Category Archives: Guest Post

The History of Weathervanes

As weathervanes become increasingly nothing more than collector’s items – auctioned to the highest bidder both online and off – it’s easy to forget that once upon a time these were essential weather instruments. They were highly practical and no farm or village cared to be without one.

If you earned a living by working out doors – think farmers, think loggers, think gardeners – then you needed to know what the weather was likely to bring. For most of human history, you didn’t simply switch to the weather channel or flip open the paper to read the latest meteorological update. You had your own weather eye and weather sense.

A century ago, you couldn’t find a barn anywhere in the United States that didn’t have at least a rough vane atop the roof – a rooster maybe, whose beak would indicate from which direction the weather was likely to come. Or perhaps a trotting horse. Heck, there were even racing pigs!

But plenty of weathervanes were little more than arrows that were set up to swivel on a simple rod. They were made by people who were too busy working to worry too much about the décor of their rural landscape. And they needed to know what was going on with the weather. Could you hay tomorrow? Plant another bed of spinach? Make a weathervane and figure it out!

In truth, if you exclude rain gauges, when it came to reading the skies and making predictions, the weathervane was your best guide. And this was true from the days of ancient Greece – when many archaeologists believe the earliest weathervanes were made and used regularly – to colonial America.

If your a collector of these lovely and elegant instruments, you can take some pride in the fact that you are helping to preserve a critical piece of history. It’s well and good that we have far more complicated tools for figuring out in tomorrow we’ll need our umbrellas. But once upon a time we could do it with a lot less. Weathervanes – regardless of whether they are on display in our homes or still atop bars – keep us in touch with those old days.

Pest Control For Ants

If ants have taken over your home and you want to get them out, there are a few things that you can do. In order to begin the process of extracting the ants you will want to identify the type of ants that you are dealing with. There are different methods that are used to make ants go away depending on which type they are. Once you have identified the type that you are dealing with there are a few things that you can do.

The preferred pest control to use when trying to get rid of ants is sweet bait. You will be able to find different types of sweet baits that are made by different companies. One company that makes a good one is Terro. What you want to do once you have obtained some sweet bait is place it in the areas where there are the most ants. When they see the bait they will attack it and it will kill them. You will want to place as much bait out as it takes to get rid of all the ants in your home.

Another option is to us a bait from the company DuPont. It is called Advion Ant bait gel and it has a specially formulated active ingredient that just knocks ants out. The bait matrix is also composed of highly attractive foods that ants just eat up. The best way to use this bait, and any other for that matter, is to place it out in small pea size amounts along the foraging trail. The foraging trail is the path the ants are using to find food and bring it back to the colony. When you put the bait out right in the foraging trail the ants will find it and eat it up. This is a slow acting poison so it may take a week before you don’t see any more ants from that colony.

When you are using this method of pest control o get rid of the ants that have invaded your home it might take a few days to rid yourself of all of them. As you know, ants travel in colonies, so there could be thousands of them that you will have to get rid of. Make sure that you find some good sweet bait that you can use in order to trap the ants and kill them. If you ever have the same problem again then use the same solution to make the problem go away.

Please use chemical pesticides responsibly, and make sure any baits are away from areas that pets and children can access them.

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How To Restore Antique Maps

As any collector of old world maps will tell you, the biggest problem with the hobby is the condition of the actual maps. Most of them were actually used in the field – whether they are global maps or simply a map of the mountains behind your home. And unless it’s probably cared for, any type of paper bears the mark of time as it passes.

How can you restore and protect your antique map?

You might start by working an actual map conservator. Finding someone whose mission in life is to preserve old maps and other antique paper work can be difficult, but it’s often well worth the effort. Even if you don’t hire the individual to do the restoration work on their own, they will often agree to consult and advise you as you do the work yourself.

Remember, now that you have gone and spent all that money getting the map in the first place, you don’t want to skimp on the investment now. Even a single meeting with a professional conservator can provide a lot of helpful information.

Of course, you might want to do the work on your own. Plenty of collectors believe that a hands on approach is a great way to learn more about maps. It’s also relaxing work, if you don’t mind the rigorous attention to detail.

First, flatten the map on a level surface. Use books with dust covers to anchor it. Then, using soft but thorough strokes, go over the entire map with a soft-bristle hair brush. Your goal at this stage is to remove any grime or debris that is clinging to the map’s surface. Don’t work too hard – you can easily tear the map. Remember, this is the first step, not the whole process.

Patience is essential to this process. You have to pay attention to what you’re doing and you have to focus. If your mind drifts, you might find yourself brushing far too hard and doing damage to your old map.

