Coconut Oil For Teeth

We have had a few weeks of cold and wet--snow and rain mixed which swamped our new yard and caused the compost to pile up (the pile being in the muddiest part of the yard). Daily I swept up a dustpan FULL of mud and dirt from the yard, adding this to the compost waiting to be taken out. At the same time we lost our sporadic and unreliable internet connection. The only thing consistent about our internet is the monthly bill that rolls in whether you have a signal or not. But I digress :)

Spring is tentative this year. The moisture has helped to bring a glint of green, here and there. We need some heat for things to erupt, but in the meantime we are wearing our toques in the wind and preparing to plant lawn. The list of projects is long but after waiting all winter to tackle most of them, it is very satisfying to begin. Outdoors we have wood to split and stack, rocks and stones to pick, lumber to stack and raised beds to build, along with a new compost bin and swales (more on all of this later). Indoors we have painted the basement and are sealing the concrete floor down there. We aren't going to finish the ceiling this year but trim and baseboards will come soon. It is a busy time and Husband is home to help. It is nice to work together as a family.

I will post on our many projects as we complete them. For today, I wanted to share what I have learned about coconut oil. I heard from friends about the many uses of coconut oil so bought some and tried it in baking (like it but it's expensive). My brother takes a teaspoon per day in his coffee to prevent gout.  I finally gathered my nerve and tried coconut oil on my teeth in what is called a "pull". Essentially you take a teaspoon full of coconut oil in the mouth and swish it through your teeth for ten to twenty minutes (or as long as you can stand it). My first attempt was a wretched four minutes but by then I lost my nerve and the kids needed yelling at. Husband bragged that he managed 24 minutes so my next try was more determined (and the kids were being bathed by their dad so I had no excuse). I swished the oil for 16 minutes and will continue to use the oil daily for a couple more days. My sensitive teeth are no longer bothering me; they appear more white (even the coffee stains on the backs of my bottom teeth) and hot and cold foods are no longer painful to eat. Husband agrees and we are fans of the oil (if not the melting sensation of lard turning to oil in my mouth). If you have sensitive teeth but dread the dentist (bill) you might give it a try--I found it in the health food aisle at the grocery store.

Have you ever tried coconut oil? I've read about its many uses--what do you use it for?

Beating the Winter BLAHS

No, I'm not going to start barking about the weather, the short days, the grey sky. I'm saving that for January...FEBRUARY....when I can barely put one foot in front of the other. Today I thought I would share how I pulled myself out of a funk.

After a week of letting housework slide in favour of more important, more urgent matters, it can be hard to get back on track and feel like laundry or dusting matters. To keep from dwelling on things out of my control, I decided today's mission is to make our home feel more comfortable. So I took this:

And turned it into this:

And I did it in under an hour (unless you count the time spent retrieving tools from a 20 month old helper)!

After finding the tools I needed (hammer, drill, drill bit, screw driver, anchors and screws, level and measuring tape) I just measured centre of the wall and centre of where the hooks go on the back of the shelf. I made sure those points were level and marked on the wall where to drill. After making a hole I gently pounded in the anchors and screwed into those the screws (thus ensuring the screws and shelf won't just pull out of the drywall).

I left enough screw sticking out for the shelf bracket to "grab"

 Then I repeated the process again. It took longer to find things to put on the shelves than it took to hang them!

I am glad I got motivated to cheer up one small space in our house. In the process I managed to cheer myself as well! What do you do to keep from getting down in the winter?

Hangin' Out

I was quite happy to get some laundry hung out to dry on the clothesline yesterday. Happy in that it is the end of April and it is finally warm enough in the afternoon sun that something might get dry, and also happy that we could open the side door of the house. The snow had drifted halfway up the door and it was blocked off all winter.

We had company for the weekend so laundry had piled up, and it is nice to put a load out to hang while the dryer works away inside. In the summer I try not to use the dryer unless it is to work some of the crunchiness out of things...I've found that about 5 minutes in the dryer before hanging outside really keeps soften the laundry.

