- 1 week ago
🔗 Save $6,000 A Year with My Complete Amish Home-Saving Method I teach: https://eliasyoder.com
You've thrown away hundreds of them without a second thought — those little "do not eat" packets tucked in a shoebox or a pill bottle. But that free packet is one of the most useful things that comes into your house. In this one I show you all the quiet ways silica gel earns its keep around a home: keeping flour and salt from clumping, your saved garden seeds alive for next spring, your tools and needles and knives from rusting, your stored woolens and quilts from molding, your papers and keepsakes from warping, your boots and closets from going musty, and your cellar stores dry. I show you how to dry the packets out in a low oven and use them again and again for years, and the plain safety to keep around children and pets. A free tool that does the work of a dozen bought ones.
📖 The whole of it — these methods and many more like it — is in my book at eliasyoder.com
Start your jar today and put one to work, then tell me in the comments what you guarded with it — and your county and the age of your house.
You've thrown away hundreds of them without a second thought — those little "do not eat" packets tucked in a shoebox or a pill bottle. But that free packet is one of the most useful things that comes into your house. In this one I show you all the quiet ways silica gel earns its keep around a home: keeping flour and salt from clumping, your saved garden seeds alive for next spring, your tools and needles and knives from rusting, your stored woolens and quilts from molding, your papers and keepsakes from warping, your boots and closets from going musty, and your cellar stores dry. I show you how to dry the packets out in a low oven and use them again and again for years, and the plain safety to keep around children and pets. A free tool that does the work of a dozen bought ones.
📖 The whole of it — these methods and many more like it — is in my book at eliasyoder.com
Start your jar today and put one to work, then tell me in the comments what you guarded with it — and your county and the age of your house.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00You have thrown away hundreds of them without a second thought.
00:04Those little paper packets that come tucked in a new pair of shoes,
00:08a bottle of pills, a bag of dried fruit,
00:11the one stamped do not eat that you pull out and drop straight in the trash.
00:16You have been throwing away one of the most useful little things
00:20that ever comes into your house, free,
00:24that does a job you have probably been paying for in other ways.
00:28So before you toss the next one, let me show you what those packets really are
00:34and the many quiet ways they can earn their keep around the home.
00:39Those little packets are silica gel and all they do, the whole of it,
00:44is drink up moisture out of the air around them.
00:48That is their one gift and it is a fine one
00:51because damp is the silent ruin of so many things in a house.
00:56Damp rusts your tools and your needles.
01:00Damp molds your stored woolens and your papers.
01:03Damp brings the musty smell to a closet and a cellar.
01:08Damp spoils your seeds and cakes your salt.
01:11Those little packets quietly pull the damp out of the small closed space they sit in
01:17and so they guard whatever sits in there with them.
01:21Save them up in a jar instead of throwing them out and you will find a use for everyone.
01:29Quick word before we go further.
01:31My name is Esther Yoder and the old methods my husband and I use,
01:36the kind I am sharing today and many more like it, too much of it for any single video.
01:42I put the whole of it together in a book at EliasYoder.com.
01:48The book is the long version.
01:50Now the old women did not have these little packets,
01:54but they understood the principle behind them perfectly
01:57because fighting the damp was half of keeping a house.
02:01They kept their salt dry with a few grains of rice in the cellar,
02:06kept their woolens in cedar against the damp and the moth,
02:10kept the cellar aired and the spring house cool and dry,
02:14because they knew that damp standing still in a closed place
02:18is what rots and rusts and molds.
02:21These packets are only a new and handy tool for that same old war on damp.
02:27And once you think of them that way, you will see a dozen places to put them.
02:33So let me give you the uses, plainly, one after another.
02:37Start in the pantry with your dry goods.
02:41A jar of flour, of cornmeal, of dried beans, of crackers,
02:46of anything that wants to stay dry and goes stale or buggy or clumped when it takes on damp,
02:52will keep far better with a packet or two tucked in the jar or the bin.
02:56Your salt and your sugar, which clump into a brick the moment they find moisture,
03:03stay loose and pouring with a packet in the canister.
03:07Your spices keep their strength longer kept dry.
03:10A tin of crackers or cookies stays crisp instead of going soft.
03:15Anywhere in the pantry that damp turns good dry food stale or hard or moldy,
03:21a packet stands guard.
03:22Your seeds are one of the very best uses, and any gardener should know it.
