The "Amazing" Cucumber!

And here I thought we were the only ones overrun by cucumbers. A friend recently forwarded me an e-mail about “the amazing cucumber” which lists lots of surprising uses and attributes of cucumbers. (I promise this post is G rated!) Apparently there are people out there with too many cucumbers (like me) who have too much time on their hands (unlike me).

I only planted six cucumber plants this year. Three White Wonders and three Long Greens. Last year I planted nine cucumbers and it was much more than we could handle. I was pawning cucumbers off on every unsuspecting soul that ventured near our property, even taking a basket of them to the dentist with me. (The employees loved it!) So I thought six was a more reasonable number.

I have a theory that it doesn’t matter how many cucumbers you plant, they will produce cukes until you say uncle, and then just a little longer. I haven’t mastered a pickle recipe, although I keep trying, so canning them doesn’t make much of a dent in the mass. They make a great base for salsa, but the tomatoes are slow ripening this year. My youngest can eat an entire cucumber (plus half a bottle of ranch dressing) in one sitting. Besides layering them on salads and setting them out for snacks, though, too many cucumbers go to the chickens around here. So the forwarded e-mail was perfectly timed. What else can I do with all these dang-gum cucumbers?!

As I read through the list, I found myself succumbing to my skeptical nature, especially in regards to e-mails forwarded with no credit given to the original author. So I checked Snopes. They acknowledged that the e-mail had been circulating since December 2009 (who would write about cucumbers in December??). The Snopes site stated that the e-mail is “under investigation”. So I googled the title “amazing cucumbers” and found multiple blog references to a New York Times article that apparently reported much of the original claims, but still no author. So I checked out www.nyt.com and couldn’t find any article in the past 100 years with this information. Hmmm.

So I decided that I would investigate the claims for myself. Here’s what I discovered (feel free to share this with snopes):

The Amazing Cucumber

1. Cucumbers contain most of the vitamins you need every day, just one cucumber contains Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium, and Zinc.

Now that’s quite a laundry list of health! Everynutrient.com claims that the flesh of cucumbers is a very good source of vitamins A, C, and folic acid. The hard skin is rich in fiber and a variety of minerals including magnesium, silica, molybdenum, and potassium. But what about the Vitamin B? I’m all about getting more Vitamin B – the energizing vitamin. I looked everywhere and could only find one document that gave any evidence of Vitamin B in cucumbers. It said one serving contained 0 mg and 1% of the Daily Value. I’m not sure how 0 mgs equals 1%, but it all looked very official. So on number 1 of the Amazing Cucumber, I’ll be generous and say the e-mail is 50% accurate, but certainly not the nutrient rich wonder claimed.

2. Feeling tired in the afternoon, put down the caffeinated soda and pick up a cucumber. Cucumbers are a good source of B vitamins and carbohydrates that can provide that quick pick-me-up that can last for hours.

OK, here we go again with the B vitamins. I already covered that. As for carbohydrates, www.nutritiondata.com states that a serving of cucumber slices contained 2grams total carbohydrates which equals 1% of the Daily Value. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure 2 grams of carbs would pick me up. Dark Chocolate seems to work just fine.

3. Tired of your bathroom mirror fogging up after a shower? Try rubbing a cucumber slice along the mirror, it will eliminate the fog and provide a soothing, spa-like fragrance.

This morning I turned the shower on and waited for the mirror to steam. When it did I took a cucumber and rubbed it across the surface. Guess what happened? It cleared! But only for a moment and then (just like when my youngest child leaves mirror messages for me while I’m in the shower) it fogged back up. My tea tree oil shampoo overpowered any “spa like fragrance” the cucumber might have been offering, so that was a bust, too. Later in the day, the only evidence that it was a cucumber and not a child’s finger that left the smudges on the mirror is the seeds stuck to the bottom edge. This one really has me laughing. If you rub anything across a mirror, it will clear the fog momentarily. So using that reasoning, you could say that a marigold will clear your mirror or an onion or the cat’s tail – pick your amazing item.

