Homemaking Tip – Three to Choose From

While our garage and yard may be in disarray, the big wind the other night blew all these 
leaves into one big pile just outside the garage door.  It was such a sweet act of service. 

I’m not very tippy today.  In fact I’d feel like a hypocrite if I even tried to share one, for I have no answers.  Our garage is a mess, the lawn is at its ugliest, the outside of the house needs painted, the garage door needs replaced, the chicken coop has half a tree lying across it, and I’ve had wet clothes sitting in the washer since . . . yesterday?

However, while jogging this afternoon I listened to a podcast about the pioneers on their travels west.  Those women had a few tips to share:

One woman went off among the brush to gather buffalo chips in her apron for fuel and came back the next morning with her newborn baby wrapped in it instead.  

Tip:  Wear an apron. 

Another woman baked an apple pie in her cast iron pan and put it on the buckboard to cool.  While she turned back to the fire to tend the rice, the cow ate her pie.  The rice burned when she climbed in the back of the wagon to tend the baby, and the buffalo chips blew into her biscuits.  

Tip: Don’t put too many pots in the fire at once.

The pioneers still managed to sing and dance around the fire at night even after long days of walking and birthing and cooking and tending.  

Tip:  Save some energy for the evenings. 

I could benefit from all three tips.  As Wallace Stegner said of these early settlers, "The men were strong and the women were amazing."