03:28Seeds saved for next year must be kept dry above all else,
03:32for damp is what rots them or sprouts them too soon or molds them in the envelope,
03:38and a seed that has taken damp will not come up come spring.
03:43Put your saved seed packets in a jar with a couple of silica packets and a tight lid,
03:48and the seeds stay dry and good and ready,
03:51and you will get your germination next spring instead of a jar of dead seed.
03:56The same for the seed you buy and do not use all of.
04:00Keep the leftover dry with a packet, and it keeps for next year.
04:03Now to the rust, because this is where these little packets save you real money and real heartache.
04:11Damp is what rusts metal, and a great many metal things in a house are quietly rusting in the damp
04:17without your noticing until the harm is done.
04:20Your good tools in the toolbox or the shed, the saw and the chisel and the plane and the wrenches
04:27rust in a damp box,
04:29and a few packets tossed in the toolbox keep the air around them dry and slow that rust to a
04:36crawl.
04:37Your sewing needles and your pins and your good scissors, which rust and pit and then snag your cloth,
04:44keep bright in the sewing box with a packet.
04:46Your knives, your good kitchen blades, stored away, kept from rust.
04:52The fine things, a watch, a piece of jewelry that tarnishes,
04:56kept in a box with a packet, stays bright far longer.
05:01Any gun or fishing tackle stored against the damp.
05:05Anywhere you have metal you want to keep from rust,
05:09a packet in the box with it is cheap insurance,
05:12and rust prevented is far easier than rust removed.
05:17Then your stored cloth, which the damp loves to ruin.
05:21When you pack the winter woolens away for the summer,
05:25or the summer things away for the winter,
05:28the damp that gets shut in the box or the chest is what brings the mildew and the musty smell
05:34and the spots.
05:35Tuck several packets in among the folded clothes and the blankets and the quilts before you close the lid,
05:43and they pull that damp out and the things come out fresh in the new season instead of musty and
05:49spotted.
05:50The good quilts, the linens you are saving, the wedding dress put away,
05:56all of it keeps better dry.
05:58The cedar chest and the trunk and the storage bin all do their work better with a few packets added
06:05in.
06:06The closet and the drawers, where that musty damp smell comes from,
06:11freshen with a few packets set in the corners and the back,
06:15because that smell is damp.
06:17And pull the damp and you pull the smell.
06:20The same for a chest of drawers that has gone musty, a packet in each drawer.
06:26And your shoes and your boots, where the damp from your feet leads to that sour smell,
06:32dry out and stay fresh with a packet or two slipped inside them overnight.
06:37And stored boots, kept dry with packets, do not mildew or rot over a wet season.
06:44A gym bag, a work bag, anything that gets damp and sour, the same.
06:51Your papers and your keepsakes are a use dear to many.
06:55The important papers you keep in a box, the deeds and the records,
07:00the old letters, the photographs, the family Bible records,
07:04all of these the damp will warp and yellow and fade and grow mold upon over the years,
07:12especially in a cellar or an attic where the damp sits.
07:15Keep them in a box or a tin with a few silica packets and they keep their condition far longer,
07:23the paper flat, the ink unfaded, the mold kept off.
07:27The same for any collected thing of paper or card you are keeping for the years.
07:34Down in the cellar and the root cellar there is good use too.
07:38The home canned jars do not want the damp rusting their lids and rings.
07:44A few packets on the shelf help.
07:47The matches, kept for emergencies, which are worthless once damp,
07:51stay dry and striking in a jar with a packet.
07:55The candles, the spare batteries in the drawer,
07:58the things in the emergency box you keep against a hard time,
08:02all keep better dry.
08:05Anywhere in a damp cellar that you store a thing the damp can harm,
08:10the packets help guard it.
08:12And a few smaller uses worth knowing.
08:15A few packets in the silver chest slow the tarnish.
08:19A packet keeps the rock salt and the garden chemicals in the shed from clumping.
08:25A packet in with the spare bandages and the medicines keeps them dry.
08:31A packet in the box of holiday things up in the attic keeps the damp off them through the year.
08:38Once you have a jar of these saved up, you will keep finding new corners to put them.
08:44Every place a little dry air guards a thing better than damp.
08:49Now here is the part that makes them a true household tool and not just a one-time help.
08:56And it is the part most people never learn.
08:59You can use them again and again.
09:02A silica packet, once it has drunk up all the damp it can hold, stops working.
09:08But it is not done for good, not at all.
09:11You dry it back out and it is good as new.
