quickie

I’ll explain later.

SLC Post-script

Taking down the laundry this afternoon (all dry but a couple of towels!!), the kids were running around playing. I had tossed the slightly damp towels in the dryer while I took down the other clothes. The dryer vents right underneath the clothesline. When the boys noticed the air coming from the vent, indicating that the dryer was on, they disappeared around the back of the house, returning a moment later.

They had gone to check the electric meter, to see how fast the little wheel was spinning. Apparently, it wasn’t spinning too fast, giving them hope that they’d have enough energy for the magic light that fought against the “rising darkness” and the “attack of the alien lasers.”

Energy conservation as Imaginary Planetary Defense Support.

Supplemental Laundry Center

“Use it up. Wear it out. Make it Do. Or do without.”

I totally wish I could remember where I read this, but applause to the person who generated the phrase. At it’s heart, it’s a phrase about frugality, I think. For me, it satisfies twin drives: the desire to save my family money and the desire to save resources and be environmentally and socially responsible. Oh, I might add a third—the creativity and cleverness that is often involved in the “make it do” part.

We are a single-income family with three children under eight, so I face the challenge of this phrase every day. One step at a time, we’ve whittled down our practices to make the most of what we have. One car. One walking commuter (payroll spouse). One biking commuter (oldest kid). Nearly year-round garden. No cable or satellite television (remind me to post about this as a watershed change in our lives). Second-hand clothes that are reused and remodified until every last bit of lint is shaken out of them. Home cooking and food preservation. Compost pile. Jam-packed recycling bin. Green electric company. Just to name a few.

But I know there’s room for more changes.

We live coastal South Texas. The same climate that makes it possible to garden almost all year long, is the climate that makes August feel like sitting in a pot of boiling water. We need the heater (mainly for one chilly bedroom) here and there for a total of only a few weeks each year. There are a few weeks before and after the heat need where the house is comfortable with windows and doors open. The other six to eight months of the year, the temperature inside the house and outside challenges my body’s internal thermostat. This makes air conditioning our single biggest energy suck.

We set our thermostat high (82F usually), turn it off when we’re not at home. Employ strategic window curtaining to minimize sun-warming (an opposite strategy occurs in winter, with strategic curtain-opening to warm cool rooms). In other words, we’re trying.

With three small kids, I do one to three loads of laundry every day. I estimate that this makes laundry our second biggest energy suck. We had tried a clothesline when we first moved here three years ago. We strung a long line between two trees and hung up some stuff. We gave up after a few days because of things blowing away in the sea “breeze” (yes, I did use clothespins), a general lack of drying in the high humidity, and other life events sucking our time and energy.

I am committed now to trying again. I have a new clothesline, strung in a spot slightly more sheltered from the wind, in a cradle of fencing that will likely catch any clothes that decide to take flight. And I have a splinter-free table for the laundry basket. So, yes the SLC is just a table and a clothesline, but doesn’t it sound so fancy? ;)

I am on day five of daily hanging, and so far, I’d say my renewed committment and our slight modifications are working. The humidity does seem to prevent the clothing from drying completely most days. Seams and pockets are very resistant. One day this week, everything dried completely (I cheered and did a snoopy dance). The other days, I took things down at the end of the day and tossed them in the dryer to finish them off.

Overall I think it is going well. I’m using the dryer less than one-quarter of the time I was using it before. I look forward to the next electric bill to see what kind of an impact it will make.

Now, this is not easy. Hauling wet clothes in the basket out there is not for the faint-of-back. And the lifting and clipping is a good upper-body workout. I doubt I’ll be able to do it on sick days. And I’m curious what impact the high summer humidity will have. I wish my line were just a smidge longer. Right now, it’s a W, one line strung at angles between the house and fence. I wish I had just two more spans. One day this week, I did one load in the dryer because I ran out of room on the line.

Unintended perks: My preschoolers love to hang out under the wet laundry. It’s a fort. It’s a space ship. It’s a cool spot out of the sun. They also love to put the clothespines back in the bag. And the work of the laundry actually seems to go by faster in the morning, because I do the load and hang it up, or do one load of wash after another, without having to wait for the dryer.

And no. Not washing by hand. Not gonna do it.

Next post: Aspirations and Fear