The clothes lines are good but better to put a hook in the tree than wrap the rope around it, less damage.

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What a great story, M.
Izzy must have been one of those adventuresome little
boys that kept his parents on their toes.

Great day in the morning, Missy, that was some wash day
you had there.

The thing I remember most about clothes lines are that the sheets smelled so good and in the winter all the clothes would freeze on the line.

I couldn't hang clothes on a line here. The birds would ruin them. ;0)

me, I like to hang laundry by moonlight.........

I loved hanging clothes outside even on cold days. As Jan said, the sheets smelled so good and even though the towels weren't soft as they are from the dryer, they smelled good, too. However, our development doesn't permit permanent outside lines, just the kind that are on the square, revolving thing that has to be taken down after use. As I've gotten older, it's just easier to throw them in the dryer. Oh well, it's a nice memory.

I still use clotheslines and in fact, just restrung the lines this a.m. I don't think hanging them is any harder than using a dryer, because I fold them when I take them down and they're ready to fly. It only takes a few minutes to actually pin them to the line, and I enjoy the routine of it. Laundry is one of more fav chores. It panders to the O/C tendencies. I think a line full of neatly hung clothing is a pretty picture.

In winter, I hang them on lines in one of my empty greenhouses or inside. The savings on our electric bill is over forty dollars a month. The only drawback I can see is you can't launder an article and have it an hour later to wear unless it's a sunny day and the air is moving. But, like cooking from scratch, it's seldom any more effort than some convenience foods, but you need to plan ahead a little because it takes longer.

Some HOAs are having to back down from forbidding clotheslines in certain states, because of the energy savings and environmental benefits. Ditto rain water cachements. I think it's in florida where the states passed laws over riding such restrictions.

Laundry freezing on the line. You brought back an old, old, memory for me with that, Jan.

It also reminded me that when I was very small we lived in a small house in a row of houses that backed on to another row of houses, separated by a wide, cobbled, alley. Monday was wash day and the alley was filled with wall to wall clothes lines loaded with laundry...bedsheets, shirts and knickers alike flapping in the breeze.

In bad weather the clothes were dried in the house, hung over every available space it seemed. On those days the house began it's day with the moist,steamy smell of wet washing and ended the day with the soft, sweet, smell of clean dry laundry.

Solar power at it's finest.....

Daughter Linda lives in an upscale area, where clotheslines and vegetable gardens were "verboten" - sign of the times: They modified the regulations and are allowing veggie-gardening, as long as it is neat and tidy, allow "discreet" clotheslines and even permit homeowners to habe three chickens (no Roos) or a rabbit.
Frozen clothes on the line: I remember playing hide and seek among the frozen clothes and running into a pair of Papa's long johns and breaking them...

Because we don´t have a clothes washer or dryer, clotheslines are a must. We have several strung throughout the garden, on the deck, and in the attic(for use during rainy season). Although I sometimes miss the "fluffiness" on certain items that you only get from a dryer, everything definitely smells better after drying on a clothesline.
mrobbins-great article!

I used to hang out the laundry. Then the pollution gradually became worse, finally to point that white and light-colored items got gray lines on horizontal surfaces. Now, I only hang things out when it's immediately after a hard rain.

I remember frozen laundry, and bringing the stiff pieces in to drape over the kitchen chairs to actually dry. And standing the frozen jeans in front of the fireplace until they melted enough to drape over the chair back. Can't say I miss those days.

Drove by some row-houses the other day, and noticed a clothesline full of knickers... they had frilly longjohns, camisoles, panties, the whole bit. I remember thinking, "What year is this?" LOL

i would remove the clothesline from the tree and put it on a post..save the tree, and still save the planet

I too think this is a great story and am glad you shared it Mary. One of the first thoughts to cross my mind when I read it was I wonder how many kids today are light enough to have been saved by a clothesline? And speaking of clotheslines,a friend of ours published a book of photos of mailboxes and it is a wonderful collection of mailboxes across the USA. I always thought a book of clothes on a clothesline would be really fun to see. They are all so unique and I think kind of a piece of Americana. I always look when going past one. Here is what is on my clothesline right now,and to me,it's almost a piece of art. LOL ( Somedays it looks like crapola.)