4. Are grubs and slugs ruining your planting beds? Place a few slices in a small pie tin and your garden will be free of pests all season long. The chemicals in the cucumber react with the aluminum to give off a scent undetectable to humans but drive garden pests crazy and make them flee the area.

This sounds too good to be true. While I don’t have grubs or slugs ruining my plant beds (thanks to the chickens), I do have potato beetles and other unidentifiable flying insects that I’d like to get rid of. And since I have cucumbers to spare, this seems harmless enough, so I’m going to give it a try. I’ll have to get back to you on this. I checked Rodale’s Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening on this one, figuring if anyone was promoting this simple, organic method of pest control, they would, and found no mention. Maybe it will make the next update.

5. Looking for a fast and easy way to remove cellulite before going out or to the pool? Try rubbing a slice or two of cucumbers along your problem area for a few minutes, the phytochemicals in the cucumber cause the collagen in your skin to tighten, firming up the outer layer and reducing the visibility of cellulite. Works great on wrinkles too!!!

Now, you gotta love this one. But somehow I believe if this was true, I wouldn’t have such trouble giving away my cucumbers. In fact, I’m certain that if cucumbers got rid of cellulite, it would be too expensive for me to even buy their seeds.

6. Want to avoid a hangover or terrible headache? Eat a few cucumber slices before going to bed and wake up refreshed and headache free. Cucumbers contain enough sugar, B vitamins, and electrolytes to replenish essential nutrients the body lost, keeping everything in equilibrium, avoiding both a hangover and headache!

Enough with the undocumented B vitamins! And as far as sugar, one serving of cucumber contains 1g. Still, I felt I needed to at least attempt to verify this. So last night after watching my hubby have two glasses of red wine with dinner and then a beer during the movie, I left a few cucumber slices out and instructed him to eat some before bed. He smiled and said, “Sure,” but either he was too tipsy to remember the cucumbers, or he was truly only humoring me to begin with, because the slices were still there this morning. Alas, I have no data to share on this one. Cucumbers do have a lot of water in them, though, and consuming plenty of water is always good for a hangover or headache, so I’m sure it can’t hurt. I just wonder how smart it is for drunk people to be using knives or cucumbers before bed.

7. Looking to fight off that afternoon or evening snacking binge? Cucumbers have been used for centuries and often used by European trappers, traders, and explorers for quick meals to thwart off starvation.

OK, this one makes no sense. There is a big difference between binging on Ben and Jerry’s and starving on a trapping expedition in the Alps. But cucumbers are filling (thanks to the high water content) and I do use them to fight off my 8-year-olds just-before-dinner starvation complaints.

8. Have an important meeting or job interview and you realize that you don’t have enough time to polish your shoes? Rub a freshly cut cucumber over the shoe, its chemicals will provide a quick and durable shine that not only looks great but also repels water.

Uh, huh. My hubby wouldn’t let me try this on his good shoes, but I did take a cucumber to a pair of his leather work boots. In the end they were a little darker (and crusted with cucumber seeds), but they didn’t look any better, in fact, they look a bit worse. Don’t try this one at home! Better to have dingy shoes, than cucumber seeds trailing you at the interview.

9. Out of WD 40 and need to fix a squeaky hinge? Take a cucumber slice and rub it along the problematic hinge, and voila, the squeak is gone!

I had to try this on our bedroom door hinge, which squeaks horribly. (Of course, it’s a wonderful warning signal that small people are approaching in the night) Amazingly enough – this one works! At least for 24 hours now. And as far as living the organic life, cucumbers are certainly better for the environment than WD 40. Their shelf life isn’t quite as good though.

10. Stressed out and don’t have time for a massage, facial or visit to the spa? Cut up an entire cucumber and place it in a boiling pot of water, the chemicals and nutrients from the cucumber will react with the boiling water and be released in the steam, creating a soothing, relaxing aroma that has been shown to reduce stress in new mothers and college students during final exams.

