pure Colombian dark roast.

Bliss.

Nowadays, after my husband and I share our morning pot and he leaves for the woods with his thermos full, I draw out the favored one. The ritual never changes: rinsed pot, filtered water, fresh grounds, a dish underneath for leaks, a comfortable mug, and me. My satisfaction level knows no limit during this hour.

And I think. While I spent my life as a grease catcher, about to be thrown away, my Lord searched until He found me. His love for His rummage-sale find has transformed me into the small one He most loves to spend time with, alone.

I leak but He loves me.

Nothing else in this world matters so to me, except that He is searching for you, too.

Don’t let them throw you away.

_______________

Katharine is a retired, home-educating wife and mom who writes about all things “woman”, from a Godly viewpoint, here on this site, and at The Conquering Mom. Her writing appeared in several magazines for 15 years, and she is currently working on several books. She loves to write, speak, teach, cook, garden, spoil her hennies, and watch old movies with popcorn.