Yesterday I left some blankets and towels out most of the day, which reached a high of about 6 degrees Celsius. Today I have some floor mats out there. I hung them in the morning; by about 2 pm the sun has made its way around to hit the clothesline. Although it's not that warm yet, I have time to wait and I'm enjoying the last few uses of my clothesline here. In our new house the laundry room is on the second floor (along with all the bedrooms). I worry that the stairs will dissuade me from hanging my laundry outside as much as I like, so we are thinking of having the line go out the laundry room window. For now, though, I'll just be glad to see the snow bank between the house and fence melt away!

Busy Work

Having a garage sale in a cold garage, with two kids and no other adult around would be tricky if we weren't in a sleepy little town. My system is to leave the garage locked with a sign to "ring bell if door is locked". I can dress the kids to come out while people look around, and put the baby in the stroller if I need to. There's no point hanging around out there though: the snow is still too deep and crusty for playing, the baby wants to crawl, not sit, and there's not a lot of packing I can do. Instead, I'm working in the kitchen and going out to the garage if and when the bell rings.

I hope I'm not alone when it comes to having too many little bags of spices, crammed here and there and closed with clips, rubber bands or tape. My spice cupboard (or the lack thereof) is shamefully messy.

It's also shamefully icky at the bottom of the tin can where I throw store spices.

So while I need to stay close to the attached garage, I'm keeping busy cleaning up the spice cupboard, putting excess into little jars, and packing them away.

In our new house, I made sure that there is a cupboard large enough (hopefully) to accommodate my many spices. Let's hope I maintain my system of storing and organizing them so that the new shelf doesn't look like this in our new home!

How do you store your extra spices?

Fruit Flies

I'm sometimes guilty of not making it out to the compost pit before the bucket is overfull. I'm also guilty of overwatering my houseplants (to make up for those times when they are neglected for far too long. Hmmmm. I'm sensing a pattern here!) At any rate, it's February and we have fruit flies. This is normally a problem in the fall when it is hot and I'm bringing in vegetables from the garden. I have a theory that they came in with some bananas a month ago and decided to stay, but whatever the cause, here is what I plan to do:

Ironic that the bananas I believe cause the flies are in the background

If you punch small holes in the lid of a jar and put cider vinegar (I use rice vinegar because I happen to have some) in the jar, the flies should be drawn to the scent and drown when they can't get back out of the jar. It usually works and at least makes me feel like I'm doing something about the pesky flies!

Coffee in the Garden

Besides enjoying a nice cup of coffee while assessing the garden, has anyone used coffee as part of their gardening arsenal? More specifically, have you found a use for yesterday's grounds?

This past summer a local cat was using an area of my bean patch as its litter box. I had heard that coffee grounds would deter this so, after saving a few days-worth of grounds (and composting the filters of course!), I gave it a try. I did the same in my tomatoes on the south side of the house. Happily, the local kitty found somewhere else to go and we didn't resort to Hubby's more violent suggestions!

While visiting friends I noticed a cookie sheet filled with used grounds. They were about to be used on ant hills in that yard. As I am the not-so-proud owner of a couple of those as well, I began saving my grounds again. It's worth a shot! Within days I had enough grounds to cover two of my three big ant hills with a thick layer of coffee. I watched day after day for weeks, throughout the summer, and the hill topped with coffee was never penetrated by ants. It was nice to be able to tell my curious two year old helper to avoid the pile of coffee rather than worry about him getting into some kind of toxic poison in the yard.

As a matter of fact, the two year old did end up knocking the top off the mound with a stick later in the summer. Under the coffee ground there still existed a nest of sorts...if only I had my camera outside that day, I do forget what it looked like. The main thing is that no new hills popped up in the yard, we were ant free, and although it may have taken AGES to eliminate the actual nest, we were ant-free immediately. So I would still recommend this method of ant control.

I'd rather enjoy my beans knowing that cats hadn't used them for a litter box!

Have you ever tried coffee grounds to deter cats or ants? Have you found other uses for them in your yard?