Airing My Dirty Laundry

The scene in this photo makes me happier than I ever thought I would be over some rags hanging on a length of nylon. Ah, how circumstances can change our perspective. Allow me to explain.

We have a washing machine, but no clothes dryer. There comes a point in the fall when I give up on washing clothes at home and hanging them on the clothes line to dry. If I were still in Phoenix, where it's sunny 364 days a year, I could dry clothes outside year round. But this ain't Phoenix. So in the fall, when I get tired of hanging clothes outside that start breeding bacteria before they dry, I begin the tedious Laundromat Season. The nearest laundromat is 10 miles away, so doing laundry is a definite planned event. And every time I haul our over-large laundry basket that is invariably over-full of clothes down the icy steps, into the car, across the icy parking lot, and into the laundromat, I wonder how in God's name do two adults manage to produce so much laundry in seven days?

We are dirty. That's how. Just walking out the door can get you dirty here. I'm not one of those people who washes clothes after every wearing (or even after every 2 or 3 wearings--why bother when the clean pants will just get nasty too?), and when our clothes are dirty, they are filthy. Crusted with mud, or sheep shit, or blood, or a combination of the three.

Which brings me to another reason I'm happy to hang things on the line again: washing our stuff makes washing machines dirty. The washing machine will have leaves, grass, and a ring of dirt on the bottom when the washing is done. The above photo is a good example. In that photo are towels that were on the ground next to the lawn tractor for months, a blanket that was in the sheep pen during lambing (best not to think about the foul substances that lurk on that), and some rags I used to polish brass. This stuff has been hanging around for much of the winter because I don't want to sully the clean public laundry machines with our dirty secrets.

But now it's spring, the clothes line can be used once again, and I can wash my shameful laundry without having to confess our filthiness to anyone else. Except you, of course.