You Can Use Ashes For That? Part 1

My wife emailed me the other day while I was at work.  The email contained the following link:  https://practicalselfreliance.com/wood-ash-uses/  It is a blog post written by a woman appropriately named "Ashley."  The content seemed very interesting since we had just cleaned out the fireplace after burning wood all winter.  We had two 5 gallon buckets of fireplace ashes.  I bookmarked so I would be able to read later.

When I got home, I read it in detail.  Very interesting.  70+ Uses for Wood Ash.  Well, here is a bucketful of ash we just scooped out of our fireplace:

I'll show you one interesting use for ash that we experimented with and it works!  My grandmother on my mom's side we affectionately called, "Bumby."  Bumby collected small silver spoons.  Anytime she traveled, she would purchase a souvenir spoon.  We inherited some of those beloved spoons.  My grandfather "Poppy" made some wooden display cases for Bumby to display her spoons on the wall of the kitchen.  Here are the spoons we have to remember Bumby:

One thing about silver is that it tarnishes.  You must get out the silver polish and polish them up to keep them bright and shiny.  Polishing silver requires some elbow grease.  Well, I hate to admit it, but polishing silver isn't high on our priority list and so our cherished spoons are in a tarnished state right now.

But lo and behold, Fireplace Ashes will polish silver.  Simply add a little fireplace ash to a damp rag and apply.  Well, we wanted to check this tip out.  So we picked out a spoon that had considerable tarnish to test it out.

Tricia applied a little ash to a dampened rag and began polishing.  She was surprised at how effortless it was - easier than silver polish.

After just a short little time, Tricia had expertly polished the front of the spoon...

And the back!

Wow!!  Scroll back up to compare the before and after photos.  What a neat use for fireplace ashes.  As we read and experiment with other uses for fireplace ash, we'll be sure to share.