It’s mid-April, and already we’ve accomplished 2 out of my 3 outdoor projects for the month. I’m pretty happy with that. My hubby and dad put up our clothesline for us last weekend and I’ve been using it and loving it all week. And hubs also made a rain barrel for us, but has to redo the lid, so it’s not operational quite yet, but it’s close enough that I’ll call it done! Thanks babe!
Maybe it’s still new and novel, but I LOVE going out and hanging my clothes on the line. There is something just peaceful about it. The weather has been BEAUTIFUL here this past week, and after the long and cold winter cooped up inside, I just can’t get enough excuses to go outside – hanging up laundry is a great one! It’s just so great to slow down, get outside, enjoy creation and smell the lilacs. There is a lilac bush, which is one of my favorites, right alongside the clothesline and it smells so good when the breeze blows past. 🙂 It’s peaceful and relaxing and so far, I’m really enjoying it.
I also hung out my a load of cloth diapers, and I loved seeing the diapers on the line. Cloth diapers hanging out to dry on a clothesline – it made me so happy, it really is the little things!
I washed our sheets and hung them out on the second day the line was up, because I’ve always read about how great lined dried sheets are. If you have not line dried your sheets before (I never had) you have to try it! They smell so fresh and so clean, and they come off the line nice and crisp, but still soft. I realized why fabric softeners smell the way they do, the are trying to imitate the beautiful, natural smell of nature, but of course they can’t compete with the real thing!
If you don’t have a clothesline, I highly encourage you to get one! It doesn’t have to be complicated. Ours is a retractable one that my parents gave us and goes between two of our big trees in our backyard. It’s not long enough to hold an entire load of laundry, 🙁 so we need to put up another line between the tree and the garage, but it’s definitely a good start. Did you know that between 6-10% of a households energy use goes to drying clothes in the dryer? I’m really interested and excited to see how our electric bill changes (goes down!) once we have our second clothesline up and we can hang out all our laundry!
And if you need a little more motivation to put up a clothesline, this Monday, April 19th is National Hanging Out Day. It is a day created by Project Laundry List to educate people and communities about the benefits of line drying your clothes – it good for your wallet and for the earth. So, put up a clothesline this weekend and hang out your clothes on Monday and show your support for naturally drying your clothing!
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Cloth diapers hanging on the washing line is definately one of life’s simple pleasures.
I live in the country and no houses are close by so i hang my clothes on the fence. I have a strand of barb wire at the top and field fence under that. I hang small stuff on the barb wire and the barbs actually hold the stuff in place and NO I have never gotten a tear from the barb wire. For towels and jeans, I hang them on the field fence and they all dry perfectly. My dad say’s everyone used to do it that way.
That’s a great alternative to a clothesline Jason! Thanks for your comment!