I have been enjoying small portions of household activity each day. For years when I have hung the laundry my mind has been on things I needed to do back in the house. Lately I have slowed the task down and absorbed all the sounds and the warmth of the sun.
We tend to wear our towels thin and stringy because they are so much more absorbent. Our family avoids any new towel and rifles under the pile
For the oldest ones, line dried. The sun sanitizes the towels and sheets and puts a starch in them.
If I had a guest house I would include in the description: line dried towels and sheets wrinkled by the sun.
Note my fancy tea table:
Tea tastes so good outside in such a scene. I think of previous pioneer women who may have been in the same location hanging out their clothes. I think of how future generations will enjoy this activity.
As has been pointed out by blog readers, the lint in the dryer actually comes from your clothing, and dryers can fade and wear out your clothes. Even in winter I hang my laundry on racks inside the house. I don't miss hearing the dryer noise and I don't miss the high electric bill. Our clothes last a lot longer.
10 comments:
You are motivating me to get dryer racks to hand my laundry inside too....I would love to reduce my electric bill....
Now that I am older I realize how important it is to enjoy every moment. As housewives, we shouldn't get so busy and distracted that we forget to savor each task.
I must say I love your fancy tea table! It tickles me when someone can improvise and not get caught up in the "particulars".
Glad to hear someone else hangs laundry to dry. I have for years. The only thing, for me, hanging outside is I forget until an afternoon storm comes up. I've leaned on just line drying inside except sheets etc, so I do have to fret over the wind and rain.
Last week I was drying guest sheets from a visitor, and the afternoon wind and rain kicked up faster than I could get them off the line. The wind blew the sheets over my head so I couldn't see, then they wrapped around the line and I couldn't find the clips, while they whipped around and covered my face again. It was truly an I love Lucy moment. All I could do was laugh and say Thank You Lord for the opportunity to learn some humility and patience. I resigned to getting wet and slowed down and finally got the sheets off, with a bit of humor instead of anger. Oh the fun of homemaking.
Wishing you peace,
Dee
I hang my laundry to dry also...consequently I have dresses that are over 15 years old that are not worn looking or faded! Clothes are too expensive to ruin in the dryer...Kelly T.
I love your post Lydia about the thin absorbent towels. My husband loves the thick heavy guy towels and we have a few of them, but I find them too heavy to handle and they drag on the floor.
My favorite place to purchase towels are the thrift stores so they are quite absorbent and of good quality when I get them. My favorite towels for wrapping my hair are a pair of thread-bare ones.
Sun dried towels in the summer with fresh wind scent is wonderful, but there is something to be said for warm fluffed towels fresh from the dryer in the cold winter though.
Janet
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one to use a bucket for a table. They are good for so many things: car, floor and window washing solutions, laundry soap making, weed pulling seat, weed collecting, berry, fruit picking, soaking hand washing, impromptu table and more. The most employed item around my house beside those wonderful towels.
Janet
I'll take midday tea on an overturned bucket over a cubicle any day! - Jaclyn, stay at home mother from NYC
I got a rather large Amish-made wooden and sturdy folding clothes drying rack today and I cannot wait to put it to good use! I previously bought a rack from True Value Hardware and it was in parts and impossible for even two people to put together. I took it back.....and Walmart has the same contraption. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. The Amish was costly and the 'contraptions' were not. And as for appearance, the Amish-made is beautiful and the contraption....well...it was not.
I truly enjoy hanging laundry on our clotheslines. I especially enjoy doing sheets because I know once they have dried, been folded and put away, that outdoor scent will remain in the cloth until they are on the bed again. Then when we lay our heads down at night, we have that wonderful outdoor scent to remind us of the beauty of simplicity.
Just catching up with a few of your posts here Lydia, as I have not been online for a while. Yes, I love line dried towels too - you can't beat a bit of sunshine on your laundry, although we don't get much of that sometimes here in the UK! x
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