If your map has any glue or adhesive reside, you can get if off by using a spatula. Plastic ones work best because they don’t pose any risk to the material. Just be sure that you aren’t using a spatula that actually sees any real kitchen action. The last thing you want to do is soak the map with even a drop of grease.

If the map needs to be flattened, you can get the process started with a natural sponge. Gently brush the map’s surface with a moist sponge until it is thoroughly damp. Then place it between a pair of blotters. These will help facilitate the drying process. Remember, less is more in this instance. Too much water can cause real damage. And you can always repeat the process if you feel that the map isn’t responding to your efforts.

Be sure that as you work on the map, you always move it with both of your hands. In other words, apply pressure to each side of the map. If you don’t, then you run the risk of tearing the map. Remember that the paper – even if it feels relatively sturdy – is not. Act as if you are holding the most fragile piece of paper on earth and you’ll probably be fine.

Don’t be afraid to bring in a professional if you find yourself facing a particularly large problem – a tear, a whole, a large blemish. Again, even if all you do is hire them as  a consultant, the payoff can be very significant.

Tips to Create a Pretty and Whimsical Garden Display

Gardening has always been fun and therapeutic for all gardeners which is why there are so many that spend money on pots, garden tools and tons of hot plants of the month.

Creating a pretty garden arrangement is very simple and you can create something spectacular worthy of oohs and aahs. Get out your garden tools and get ready to create something marvelous. The easiest way to create a striking arrangement is to have a good picture in your mind of what you would like it to resemble.

The arrangement can be something colorful (you can mix various colors together to make something bold or just simple and pretty). If you are playing with colors then use the color wheel as your guide to help you make pretty combinations. Colors that lie directly across from each other on the color wheel will automatically look great together because of how different they are.

They can make very striking and powerful arrangements when paired together. Those colors that lie on either side of each other on the color wheel will look pretty and soothing next to each other. These are the colors that are related to each other such as pink and light pink and even red.

To create your arrangement, start with a few small plants and a large planter such as a pretty wooden wheelbarrow planter that will accommodate them. Keep in mind, that the plants will grow tall or branch out, so think about this when you are placing them in your arrangement.

The plants that will grow taller will need to be placed in the center or back side of your arrangement, otherwise if placed in the front or sides, the arrangement might look lopsided. Or you may want something like this! You just need to experiment to find the right look for you and you can slowly add more plants to it over time.

Soon enough, you will have a gorgeous work in progress garden planter arrangement that you will display proudly and you will receive plenty of complements on.

Finding Amethyst Crystals

If you are looking to add some amethyst crystals to your mineral collection, then you have a few choices. You can head down to the local hobby shop frequented by rock hounds and shell out some cash for a few dollars in exchange for some amethyst.

You can head to your local store for New Age supplies and related materials and rifle through their crystal bins. They’re sure to have some stones as well that you can purchase.

But if you are a hardcore mineral collector – whether you use your stones for health and wellness or simply to admire cool rocks – then there really is no substitute for heading into the field on your own. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of digging up your own specimens.

The trouble is, when it comes to amethyst, that’s a bit trickier than finding, say, a few samples of quartz. These days, the biggest deposits of natural amethyst are located in Brazil. Yes, you can find some in other parts of the globe but you have to be ready to hire a geologist!

Still, it’s not the worst way to spend one’s vacation. You can spend a few days taking in the culture of Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro, then throw on your Indian Jones duds and see if you can’t score some quality amethysts. Either way, you’re going to return home tanned and with a few good stories.

But if you don’t have the time or the money to head into the Southern hemisphere, you still have some options. One is to simply buy a lot of geodes from Brazil. Geodes are hollow rocks inside of which minerals – such as amethysts – are formed. They’re like a rock enthusiast’s ultimate holiday gift. Break one open and see what you got!

There’s no guarantee, of course, that your geode will contain any amethyst, much less an amethyst for which you would actually pay money. But that’s the joy of buying in bulk – after a while, the law of large numbers pretty much ensures that you’re going to find something.

If you do it his way, you have to remember that what you get are not likely to be jewelry quality gemstones. You won’t be making any money, in other words. But the odds are much more likely that you will turn up some pretty good crystals that most collector’s would envy.

Any amethyst collection takes time to build. Your short-term goal should be to acquire some lower or mid-range quality stones. Use those to trade up for one or two higher quality crystals. After a while, between trading and cracking geodes, you’re likely to have the sort of collection that even the experts would admire.

And remember – amethyst is worth a little effort!