Yes, yes, I've had many Irons in the fire over the past few days, both figuratively and literally. I have been promising myself to clean the irons for a few months now. I started having them on the fire for the spectators to see. Good God, I have no clue as to how our founding mothers kept the soot and ash off the freaking things. They got caked with dirt and soot and who knows what else. I tried to give them a quick cleaning in Chesterland but honestly there is no quick cleaning when it comes to cast iron. So, and I have no idea why, but for some majorly moronic reason, at Hale Farm, I left my cast iron metals outside in the rain. Talk about rust. It was nasty, so nasty that I was always 'going to clean them later.' I guess what motivated me was that my brother Rick found a cast iron pot in his chicken coop - I think that's what it was built for- and offered it to me. It was caked with rust. That thing had have been buried in that building for well over 30 years at the least! Its really a nice pot and I figured if it couldn't be saved, at least I could use it to put a fire inside for the rainy days when one can't keep a fire going.
So, yesterday I decided to tackle the rusty issues in my life. I did the first round of cleaning and I must say, I've completely impressed myself! Most of the rust is gone! I still need to do another round of cleaning though. I saw a few different methods on the internet I'd like to try one being a rotary Iron brush. But like I said before, they came out really good for the first try considering the heavy rust that originally covered them. Its really strange too; I guess it must be the lighting but I can't see the rust that still remains on them unless I take a picture of them and look at the photo! They look black to the naked eye, but rusty through a digital lens.
My one of my figurative irons in the fire is my washing dolly. As I described in an earlier blog, the stem broke the first time it was used in a tub of heavy laundry. I guess pine is a soft wood and not suitable for the workload of a washing dolly. So over the weekend I visited my Mom. Mom, my Sister-in-Law, Linda and I visited Home Depot and I got two oak dowels. The maiden voyage of the new and improved Oak Dolly will be this weekend.
The third iron in the fire, is that I finished one of my little washboards. It turned out great until I got the stupid idea of staining it and now it looks horrible. Oh well, I guess that's what sanders are for. Seems to me that I need to build a nice little altar to Hephaistos. I sure can use the help! I also I started a wooden sign for my presentation hours. Its one of those wooden calendars people used to love years ago. You know, the ones where you slide the little tiles in for the days of the week, the date, the month, etc... People soon learned it was a product unworthy of the time it takes to remove and reset the calendar. I found it one reasonably priced at a thrift store and am reworking it to suit my purpose. Its kinda neat! I really like it but I'm not sure if I love it yet.
OH! I forgot the most important of all my irons here! The fourth iron! Woohoo! I got my sewing machine fixed! Now, let me make one thing perfectly clear. I don't know how to sew. Recently I did take a learn-all-about-your-sewing machine class too and now I am rip roaring and ready to go! I'm working on an apron. One might say I'm cheating on that first project but what one calls cheating, another calls brilliance! Will talk more about that in a future blog
Sincerely,
Mrs. Peters
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