Clothesline

When we lived in Ohio, we had a great clothesline.  It sat between two big trees. The two lines - one at my waist and one at eye-level - were the perfect amount of space for our growing family.  The sun hit the line just right, so it was perfect for sunning out stains in the afternoon.

When we moved into our fixer-upper in Nashville, and through the past 4 or 5 years, a lot fell by the wayside as we coped with the repairs to the house and two new (and unexpected) pregnancies.  We had a brand new, energy efficient dryer, and no good place to put a clothesline.  I was overwhelmed and completely stressed out for the first two years.  And the clothesline never was set up.

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This spring we took another look at our electricity bill.  Too much.  Too much for running no heat or airconditioning; just the kitchen appliances, the washer/dryer, and the electronics like my computer and the TV.  What was causing such a high bill?

We turned off the electricity to the entire house - every single breaker was flipped off.  No phantom energy was going to affect our experiment if we could help it!

Then, one by one, husband turned a breaker on and ran each appliance separately.  I watched the wattage meter outside.

Surprisingly, the one thing that really got the meter going almost as fast as the air conditioner was the dryer!  My brand new, energy efficient dryer!  And with four young children, two loads a day was pretty standard.

Did you know that even dryers with good ratings are costing you a lot of money?  Have you heard that they wear out clothes faster?  (You know those mystery holes you sometimes get in clothing?  Clothes get caught on buttons, zippers, and even loose parts of your dryer as they tumble. And the lint you see is bits of your clothing being worn away with heat and agitation.)

I bet you can guess what happened next...

Yep.  A line went up pretty quickly!

I don't think it's self-evident in the picture, but we have a four car carport attached to the back of the house.  The best place to put the line, without having to haul wet laundry hundreds of feet across the property, was along the back side of the carport.  We were able to put up about 80-100 feet of line, doubling it as you see it.

It actually works quite nicely.  It's hard to hang or take down the clothes when the cars are parked under the carport (the other two sides hold our machinery, tools, and kids outdoor toys and bikes.)  But the line gets a good breeze, and is protected from rain, hail, and bird poop.  Yes, the bird poop is always fun.

Additionally, if I get the clothing up in the morning, the sun comes over the hill midmorning and hits the clothes just right.  So I'm able to use the sun to bleach out stains (this is remarkably effective!)

It's more work.  But it's refreshing - peaceful, even - to go outside and hang those clothes out.  To connect with women before me, completing the same tasks as they did.  One recent fact I read was that only 10% of households in 1955 had a dryer.  My grandmother (born in the 1940s) was probably the first generation to enjoy a dryer, and then only when her children were mostly grown.  In most other countries, clothes dryers are still rare!

To be honest, I also feel like I'm kind of "flipping the bird" at the power company, too! :D