More Than a Clothes Line

This post is written by my cousin Carolee in Ohio. I am a slave to my dryer, but inspired by Carolee’s commitment, and the joy she finds in line drying her clothes. Of course, it’s better for the earth and probably your clothes, but I never realized it could be good for your soul, too. She’s given me much to think about. Enjoy!

One of the joys of my life comes from connecting with the rhythms of the earth - weather, seasons, daylight and darkness. Eat what's in season. Sleep when it's dark. Wake when it's light. Garden in the early morning before it's hot as blazes. Open windows in the early morning and close them up to hold in the cool air when the sun drives the temperature up. Do laundry when it will dry well. It's rather like Cara's living close to the earth for food production. Buying local and growing one's own are on the same spectrum as line drying one's laundry. A bright sunny, breezy day will dry clothes in a flash.

Do I dry everything? No, I don't like "crunchy" underwear, wrinkled "good" t-shirts and socks that don't stay up. I dry these on low to help them regain their shape and stretchiness. I also machine dry permanent press shirts and pants to remove wrinkles and most of our dark blue and black clothes to remove cat and bunny hair.

I line dry about two-thirds of our laundry. I love napkins and table cloths that look like they've been ironed when all it took was a good shake and a smart snap of the material before hanging the item on a drying rack or clothes line. Jeans and heavy pants and shirts hung neatly will dry with creases in all the right places. Towels give the loofah affect when line dried. Wash cloths, rags, you name it -- line dry unless it needs the machine to dry well.

The equipment is simple:

• Clothes line(s) outside. I have 2 retractable lines that run from the house to a tree. One line stays up pretty much all the time and the other, which runs more through the center of the yard; I reel in when not in use. Lines are available at hardware stores.

• Poles to prop up the lines to prevent excess strain on the lines and drooping long items on to the ground. These light weight metal poles with tops designed to hold the line can be found at hardware stores. I have 2 per line, though depending on the weight of the items hanging, I may not use them all.

• Large drying racks to use indoors and out. These are ideal for small, short items (napkins, rags, washcloths) that take up lots of line space when hung on the line and for heavy items (bath mats and rugs) that might drag the clothes line down. The racks fold and are easy to grab and bring in if rain approaches. I sometimes load my 2 racks on the screened porch when the weather is "iffy" and I'm leaving for the day.

• Wooden clothes pins that grip well. Skip the plastic as these are more easily broken. Pins sometimes snap off the line, break, get lost in the grass or migrate to the kitchen to hold chip, cracker and coffee bean bags closed -- so buy more than you expect to need.

• An pocket apron to hold the cloths pins. I have an "84 Lumber" nail apron. The apron is kind adults wear at the school carnival to collect and hold the tickets at the kid games.

• For indoor drying - the same large racks used outside and a pipe or pole hanging from your basement or attic ceiling upon which you can hang hangers.

• Plastic hangers and hangers with plastic clips to hang skirts and pants. I have a bunch of hangers that came with little kid's clothes that work well for small skirts and pants. I bought plastic kid size hangers for my 7 y.o.'s shirts since full size hangers stretch out her stuff. Nearly all of our family's clothes are hung in closets, including t-shirts, sweatshirts and sweaters. I dry them on the hanger and transfer to the closet on the same hanger -- no folding required.

How to?

• If time if of the essence - hang items from the end to allow only a single layer. If not, flip the towel or sheet over the line so it hangs in a double layer. Depending on the weather, things dry in about half a day if in a double layer and in a couple of hours in a single layer.

• It's okay to pull stuff off the line nearly dry and finish it up in just a few minutes in the machine. This happens to me when I put stuff out at 3:30 and it's not quite dry by the approach of darkness and the evening dew coming on.

• Shake out wrinkles and hang clothes like you want them to look then they are dry. I give pants a good shake, clip them into hangers and hang them up to dry. Once dry - it's straight to the closet. I often pull the pockets inside out. I hang sweat pants and shorts with pockets inside out to help the pockets dry as fast as the rest of the material.

• Items on hangers are hung directly on the clothes line with clothes pins as spacers to keep clothes from sliding together. Since the weight is concentrated, I use a pole or two to prop up the line in this area.

The blessing of line drying is that I no longer am in control of the schedule -- the rain is. I leave for work at 6:30 a.m. and return home at 3:15 to meet the kids arriving from school. So, if rain is likely my "no laundry" excuse is set! Bookmark http://www.weather.gov/ for the most accurate predictions. I do have the blessing of a neighbor who also line dries, so she will take down laundry and put it on my screened porch if rain comes unexpectedly and she sees laundry on my lines. I try not to set her up for running and grabbing laundry since she's well into her 80's!

