Love of a Laundry Line

My husband caught me taking a picture of the laundry after I had hung it out. If there was ever any doubt in his mind regarding my level of nuttiness, it's all gone now.



You have to understand that I hate laundry. I'd rather scrub a toilet. Well, I don't hate it as much as mowing the lawn, but it's not my favorite job, and I'm not very good at it. I guess the main reason I hate laundry right now is that my rusty well water turns everything dingy and orange. So the more I wash our clothes, the dirtier they get. How's that for morale-boosting?

But there's something about hanging my clothes out in the sunshine and wind that renews a little joy in those daily chores.

Isn't it funny that when the automatic clothes dryer was invented, it was this great labor-reducing appliance that people couldn't wait to own. It made women's lives so much easier. And yet now, there's this revival of the laundry line like it's this amazing new discovery and people love to use them and risk fines in their homeowner's associations by going against mandates about hanging out laundry. And for me, with propane and electricity costs, the savings is a bonus (forget "saving the planet", it's all about the money. In more ways than you realize...). But mainly, I do it because I enjoy it. It's just so peaceful and satisfying. (Don't get me wrong, I love my dryer, too. Ain't no way I'm hangin' my laundry out in February. I know people have done it for hundreds of years and the Amish still do, but I guess I'm a hypocrite in that respect. I have modern conveniences and it sure isn't convenient for me to freeze my tooshie off hanging out laundry in the winter.)

Oh, and here's where I give a plug for my latest laundry discovery-- soap nuts. I got a good deal on them through my co-op and they work great! And they're better for our skin than the chemical stuff. And my line-dried laundry is much softer!

Now, I want to find a way to salvage the water from my washing machine to water my garden (since I don't have chemical soaps that would pollute my garden). No, it has nothing to do with being "green" or "saving the planet". I'm not into that because I think it's based in lies. But that's another post for another time. No, I wouldn't be at all worried about saving water except that on top of being rusty, our well is wimpy. And we're in a drought. And my garden is struggling and it's hard to get enough water to it. If I had a good well, I'd have a sprinkler out there in a heartbeat! But I asked Nathan about collecting the laundry water and he said, "Um, I'd have to do a lot of plumbing." And right now, my kitchen is more important.

Did I just write all that? Wow, I am a nut.