Put It All on the Line (Literally)

Monday morning on my run, I noticed a new clothesline at a neighbor’s house. It’s one of those single pole types with multiple rows of lines filling a metal frame. Shirts on hangers hung neatly from each row and waved in the breeze. I didn’t stop to be certain, but my casual in-flight count was 24 shirts! That’s a lot for such a small set up.

At our house we have a single line with pulleys on both ends. One pulley is attached to a pole on our deck and the other is atop a long metal pole secured in the ground with cement. Because our line runs down hill, the pole is extra tall.

It’s surprising to me that more of my neighbor’s don’t utilize a clothesline. A dryer is one of the biggest energy hogs in the house. Our electric bill goes down by half in the summer thanks to solar powered hot water and the clothesline. I resisted the line for too many years thinking it would be too time consuming, too labor-intensive, too ugly.

Now when I drive up my driveway and see the clothes blowing in the breeze, it makes me smile. And I look forward to the five minutes I spend each morning hanging clothes out. It’s my time to listen to the birds, take in the sunshine, and be left alone. No one ever offers to help hang out the laundry (except my father-in-law’s wife who understands the sacred space created by clotheslines).

Getting a Little Nutty with the Laundry Soap

I finally tried soap nuts. Ever heard of them? They’re gnarled nuts just a size larger than an acorn. They usually turn up at natural food stores and occasionally farmers market stands or craft booths run by hippies. Sometimes the nuts are sold loose and sometimes in little packages with directions.

Their natural oils purportedly work magic in the washing machine rendering clothing sparkling clean without any detergents. The package I bought from a woman at the Sweet Potato Festival who also sold beautiful alpaca wool caps and homemade hand and body soaps said to toss 2 or 3 in an average load. They can be used 5-7 times. There were no specifics as to how you know they are “used up”.

I’ve had my packet of soap nuts for a few months. They seemed like a great idea until I got them home and prepared to toss them in my washing machine. I paused to consider the power of vinegar. I use vinegar as a fabric softener. Not only does ¼ cup per load work beautifully to eliminate static cling and soften fabrics, but it also removes “teenager smell”. If you have teenagers then you’re familiar with this smell. It’s not quite as bad as BO, but it is also not necessarily a pleasant scent. I think it is a combination of hormones, the repeated wearing of favorite clothes, and the stench of junk food coming out of their pores. Deodorant cannot combat this and it permeates their clothing. At any rate, as I said vinegar removes this smell beautifully.

Sidebar: Vinegar, besides being a most powerful and effective cleaning agent, is a natural deodorizer, which I know seems odd given its own strong smell. Spray it in trash cans, diaper pails, and refrigerators to remove the smell. I just spray the bottom of trash cans and let the vinegar evaporate taking the stink with it. Or you can just leave it for 30 seconds before wiping it out.

Because vinegar is such a powerful acid I worried that it would strip the soap nuts of their natural oils and render them ineffective. So I’ve left the soap nuts sitting on the dryer for months now. When I encountered a soap nut vendor again, I asked about vinegar and soap nuts. She looked at me curiously and said she didn’t think vinegar would hurt the nuts. But she didn’t say it confidently enough to give me confidence. So the nuts have been sitting.

This past week I decided to throw caution to the wind and just go for it. (It’s a wild life I live.) I added 3 soap nuts to a load of darks, including a dirty glove (note picture) that has been sitting on my porch for several months because no one knows who it belongs to and without its match I can’t even give it to Goodwill. I also added vinegar to the fabric softener dispenser and ran the load like I normally would.

When I removed the clothes from the washer they appeared clean. The glove was especially clean. There were two problems though. First, after putting the clothes in the dryer, I couldn’t find one of the nuts. I pulled out all the wet clothes and shook them to no avail. I reached in to the washing machine and felt under the spinner. No nut. I didn’t want to run the dryer if one of the precious nuts was hiding in the clothes afraid the ‘natural cleaning oils’ might cook on to the clothes or lose it’s magic altogether, plus I only had six nuts to begin with. I stepped back to consider my options and heard a “crunch”. Found the nut. Sigh.

