A little milestone this weekend at our house: We installed our retractable clothesline and dried the first load of laundry in the sun.
I’m amazed I’ve never done this before. It was incredibly pleasant, especially when I took the clothes down. Somehow, folding sun-warmed clothes and putting them in a basket that was sitting right on the grass felt like the cleanest activity in the world.
Garments and garden!
I realized I need to develop my technique with the wooden clothespins (or just get others of the spring-loaded clip variety)—it’s funny to say, but those buggers are tough to use! (Draping works OK, but probably not on a windy day.) And, of course, I realized that drying clothes in this manner will indeed be more time-consuming than tossing them in the dryer.
However, I expect the energy savings will make it worthwhile. And, like everything else, it’s all about moderation. I do have a dryer at my disposal if I don’t have time (or sun) to make the clothesline work. Every load I can dry outside is an improvement over our former laundromat dependence.
Who’s using a clothesline? What do you do when the weather’s bad?
