How to sterilize really old cast iron...probably 50 yrs + old
leibrook
16 years ago
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asolo
16 years agoRelated Discussions
lemon tree does't flower 4 yr's old
Comments (16)MikeMeyer, said: "The truth is, NO one has come here since I have been a member, and proven to us that a seed grown container citrus can produce flowers or fruit within less than 10-20 years, unless I missed it." I have grown a lemon, a Key lime and calamondin from seeds. The lemon bloomed at 5 years old and I donated it to the local botanical gardens to sell while it had small lemons on it. It was about 6 feet tall and sold for $50. My 5 year old Key lime had a few blooms and set 5 limes in 2008 and in 2009. In both years the limes were lost during early summer thunderstorms. I have high hopes for next year. A calamondin seedlings I gave to a friend bloomed after about 4 or 5 years. I have seen other Gardenweb posts which described similar experiences. What I present is anecdotal information which may not be irrefutable by Mikemeyer's standards, but it is true....See MoreShould I use this old iron pot?
Comments (11)I have a piece of advice. I use a lot of cast iron skillets, some of them are well used family hand me downs. Some of these oldies are smooth as any modern non- stick pan, and work even better. With long use they often develop a real thick black crust on the outside, especially when used for frying, the grease pops out & settles on the out side & bakes on. I read long ago that this could be removed by putting it right in a roaring fire in the fireplace, right on top of the logs. I did this and boy did it clean it, right down to bare metal inside and out. Looked brand new! BUT I WAS VERY SORRY....toook me years of frequent use to get it seasoned again. I guess it would really sterilize it if you felt it might have be used for something besides cooking as fori suggests. Otherwise I'd never do it. Never tried the self cleaning oven thing, but sounds likely to strip all the seasoning off the same way. BTW I'm a chemist and can tell you that the wonderful smooth black layer that builds with proper use is a polymer made of cooking oils, very like teflon in all it's properties, but does not stand up to as high temperatures. The old folks that taught me to love cast iron sain don't even use soap once it's seasoned. Just scrub it if needed with something gentle (I use a still nylon brush), rinse and dry it on a slightly warm burner. Don't put away damp. I've never done convection cooking but hope it works for you. Enjoy your special pot!...See MoreAt a loss... 10 yr old
Comments (22)Reorganization mission: accomplished. Before I forget though I want to comment to ideefixe: I don't want to limit her reading by any means however, a lot of the junk is old old old and baby/toddler books. We jumped that hurdle first though by donating the baby books to friends and handing down the toddler books to her little brother/my son. She still has four shelves full of age appropriate books and she kept the books that were special to her like nursery rhyme books that are signed by grandparents etc. I did most of the reorganizing without her. She started helping and became overwhelmed and asked me to just do it for her. She has three decorative buckets that were full of 'stuff' I asked her to go to another room to sort through them and she can back with two empty buckets and one 1/2 full of what she wanted to keep. We went through her jewelry and threw away what didn't have a match or what was really old. We made a necklace hanger and hung up all of her necklaces and a bow hanger for all of her hair bows and moved ALL of her other hair accessories to a 'handmade' box As suggested by jlt above and put clippies and bands Into baggies so their easier to find. Took pictures of her most recent 'box' collection and she threw them away herself. I let her keep a box she had used to make a 'puppet' show stage but we found a place in her closet. I cleaned out he clothes of what she can't wear and organized them as I normally do. We didn't get rid of any stuffed animals, she organized them in a large tote in her closet and what appeared to be just a huge stack of junk wa a bunch of hand-me-down purses from grandma. We bought a tote to store all of the purses and she can get them out if she wants but the new rule is, they have to be put away when she is done. Organized her baby doll stuff and ended up with one large basket and one tote with a lid and I'm happy with that. Organized her game/movie collection on a freed up shelf on her book case and that made her tv stand look so much better. Her desk is cleaned off minus her lamp and laptop. Bought her a HUGE pencil box for her pens and pencils to keep on her desk. Got her a three drawer rolling cart for all of her art supplies and crafty stuff and threw away the boxes some of the stuff came in. It looks fabulous!! We hung up several of her art pieces and put all the others in an under the bed tote. Even got one for my son. She is Proud of her 'art collection' box. Thanks for all of the ideas. I was able to vacuum without Moving anything. The floor is cleaned up and everything is where is should be. She said she feels so much better and is so proud of her room. It's only day 1 so we'll see how long it lasts... But I think she is so proud it will stay organized for a while. I am a bit OCD ... And I don't want to push that off on her. As I do respect that she is very much an artist and understand that artists are cluttered and unorganized just not in their own minds. But I think everyone works better when they can see their desk... And surely they sleep better when they can find their bed......See MoreBuying Old house Vs New house.
Comments (23)Honestly, I'd be much more comfortable buying an 11 year old house over a brand new one. I have heard and experienced too many horror stories regarding shoddy construction of new houses - unless you really bone up on good building practices and are there supervising every day, you really have no idea if your new house is built well or not. My sister-in-law just spent $400K on a new Pulte townhome (a big tract builder around here). In one year, she has had about 5 separate plumbing leaks, a basement leak, several leaks at the windows, her kitchen floor has heaved and had to be torn up and replaced twice, and her heating bills are running over $500/mo because the houses weren't insulated correctly and the HVAC was sized wrong. And everyone in her development is having similar problems. They just don't build new homes well anymore. Even "slightly old" houses can have really bad problems. We bought a 3 year old house that was custom-designed and built with very high end materials (cedar roof, 4-side stucco siding). We ended up having to spend upwards of $140K fixing it because it leaked like a sieve. We are now in litigation with the builder trying to recover our repair costs, but have spent over $10K in lawyer fees with no end in sight. I will never ever buy a brand new house again - in fact, I've sworn that any house I buy will be at least 80 years old, LOL! But by the time a house is 10 or 11 years old, any serious problems will probably have shown up - our house had been leaking from day 1 but it took until the house was 6 years old before we discovered it, since all the leaks and damage were confined to the insides of the walls for the first several years. I'll link to our saga for anyone who's interested. Here is a link that might be useful: Our house......See Morelindac
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