Spring Cleaning

With the weather warming up and the sun shining it is time to air out the house, chase the dust bunnies out of forgotten corners and give everything the once over.  Historically, back in the days when house were heated by wood or coal stoves, there would be quite a layer of coal dust and soot over everything.  House wives would wash down their walls, take the rugs out the beat and use a lot of elbow grease.  When wall paper became more common place, spring cleaning got a little more complicated.  You couldn't necessarily attack your walls with hot soapy water.  The paper would come right off.  So a substance was needed that you could spread on your wallpaper and then safely peel off taking the dirt with it.  After coal stoves went by the wayside, the manufacturers of wallpaper cleaners were in a bind.  Kutol had a bit of a brainstorm, added a little color and sold it as a toy.  And Play-Doh was born.

I've been giving the house a little more attention lately, and the sunny afternoons allow me to see the dirt in the corners a little better, but I'm glad I don't have to spread Play-Doh all over my walls.  I mention a couple of post ago that I have all the equipment to do laundry the old fashioned way - by hand.  I have copper boilers, wash tubs, wash boards, wringers, rug beater, hand plungers to agitate the wash, wooden tongs to pick the whites out of the boiling water, pulleys to run my clothes line across the alley, and line spreaders to keep my lines from tangling together.  I even have line winders, an old line prop to raise the line up and keep the sheets off the lawn and a host of clothes pins.

About a week ago my mother emailed me and said "Mickey left something here for you."  Mickey is the gal who has a nice little greenhouse where she starts her own plants for growing saleable produce and sells the extras.  She always has something unique and more than once she has saved me with some fun tomato variety when mine failed.  For instance the year my Absinthe plants failed to germinate but Mickey had some! 

 Mickey also like old stuff.  Last spring she mentioned that she had a box of clothes pins I might like.  And that was what she left at Mom's house (along with a loaf of home made bread for Mom).  So now I have a nice original box of clothes pins for my laundry collection,  Thanks Mickey!

And on a gardening note the sun finally came out enough for my Crocuses to open up :)