The second problem was actually more serious than the cracked nut. The clothes appeared clean, but they still smelled like teenagers. Not good. Apparently the power of soap nuts trumps the power of vinegar. Or perhaps the vinegar works best with my homemade detergent. I dried the load of clothes and the smell was diminished, but I could still tell it was there. I am confident my kids won’t notice it, living in the smell as they do. But still.

So my soap nut experience wasn’t the best. I’m not a believer, but I’ve met plenty of people who are and I can say that soap nuts do seem to clean the clothes, if not deodorize them. If you don’t have teenagers, they might be a nice natural way to wash your clothes. For now, though, I’m taking a pass on the nuts. If you’ve had a better experience, I’d love to hear about it!

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!

Laundry Day

Monday is laundry day in our house. It’s taken me years to get the issue of laundry under control. In the beginning, especially when I was working at a job outside of my home, I did laundry willy-nilly, throwing in a load whenever there was a spare moment and waiting until the mound was taller than me before folding anything. This resulted in a near constant stream of laundry and some very wrinkly looks (I don’t iron). It hung over me all the time – I need to do the laundry, I need to do the laundry. It was never “done”. And once we were up to three kids the laundry threatened to overtake my life.

When I began working from home full-time, I decided that I needed to get laundry under control or it would make me nuts. I also decided that the kids needed to be aware that the laundry was being done, even if they weren’t quite old enough to do it themselves yet. And so Laundry Day was born. All the children know that if they want their clothes washed for the coming week, their laundry hamper better be in the laundry room first thing Monday morning. For awhile, my oldest solved the problem of getting his laundry in each week by just leaving the hamper in the laundry room and undressing there each night. Now I build a barricade of empty laundry hampers in front of the bathroom and they usually get the hint to put them back in their room. I know it seems like a minimal effort on their part (and it is), but it is a beginning.

Having a designated laundry day and holding the kids responsible for at least gathering and delivering their dirty laundry to the laundress took a little convincing in the beginning. There were weeks when my daughter was forced to wear every article in every drawer and on every hanger to make it through because she stubbornly refused to gather her dirty laundry. I take some responsibility for that erroneous belief. After all, for the better part of her life I dug the dirty clothes out from under the toys, books, craft projects and stuffed animals that litter her room. My youngest has the habit of pulling something out of a drawer, deciding it won’t do for that particular day and then depositing the unchosen clothing on the floor, later to be placed in the hamper, never to actually be worn.

Which brings me to another point about laundry. You don’t need to wash everything each time you wear it (or toss it on your floor unworn). When I sort the clothing coming from the offending child’s room, I take the things that have not been on his body (he makes this very easy for me since anything he has worn could easily be used on a Tide commercial) and folding it in to his clean pile. As far as my own clothes, I don’t wash them every time I wear them either. Unless I’ve been running, gardening, or messing with animals, they are most likely pretty clean. At least clean enough to save the detergent, water, and energy that it would take to wash them. And clothes break down with washing no matter how gently you wash them. Where do you think all that lint comes from? They’ll last longer if you wash them less. I give them a quick look-over and if I don’t find any food remnants, children’s finger prints, ink stains, or puppy tracks, I hang them back up. I don’t know where we learned that we needed to wash clothes so frequently. I know I didn’t have this same compulsion when I lived in college and the laundry was four floors down and required quarters. We tend to be a nation of clean freaks which isn’t good for any of us and certainly isn’t good for our environment.

Hotels are figuring this out too. Have you noticed the little signs in most hotel bathrooms these days? They say something about saving the planet by not washing towels if it’s not necessary. The drill is you leave it on the floor (just like my kids) if it needs to be washed and you hang it up if you’re willing to use it again. What a boon for the hotel industry this green trend is! Not only does it save them money in detergent, electricity, and worn out towels, but it makes their customer think well of them because they are so earth conscious. Still, I’m not complaining about their motivation, just so long as they are pitching in like the rest of us to preserve our earth.

Here’s a few other laundry trips that might make save you time or brain cells:

1) Keep a lost sock basket. Don’t try to track down the missing partner for every pair of socks. When the laundry is finished put the leftover socks in the sock basket. I assign my daughter the task of periodically going through the sock basket and pairing up socks. She loves this job. And don’t forget that leftover socks are great for cleaning mitts.

