Got tips? Granola Girl Wants 'Em

Most visitors to Boomerang know that I (Granola girl) am a bit of a hippie throwback. I love making my own cleaners and lotions and recycling old clothes and really anything I can find that has the potential for another purpose. But, I think liking to do it is going to be a moot point. The earth’s resources are limited, no matter what the phony scientists tell us. We really have to conserve and recycle more for our own survival.

And speaking of survival, there’s also that aspect. Power outages are more and more common, fuel prices are high and going higher, the city of Atlanta is almost out of water! I don’t mean to sound alarmist, but I don’t think it hurts to have a plan or at least an idea of what you and your household would do if you were without power for a week. Or, if the water supply in your city was questionable. Maybe you’d run out and buy water, but maybe the supermarket would run out of water.

For me the idea of self sufficiency is fun and challenging, not alarming. I wish I had a root cellar because it sounds like a cool thing. Then I think, what did they keep in the root cellars? Probably much of the food that we now refrigerate which uses electricity which comes from coal. A friend told me that his parents took fruit up to the attic to dry it, and here I was using a dehydrator (which also uses electricity).

People that lived through the depression, or even the war years, knew how to use every scrap of food or material. My mom had lots of frugal habits, but she has passed away, so....

I’m asking for your mom’s and grandmother’s tips. (send them to boominback@yahoo.com). Everything from food, to clothes, to gardens, to home repair, to cleaning. Share your tips with us and we’ll publish the best ones.In the meantime:

Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without

Granola Girl