My great-great grandmother lived in a dirt floor, one room house (shack) in West Texas. Her family treated the floor exactly like this. I was told it had a satin sheen. Hard as concrete, and as odd it sounds to modern ears, especially without this knowledge, she swept her dirt floor every day. I remember as a young boy thinking how stupid it was to sweep a dirt floor, until I later learned the full story. They also used cattle blood as a furniture varnish. I’ve found several antique furniture items that used this technique - it gets sticky and weepy in high humidity that turns to a hard to describe sludgy looking, rippled texture once it hardens again, especially on furniture legs, spindles and chairback imprint design, where poor quality brushes allowed too much blood to puddle in the multiple chisel points. I remember a particular set of dining chairs in my grandmother’s house in the 1970’s that you would stick to in the humid summers. I was fascinated by the denim imprint that would change from tacky during summer visits to hard and permanent during other visits. It was like the chair was alive. They were my great-great grandmother’s chairs.
