OLD
TIMER’S ASHES TALE!
By Norris
Chambers
The burning
of all this wood produced a residue known as ashes. In most cases the
ashes had
to be disposed of. Most households just picked a convenient location in
the
corner of the yard or near the chicken yard and started a pile.
Chickens liked
to scratch and flutter around in the ash pile. Most folks believed that
the
ashes that accumulated on the birds kept them free of parasites.
Parasites seemed
to be anxious to attack chickens whenever the opportunity appeared.
Another
kitchen or fireplace use was a mixture of coal oil and ashes in a pint
can that
was used as a fire starter. The mixture was mixed until it formed a
thick
paste. The container was provided with a table spoon that was used to
place a
rounded measure under some small kindling. The starter was lighted and
burned
long enough to get a nice fire doing its job.
Some
farmers believed in the bug chasing characteristics of ashes strong
enough to
mix ashes and vinegar and paint the roosts in their chicken houses. I
never
knew what part the vinegar played in making the operation successful.
When
ashes and vinegar are mixed the resulting solution does a lot of
foaming. Maybe
chiggers don’t like vinegar.
Some
gardeners believed that a ring of ashes around a plant not only added
some
nutrients to the soil but helped to keep some garden pests away from
the
developing plants. There seemed to always be hungry insects anxious to
feast on
developing vegetables before they were ready for harvest. One old
farmer always
had plenty of good turnip greens. When another farmer asked him how he
kept the
bugs from eating them up he said, “I always plant enough for the
bugs to eat
all they can hold and leave the rest for me!” I guess this plan
worked well
since he always had good turnip greens. He probably had a crop of fat
bugs,
too.
A few city
families saved their ashes in five or ten gallon cans and used the fine
powder
for de-icing sidewalks and door steps in icy winter weather. It
probably worked
on automobile windshields as well. Since we didn’t have any
sidewalks, or other
places that needed de-icing, we never tried it. We kept our Model T in
a shed
and made an effort to leave it there during ice storms!
Ashes make
a great scouring powder. They were often used for cleaning pots and
pans and in
cleaning the inside of a wash pot after making soap or rendering lard.
The old
timers that we knew as kids told of making their own lye from ashes.
Lye was a
necessary ingredient used in making soap. Any sort of fat, usually that
taken during
the slaughter of a hog or other animal was boiled in a wash pot with
lye. After
a period of cooking a soap mixture resulted. The soap could be taken
early and
used as a liquid cleaner or left in the boiling pot longer and it would
form a
hard soap when cooled. The boiled mixture was often left in the wash
pot and
allowed to harden there. After all of the heat had disappeared and the
soap was
of a nice consistency it was cut into bars of a convenient size.
A device
called an “ash hopper” was used to extract lye from ashes.
The hopper was a
wooden trough about three feet long and a foot wide at the top. It was
built in
a V shape with a thin slit left at the bottom. It was mounted on wooden
legs at
the proper height to allow a smaller liquid-tight trough to be placed
under it.
Ashes fresh from the fireplace or stove were placed in the hopper and
water was
poured over them and allowed to filter through the contents. The water
that
emerged from the slit in the bottom and trickled into the trough below
contained enough lye to make soap.
Was there
any fun involved in working with ashes? There’s fun in almost
everything if you
search long enough. The ashes fun came when the job was finished and we
could
do something else! |