End of the Line

Gardening Gone Wild has invited garden bloggers for the last Picture This Photo Contest of the year. The topic is "End of the Line", which can be taken literal or metaphorical. It's been fun to see what people have come up with, including our own Country Mouse with her End of the Line for the Brush Pile post.

For me, the post was a sad reminder that by mid-November, it's usually no longer possible to dry clothes outside, so it's the end of the clothesline until the days get longer and warmer.

My mother never had a dryer, and I never stopped drying clothes outside during the warmer time of year (disclaimer: usually Mr. Mouse is responsible for the laundry and does the work, but philosophical, we agree on this matter). Laundry smells much better, the energy savings are significant, and it really doesn't take that long to hang things.

We own multiple contraptions for hanging things outside. The Japanese square-with-clothespins is very convenient for socks and underwear. You just put the basket with the wet laundry somewhere elevated and pin everything, then you hang up the whole square. No bending down for each sock. Also an easy way to presort socks by color.

For clothesline overflow, we have a rack. We actually use the rack inside in winter for synthetics we don't want to stick in the dryer. The rack folds up small and goes into the shed or closet.


And here's where the clothes drying business intersects with garden concerns. While we love hanging things up to dry, we don't really want to see the different contraptions (or the laundry) during the rest of the week. Drying clothes on the line is newly fashionable, and some love to have a visible clothesline as garden ornamentation (I might like it if I had a larger garden, but I don't). We prefer other art.

So we put the Japanese square and the rack in the closet, and even the clothesline is retractable and hooks over two screws in the house. We lift it up, and that's the end of the line for the week.

I can't wait to look at everyone else's posts. It's always educational to see what the juror likes and what I enjoy. Though really, I enjoy so many of the posts, I'm glad I don't have to select a winner.