There's a delightful blog I follow written by two ladies in Iowa (The Iowa Housewife) and this morning the post was a picture of a line of clothes hung outside in a cold, blustery, snow-filled back yard.
Oh, the memories. Back in the days before I had a clothes dryer in the house, I did hang my clothes outside year 'round. The biggest hurdle in the winter I found to be finding gloves (mittens were much too clumsily frustrating) to wear so that my hands didn't suffer frostbite. (A goal never quite reached.)
The first several years we were married, I took our laundry to the local laundromat. (Ugh, I hated that.) Then around 1970, we moved and rented what was the ground floor of an old farmhouse that had been remodeled into a lower and upper apartment. (When I say this farmhouse was old, I mean it. The original part of the structure had been built as a stagecoach stop.)
Mrs. Rector, our lovely 80-some year old landlady, lived in the apartment upstairs and kindly told me I could use the clothes lines in the back yard to hang our washed clothes. (I did have a washer then, but no dryer.)
This was back in Illinois and many days in the winter, the temperature stayed below freezing. If there was sun and a breeze, the clothes dried better than you might think. But many times, at the end of two (or three) days, everything would still be frozen and I would give up and bring the laundry inside to drape over every surface possible to thaw and finish drying.
Dear Mrs. Rector, being of the old school when many babies didn't survive infancy, repeatedly warned me that bringing in all that cold, frozen laundry would lower the temperature of our living space and I needed to be very careful that my then infant daughter didn't "catch cold."
I do remember awkwardly bringing in sheets that were frozen stiff and felt like the sails of an ocean-going vessel.
In the area at that time there were many farm auctions and we frequently attended them. At one we purchased (for $7.00) a large, wooden, folding clothes rack which I used in the winter to hang as much of the laundry inside as I could. That helped the situation a lot.
That rack was made rock-solid and I still have it (some fifty years later) and used it once again earlier this winter when our gas dryer went on the fritz and wasn't usable for three weeks. That rack is one piece of household equipment with which I'll never part.
Were those times the good old days? In many ways, yes. Nothing wrong with a little challenge (little, perhaps, being the operative word) and knowing you can successfully bring self-sufficiency into play. Plus, there's something about seeing laundry hanging out on the line by a house that makes it all feel lived in, efficient and cared for.
16 comments:
Yep... I remember those frozen sheets on the line in Wyoming...where the wind never stops blowing... looked more like a sail boat dock than a ranch clothes line... ha ! Nothing like the smell of wind blown sheets when crawling into bed at night. Thanks for those wonderful memories!
I don't miss owning a dryer, but I'm not superwoman enough to want to hang laundry outside in the winter. I have lines strung across my basement instead. Nice look back in time.
wyomingheart - Hope your wind blown sheets were totally thawed before you crawled into bed at night. ;o)
tpals - Oh, come on, I know you're tough enough to hang laundry outside in the winter! ;o) All the years I was growing up, my mom had only a wringer washer in the basement. No dryer. But we did have lines strung in the basement, like you, and everything dried very nicely that way. More than one way to skin a cat (sorry, cat lovers, that was insensitive) . . . or dry your laundry. :o)
I have my mom's old wooden drying rack (which has arms you pull up and out like wagon spokes) and use it for every load. I have a dryer, but use it mostly for getting the wrinkles out of shirts and slacks before hanging them and only rarely for actually completely drying anything. In the winter when we're burning wood, I figure it adds much needed moisture to our dry, dry air.
Michelle - Oh, for sure! Drying wet laundry in the house does actually add moisture to the air which is often lacking during the winter months. Smart lady, you are!
Hands frozen numb is the worst part of line drying laundry in winter. Makes me glad for my old dryer, although I would dearly love to have a drying rack like yours!
When I moved to my cabin one of the , to me, most needed changes was to get the washer/dryer out of my bedroom closet. So I could hang my clothes in it.
When then happened I moved the laundry to an alcove of the shop. The dryer was propane . Ouch because moving it all to the shop I had to kiss the older propane dryer goodbye. The cost to extend the propane connection was crazy.
