After The Rain
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It has been quite some time since the creeks ran and the ponds filled and the tanks overflowed, but last week all of those things happened. We had somewhere in the neighborhood of eight inches of rain and we are so very grateful for an abundance of water. This one resource is the thing we most frequently lack and is also most needful to sustain life of all kinds here on the homestead, including our own.
We live set back quite a ways on a dirt road that has quite a bit of clay. As such, things are messy – even downright dangerous at times – and if we have to get to town we park up near a gravel road and walk up as needed. Getting rain like we did this last week reminds me that we often go very long stretches with mostly dry weather and live a very outdoor life. As such, cabin fever tends to set in after a few days mostly indoors, the eight of us cozied into our nearly 700 square foot cabin.
But now the rain has broken and the reality of mud and laundry is setting in. For a few days it was also quite cool so we ran the wood stove and dried some loads on a drying rack. But laundry from a family of eight adds up, as you can imagine, so the clothesline in full sunshine is a welcome site.
I wonder, how do you northern homesteaders (or wet climate homesteaders) dry laundry all winter long?
I am by no means a homesteader, but found myself compelled to comment. Last winter when our dryer broke in the middle of winter, I found myself hanging clothes by a hanger over the side of our gutter. We are lucky enough to have a deck that faces southeast. The gutter provided just the right height to hang items in this sunny, sheltered spot, and I got to avoid the laundromat! When things were too thick to dry fully in the sun, they moved indoors to finish. The air is so dry even indoors in that part of the year that things often dried quickly.
I live in southern Ontario, where the winters are quite cold. I use a dryer all winter – in fact, for most of the fall and spring as well. I am religious about using the line to dry all of our laundry in the summer when I can, but when it gets cold, it just doesn’t dry! It doesn’t even have to be freezing, just cool, and I can put it out first thing in the morning and when the sun is going down it’s still quite damp. I honestly do not understand how women did it in the past, before electric dryers. They must have either left the laundry on the line several days, or dried it in the house.
I use the clothesline as much as I can and when I can’t or don’t want to in the dead of winter, I use the clotheslines I have strung across the basement. It takes awhile, but they dry. (It can take a couple of days to dry things outside in the winter. I do that with bedding because it takes up so much room on my basement lines.)
I am in rainy Belgium and use this drying rack:
https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/laundry-cleaning/drying-racks/mulig-drying-rack-4-levels-in-outdoor-white-art-40233154/
It doesn’t take up much space and can hold one large load of laundry. If I am washing sheets, I put them over our opened doors to dry :). I put the drying rack next to the central heating in winter, laundry is dry in no time. It’s the in between months with no heating and plenty rain that I find most tricky. Drying laundry can take 2 days in these months. Still, when I was given a dryer and hated it so much I sold it!
I live in South Eastern Ontario, very long, very cold, damp winters. I dry everything (but towels and cloth diapers) on racks and lines in the basement. In the warm spring, summers and early part of fall, I hang things outside. It really is those in between months of cool, damp weather (but no furnace running) where things outside or inside can take a couple of days and laundry piles grow!
2018 has been the wettest year for NC since recordings began. I hope to go to all flatfold diapers this winter. We have a
-retractable clothesline that I move from outside to in as needed. It kind of makes a partition for the couch area too, if you throw a sheet over it when guests come.https://www.amazon.com/SUNLINE-Retractable-Clothes-Plastic-Outdoor/dp/B01NAICRP0/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1540577743&sr=8-4&keywords=sunline+retractable+clothesline
-octopus for smaller things that hangs from a shower rail, door way or https://www.amazon.com/Whitmor-Clip-Drip-Hanger-Hanging/dp/B0001E839U/ref=pd_bxgy_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0001E839U&pd_rd_r=72d953f6-d94b-11e8-af33-013c6f83c3a6&pd_rd_w=zv9uX&pd_rd_wg=zrGvs&pf_rd_i=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=6725dbd6-9917-451d-beba-16af7874e407&pf_rd_r=M7PE135DAS2A6D5HPCZ4&pf_rd_s=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=M7PE135DAS2A6D5HPCZ4
-clotheshorse. I can’t find it but it’s a standard fixture in the living room. I’d like to get one of those ceiling mounted ones to raise & lower over the stove so I could wash a blanket in January if need be. You can hang herbs & noodles on it to dry as well.
We hang stuff up all over the house. It looks ridiculous for awhile but the job gets done.