Archives for 2008

This weeks theme is Old Fashioned

We do have a dryer, it came with the house when we bought it (it’s 30 years old and probably qualifies for this photo hunt theme too!), but we sometimes dry our clothes the old fashioned way on a clothes line in the backyard.

I don’t think that there as many people using clothes lines these days as there used to be. I grew up with my parents using a clothes line or later one of those odd large metal umbrella looking things in our backyard and when we moved into this neighborhood we noticed that most of our neighbors (all the closest are in their 80’s) used clothes lines.

Our house had a clothes line but it wasn’t in good shape. The actual line was sagging and the wheel was rusted. We got a new set up and one of our neighbors showed us how to tighten up the line properly.

We rarely dry anything on the line in the winter. Well not unless I want a stiff frozen piece of laundry! I think I have used it in the winter once or twice though when it’s been unseasonably warm. Mostly the clothes line is just a great place for the birds to hang out in the winter.

In the summer we use the clothes line quite a bit. Unlike some of our neighbors we don’t dry our under garments on the line. No one needs to see those! We tend not to dry towels or sheets on the line either as they aren’t as soft when dried on the line as they are when they’re dried in a dryer. We do dry all of our cotton clothes on the line though and that makes up the bulk of most of our laundry during the summer.

The clothes smell so fresh and clean when they are dried outside! Oh and did you know that the sun is a great way to keep white clothes bright and clean? It naturally bleaches the clothes.

Since our dryer is ancient and I’m sure its an energy hog we also save a lot of money by drying a good portion of our clothing on the line during the warmer months. In the winter I often hang clothes in the basement to dry instead of using the dryer for everything.