Our pets

[taxlady]

I dry mine outside too. I don't
have a dryer apart from a little portable thing with a tent over it (a gift) which I rarely use. Dryers are death to underwear and other items with elastication in the fabric (as are radiators). And don't talk to me about what they do to knitted woollen garments!!

Anyway, as you say, things dried in the fresh air smell lovely and , of course, fresh air is free. If it rains I put things on the clothes horse in the kitchen to dry over-night.

I'm a bit of a dinosaur!

I agree. I do love the smell of line dried clothes. But since my yard is ~16' x 14', I have to be quite motivated to put up the clothes line. There's limited space to put it and it gets in the way if I leave it up. I have a drying rack that I use for clothes with elastic or spandex.

The thing about wool and dryers can be used to advantage. I don't really knit, but I do crochet. Crocheted garments, like sweaters, tend to "grow" over time. When they do, I put them in the dryer and check them every few minutes. I pull them out to dry flat, once they have shrunk back to the right size. I find that it works better than blocking.

 

[dragnlaw]

Crocheted garments, like sweaters, tend to "grow" over time. When they do, I put them in the dryer and check them every few minutes. I pull them out to dry flat, once they have shrunk back to the right size. I find that it works better than blocking.

Excellent idea! How clever!

 

[cjmmytunes]

dragnlaw, i like the way clothes smell when they are dried outside - but the nasty allergies and pollen tends to make me feel yucky so I just use a dryer.

 

[dragnlaw]

You have my sympathies, cjmmytunes. Have a friend with the same problem.

 

[Addie]

My daughter has two clotheslines. In the summer she never uses her dryer. When I am able, I bring my washed wet laundry to her house in the summer. It gets hung out on just one of her lines. She uses the other one. But unfortunately, I think that is going to come to an end. Unless she is willing to come to my house and pick up my wet clean laundry.


I will give a further reason in "The Sick Room."

 

[Mad Cook]

The thing about wool and dryers can be used to advantage. I don't really knit, but I do crochet. Crocheted garments, like sweaters, tend to "grow" over time. When they do, I put them in the dryer and check them every few minutes. I pull them out to dry flat, once they have shrunk back to the right size. I find that it works better than blocking.

What a brilliant idea!

 

[Mad Cook]

My daughter has two clotheslines. In the summer she never uses her dryer. When I am able, I bring my washed wet laundry to her house in the summer. It gets hung out on just one of her lines. She uses the other one. But unfortunately, I think that is going to come to an end. Unless she is willing to come to my house and pick up my wet clean laundry.


I will give a further reason in "The Sick Room."

Oh dear, that sounds ominous. I'm just nipping over there to check up on you.

 

[RPCookin]

No clothes lines here. I certainly remember Mom hanging the laundry on the line, and I helped at times during the summer, but I have no interest in it these days. With the winds that blow here most of the time, and often with dust in the air from the farms that surround the town, it's more hassle than any benefit I can perceive from doing it.

I've been using a dryer for so long now that anything else just seems sort of stone age... that and both my wife and I are just too lazy to mess with hanging clothes on a line. When we both worked, there wasn't time, and now we just don't have any interest in it. Got us a fancy LG dryer with more settings than I'll ever figure out, so I feel obligated to use it.

 

[Mad Cook]

No clothes lines here. I certainly remember Mom hanging the laundry on the line, and I helped at times during the summer, but I have no interest in it these days. With the winds that blow here most of the time, and often with dust in the air from the farms that surround the town, it's more hassle than any benefit I can perceive from doing it.

I've been using a dryer for so long now that anything else just seems sort of stone age... that and both my wife and I are just too lazy to mess with hanging clothes on a line. When we both worked, there wasn't time, and now we just don't have any interest in it. Got us a fancy LG dryer with more settings than I'll ever figure out, so I feel obligated to use it.

The problem is that dryers cost an arm and a leg to run and also they wreak havoc on anything containing Lycra/Elastane/Spandex (or whatever it's called where you are) which includes most underwear, swimwear, and a lot of outer clothes and you can't put woollens in the dryer.

Fresh air's free and in bad weather I put my laundry on a concertina drying rack in a room I'm not using. In a previous house I had a wooden rack suspended from the kitchen ceiling over the floor-mounted central heating boiler. I'm planning on putting it in the garage when I get organised and have the washing machine installed in there.

 

[Addie]

I have always loved going outside to hang laundry. It was the perfect excuse to go outside and get some fresh air.


When we lived on the farm, I remember I was in the third and fourth grade. Because of the brace on her leg, it was very difficult for my mother to walk on rough or uneven ground. My father had bought a square Maytag wringer washing machine. You could swing the wringer around so the clothes went into clean water after the came through the wringer. From there my mother gave them a second rinse into the double old soapstone sink. The final wring was next into the basket and it was our job to take it outside and hang it up on the three clotheslines between two trees. One was slack enough for me to reach and hang up the small items. In the winter, we had lines hanging down in the basement and the laundry dried near the furnace.

