Do You Know Reddy Kilowatt?

One Girl Scout field trip was to the electric utility company's Home Ec demonstration kitchen with electric stoves, which we had never seen, and we practiced cooking on them, back when they WANTED people to use up electrical energy.

The electric company 's mascot was a figure made of lighting bolts with a bulbous head, a light-bulb nose and electric-socket ears, named Reddy Kilowatt, and it gave out Reddy-themed potholders and lapel pins, and electric bills had his picture on them, but after the energy shortage of 1973-74 -- the winter that, to save energy, we walked to school in the mornings with the stars still overhead -- saw him rarely, and now Reddy Kilowatt items are collectible. My sister and bro-in-law in Wisconsin collected two nostalgic Reddy potholders for me. Flummoxed because they had no tabs to hang them, I left them in a drawer for years before realizing they contained magnets for sticking them on the fridge. I now use them frequently. Here they are assisting me, saying "Be modern, cook electrically," on the propane stove with a pan of lavender shortbread.

Although Reddy looks to me now as if he suffers from terrible arthritis, I am fond of him. He was designed in the 1920s, to be consumer-friendly when farmers hemmed and hawed about buying electricity because they'd gotten along for 10,000 years without it. As I moved around the country I met people who had never heard of Reddy Kilowatt, and at times felt very alone, the way you feel when no one around you shares your archaic memories.

Then one day I had at the Divine Cabin a guest, born in Missouri in 1947. He saw my potholders and said, "Oh, Reddy Kilowatt," and I almost threw myself at his feet and begged him to marry me.

Homemade Lavender Bug Repellent

Maybe two years ago I bought a big bottle of lavender oil cheap, and recently looked in vain for the same product -- rumored now to be nothing but cheap oil and water with synthetic lavender smell sent over in bulk from China -- because it worked so well for me as a spray-able bug and mosquito repellent. All the new options were expensive. But I did find online that I could make my own.

One method is to drip 40 drips of lavender essential oil into 2 ounces of distilled water, adding perhaps a little vegetable oil so the spray will cling to the skin. The other is to start from zero with culinary-quality lavender buds. I had all the ingredients, and began by boiling four tablespoons of lavender buds in one cup of water for a little while, and letting it cool, keeping the pot lid on so the lavender smell doesn't dissipate.

Then I strained the buds out of the water, which to my delight and surprise had turned lavender color.

To make the liquid into a bug repellent body spray rather than a room spray, using a glass jar I added the lavender liquid to 1/2 cup of Witch Hazel (a herb-based liquid milder than rubbing alcohol, used as a skin cleaner and toner, very cheap) and 1/4 cup of liquid coconut oil. Then I lidded and shook the jar real well and poured two ounces of the result into a lavender-color-coded spray bottle. I stored that bottle and the remaining liquid in the fridge, as recommended. Can't wait to see if it works. Mother Nature here in Missouri been in hard labor trying to give birth to spring. An advantage of the unusually cold weather is that the bug population has not yet mobilized. I am prepared.

Nothing Bit Me All Summer

"Lavender is an insect repellent," the Lavender Farm nearby had advised. That place, of happy memory, lost its lovely scenic lavender crop from alternating years of flooding and drought. But when their brand of lavender oil ran out I bought a 16-ounce bottle from Amazon and have used it ever since as insect repellent, pre-treating myself against bites and bugs before stepping out and meanwhile smelling pretty good.

Somebody told me that lavender oil at the Amazon price I paid is probably not real lavender oil but swill from big tanks of chemicals in China, but I just couldn't see letting that ruin my day. The darned stuff, no matter what it is, works just as well, whether cloudy (it turned cloudy) or clear.

Caution that lavender oil as a bug repellent doesn't serve everyone. I drenched a friend in it before we went bushwhacking. Chiggers still bit him and so covered him with those volcanic bites that he was bedridden with nausea. Usually he deserved bad things to happen to him, but not that time.

The Lavender Farm

Lived here 11 years before visiting the famed Lavender Farm in Eureka not five miles away. There they grow lavender, give spring teas with lavender tea and lavender scones, and strawberries with lavender whipped cream; and the gift shop sells essential oil, tinctures, spray, facial serums, soap -- and plants. Bought me a culinary lavender plant, cultivar "Provence," so I will always have a supply for my own lavender scones. Yes, I make 'em. See recipe here.

First went to the Lavender Farm in May for a spring tea with my "Laughter Yoga" group pictured here: Elaine, Mary, Ria, Kathy, Jodi, all of us dining in a former stable fixed up all nice and we got reservations and food and then a talk from the farm's owner, who said lavender is proven antifungal, antibacterial, antiseptic, anti-aging, anti-anxiety, and all-around good for you, whether absorbed through skin or eaten. Returned there on this electrifyingly gorgeous late June day to see the picnic umbrellas and lavender in bloom and some girls (see photo) out picking it, and also to buy the highly concentrated lavender essential oil to blend with the organic coconut oil used as my skin lotion, and the lavender spray that can be used as cologne or bug repellent. Everybody knows, right, that Lavender Skin-So-Soft bath oil keeps bugs away. Lavender is why. It's beautiful and it tastes good. Lavender is one of those miracle herbs.