The Thing About a Wash Line

The Best Thing

The thing about a wash line is that there is nothing, but nothing that feels and smells as good as bedsheets freshly dried on a wash line. There’s nothing like cloth diapers dried on a wash line as well. Especially if you hang them out at night or early in the morning. On both of these, I am a pro.

I confess there are wash days when I’m glad it’s raining because I just don’t feel like hanging laundry out on the line. But most days, I enjoy the satisfaction of knowing I’m saving on electricity and the durability of our laundry.

The other part I enjoy is knowing I’m burning more calories and staying more limber from all the bending and reaching as I pin clothes on the line.

 

Fragrance and Feel

I’ll wait a week or two to wash the sheets from my  house if I need to. Rain can only last so long, and all the other laundry might be caught up, but the sheets wait for a sunny day.

There’s nothing quite like slipping between wash line dried sheets at night after a full day of work and sweat washed off by a shower.

There’s a softness that’s different from those done in a dryer. It’s a clean softness and one that doesn’t take any softener to create. No specks of knap or pieces of knap from other fabrics – just pure and simple sunshine cleanness.

Back in the day when our kids were all at home, I’d nab one to go with me to the wash line. It was my version of “the shed”. A kid might not have needed a whipping (that’s what it’s called in the south), but he sometimes needed some down time away from the other kids. You can read about that here.

The wash line became a haven of respite, not just for my kids, but for me. It was one place I could go that didn’t attract my kids like magnets following me. A closed bathroom or bedroom door guaranteed someone would be knocking or needing something. Yet they never bothered me when I was at the clothesline because they didn’t want to be put to work.

Whites at Night

During the dozen years our babies were in diapers, we used mostly cloth diapers. Travel, Sundays, and special occasions warranted disposable diapers. Other days, I used cloth (which were not nearly as nifty and pretty as they are now, I know).

My diapers were the whitest in the county. I know that because people told me so. My neighbor told me I was the only cloth-diaper-mom she knew whose house didn’t smell like diapers. That wasn’t so much how I laundered them as how I handled them while they sat waiting to be washed.

I won’t bother to do the math, but if you figure six babies in cloth diapers for approximately two years each, that’s a lot of diapers to wash, hang outside to dry, bring in and fold. I only used bleach once a year at the very most.
The clothesline and the dew did the rest.

While others might have shuddered, I often hung my diapers out at night. During summer months, the air was cooler as I tacked diaper after diaper on with clothespins. Dave was in the house with the kiddos and I could flap the cloths to my heart’s content and take as long as I wanted. By morning, the dew and the sun guaranteed removal of all stains, whether they were yellow or brown. By mid-morning, the diapers were twice-dried and ready to come in. (Once from the washing and once from the dampness of the dew).

The Very Best Thing

Even now, there’s something magical about being outside, bending and stretching. It helps me stay limber and renews my mind. It also restores my soul. For there, at the clothesline as I shake out clothing to pin on the line, I find myself sorting out my troubles and praying about my cares.

The blue of the sky and the smile of the sun warms my face and my heart as my soul finds rest in God. Yep, there sure is something about a wash line.