I have hung out forever and as you say Mama Pea with the appropriate equation of wind, sun and temperature it will dry just about year round.
However this winter I had an epiphany, my small living room has a loft above it . Bingo take wooden clothes hanger upstairs and with the stove going just about 24/7 dry clothes and linens are no problem. I still hang my wranglers on the firewall behind the stove as they are thicker. A bit of extra close up heat makes short work of them.
Great post Mama Pea!
I still use big wooden drying racks for quite a bit of my laundry. I only hang things on the line in reasonable temperatures. I do love sheets that have hung outside. -Jenn
Leigh - I admit I do rely on and use my gas dryer almost all winter long. My excuse (poor one?) is that it's so much faster than spreading out on the rack (and other places) to dry. The clothes also are much more wrinkle-free. But even though that may make me sound lazy, I do feel good knowing I could (very well) do without the dryer in the winter. Does that sound like rationalization for handling winter laundry? Yup.
Goatldi - The only drawback to hanging your laundry up in your loft is hauling the wet clothes UP there. But as I often repeat (like a broken record), we must keep using our muscles or we will lose the use of them. You've found a really good solution.
Jenn - I'm kinda surprised to hear that so many avoid using an electric or gas dryer and do use indoor drying racks. That's a good thing. And yay, for sheets blown dry in the fresh air!
I have no personal experience with hanging clothes out to dry having always lived either in a city or a suburb. But I do have a memory from my grandmother that is similar to those expressed in the post. She had a wringer washing machine - a device that you fed your cloths after washing through a wringer to get all the water out of them. A dangerous contraption but better I guess than using a scrub board in a sink. Then she took her wet cloths to the dinning room window which looked out the back of the house, and attached to the house was a close line that extended from the house (just outside the window) to a poll off in the distance that spread over a steep decline that was the “back yard” but was usable for nothing because it was so steep.
It makes me sad that memories like the ones in your post and in my mind will die with us - only to be share maybe in a book that no one in generations after us are likely to read. These memories are of a simpler time when speed wasn’t as essential because you weren’t also trying to juggle a job. Laundry time was time consuming. There were few non-wrinkle items so there was ironing on top of the washing and drying.
I didn't have a regulation washer and dryer until my fourth child was born. During winter I hung clothes on the old crib rails (from my first child) hung from the ceiling on pulleys. I washed the clothes in the bath tub. Today, I use a similar set up when it's below freezing even though I have a washer and dryer...all those cloth diapers took up the majority of the space in years past.
I very, very rarely use the dryer. Everything gets hung out in reasonable weather, and for the winter, the old, wooden clothes racks do the job very well. I found a good one at an auction once, and got it for a song, as no one else wanted it! I remember hauling in the frozen clothes off the line in the winter, big, stiff, cumbersome things, they were!
Retired Knitter - I think there were many fingers and hands that got caught in those wringers mounted on top of the first "automatic" washing machines. Also I remember my mom fussing and fuming when a button went through the wringer at just the wrong angle and cracked right in half. I feel the same way you do about so much that was every day life of generations before us being lost. Even if very few eyes ever see or read such memories, I think it's important for us to write out those circumstances of how life used to be. And we need to do it before it's too late.
Cockeyed Jo - No washer or dryer until your fourth child was born. And hand washing clothes in the bath tub. I'm nominating you for sainthood!
Rosalea - You have my sincere admiration. Now that my dryer is working again, I'm thinking I'm going to feel very guilty every time I use it! :o\
Nothing smells better than freeze dried clothes. The diapers were always so soft and froze dry pretty fast.
No worries I have a nice flight of stairs five up landing six up and then I’m in the second story with the guest bedroom bathroom fiber room and the loft. However I will admit to the fact that if my ancient washing machine that I inherited with the house does not do a good spin cycle things get a little drippy but so far so good and you’re right use it or lose it!
Joyce F - I wonder if the diapers weren't even "healthier" being dried out of doors in the sun, wind, and fresh air?
Goatldi - Yep, that exercise, hauling baskets of wet (sometimes wetter than others!) clothes up those stairs is also money saving. No gym fees. ;o)
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