What a FIND!!

You know, I love drying clothes on the clothesline. But it never fails. No matter how tightly I pull the cord or wind it around the eye-bolt or anything, it always sags. I use a vinyl coated wire. I know some folks use cotton rope, etc. But I'm afraid there just isn't a line anywhere that won't stretch out over time (unless it was steel wire).

For time immemorial, people have devised all manner of methods of keeping the clothesline up so the clothes aren't dragging the ground. Well I finally found the answer, at Rural King no less! It was in the sales flier a few weeks ago. When I saw it at the store, I immediately picked up three of them for $4.99 a piece.

It's this nifty gadget.

It is made of metal and hard plastic. The pole is telescoping so you can adjust the height and it screws down to hold it in place. The bottom is equipped with a hard plastic, pointy tip and flange (kind of like a ski pole) to keep it in one place.

The top looks like this:

It has offset 'lips' (for lack of a better word) that you weave your clothesline through and it keeps it in place, even in a breeze! I was soooo happy! I've gotten rid of the two old pieces of wood I was using.

Just life

Well, it's not a pretty picture, but it's a sign of better days to come. Yesterday was the first day I've hung clothes on the line since last fall. What a relief. There really is something therapeutic about it for me.

It was very windy yesterday too. I have some support posts I use to prop the lines up, but they wouldn't stay put because the wind kept blowing them down. Regardless of wind, I'll take 64 degrees in early March. I'm not holding my breath though. I anticipate a return of some cooler air as I look at the forecast.

Today, there are Robins bobbing around the yard and flitting from tree to tree. A very welcome sight indeed.

Anna is moving from inside to outside as she works on her schoolwork. I'm making final decisions on what I'll plant in my garden this year and am gearing up to order some seeds (I hope I'm not too late!) I think I'll be ordering from Seed Savers Exchange. It's an organization that works to preserve genetic diversity in agriculture. They do some amazing work. Go check them out here. I promise, they have more varieties of tomato than you ever thought existed!

On Saturday the 14th of March (next week), the kids and I are going to go help out with a cattle drive! Yep, who'd have guessed that such a thing happened in Indiana? My friend, Alan, the dairy farmer, is moving his herd from winter pasture, back to summer pasture nearer the barn. He'll have about 50 to 60 people there to help move his herd of around 170 animals down three miles of country road. Alan and his family provide lunch afterward. Should be fun. I'll be sure to post some pics for you. I, of course, CAN'T WAIT!

What's for lunch, you ask? Mac n' Cheese. From the Gooseberry Patch cookbook, "Comfort Foods".

8 oz. of cooked elbow macaroni

3 T. melted butter

Salt/pepper to taste

8 oz. sharp cheddar

3 cups (two cans) evaporated milk

Put macaroni in a greased dish (I use a glass loaf pan), sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pour melted butter over. Top with shredded cheese. Then pour evaporated milk on top of all of it. Bake at 350 for one hour. Be sure to use evaporated milk and not condensed milk like I did once. Ooops. It was edible, just a little on the sweet side. Ok, it was gross. It bakes up and browns beautifully. There are a couple of Mac n' Cheese recipes in that particular book, but I like this one best.

I've been using up a lot of stuff in the cabinets and fridge this week. It's good to use up what you have and be creative. Saves money too.

Doing Laundry

Today is laundry day. Last summer, I remodelled our bathroom, which also doubles as the laundry room. The fact that we're still not using said bathroom for it's original purposes is another story, but we are doing laundry in there!

As a matter of fact, our old washer/dryer was a one-piece stack unit like you might see in an apartment. Now, houses go through trasformations over the years as different owners change things around. For instance our family room was once the garage. It's seriously like somebody decided one day to say, "Hey hon, pull out the car, I'm gonna throw up a wall and turn the garage into a family room." In the process, they went to the expense of adding on another attached garage, complete with Bedfordstone siding tied into the original house.

That said, our bathroom in question (we have another, by the way) was once just the laundry room. I'm sure that it had cabinets, a counter, a wash tub or basin, maybe a 'new fangled' washing machine, etc. But somewhere along the way, it was decided that the space would be more useful as a bathroom. So the appropriate ceramics were installed and the washer/dryer was chosen and put in for its compactness for the space. This one-piece unit finally bit the dust as we were about to remodel. So for several weeks, as I'm tearing up the bathroom, we had to take our laundry (and kids) to the local laundry-mat. That was an experience in itself. I worked frantically for several weeks to get the room back to a point where we could reinstall a washer and dryer. Finally the time arrived and a trip to our local Lowe's produced a new Whirlpool stackable front end loader whashe and a dryer to go on top. Both are supposed to be energy efficient. However....

I say all of that to say that I've been thinking some about this. I wanna save some money. I wanna work toward true homesteading (not washing clothes in a cauldron of boiling water or beating them on a rock). I'm thinking an easy way to do both would be to put up a clothesline in the back yard. We live on a half an acre. Most of the backyard is fenced in for our dog and kids. My wife frets about putting the clothesline there because she envisions the dog pulling on the clothes and dragging them all over creation. I envision the kids doing that. So deciding where to put it is certainly the biggest obstacle right now. I can't see how actually installing it will be that big of a deal. Just where do I put it?

This is a bigger deal than it may seem at first. I have a lot of neighbors. And though there are none behind me (a corn field lies that-a-way), I still have plenty of folks around to consider. Some people could be clothesline intollerant (wow, I hate this kind of 'pc' nonesense). In other words, they might not appreciate the fact that my clothes are hanging outside for them to look at all the time. Now, it's a free country and I can install the clothesline if I want to, but I do want to keep good relations with my neighbors. Chances are, it'll end up in the back yard somewhere. Maybe I'll fenagle some sort of fencing or something around it to keep the dog away.... we'll see. Got any ideas?