It’s 100 degrees today, so boiling a pot of water is out of the question. Besides, I haven’t got any new mothers or college students handy, so I have to just take their word for it on this one. There are enough expensive cucumber spa products out there to verify that this is either true or one of the greatest marketing hoaxes of the century.

11. Just finish a business lunch and realize you don’t have gum or mints? Take a slice of cucumber and press it to the roof of your mouth with your tongue for 30 seconds to eliminate bad breath, the phytochemicals will kill the bacteria in your mouth responsible for causing bad breath.

And if you don’t have gum or mints handy, I’m sure you have a cucumber slice in your purse! This is another one too dangerous to try at home. Holding a cucumber slice to the roof of your mouth for 30 seconds may sound simple, but not only is 30 seconds an eternity when you have a cucumber stuck to the roof of your mouth, it’s very hard to breathe and leads to drooling.

12. Looking for a “green’ way to clean your faucets, sinks or stainless steel? Take a slice of cucumber and rub it on the surface you want to clean, not only will it remove years of tarnish and bring back the shine, but it won’t leave streaks and won’t harm your fingers or fingernails while you clean.

Now, you know me. I’m all about ‘green’ cleaning, so I was all over this one. Sadly, again the only real difference I saw in the stainless steel was the cucumber seeds that clung to the still dingy sides of my old tea pot.

13. Using a pen and made a mistake? Take the outside of the cucumber and slowly use it to erase the pen writing, also works great on crayons and markers that the kids have used to decorate the walls!

I enlisted my daughters help on this one. But after a good 30 seconds of rubbing slowly and then with increasing intensity, I gave up. She did claim, "one of the letters seems a little smudged now." Glad we didn’t try it on a wall.

The e-mail concludes with the advice to “pass this along to everybody you know who is looking for better and safer ways to solve life’s everyday problems.” While it did provide some entertainment for our family, there isn’t a whole lot to take away from this list. But cucumbers are really good for you – especially fresh, locally grown ones.

Cucumbers have high water content (95%), fiber-rich skin, and plenty of potassium and manganese which all help regulate blood pressure, so that’s good. You can apply cucumber topically to reduce swelling and pain in sunburns and dermatitis. And placing cucumber slices on your eyes, not only helps reduce puffiness, but makes you look incredibly silly to your children.

If you don’t have any cucumbers of your own, it’s not too late to plant some in your own garden. There are a few varieties that are only 50 days from seed to maturity. They can even grow vertically in a pot with a strong trellis. You want to pick your cucumbers before they get too bloated and overripe – pick them when they are still bumpy and ridged. Once they become yellow or white streaked they are past their prime. They still taste good, but they lose their firmness and aren’t so good for recipes or pickling.

The cucumber is amazing even if it can’t do all the parlor tricks listed in the e-mail. It’s amazing because it’s easy to grow, good for you, tastes delicious, and is extremely prolific. Stop by – you can try one for yourself. And if you’ve got any great cucumber recipes to share – I’m all ears!

A Bathroom Built For Two

Do you know what’s clogging up our landfills more than all the disposable diapers and lunchable containers? Construction materials. They make up approximately 20-30% of the debris in our landfills depending on whose report you’re reading. This kind of amazes me because we aren’t allowed to toss out construction materials in our regular trash. I just assumed there was money to be made on pickup trucks full of construction trash and a special dump just for them. I admit we occasionally hide a piece of drywall or the remnants of a pressure treated 2 X 4 in the bottom of our trash bag, hoping some animal doesn’t get in to the garbage overnight and expose our crime before the garbage truck carts it off unawares.