In the winter, the weather excuse is gone -- but the humidity level of the house benefits from each drying towel, jeans or linen. I turn on the radio and "hide" in the basement from the busy family above my head.

In the spring, summer and fall -- I truly enjoy my early mornings hanging clothes in the quiet dawn. I listen to the birds and think of other women working quietly as the day starts. It's often dark and I'm waiting for enough light to feel safe riding my bike (with flashing lights and a "don't kill me" green vest) to work. In the afternoon and on the weekend days I often find myself thinking of my mother and women in the neighborhood where I grew up -- every single one had and used a clothes line. Now, I am an oddity -- what's with that? Sunlight and breezes are free! They use no fossils fuels and create no pollution. By washing items sorted not only by color, but also by "machine dry or not" criteria the use of the dryer is minimized. I often wash 3 to 4 loads and consolidate the machine dry items to 1 dryer load. The rest is blowing in the sunny breeze - for free!

No Impact Man

My children and I watched the film, No Impact Man recently. It’s a documentary about a young couple and their baby daughter who live on Fifth Avenue in New York City and attempt to live for a year making no impact on the environment. This leads to eating locally grown organic food, generating no trash except for compost, using no traditional electricity, and using no carbon-fueled transportation. The film was premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

I will confess to allowing my younger children to believe No Impact Man was some kind of super hero who never touches anyone, right up until the moment we dimmed the lights and hit the remote. For the first ten minutes, my seven-year-old kept turning to me and asking, “Are they just going to talk the whole time?” but soon he was just as interested as I was in the adventure unfolding before us.

The point is brought up several times during the movie that perhaps this is all just some gimmick to allow Colin (No Impact Man) to promote his blog and sell his book. A tactic I can completely understand. I confess to feeling not a small amount of jealousy that I didn’t think of this first and that my blog doesn’t attract radio interviewers on the phone and Good Morning America to my door. Colin is tortured emotionally by this issue as he deals with the hate mail his project generates. He definitely hit a nerve. The surprising thing was not the nasty letters from meat-eating, liberal hating, materialistically motivated folks, but the letters from environmentalists and sustainable-living proponents. They felt that his project was embarrassing and silly. He faces his own demons here and comes to the conclusion that he’s going to do what it takes to publish his books, so why not actually use that energy to do some good with his writing. If he can change his own lifestyle and maybe inspire someone else to change theirs, even the tiniest bit, than he’s doing something worthwhile (and increasing his odds of selling his book and becoming famous in documentary-land). I respect that. But I’m still jealous.

We enjoyed learning about the “Pot in a Pot” refrigerator, how quickly added worms can make compost, and the art of washing your clothes in the bathtub with your feet. We were grossed out (as were No Impact Wife’s co-workers) at the idea of not using toilet paper. (They used scraps of washable fabric.) We were very self-satisfied when they talked about making their own cleaning supplies (altogether now: “We already do that!!”). I think this film put my own efforts in to perspective for my kids. Maybe mom isn’t so crazy, she could be a lot worse. I caught my 13-year-old watching me warily to see if I was getting any ideas.

I did get a few ideas and spent some time the next day journaling out my fantasy of living a sustainable life off the grid. But now I’ve come back down to reality and begun to ponder what I can take away from the film. I think it makes me even more conscious and committed to living an earth-friendly life. Especially because I know that an earth-friendly life is a human-friendly life and it makes us all healthier.

I’m not ready to shut off my electricity, but I did send away for a solar-powered water heater information packet. This morning I flicked on the light in the bathroom and then realized I was doing that out of habit. There’s plenty of light in our bathroom. I don’t really need that light. I’m just programmed to reach right and hit the switch each time I walk in to a room. So I’m making a resolution to stop using lights I don’t need. My children have the same habit. I’m setting out to break the habit for all of us. I happily chirped, “Let’s have less impact!” as I remind them to turn off their lights.

The No Impact Family doesn’t use any kind of carbon-fueled transportation. They use their bicycles and scooters. I’ve got several serviceable four legged animals in the pasture, but I’m not sure my town could handle me riding up to the post office on my aging pony. So as much as that seems like a great option, it’s not really an option. I guess I’m not ready to risk public humiliation in my quest for a greener life. Bicycle riding is also an option although we live in a bike un-friendly area with narrow winding, hilly roads with no shoulders. The sidewalk-free shopping areas in town would be just as dangerous for bikers. I’ve even found that as I bike for pleasure, cars pass frighteningly close to me and some drivers seem to scowl in annoyance that I am on the road. Public transportation in this little rural/suburban outpost is virtually non-existent, although we do have two Park-n-Rides, which is a good thing.

