With the huge increases over the last few years in the price of electricity and natural gas, we are looking for places to cut costs any way we can. I've always thought that having a clothesline in this yard is not going to work all that well - we just don't get breezes - but the time for not doing it is past. Now that I am home a little more and have the luxury of taking the time to do it, we have put up a clothes line. Or, more correctly, Mr. Needles has put up my clothes line. 
The pole is from the no longer used basketball net, and the clothes line is out of the way from the day to day going on of the household. Its entirely possible that everything I ever dry there is going to feel stiff and crunchy, without the breezes to give them the soft pouffiness a dryer might, but the plus is going to be wonderful smelling clothes. I can't wait till all the sheets have gone on the clothes line, and the closet with the towels opens with a shot of fresh smelling air.
Not using a dryer used to mean that you ironed. When I was a kid, my mom ironed almost everything. Bed linens and dishtowels always were ironed crisply before they were put away. That was what you learned to iron on. When you got a little better at it, you had to iron work clothes, and when you got really good, you might have to iron school clothes and Sunday clothes. Somewhere between good at towels and Sunday clothes, polyester and moms new electric dryer came along and saved me. Ironing was just not needed in the same way when you could toss it back in with a damp cloth and give it a spin at warm for a few minutes. Polyester made shirts come out crisply if you hung them right away.
And then there was the decade of the double knit polyester...
The wonders of modern technology and electricity didn't mean you wasted it though. Most women of my mom's age still dried clothes on the line just for the smell of a closet full of summer. It really wasn't till my generation where a dryer became the only way. Now, with most of us working and all those little minutes being used somewhere else, most of us don't have the time for this sort of luxury.
I do, and I intend to take full advantage of it. Drying clothes on a clothes line is an old fashioned sort of thing, but it speaks to me of slow thoughtful living, and that is what I want.
Even if it does mean I have to toss a few things in the dryer with a damp towel for 10 minutes, or (shudders) iron.
1 comment:
I love my clothesline - at the cottage it's all we use, and at home, we use it when we can (not often enough for my liking). THere's nothing like the smell of line dried clothes and towels and sheets...
Post a Comment