We are in the midst of a bathroom renovation. The walls of our master bath have had a creeping mold that I have been battling since the day we moved in. Finally those walls are coming down thanks to my diatribe about the mold (either that or the fact that there is only one sink and I’m a bathroom hog of sorts). I remember reading about some couple who had stayed together and in love for 60 years and when they asked the wife what the secret was, she said she kept her bathroom business private. In all those years her husband had never seen her tinkle or put on deodorant or scrunch up her face to put on mascara. I like the idea of keeping my personal business private, but that’s impossible when you share a bathroom so moldy and tiny, you feel it’s dangerous to shut the door.

So last week we set to tearing out those walls. And while we were at it, we decided to add another sink and a real bath tub (claw feet and all!). But doing this created some serious construction debris. It was just like when I clean out the car. It’s really hard to believe all that stuff came out of such a small space. We had dry wall, framing boards, tile, insulation, and bathroom fixtures. But we also had pipes, electrical boxes, a beat up door plus its frame, a shower rod, and lights. In my mind, everything had to go, but it didn’t have to go to the dump.

We added most of the dry wall to our compost pile up in the woods. I read the pros and cons and decided that it’s basically inert materials (gypsum and paper, plus a little glue and maybe some fiberglass), so it will decompose with the right amount of moisture and time, especially if it’s broken down in to small pieces. Since we let the kids have at it with hammers, the dry wall was in really small pieces. I dumped it on our long term compost pile where the barn and yard waste cook.

I pulled hundreds of nails out of the framing wood and we are re-using it to frame the new bathroom. My husband dubbed me the “Queen of De-construction.” Most everything else – the tub, sink, cabinet, medicine chest, lights, even the toilet who’s cap I broke in the process of moving it out to the driveway, plus the door and the all the electrical plates, will be picked up next week by an organization called ReStore York where they will be used in low-income housing projects or sold to penny-wise builders to be repurposed in useful ways.

The tiles have been stacked neatly in the shed for the kids to paint and use to create pathways in the garden. In the end, there is really not that much headed for the dump -a little carpeting, some moldy insulation (all the non-moldy insulation we re-used), some concrete boards from around the tub and some sewer piping, plus lots of bent nails (although I’m still trying to figure out if they’ll recycle the steel).

We throw out way too many useful things in this country. I remember volunteering at an orphanage in Tijuana with a group of teens many years ago. There was a garbage dump nearby. The images of the people who lived in that dump are still clear to me -the aristocracy of the desperately poor with first dibs on all the stuff that was thrown out, salvaging everything, doing the work of scavenger birds as they climbed and dug and sorted. The next time you are tempted to throw out the appliance you no longer need or the light fixture that is outdated, pause and figure out if there is any use left in it. If there is, pass it on. This country is full of many needs – you just might be able to fill one. Here’s some resources to help you do that:

ReStore York 717-852-7574

http://www.habitatforhumanity.org/ – works with ReStore, but also welcomes your donations and time

http://www.sustainablesources.com/ - online green building information

http://www.useitagainpa.org/ – a website that allows you to search for businesses that rent, repair, or sell used products across Pennsylvania

If none of these organizations can help you, there’s always Craigslist or Freecycle.

Peanut Butter Crisis

Early last week I opened the last jar of peanut butter. Not such a big event, truly. At least not normally. This jar only mattered because although my husband loves me dearly and will do nearly anything for me, asking him to go buy more peanut butter this week was out of the question. See, my husband does our Trader Joe runs. Just the day before he had called cautiously to see what we needed and patiently listened and copied down my long list. He wasn’t thrilled to be sent to the store to buy eight pounds of butter, 2 bags of flax meal, four bottles of kefir, and as many boxes of shredded wheat as his cart could handle, not to mention nitrate free bacon, several cheeses, tortilla chips, rice vinegar, black olives, bourbon vanilla extract, and if you can find it – one of those tiny cans of fire-roasted chilis? He called because he was out of coffee and needed to stop in and grab some. I turned his quick errand in to a search and recover mission (where do you find flax seed meal?).