Still, I do think I can do less driving. I need to combine all my errands in to one or two times a week. I tend to jump in the car and run out whenever I need something or the longing for wi-fi hits me. I’m going to commit to putting less miles on my car. Truly I have no idea how to do this since my kids have a myriad of activities that require my taxi service. I will start by driving them to practice and bringing my laptop or book and hanging around rather than dropping them and going home, only to go back an hour later. That will cut out a few miles. But at least I have an excuse when they beg to go to Rita’s or want to burn through their allowance at Wal-Mart – “Let’s have less impact!”

My kids were uncharacteristically quiet at the conclusion of the film so I don’t know for sure what they thought. I do believe the things they saw on the film will stay with them and hopefully lead to some questions down the road. I’m also, of course, hoping it generates a little more buy-in on their part for all my living organic shenanigans. I will caution anyone who is offended by the occasional foul word, that these are New Yorkers living in New York in the film, so there is a little f-this and f-that here and there. When the first one came flying across the screen, my kids raised their eyebrows in unison and looked at me. I said, “I think you’re smart enough to handle adults using bad language.” And we moved on. That said, I think it’s a great movie to watch with your kids. It’s tempting to be defeatist when it comes to saving the environment when you see the incredible waste that is generated every day by our culture. Most likely we can’t change the majority of people, but we can change the mindset of their kids. Kids are much more flexible and easily inspired. They want to help.

I know my little noble efforts don’t amount to much. But I keep thinking about No Impact Man and his sadness and desolation when he wonders if what he’s doing is silly. He laments that he is only one person. But we are all only one person and if each of us made just a few changes we could have a great impact for good. I don’t think No Impact Man was successful in having no impact on the environment, but I’m hoping that he is successful at having an impact on the rest of us.

Talking Trash and Earth Hour

This morning as I was crushing another cereal box for the recycling bin and dropping the apple peels in the compost, I realized that trash has changed a lot since I was a kid. Back then (and I won’t say when “back then” was) we threw everything away. I remember we had three big trash cans in our garage filled to the brim and then some. The garbage men walked up our driveway, lifted the garage door, and carted them out to the street. Then they put the trash cans back in the garage and closed the door again. Times have changed. Between composting, recycling, and my plastic container fetish, we have about two or three bags of trash each week. They all fit in one trash can that we roll down to the street. The garbage men pick them up, along with all the recycling, empty them in their truck, and fling the cans back in to our driveway with as much force as possible. Sometimes the can rolls back in to the street to create an obstacle course for our neighbors. Like I said, trash has changed.

My kids have grown up with compost and recycling. They don’t know any different. They know all about saving the planet and global warming. They are concerned about the rainforest. Teaching your kids to live a life that is good for them and for this world isn’t as hard as it used to be. Being green is “in”. As much as they might complain about changes to their lifestyle that involve the loss of cheese curls and soda, they will adapt. And it will be what they know. Once they become parents themselves they’ll even appreciate it.

This weekend there is a great opportunity to create a memory for your children and do something good for the planet. Last year 50 million people participated in Earth Hour and created the largest voluntary power-down in history. This year it could be even bigger. I’m already planning our evening. I’m gathering candles and games and yummy snacks. At 8:25, we’ll send the kids all over the house to turn off everything. Even though Earth Hour organizers are only directing us to turn off lights, we’re going for broke in our household. We have a Black and Decker gadget that tells us how much power we’re using in our house at any given moment – we’ll try to make it say 0. We’ll light a fire if it’s cold and light lots and lots of candles and then for one hour we will be together and have fun without using any electricity. My kids are stoked for this, as am I. We can’t wait. What can your family do for Earth Hour? Don’t miss this opportunity to teach your children about conservation and have a great family memory to show for it.

One other thought, if 8:30-9:30pm this Saturday doesn’t work for you, pick another time. Your kids will never know it wasn’t the real “Earth Hour”. Besides if you do it sometime within 24 hours of our Earth Hour, you’re bound to be participating in Earth Hour somewhere on the planet. It’s important that we find ways to pass on our commitment to a planet-conscious lifestyle. Here’s a great chance. And don’t forget Earth Day is coming in April – start making plans now!

You can learn all about Earth Hour at www.earthhour.org. Earth Hour is a worldwide event. You can check out other people’s posts, videos, and tweets from all over the world. You can join the Earth Hour group or just be a fan on Facebook. Isn’t it cool to be part of something so big?