2) Keep a box or other container for clothing that needs to be repaired in your laundry room. I have an old Winnie-the-Pooh hamper from the baby nursery tucked in to my laundry room. When Grammy visits, it’s ready for her and her sewing skills (Alas, I have none).

3) Keep a box for unwearable clothing near your laundry area. Anything that is stained beyond recognition, too small, too inappropriate (my nearly 10-year-old daughter can still fit in to size 4T shorts, but that doesn’t make them appropriate!), or the wrong season, goes in this box. When it is full I take the time to divide things up between Goodwill, next sibling, next season, rag bag or compost. By waiting until I have an entire box (or two) to sort, I save time. It also means less clothing ends up piled on the dryer or the rocker in my room until I have time to put it where it belongs.

4) Keep a small container for all the items left by the laundry fairy. I don’t take the time to check pockets anymore, at least since my kids got old enough not to leave crayons or playdoh in them. So I have a large oatmeal container on a shelf above the washer where I deposit all the treasures that turn up in the washer or dryer. Each summer we take down the oatmeal canister and sort it out. We divide the spare change between the kids for our annual trip to Hershey Park. They count on it for spending money.

5) Hang shelving above your washing machine and dryer if possible. You always need more laundry space and usually this is dead space that could be utilized to hold your detergent, vinegar, measuring cups, and all the other garbage that collects on the top of the dryer.

6) Hang something educational or at least interesting in your laundry room. I fold clothes in my laundry and consequently I spend a lot of time in that room. The walls are gray (don’t know what I was thinking), so that’s depressing enough. On one wall are the marks where we measure the kids heights periodically which is nice to consider, but on the other wall I hung a huge map of the world. While I fold laundry, I study it and try to learn the names of more countries and places. This is personal effort on my part because I am incredibly bad at geography (so I can never win at Trivial Pursuit). Think of something you’d like to learn or meditate on or whatever. It makes laundry just a teeny, tiny bit more interesting.

7) Install a phone in your laundry room. You don’t need a phone jack to plug in an extension for most cordless phones. I finally thought of this after I missed phone call after phone call because I couldn’t hear it over the din of the washer and dryer. Plus, now I can pass the time along by catching up on a few phone calls while I fold. Multitasking at its best.

8) Now, I am not one to encourage you to buy things, but…buy extra laundry baskets. Their cheap and they can really simplify the putting everything away part of laundry. I dread carting everything to the different rooms and sorting it in to drawers. One day I realized that I didn’t need to be doing this for my older children. They are surely capable of putting away their own clothes. So I bought two extra baskets and now I put their clean clothes in the baskets and put the baskets on their beds (they’d never notice them if I put them on the floor amongst the mess). I’m sure you can guess what my oldest son did. He just dressed out of the basket all week. So I had to make a new rule – no basket, no laundry lady. If you don’t empty and return your basket, your clothes will remain unwashed. You wouldn’t think clean clothes would be such a motivator, but they are.

9) Keep a small container for lost buttons or other important items (like boy scout pins or school IDs) nearby for things that you can’t bring yourself to drop in to the laundry fairy stash. That way when they come up missing you know where to look.

10) Keep a pair of scissors in your laundry room for cutting off tags on new clothes and lose threads on old ones.

I’m sure you have some great laundry ideas of your own. Please pass them along. It takes a village to get the laundry done each week.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

I’ve been conducting my own scientific experiments again. I guess I shouldn’t call them “scientific” seeing as I’m not a scientist and they’re really pretty loosy-goosy experiments of my own devising. Several weeks ago I made my own homemade laundry detergent and then I tested it on my kids’ laundry. I tried several formulas and compared them to the brand name “green” detergents I’ve been using. I’ve been using green laundry detergents (no phosphate, biodegradable, good-for-the-environment, etc.) for several years and to be honest, they don’t work as well as the conventional detergents. So I’ve been wondering for some time if there wasn’t a better alternative out there.

