Over time, I have discovered some slightly unanticipated pros and cons of eschewing the dryer in favor of hanging the laundry outdoors, just like Mom used to in the good old days (good old days: back when Mom used to do everything and made it look easy).
- I get to spend extra time with my older cat. The younger one isn't allowed outside, so he gets uninterrupted access to me when I hang laundry. His job is to come sit on my foot.
- It is easier than ever to fold fitted sheets. When they dry on the line, I can pick up the corners, and match them to the corners still clipped to the clothesline. I unclip only when I have the matching corners firmly in hand. My fitted sheets have never been folded so neatly.
- It is SO much easier to match socks! I pull everything else down from the clothesline, but leave the socks hanging. Now with just socks hanging, each by a single clothespin, I can see the matching socks easily, and pull them down in pairs, folding them together as I go. They go into the laundry basket already matched up.
- Speaking of folding. I don't know about you, but I am terrible about folding clothes out of the dryer. If it weren't for my amazing husband, we would probably only rarely have folded clothing at all. Seriously. I dig stuff out of the dryer, toss it into the laundry basket on the floor, carry it to the family room, and figure I will fold it later that night. By nightfall I am worn out, and forget it. For some reason, when I pull clothes from the laundry line outdoors, it seems like a no-brainer to simply fold each item carefully as I unclip it from the line and lay it in the basket. I think this might be because I am not bending over. Whatever the reason, clothes come down off of the laundry line folded nicely. If they come out of the dryer, we better hope my husband is not traveling.
- The clothes smell better than they ever have. No more chemical fabric softener smell. Even with allergies to pretty much all my state plant life, nothing smells better to me than fresh grass (fescue, not the other kind).
- Because I now wash with baking soda instead of fabric softener (yes, we still use detergent!) I'm saving beaucoup bucks on not buying fabric softener.
- My dryer is probably 9 years old now. I don't even want to add up how much money I am saving in electricity by line-drying my clothes in the sun.
- My dryer is 9 years old now. How much wear and tear am I saving, and extending its life so we don't have to shell out for a new one yet?
- It gives me carte blanche to see what my neighbors are up to. I'm not staring, I'm hanging up my wash.
- If I have been stuck inside with doing school with the kids, housework, chores, writing silly blog posts, running errands, it gets me outdoors for at least fifteen minutes twice a day.
- What can be more fun in the spring or after a few rounds of hurricanes than a rousing game of WHERE IS THE &*(&R#*()#&*#( hole for the clothesline in all this grass???? (fescue).
- At first, line dried clothes can look and feel a tad stiff, particularly since we no longer use fabric softener (interesting note-- it took about five loads of wash before all the fabric softener came out of the clothes-- wow, that stuff is really layered on there!! We used scent free/dye free softeners, and sometimes earth friendly/green varieties, because of our kids' allergies). Baking soda in the wash water helped with that quite a bit (and made the laundry smell amazingly good, btw. My husband is not completely sold. He grew up on fabric softener, not grass (fescue) scenting his clothes, and isn't quite used to this new system yet). However, two minutes after you don them, line-dried clothes soften right up. And frankly, they feel CLEAN like nothing out of the dryer (or with fabric softener) ever really has to me.
There have also been a few unanticipated negatives to our new-found eco-friendly clothing cleanliness regime. Namely:
- Our neighborhood is rife with dogs. Not everyone cleans up the dog pooh, and we have had a summer of hot weather. Nothing overrides the smell of nice, fresh grass (fescue) like melting dog poo at 104 degrees fahrenheit. Thanks for that, guys.
- There is a skunk who occasionally pays a visit to the underside of our shed and deck. He was just there again earlier this week. Something had obviously frightened him earlier in the day. I had to wonder whether the dryer might not be a better option. BTW sweetheart, if anyone in Sweden wonders about American fabric softener, just tell them it's made in China.
- I try to be a live and let live kind of person. And certain smells actually bring back wondeful memories. Before contracting throat cancer when I was 7, my father used to smoke a pipe. To this day, I fondly remember the smell of his pipe tobacco. to me, it is the smell of security, warmth, love, and safety. I know the smell of his specific tobacco, which is still being made. Someone in our neighborhood uses it. I smile when I smell it-- after all, he stands in his own yard to smoke it, and I don't have the right to tell him what to ingest or inhale, and he is in his own back yard. If it flares my asthma, I may grumble, but I go indoors. We can't pen up smokers everywhere. But it does seem that there ought to be a way to work out a schedule between my laundry drying and his pipe smoking, because I don't want my 8YO to run around smelling like pipe tobacco. In fairness, I have not raised the subject. How do you even do that? "Dear all neighbors. In the event of sun, I plan to hang my underwear outdoors for all to see and enjoy. Please refrain from doing anything stinky, because I prefer the smell of grass (fescue) to your rank dog poos, scared skunks, barbeues, pipes, cigarettes, mal-adjusted exhaust pipes, backyard fires, or anything else you were planning on doing. Thanks!" No, I think that in the joy that is living in suburbia, I just have to take my chances.
- I do, of course, have to hang my underwear outdoors for all to see and enjoy. There is no mystery. Anyone on the block can see for themselves what colors, decorations, or cup size any time they stroll on past. I rely on the idea that nobody particularly wishes to have this information, saving perhaps kids going through the hell of puberty, hang delicates closer to the center of the clothes pole when possible, and assume nobody is really paying attention, other than wondering what the weirdo who apparently cannot operate an electric dryer will do next.
In sum, I feel the pros outweigh the cons. It feels as if I am helping the environment, doing my bit to help my family use a smaller carbon footprint, and I, at least feel our clothes smell and feel cleaner and fresher. My husband may not agree on the better smell thing, but on the other hand, he does enjoy finding the clothes pre-folded when he comes home (he might say that it's a wash --rimshot)
I do know that my clothes are lasting longer than they did (oh, does that add up to more savings??) before. Most of all, I just enjoy the process. I like line-dried clothes. And my cat, Stanley, definitely enjoys his time coming to sit on my foot.
