Frugal foot care

With spring and summer comes sandals and bare feet. If your feet are still winter dry, give them a spring treatment! Before you go to bed or sit down to relax for awhile, generously rub vegetable oil or shortening into your feet (lard or tallow can be used, too), then put old socks on, then slip plastic bread sacks on over that. After a couple of hours, you can wash it off with warm water and mild soap. The price sure beats the commercial foot lotion.

Grow your own bird seed

With spring in the wings, it's time to think of growing things! If you like to feed birds year 'round, you can grow your own birdseed. Just how much of a dent you can make in the birdseed budget depends on how much room you devote to it, but even a couple of square feet will yield a worthwhile crop. Plant whatever seeds you feed the birds and you'll have the right ones. Whether it's millet, safflower, sunflower or any of a dozen more types, you can grow it densely, seeding a small area generously. Keep birds away until they've germinated by covering with screen, or start them indoors in clumps.

You can harvest the seeds when they're ripe and store them for winter days, or leave them on the plant and the birds will find them.