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I hit control+end and saw the picture first. I could hear the breeze in the trees and feel it just by looking at your picture Marda. You've gotten really good at taking pictures. Seriously, you should publish the clothesline book yourself. You could do it well. I'd love to see a picture of the one Tish saw, well, other than in my mind.

Oh do I remember clothes lines at my mothers house, diapers on the line freezing stiff as a board. I have not hung clothes on a line for 9 years,When we moved here that was the first thing to go in the yard.In fact that was the only thing in the yard. Now I have trees, bushes, a fish pond and pool in my yard. Much nicer.

I have trees, bushes, a pond and clotheslines. LOL.

Ditto thinking a nice line of clothes is Americana art. I have seen clothesline paintings I'd love to own. I hung up my wash Monday between rains and it dried in two hours. I strung up some new line and couldn't wait to use it. I need a life, maybe. Laundry is my fav chore.

What a cute article! Can you imagine the difference if it had been written in today's newspapers?

I recently read a book (The Wildwater Walking Club by Claire Cook) and part of the story had to do with a woman getting ticketed for having a clothesline, leading to a grassroots protest. It made me want my own clothesline!

Mary

Suzy if you tell me you also love to iron, I'm sending you to the hospital. ;0)

Well you don't have to send me to the hospital I hate Ironing.
Had to much of it back in the day when everything you bought you had to iron. LOL

Iron? What's that?

I don't even know where my iron is and I long ago gave away the ironing board. My mother never owned one - she ironed on the kitchen table.

Marda - now that more people are energy conscious there is a return to line drying. You might find enough lines locally to but together a small book - not a cofee table book I guess, more of a laundry basket bet perhaps:)

Marda, I forgot to say how much I like that photograph. I do like it, I like it a lot.

I've posted to the gallery a photograph of a water color painting I have, it's a nice Italian countryside laundry line.

Suzy,an iron is one of those wedge like things that can get really hot if you plug it in. I'm not sure what they are used for,I have a vague recollection somewhere back in mind. However,it makes a great door stop in the laundry room. I'm thinking of painting it green to match an old farm table I have in there.

I have never owned my very own outside clothes line, but grew up with a yard strung with lines. Apple tree to pear tree to arbor and back to the apple tree. And because my mother was not very tall, and those were some long stretches of line which sagged when weighted down with wet clothes, a clothes pole or 2....or 3.
A Clothes pole was variously a 2 by 4 with a notch in one end for the rope and a point on the other end to stick in the ground so it wouldn't slip. Some people had a clothes pole made from a long dowel rod with an eye hook in one end that you slipped the rope through before the rope was strung. Those poles had to be in place before you hung the wash, because once the clothes were hung, you couldn't move them down the line.
One of the real dangers in playing Hide and seek on a summer's night was running into a clothes line while trying to run for base and yell "allie allie in free".

10 years or so back a good friend and I travelled together after we noth were widowed. Because her husband had been an exec with a washer company, she always took pictures of clothes on a line. It was she who pointed out to me the various ways people hung things to dry. And, because we always had double prints made and shared each other's pictures, I have lots of pictures of clothes draped over bushes in Africa and of clothes hanging in cobbled streets in Burano with the poles propping the lines anchored in curious stones with a hole in the center. I have pictures of laundry hanging from lines draped window to window in Venice and hung on fire escapes in cities. When she died I even got a lovely watercolor she had bought in Belgium of laundry hanging on a line.
Now I toss it into a dryer and it comes out fluffy but smelling of dryer sheets....
Linda C

Yes, Lavender and Vanilla dryer sheets.

Sheets and Towels on the line whenever weather permits. One year I had clothes on the line each month, quite a feat in Ohio. My washer is not spinning dry like it should so now I am putting jeans and other heavy stuff on the line until they are just damp, then tossing them in the dryer to finish so they are not too stiff. My hours have been cut at work so I have time now. I always think of my grandma when I hang my clothes on the line because I do it EXACTLY like she did. In a certain order, hung and pinned a certain way, and I even twitch the bottom of the sheets to get them smooth. Use her clothespins, too. What annoys me is the plain wood clothes pins you buy now are too narrow to hold things on the line unless it is very thin material. They split. I do not care for the spring pins as mutch. Even the ones I bought in Amish country are more for making crafts than actual uses