I’m not passing judgment on your peanut butter selection (really!), but I hope you choose a natural peanut butter. I know they can be a hassle and finding one that suits your taste can take awhile and be expensive. But traditional peanut butters are crammed full of nasty things like hydrogenated oils, corn syrup, salt, and MSG. Because it’s a staple of most kids’ diets, it’s important to find the healthiest kind you can. Back when we made the switch from regular peanut butter to natural peanut butter is didn’t go so smoothly. We tried lots of brands and nothing cut the mustard (or the peanut butter) until we discovered the Trader Joe Organic Valencia peanut butter. It’s relatively cheap, as far as natural peanut butters go, and I’ve gotten used to the fact that when you buy natural peanut butter you get some serious arm exercise the first time you open it and have to stir and stir (and stir and stir) so that it doesn’t freak out the children when they see all that oil pooled on the top. Plus you have to keep it in the fridge which feels odd after centuries of peanut butter in the cupboard.

We are serious peanut butter addicts. We go through at least one jar a week. With it being summer, that number can move up to two or even three. The kids eat peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and crackers, peanut butter on bagels, dip apples and grapes in peanut butter, smear it on bananas, and love it in a chocolate-peanut butter smoothie (and when the kids aren’t watching, I love it on ice cream!). So while this may not seem like a real crisis to you, to me – CRISIS. What will they eat? For at least one child eggs and peanut butter are the primary source of protein.

So I did what I always do when faced with a situation like this. I decided to make it myself. I checked out the ingredient list on our last jar – “peanuts, oil, salt.” Simple enough. I used to make my own soy-peanut butter back when I was training for a marathon and needed to pack in some protein and fat before a run. The kids refused to eat it, but they were younger and fussier then and I wasn’t making it with them in mind.

I decided I needed some critical buy-in for this project, so I enlisted my daughter. I told her I wanted to try making peanut butter and needed her help. The winds were blowing my direction that day and she liked the idea. I raced off to buy peanuts in bulk from our natural food store. I bought lightly salted roasted peanuts and also some honey roasted peanuts. I decided to skip the oil and see what happens since peanuts have a natural oil in them. I skipped the salt too since both kinds of peanuts had salt in them.

My daughter got excited when I pulled out the food processor. Normally my youngest gets to push the button on this noisy gadget. She’s getting too old to complain that she wants a turn, so she was happy to have the pulse button to herself. We poured in 1 ½ cups regular peanuts and 1 ½ cups honey roasted, then let it rip. It only took quite a few minutes to produce a silky smooth texture. I put some on a cracker and ceremoniously handed it to her. Then waited anxiously while she chewed and chewed for what seemed like a very long time with various expressions crossing her face that alternately lifted and dashed my hopes. I think she was trying to torture me. Finally she pronounced it, “pretty good”. Coming from her that is high praise. Plus she got the bragging rights of telling the boys that she figured out how to make peanut butter. We filled a clean empty peanut butter jar and placed it in the fridge. Problem solved.

And not only is the problem solved, it’s going to save us serious money. Here we go again with - we can make it better, cheaper, and healthier ourselves! Try it!

Homemade Organic Peanut Butter

3 cups organic peanuts (any combination – salted, unsalted, honey-roasted, whatever you like)
Salt optional
Place ingredients in food processor and process until smooth. Add more peanuts or oil according to your taste/texture preference.
Store in clean air-tight container. Keep refrigerated.

The Story of Our Children

I know I am not the only parent horrified by the sheer volume of paper our children bring home from school. One of these years I’m going to save them all and see how many pages we accumulate over the course of one year. I’m certain the stack will reach the ceiling and then the kids can make calculations determining just how many trees have been sacrificed in the name of their education.

