When we were in Amish country last Saturday, everywhere we looked we saw laundry hanging. The warmth of the sun coupled with the fresh breezes made it a great day to get the laundry out.
At the place above, clothes hang from the porch rafters as well as on a pulley system that stretches the length of the yard.
Who needs fabric softener when you have the wind slapping your clothes? Not me, baybee.
We’re headed home at this point, when we saw all the laundry and these are only a few photos I managed to glean. But it seemed that every place we passed had full lines out.
And then we came home ourselves and took advantage of the sun.
Some of you commented recently about the hanging out of laundry in the wintertime. We’ve hung ours out all through the winter. The trick is to do it on a sunny day. It will dry if the sun is shining. It may freeze a little bit (or a lot) but it will eventually dry. We have a little protected area by the mudroom door that is perfect for a laundry line.
And we can always pop it into the dryer to fluff it up, if we like. But we rarely do.
My husband even hung out the clothes during the deep snows last month. He couldn’t really get much on the line with the snow that high, though.
This last photo was taken around the holidays. And no, that’s not George’s own little towel. It’s a hand towel we use in the powder room.
I love hanging things on the line. It gives me a nice sense of order, helps to save money, keeps my husband busy, and I like the idea of using nature to dry my clothes.
To those who asked, we live in Maryland but every now and then we do a grocery run to Lancaster County in Pennsylvania. It’s just over an hour from our home.
Have a beautiful day, all. Until tomorrow, then . . .
All photos taken using a Nikon D80 camera with either a Quantaray 70-300mm lens, Nikon DX 18-55mm lens or a Nikkor 50mm lens.
On our drive home from the lake this weekend we passed a house with such colorful clothes hanging outside, I really wanted to tell hubby to turn around so I could take a shot, but I knew better! ;-)
ReplyDeleteWhen we go to England, we stay at one of hubby's sisters and she dries her wash outside, but the bath towels are so stiff when using after a shower! I do like the thought of fresh line dried clothes, though.
Unfortunately, in the burbs it's a no-no to have a clothes line.
You know what, and people are going to think me crazy, but I actually prefer the towels that way. It's weird, but I like them!
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's unfortunate to have that law.
~ C.G.
I miss hanging out clothes. I had to give it up because of allergy sufferers in our house (mostly the dog). But there's nothing like climbing into a bed that's been made with sheets fresh from the line.
ReplyDeleteI love line dried clothes and especially sheets and towels! We need to put a retractable line up here! Growing up it was my job to hang the clothes or bring them in, I wonder what happened to my mom's old clothespin pouch?!
ReplyDeleteKat :)
I miss have a clothes line....I used to love to hang out sheets and put them on the bed when they were done...they felt like sunshine...
ReplyDeleteSuch a smart way to do a cloths line indeed! I just wouldn't want to go out in the cold with wet cloths...BURR! But I'm a whimp I guess! Come say hi :D
ReplyDeleteI love the smell of laundry dried outside. :)
ReplyDeleteMy word verification is "soarywog" -- I don't know what that means, but I thought it was kinda funny...
Kate:
ReplyDeleteLove the photos. The thought of hanging laundry on the line brings back thoughts of my childhood. Florida is usually too humid to hang things out to dry, but perhaps I'll give it a try next laundry day.
I love George's towel, too! So sweet.
Kes has her own apre-swim towels, but none with her own monogram. I just added it to my "To Do" list! Thanks for the idea.
xoxo
Donna
Up until a couple of years ago, we had a no clothes line law too. That's changed with the need to go green.. thank goodness. I can smell your wonderful laundry from here. :)
ReplyDeleteyou flew me right to my grandmother's
ReplyDeleteclothesline.
ah..the smell of sun dried clothes.
'bounce' can't compare!
My parents are the same way, year-round they're hangin' out the clothes. I love line-drying in warmer months but can't quite muster up the energy to drag wet clothes out to the line in freezing weather. Maybe if I didn't wait and do fourteen loads at once, it wouldn't be so cumbersome.
ReplyDeleteVery cute hand towel, but I'm not convinced it isn't George's. He probably has his own line of napkins and bed linens too.
I hung mine on a rack in the house. I had to shovel the back deck off to be able to put them outside.... Next week my friend. :D George makes me smile!
ReplyDeleteI love the smell of laundry that has dried outside. I live in a small country town in Australia & we have the opposite problem, towels don't go stiff from the cold, they go stiff(or crunchey as my 9 yr old says!)from the heat!