In my search for the perfect laundry detergent, I discovered literally hundreds of recipes on the internet. I was going for simple and least messy, so that narrowed it down to powder formulas. The liquid recipes involved adding gallons upon gallons of water to each mixture and then stirring the slop before using. That’s too much work for me so you know I am fundamentally a lazy laundry lady. I was looking for something you just dump in and are done with it. After about 20 loads of laundry, I’m a believer. Making my own laundry detergent is simple and saves me money. I’m tired of choosing between spending a fortune for “green” laundry detergent and feeling guilty. This is a simple solution.

The recipe I chose has three ingredients: Fels Naptha bar soap, Washing Soda, and Borax. Only one of those ingredients was familiar to me, so back I went to the search engine to learn more. (My favorite search engine is www.goodsearch.com because it donates money to your favorite cause with each search. I’ve chosen the National Alopecia Areata Foundation. Whether you’ve got a cause or not, it’s an easy way to make a difference. You can even check to see how much has been donated to date.)

Washing Soda (or Soda Ash) is sodium bicarbonate, which means very little to me. What did peak my interest is that it is effective in removing oil, grease, and alcohol stains. It can also remove wax. It’s most common use is in the manufacturing of glass. Washing Soda is pretty basic stuff and the most popular brand is made by Arm & Hammer. I found it in our local family owned grocery store right next to the Borax. It costs less than $3 a box. And that box has already made 6 batches of detergent and is still more than half full.

Fels Naptha Soap required a bit more research. I found it in the same grocery store and it was just 99 cents a bar. If you aren’t familiar with Fels Naptha (I wasn’t) it’s a bar soap that has been around for a century or more. It’s what your grandmother rubbed on her clothing when she used a wash board to do the laundry. A quick internet search uncovered lots of controversy surrounding the safety of Fels Naptha. Apparently Fels Naptha used to contain lye. Whether it still does or not seems to be debatable. I decided to believe that there isn’t lye in the fels naptha. As you probably already know you can find support for just about any idea you want on the internet. After reading multiple posts and getting completely confused as to the safety of using fels naptha, here’s what I decided - It’s probably safe. I sided with the 71 year old woman who wrote that she’s been using it all her life and is incredibly healthy and never had a skin irritation from it. The primary complaint from the nah-sayers seemed to be that it can irritate skin, shouldn’t be ingested, and the government has never done any kind of testing with fels naptha. All of that said, it’s your call whether you want to use it or not.

Several sources said that you can use other soaps in place of fels naptha and achieve the same results. So I tried this. I spent $4 on a bar of Dr. Bronner’s organic castile soap and mixed up another batch of laundry detergent. It seemed to work fine on towels, but definitely didn’t measure up on children’s clothes covered with grass stains and the unidentifiable stains covering the front of my daughter’s barn jacket.

Homemade Laundry Detergent:
1 cup finely grated fels naptha soap (or any other soap that does not have moisturizers, dyes or perfumes in it)
½ cup Borax
½ cup Washing Soda

Use 2 tablespoons per load. (I know that seems like only a tiny amount of detergent, but truly, that’s all you need.)
The original recipe I found on the internet said to grate the soap in your food processor. I couldn’t do that to my food processor, so I went to Walmart and bought a cheap fine grater for a few bucks and did it by hand. The bar grated easily and quickly. One bar made 2 cups of soap shreds. Each batch of detergent is enough for 16 loads of laundry. I was happy with the results in hot, warm, and cold water.

Considering fels naptha costs $1 a bar and borax and washing soda are less than $3 a box, and each box will make something like 15 recipes. The total cost of a load of laundry is pretty cheap. Add white vinegar as your fabric softener (1/2 cup per load) and you can save plenty making your own laundry detergent.

In all my reading I also saw dish washing soap mentioned as a great pre-treater. Haven’t tried that yet, but I’m sure I will. I know that even my simple version of laundry soap seems like a lot more work than picking up a bottle of detergent at the store, but consider the other costs. It’s easy for me mix up some more detergent if I run low, that saves on gasoline for the trip to the store and the packaging for each batch of detergent. But more than that it’s one more way for me to take care of my family in a way that is good for the planet, good for them, and good for my pocketbook.