Forwarded for your information:

We hope all of you had a nice Thanksgiving and were able to enjoy some time with family and friends.

Since the holiday season is upon us here are a few gift ideas to help you avoid those packed malls; tips on cooking your Christmas goose; and the benefits of paying down your mortgage.

Until next month

Anne-marie

*************************************************** Warm pillow cases for cold heads Le Eaton North Carolina ***************************************************

The weekend before Christmas I was one of those last minute shoppers scurrying around to find last minute gifts for just about everyone on my list. I usually try to give handmade gifts, but our "back to the land move" of the last four months had taken all of our free time.

I happened by a rack of beautiful flannel pillowcases advertised as "original Scottish Tartans." The price was $7 for one. Since they didn't tell which tartan it was, and being Scottish myself, I hurried off to the fabric department with the light bulb shining over my head.

I was in luck. For $2 a yard, on sale, I bought several yards of my own soft tartans and ran home to whip up a bunch of pillowcases. A very few hours later I had 10 soft, warm flannel pillowcases just waiting for a tired head on a cold day.

I used an old pillowcase for the pattern and found a yard to be about the right size for a fluffy down pillow. Simply run a seam across the top and down one side, hemming the bottom around the opening.

We are currently living off the grid and the ones I hand-sewed, I double-seamed the two sides and hem-stitched the bottom. When the generator is going and I can machine sew, I simply top stitch the hem and it gives a nice finish. By machine sewing you can finish a pillowcase in about 15 minutes.

*************************************************** Flickering homemade candles add warmth to your home Jeffrey Wilson Maryland ***************************************************

The candle recipe we use with considerable success is from Ashlawn, a home once occupied by President James Monroe in Charlottesville, Virginia:

Wick Dowels 5 pints tallow 1 pint beeswax 1 teaspoon alum 1 cake camphor

This will make dozens of candles. One third the quantity should yield about one dozen candles, depending upon length. We substituted aromatic oil for the camphor. Alum is an additional hardener. As a general rule, the more beeswax, the better, up to 50%; some tallow is needed because of the stearic acid in it.

Dipped candles are preferable to molded. The problem is that no matter what kind of pot is used for holding the molten candle-mix, the chandler reaches the point where the level is too low to dip any more candles. We will be buying a mold to use up the balance of the mix. Now we re-cool the mix, and add to it the next time. That's all right once or twice, but eventually the leftovers need to be used or thrown away.

A three-pound coffee can (or what used to be a three-pound coffee can today it holds two pounds seven ounces) makes a good candlemaking pot. Don't use any pan you value. Candle-mix and beeswax, specifically, are hard to remove when cool. The three-pound coffee can is free, makes a taper up to six and a half inches long, and is wide enough to dip more than one wick at a time. Whatever pot is used, measure its liquid volume before you start. Then you will know how much beeswax and tallow you need.

A dowel (like the ones that linen calendar towels come on) is perfect to hang the wicks. Notching the dowel helps keep the wicks where you want them.

Here is an interesting point: the more dowels the better. Candlemaking is an activity in which it is easier to make many than few. It is faster to go slow than fast. That is because the wax needs to cool and harden after each dip. Ten dowels of four candles each, dipped two at a time, will take long enough to dip that the first set will be ready to dip again after the tenth. Dipping only a few candles at a time necessitates a break between each dip, so dipping many candles fills the break in the most efficient way.

In this same vein, keep the wax only as hot as is necessary to hold it in a liquid state. The cooler the mix, the quicker it hardens. Also, dip as quickly as is reasonable. Holding the wick in the mix will melt the hardened wax from earlier dips.

I was surprised how easy it is to keep the wick straight. The wicking solution makes the string stiff enough to hold shape. As the dipping progresses, the candle will form a point on the bottom. Cut this off from time to time, and place the excess back in the pot.

Our candles hold their shape well, but they are still a little sticky to the touch. They should be hung instead of boxed to keep their form.

*************************************************** Catching and cooking your Christmas goose Janice Smith Wyoming ***************************************************

Your goose will be easier to catch if you go after it in the dark or just before dawn when it is quietly sitting blindly in a corner of your barn or their housing place.

We have someone hold the goose by the wings, up near the shoulders with the wings outspread, face down with the neck stretched across a log laying on the ground. Then the other person (it does take two to kill a goose easily) gives a whack with a sharp ax and the killing job is done. The holder lets go quickly and steps back. The bird will usually bleed plenty just flopping with no need to hang it up anywhere.

When it is finally still, pick it up and dry pluck the finer down if you are collecting to make pillows or take the long wing feathers for crafts. Skin the rest. The skin comes off and takes with it a lot of the greasy fat.

Depending on the age of the bird, you can bake the meatier parts and make sausage from the rest. With an older goose, just put the whole thing into sausage. I season as I would pork sausage. It is very good.