09:15The old way is to set the packets in a low oven, a warm oven and no hotter, for a
09:21couple of hours.
09:23And the gentle heat drives the moisture back out of the beads.
09:27And they are recharged, ready to go to work again.
09:30Low heat is the rule, just warm, never hot, since these are in a paper packet and you do not
09:38want to scorch them.
09:40Do that and one packet serves you over and over for years.
09:44And a jar of them becomes a tool you keep, not a thing you use up.
09:49A plain word on safety.
09:51Because those do not eat labels worry people and you should know the truth.
09:56The silica itself is not poison.
09:59The warning is there mainly so a child or a body does not choke on the packet or mistake it
10:06for food.
10:07But you treat it with scents all the same.
10:09Keep the packets up and away from little children and from animals so none is swallowed.
10:15Because a paper packet of beads is a choking danger to a small child, whatever is inside it.
10:21And keep them out of the food itself, of course, set alongside the food in the jar, but never mixed
10:28into it.
10:29Treated with that plain care, kept from the children and kept out of the mouth, they are safe to use
10:35all through your house.
10:37Keep your safe jar of them up high, the same as you would any such thing, and all is well.
10:43Now think for a quiet moment about why nobody ever taught you any of this.
10:50These little packets come free in a hundred things you buy.
10:54And the companies that put them there have already paid for them and given them to you.
10:59And yet you were never told they were good for one single thing past the box they came in.
11:05There is no money in teaching you that the free packet in your shoe box will keep your seeds alive
11:12and your tools from rusting and your woolens from molding.
11:16There is a great deal of money in selling you a rust preventer and a closet freshener and a dehumidifier
11:23and a seed keeping tin.
11:25Every one of which that free packet does the work of.
11:29So the free thing gets called trash and thrown away by the millions and the bought things get sold.
11:36And a person never learns that the answer was in her hand and headed for the bin.
11:41I do not say there is a plot in it.
11:45It is the same quiet thing as always.
11:48A whole way of selling grew up around your buying a separate product for every little problem.
11:54And the free packet that quietly solved a dozen of them just never got mentioned because no one profits by
12:02reminding you of it.
12:03Your grandmother fought the damp with rice and cedar and an aired cellar because that was what she had.
12:10And she would have been delighted with these little packets and would never have thrown a one away.
12:16The fighting of the damp she knew.
12:18The free tool for it is only new.
12:21And somewhere we lost the plain habit of saving and reusing the useful little thing and learned instead to throw
12:29it out and buy another.
12:30The mending of it is the smallest thing in the world.
12:34You stop throwing them away.
12:36You keep a jar by the kitchen and every packet that comes into the house from a shoe box or
12:42a pill bottle or a bag of jerky goes in the jar instead of the trash.
12:46And when you need to guard something from the damp, you have a handful ready.
12:51And when they tire, you dry them out and use them again.
12:55That is the whole of it.
12:56A free tool.
12:58Saved instead of tossed.
13:00Doing a dozen jobs you might have paid for.
13:03So here is what I would ask of you.
13:05Start your jar today.
13:07Save the very next packet that comes into your house and put it to one job.
13:12Your seeds or your toolbox or your sewing needles.
13:16And then come back and tell me in the comments what you guarded with it.
13:20And tell me too, while you are there, your county and the age of your house.
13:25Because the older houses and the damper climates fight the damp the hardest.
13:30The old cellars and the old closets that never quite dry out.
13:35And I learn from every one of you how the damp runs where you live.
13:39I read them all.
13:40I learned from you the way the old women learned from one another across the fence line.
13:46One house and one season at a time.
13:49Next time I will show you the other old ways to fight the damp in a house.
13:54The cedar and the charcoal and the aired cellar.
13:57And the plain habits that keep a closed place dry without a wire to the grid.
14:02So you have the whole of it.
14:04There is a right and an old way to keep the damp out of a house.
14:08And out of everything you store in it.
14:11And most of it is simpler and cheaper than you would ever guess.
14:15But today you start with the jar.
14:17You stop throwing the little packets away.
14:20You save them up.
14:21And you set them to guard the things the damp would ruin.
14:24Your seeds and your tools.
14:26And your woolens and your papers.
14:29And you dry them out and use them again when they tire.
14:32And you understand at last that the most useful little thing in your house
14:37was the one you had been throwing in the trash all along.
14:41The people who built this country with their hands wasted nothing
14:45and found a use for everything.
14:47And that is a thing we are only just starting to remember.
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