But at the same time, I appreciate the communication and I do like to see what my children have been up to. The real issue becomes what to save and what not to save. To avoid drowning in paper and indecision, I developed our bin system. Each of my children has a labeled bin in the mudroom where we deposit papers that we aren't ready to part with because a) they will be necessary for a future assignment b) their author deems them too good for the recycle bin c) they make their mother get misty eyed with pride or wonder or d) their mother finds the paper/art project/unidentifiable object on the floor and doesn’t know whether it is of consequence, but fears being accused of appearing apathetic towards her child’s work of genius. All others fill the recycle bin. Between the massive quantities of paper the school sends home and the even larger numbers of projects produced at home, it’s a wonder we can hold an entire year’s worth in one room, let alone one bin. It requires a will of steel, I tell you.

These bins fill up. So when the end of school rolls around, we spend a morning sorting through the bins. I plunk a trash can, a recycle bin, and an empty “Keeper box”, labeled with this year’s dates, in the living room. I also bring along a permanent marker or two for labeling and dating the things we keep. Then I fetch the overflowing bins and the unenthusiastic children and we get to work. No one is very excited to do this task, myself included, so we plan a reward for ourselves. After the sorting, we went to the $2 movies. (This year the older kids saw Alice in Wonderland and I accompanied the youngest to see How to Train a Dragon. I recommend the Dragon movie – good messages, decent writing, adorable dragons.)

The sorting really isn’t that terrible once everyone gets going. It’s kind of fun to see the things created back in September. The memories unearthed are worth the effort of the unwelcome task. The hard part is deciding what is worth keeping. Each child must think hard about what he/she really wants to save. There is only one keeper box shared amongst all three kids. The bulk of the box is always filled by the youngest child. In fact, I’m not sure my oldest thought anything accomplished at school was worth saving. He did find a few masterpieces created in his free time at home that made it in to the keeper box.

One box worth of stuff seems like a small amount, and it is, but those annual boxes begin to stack up. Here’s where I come in (and don’t tell the kids). Prior to the sorting day, while the kids are still at school, I pull out the previous year’s box. I examine its contents and sort those things in to the individual child’s Keeper box (an under the bed bin that holds all size wonders), tossing out or recycling everything else.

My children are prolifically creative, which I love, but without some kind of system we could quickly become overwhelmed by their creations. Some day when they move to their own digs, I will roll up for a visit, climb out of my convertible, and hand them their Keeper box. I imagine them boring their significant other to death with the details of each project (unless of course the significant other is recently acquired in which case she/he might feign some interest).

The other object I hope to bequeath to them when I arrive in my clean car wearing unwrinkled, unstained, stylish clothes, having taken the scenic route to their abode because I have all the time in the world, is a photo album of their childhood. I say hope because such an album doesn’t exist yet. I’m getting ready to start the album for child no # 1. I even purchased a book just for this purpose. I am a serious scrapbooker who produces annual books documenting our escapades that weigh in excess of twenty pounds each (filled with pictures, paper, buttons, brads, and embellishments – yes – I am one of those people!). But those books are for me, not them. Someday I will have my nursing aide lift each book carefully on to my lap and I’ll flip through them slowly, remembering these days when my life was rich with children.

I want to make each of my children a book to take with them when they launch. A book that illustrates where they came from, how they became who they are, and how much they were loved - a book that tells the story of their childhood. For this you need pictures, of which we have plenty. We take pictures of everything. I even have pictures of my friend Carol removing the stitches from my oldest son’s arm and my daughter, red faced in tears after having her ears pierced. Not to mention thousands of portraits of our gray cat and the chickens with the puffy heads. Pictures of the kids leaf sledding, splashing through the homemade car wash, and flying on the zipline, plus the countless sports teams, concerts, geography bees, and envirothon competitions should fill these books to bursting with stories.

The sheer quantity of pictures rivals the amount of paper the school sends home. Luckily, most of my pictures are now secured inside my external hard drive. My plan is simple. For each year of my child’s life, I will fill four pages with pictures. The album I bought holds between 4 and 6 pictures per page. That’s an album with 36 pages (front and back filled). This seems reasonable to me. Of course, I’ve yet to start. Wish me luck.

