CraftPals
Onion Whistles

Bonny posted Message 11 in the CraftPals NatureCrafts BB
Dated : July 28, 1998 at 13:32:05
Subject: Green Onion Whistles

#### Back in the days when money was scarce and before all the
sophisticated toys were available, my mother used to keep her family
of three kids entertained with simple things.
Today I got a bunch of onions and remembered how much fun we kids had
with onion whistles.

Mom would heat a small pan of water to boiling and would cut off the
long green tops of some onions.
Then she would cut just a tiny tip off the green top.
Holding on to the botton of the green top, we were allowed to submerge
about three inches of the top of the onion into the boiling water
until the top became limp.

Then remove it from the water and blow through the bottom part of the
onion.
The limp part will sort of flutter and whistle.
Different tones can be achieved by adjusting the length of the tiny tip
that is cut off before boiling.

This seemed so amazing to my brother, sister and me and we had great
fun making some high pitched and some "gross" low pitched sounds.
Of course, this "craft" requires close adult supervision and
careful set-up.
Hope some will have fun with this idea, an almost free way to have
some fun, quality time with your kids! bye Bonny (Granny)

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