New Clothesline (Going Green in Style)

     The current ‘going green’ trend rather tickles me. For a century now, appliances have been invented and perfected to lessen the burden of household chores. Two of these, the dishwasher and the clothes dryer, are standard and indispensable to modern homes. My mother had seven children and never owned a dishwasher - she still doesn’t. I have had one most of my adult life and, yes, I used it frequently but to be honest, I value it more for keeping dirty dishes out of sight than for the actual washing. It seems the time taken to scrape and load and later put away, is pretty much the same time it takes to wash by hand. I know there are studies and comparisons about energy and water consumption. What the studies don’t include is the psychological argument for hand washing and drying.

     In the "olden times" when it was my brother’s turn to dry dishes, he provoked my mother but made his stint a little more interesting by piling cups upon bowls upon plates to see how high they would stack. Luckily most were melamine but in any case he found a way to enjoy the chore. As for me, I don’t entirely dislike the feel and scent of warm soapy water and find it relaxing. The big window over my sink is another enticement – as the season roll by, I can watch cardinals and chickadees and finches at the feeders or goldfish jumping up the little waterfall in the pond or a ball of baby squirrels tussling in the grass. Since the double sink can only drain so many dishes at once, some must be dried and put away immediately. Therefore it is not a job put off till later, as is the case with a dishwasher.

     I am glad I have a clothes dryer. That said, I am also glad I have a clothesline in the basement and another in the backyard. A short aside on line drying: When my son was an infant, we had a washer but couldn’t afford a dryer. Disposable diapers were just being introduced and were out of my price range, so like my mother and her mother, I used cloth diapers and thought nothing of it. However, my mother-in-law took me aside one day to tell me that my fabric softener wasn’t working. Her unwelcome lecture couldn’t change anything (except increase my disdain for her pretentiousness) and she didn’t offer to buy us a dryer either. However, Michael never had diaper rash and he suffered no ill effects from his less-than-soft diapers.

     Back to the present, when I decided that my old rusty metal clothesline pole, original to the house and placed sixty years ago, was an eyesore and needed to be replaced. After some online research, I decided on wood instead of metal and tried the local hardware stores, with no success. Even the online outlets had only utilitarian, generic looking poles made of 6x6 posts and crossbars – ugly! Since I wanted something with a little more style, I kept searching until I found something appealing but it was outrageously priced. With a little skill and a lot of enthusiasm, I began measuring and sketching, then shopping for cedar and screws and line, and finally a few hours of sawing, sanding, assembling and staining. Michael, who is now thirty something, helped me dig and place the pole in concrete (only one was needed – the lines are attached to a very large tree at the other end). 

     I am quite proud of my handiwork and think the cedar and copper are gorgeous in the sunlight. And nothing smells more comforting than sheets line-dried in the sun.

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