Then when I got married, the first thing my husband did, and then Spike when he was old enough, was to put up the clotheslines. The lines were hung between my window sill and the telephone pole in the back yard. The only difference was I had a Whirlpool automatic washer. Then eventually hubby surprised me with a dryer. But in the summer time, I still like to hang my wet laundry out in the sunshine.

Children of today, haven't a clue about hanging laundry outside. Along with the rotary dial phone.

 

[caseydog]

dragnlaw, i like the way clothes smell when they are dried outside - but the nasty allergies and pollen tends to make me feel yucky so I just use a dryer.

My mom used to dry clothes on a line outside when I was a kid, and we lived in the Northeast.

When we moved to Port Arthur, Texas, on the Gulf coast, hanging clothes outside to dry would take a couple of days... and still wouldn't be dry. They were more likely to mildew than dry.

It is not much better here in North Texas. Clothes will dry, but they don't smell very good. I don't know why. They just don't.

CD

 

[RPCookin]

The problem is that dryers cost an arm and a leg to run and also they wreak havoc on anything containing Lycra/Elastane/Spandex (or whatever it's called where you are) which includes most underwear, swimwear, and a lot of outer clothes and you can't put woollens in the dryer.

Fresh air's free and in bad weather I put my laundry on a concertina drying rack in a room I'm not using. In a previous house I had a wooden rack suspended from the kitchen ceiling over the floor-mounted central heating boiler. I'm planning on putting it in the garage when I get organised and have the washing machine installed in there.

I have no problems at all with elastic in the dryer. I've got underwear that's 7 or 8 years old and has been run through the dryer dozens of times with no ill effects. I don't wear wool, so that's not an issue. 95% of my clothes are cotton or cotton/polyester (or other artificial fibers) blends. The most common items I wear that aren't cotton are my golf shirts, which are all artificial materials. They don't have any problems with going in the dryer either.

As far as cost, I don't know, because we have never been without a dryer since we've been married. It's just part of the electric bill, and we have never considered itemizing to find specific costs.

 

[GotGarlic]

I have no problems at all with elastic in the dryer. I've got underwear that's 7 or 8 years old and has been run through the dryer dozens of times with no ill effects. I don't wear wool, so that's not an issue. 95% of my clothes are cotton or cotton/polyester (or other artificial fibers) blends. The most common items I wear that aren't cotton are my golf shirts, which are all artificial materials. They don't have any problems with going in the dryer either.

As far as cost, I don't know, because we have never been without a dryer since we've been married. It's just part of the electric bill, and we have never considered itemizing to find specific costs.

I'm thinking it's been so long since she's used one she has no idea of the improvements that have been made. We had an exchange student from Slovakia about 20 years ago. He didn't want to put his clothes in the dryer at first. I guess the ones he was used to were pretty hard on the clothes.

I've never been without a dryer, either, or at least access to one.

 

[Just Cooking]

After growing up with a wringer washer on the back porch and having to haul every thing to the back yard, I'm thankful for today's washers and driers..
Ross

 

[Addie]

I have no problems at all with elastic in the dryer. I've got underwear that's 7 or 8 years old and has been run through the dryer dozens of times with no ill effects. I don't wear wool, so that's not an issue. 95% of my clothes are cotton or cotton/polyester (or other artificial fibers) blends. The most common items I wear that aren't cotton are my golf shirts, which are all artificial materials. They don't have any problems with going in the dryer either.

As far as cost, I don't know, because we have never been without a dryer since we've been married. It's just part of the electric bill, and we have never considered itemizing to find specific costs.

Because I live in the Northeast, our electric bills can run quite high year round. The kids were small and I was determined to lower the electric bills. So I gave the kids a months notice that every time they were going to be leaving a room for any length of time, SHUT OFF THE LIGHTS! It took about a month for my chasing behind them constantly reminding them. Little by little, my electric bill started to decrease. Down to where it was manageable.

My dryer never ran in the warm weather. Another great savings. My two oldest children well remember my sending them back into a room just to shut off the light. Even while one of their friends was waiting for them. We also had an AC at each end of the house. And because the dryer wasn't running, the AC wasn't running on high during the hot summer months either. It was a win-win all around.

To this day, my daughter goes around shutting off the lights if no one is going to be using the room for any length of time. Over the years, she has managed to turn her husband into an electrical miser also.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Have to go back almost 20 posts to see anything about pets...

 

[RPCookin]

Have to go back almost 20 posts to see anything about pets...

Okay... we can take a hint. Back to the topic.

Watching for Mom to come home from town:

 

[taxlady]

I love that picture Rick.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Great picture...and he thinks she's been gone for weeks

 

[Cheryl J]

Awww....I love this, Rick. What a beautiful pup.