ReplyDeleteToday however I have washing hanging over racks inside,we have had rain, lots & lots of rain. Enough to fill our almost empty tanks! In fact more rain in 3 days than we have had in 2 years! Outside is smelling lovely & fresh! You can't beat that rain "smell"!!
I don't mean to sound like a science geek, but there's a name for the process of wet laundry drying when it's below 32 degrees.
ReplyDeleteIn the science world it's called sublimation....I learned that from my hubby. It really does work.
I'm so glad to see someone else hangs their clothes out in COLD weather.
I am so getting a clothesline. And a George.
ReplyDeletePerspective. I've always line dried. Tho my dryer does get used when it's rainy. When my son was young, he thought his clean clothes that had come out of the dryer were dirty..lol..he was used to the starchy/snappy line dried ones.
ReplyDeleteYup, those line dried towels get the job done!
Nice blog Kate, I miss our trips to the Mid-West and the Amish buggies.
Clothes dryers really rack up the utility bill. I only wash and dry when I have full loads. Gosh I love the smell of line dried clothes.
ReplyDeleteDi
The Blue Ridge Gal
I love amish country and actually we have our own little pockets around here where they live....
ReplyDeleteand the clothes on the line....oh, the memories of my grandmother hanging the sheets out to dry and then coming inside and ironing them and the pillow cases when they were all dry....
handkerchiefs, too
i have always hung on a line ...in Texas ...summer... 20 mins!!
ReplyDeleteMy Mom at 91 still hangs towels on the clothes line....and sheets. I miss hanging clothes. Have been nagging FlyBoy for years for a clothes line....guess it is never going to happen.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere I have a photograph (taken by a professional) of an Amish woman hanging clothes on a line on a bit of a windy day. Just can't figure out where to hang it.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in seminary my apartment had a washer but not a working dryer. Clothes went out on a pulley line from my second floor balcony. I prefer soft and supple to the stiffness of air-dried, but I got used to it, and occasionally miss that experience. What I don't miss is when the wind whipped the clothes around the two lines and you had to "unwhip" them back before you could pull them in!
There was one house we lived in that came with a laundry line. I remember how clean the clothes smelled when we brought them in. Delightful!
ReplyDeleteI haven't hung laundry in forever. I did it all through the summers that K3 was very young and I wasn't working. Gosh we were poor! But our clothes smelled terrific!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a little girl, I loved the smell of fresh laundry from the line. I could smell the change of seasons in the laundry, and my favorite was spring.
ReplyDeleteI also loved the squeaking sound of the clothesline as the clothing were being hung out to dry.
If the world had kept two things -- streetcars and clothes lines -- we would be in much better shape now. Live and learn...
Nothing better than a bed freshly made with sheets that have dried outdoors. Ahhhh.....
ReplyDelete:0) I live in MD too, but grocery shop in PA. That struck me as funny for some reason. I love to hang out the laundry but my line broke last summer and I have yet to replace it. I miss it.
ReplyDeleteMornin Kate, My Granny taught me how to hang a proper line. We sorted everything. Sheets in the basket first, then towels and so on down the line, all getting smaller til the line was full. She had 3 lines, and she always hung the "undies" on the middle line. How cute was that. I too can remember how the sheets felt and smelled. Yummmm. Thank you for another great, "start to the day" post. T
ReplyDeleteI love your photos, esp the beautiful birds, I live in WA and the south east corner is desert like, so we don't get the beautiful birds you all have. I also adored your pic's of amish country. I've been there a few times, and it always amazes me their way of life, their homes, barns, etc. Thanks for always sharing such awesoem pictures!!
ReplyDeleteGrowing up in the Bronx many apartments had cothes lines out the bathroom window (I am assuming now looking back it was because you did small handwashes of lingerie or other undies in the bathroom basin) and most of those lines had pulleys ... ToonMan does our laundry but I do the folding, his idea of folding is not mine .. or probably anyone else's.
ReplyDeleteI love this. I hung out all my comforters this weekend and now they smell so good. It's amazing what the sunshine can do.
ReplyDeleteWhen I tell people that I use a "solar dryer" they're always curious as to how it works...very easy to install!! Have never wanted anything more.
ReplyDeleteLOL...we don't have a clothes line. I can see it now, cat's hanging off the clothes.
ReplyDeleteReally enjoyed my visit to Amish country! Thanks, and enjoyed visiting your blog too! :)carole
ReplyDelete