The Beauty of a Clothesline

I love clotheslines.  I love driving down the road and seeing someone's laundry flapping in the breeze.  It makes me really happy.  I asked *B* for a clothesline for a long time, but our yard is a little wonky given its steep slope.  Last year, I strung paracord across the deck and leave it there because it was annoying to put it up over and over.  But *B* hated it because he would clothesline himself (no pun intended) because it was black cord strung at about his neck height.

My mom gave us a retracting clothesline last fall, but we could never agree about where it should go.  It wasn't until *B* saw a graphic in his climate change class that showed how much energy clothes dryers used that I got him on board.  We took a drill and some hooks, and installed the retracting line on the deck.

So I decided that April is the month of no dryers.  And so far so good!  Diapers are most often the thing hanging on our line. I think it's good for them to be out in the sunshine to help disinfect them and make them smell fresh.

But we also hang our laundry.  We do the adults' clothing together and then Miss F's clothes by themselves.  It makes for an adorable laundry line.

Is that not the cutest clothes line you've ever seen??  The only downside is that I used about 100 clothes pins putting all of those little baby clothes up.

Usually I'm pretty good about being aware of the weather.  Only once have I been caught unaware by a little rain shower.  But I found that old paracord, and made a line in the basement. Since our front loader washer spins our clothes really well, I wasn't worried about drips.

So inside or out, I have no excuse now not to hang laundry.  While we're calling it no-dryer April, I'm hoping to keep this going as long as I can.  I see no reason that we can't do this at least until the weather (and our basement) gets to freezing temperatures.