To make sausage use a sharp knife and cut all the meat off the bones. Grind it to a medium texture.

To 10 lbs of ground meat add the following: 2 Tbs. salt 2 tsp. dry mustard 8 tsp. black pepper 1/2 tsp. cloves 1 tsp. cayenne pepper 1/2 tsp. thyme Mix the spices in very well.

Over the years we have made sausage from pork, rabbit, turkey and goose and through experimenting came up with those spices and amounts. We always thought the experimenting for taste was the best part of making sausage. We still do it even though we never change the recipe any more.

First you bake up a batch of small biscuits. While those are baking, mix your sausage. You can always add more spices but you cannot take away so start with lessor amounts than called for, just in case your taste is different. Fry up a small amount of the sausage and put it in one of the baked biscuits and taste test. Add a little more of whatever spice you need and repeat the testing process. Funny how it sometimes takes three or four of those little biscuit sandwiches to really be sure. When you are satisfied with the results, freeze the sausage in rolls or in packages, whichever you prefer.

To clean the blood and dirt off the down feathers, sew them into a pillow case or similar bag and wash in the washing machine. Just be sure that you sew it tightly closed so that it won't come open during the wash. And use common sense and don't wash it too vigorously or for too long a time. Hang on the line to dry and punch it around every once in a while so that the feathers dry fluffy and not sitting in the bottom in a wet blob.

Geese are messy. They need space to live and need to be housed alone if possible because some can be very destructive to other poultry if housed together. When I had our geese locked up at night with the chickens I discovered that the geese would go along the chicken roosts just before dark and nip at the toes of the hens after they had gone to roost. As for their reputation of being aggressive to humans, a 2 x 4 across the bottom or grabbing them by the neck and giving them a good shake or slap upside the head seems to establish pecking order in a hurry. You don't need to maim or injure, just use enough force to show who is boss. The saying that a good offense is the best defense is especially true with geese. This works with nasty roosters, too. If it doesn't work, there is always the sausage grinder.

*************************************************** Paying down your mortgage Ken Scharabok Tennessee ***************************************************

When deciding on a mortgage, there is more to consider than just the interest rate.

Some mortgages may allow bi-weekly payment, rather than monthly. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, this actually means you pay the equivalent of 13 monthly payments. That extra payment reduces the principal, thereby reducing the total future interest charged on the mortgage.

For example, on a $100,000 30-year mortgage at 8.5 percent interest, bi-weekly payments would reduce the mortgage period by seven and one half years and save $51,735 in interest payments.

Mortgages may allow you to prepay principal without a penalty. Like bi-weekly payments, reducing principal early in the mortgage period greatly reduces the amount of interest ultimately charged.

Some people routinely overpay the mortgage payment by a fixed amount. For others it may vary from payment to payment and yet others routinely overpay by the amount of principal shown for their next payment in the loan's amortization schedule.

Prepaying on a mortgage may or may not be a good financial move, depending on the situation. For example, it does not make much sense to prepay on an eight percent interest mortgage while carrying credit card balances with up to 18 percent interest. Also factoring into this is that mortgage interest is tax deductible, while credit card interest is not.

You may also be able to make more money on the prepayment elsewhere, such as investing it in the stock market. A financial planner or tax adviser can help you determine your best approach based on your situation.

For further information see if your local library has, or can borrow through inter-library loan, the following books: The Banker's Secret, by Marc Elsenson, Random House; The Mortgage Book, by John Dorfman, Consumer Reports Books; and The Common Sense Mortgage, by Peter Miller, Harper Perennial.

*************************************************** Here's a Wonderful Idea for the Holidays ***************************************************

It's a common problem: We want to do something nice for somebody, for a special occasion or for no reason at all. Nothing too extravagant, but a little more "special" than a store-bought card.

A gift subscription to Countryside will entertain, educate, amuse and inspire the recipient for the next 12 months and remind that person how special you are every time a new issue arrives!

Readers of this newsletter can give a Countryside gift subscription for just $12. Not only do you save $6 off the cost of a regular subscription, and $11.70 off the newsstand rate, it's also the lowest price we've offered in 30 years!

And the best part of giving a gift at this exceptionally low rate is you can start (or extend) your own subscription for the same $12 price.

We'll even send a hand written gift card by first class mail to inform the recipient of your kindness and generosity.

This is an extremely limited time offer. Take advantage of it right now by visiting our website to order your

http://www.countrysidemag.com/giftsub_form.htm

Countryside Gift Subscriptions

Happy Holidays from all of us at Countryside!

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), December 05, 2001

Answers

yep

-- lala (tryingtogetthisthingtoquitemailme@acck.com), December 06, 2001.

I am glad The Newsletter is back! I always find something their that pertains to me. It is a nice fill in until the next issue of Countryside! Keep up the GOOD work!

-- Mark in N.C. Fla. (deadgoatman@webtv.net), December 06, 2001.