If we can do everything possible to safe-guard the memories of childhood for our children, I believe it is a priceless gift. I look back on my childhood and there is much I don’t remember. But when I pull out the school days book my mother carefully filled out in her familiar cursive or page through an album with the clear plastic curling up, my childhood comes back. It’s a window in to who I really am at my core. My diary is another map – one that is funny, embarrassing, and poignant. It reminds me that we are hard-wired from the start. There were clues back then, even if I didn’t recognize them. We grow and change, but who we are begins in our childhood. As parents we must find ways to protect and preserve this precious piece of our children’s story.

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!

My Plan for Staying Sane(er) This Summer

School is out and summer stretches before us. I’m shooting for a calm summer this year. We don’t have any big plans for exciting vacations or expensive camps. We’re just gonna hang out this summer. So I’m trying to apply a little trick I learned from the cowboy who is helping me train my horse, True. When my True was a little excited (dragging me across the ring and dancing around on the end of the line), he talked about lowering my energy. It was a novel concept for me. I’m a high energy person. I watched him and although he didn’t do anything drastically different physically, I could truly tell when he “lowered his energy” or “got his energy up” and my horse reacted to the changes. True calmed when the energy was low and became alert and reactive when it was up.

I’ve worked on mastering this with my own training efforts to mixed success. I tend to forget to concentrate on it until I’m in some trouble, but it really works like magic. I think animals and children (and adults for that matter) have a lot in common, so I wondered how this would work on my children. Again, I tend to use the tactic in a reactive manner after my children are already threatening lives and holding prized possessions captive, but when I apply it conscientiously, it does work.

Just a few minutes ago, my daughter approached me as I finally sat down to write after a morning of taking care of life’s details and spending too much time in the car. I thought I would steal 30 minutes to myself before I put a dent in the housework that has piled up around me. So, when she bounced (literally) in to the room to explain in detail her grand plan to build a giant bubble machine using her fan and her brother’s K’Nex, I consciously thought about lowering my energy. I took slow, deep breaths and made myself be still.

When I’m working with my horse, I think about aligning my center and quieting the middle of me. I think about being still in my core. I know that sounds like psycho-gobbledy gook, but it’s the best I can do. Basically, you relax all of you and don’t make any sudden movements or unnecessary noises. I nodded and listened and forced myself to let go of my own frustration. It took her 5 or 6 minutes to lay out the plans. Then she looked at me expectantly. I said quietly, “That sounds amazing.” She agreed that it did and told me all she needed was bubble wands, so could we just pop over to the dollar store to get some, right now? I consciously thought about keeping my energy low and said, “If you can’t find any here, then later we can do that. But I need some time right now to do my writing.” She rolled her eyes and harumpphed, but left peaceably.

I think lowering your energy could be a very useful tactic in lots of situations not just with animals and children, but with life in general. I played my guitar in a recital this past weekend and I was ridiculously nervous about it. I kept wondering why I was doing this and hadn’t I left these kinds of anxious feelings behind back in middle school? So as I stood backstage, I thought about lowering my energy. It helped me stay calm even if it didn’t make me completely comfortable. I need more practice (guitar and lowering my energy).

When things don’t work out the way you plan or another person irritates you, lowering your energy is a great way to get your own emotions under control. It takes the other person off-guard. They sense something different about you, and just like my horse, they become quieter too. One of my children struggles with some anxiety and I’m hoping I can teach this child about how helpful lowering your energy can be when life swells up around you.

Lowering your energy can help you find perspective. Maybe if the people in charge of political parties, warring countries, or the local elementary school, tried lowering their energy before spouting off about issues or negotiating with the opposition, things would be different. I think many of us waste much too much precious energy on things that aren’t really all that important. We need to focus on the things that matter and let go of the stuff that doesn’t. I’m hoping this summer I can save my energy for things that matter and make summer what it’s meant to be – a time for relaxing and recharging.