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I still use a clothes line. I remember the wonderful fresh smell the laundry had. We didn’t have a dryer until I was in high school.
My husband and i both were in the Navy when my first child was born. When he was about 3 months old my husband had been out to sea for 3 months and was due to come home in 2 days. We drove down to Florida to my in laws home to be there when he arrived in port. I loved being at their country home so it was nice to get there early.
I was doing laundry one day and gathered my things to go hang towels and sheets on the line. I had only been out long enough to get one sheet hung when all of a sudden I looked up and the family spider monkey ( who was not a nice girl) had swooped down out if a tree onto the clothesline. Now I had been well educated by the family to not go out when she was out of her cage and loose but no one knew she was loose at the time. She was good at jumping on your back in attack mode! So the moment I saw her I scooped up my baby from the bouncer and ran as fast as I could into the house leaving laundry and all waiting to be hung! It was quite a few hours before the coast was clear for me to go back out and finish the job! That was probably the last time I used a clothes line and I miss it so! But not the monkey!
I love hanging our laundry out to dry, but the wooden clothes pins on the market are cheaply made and fly apart pretty easy. How wonderful that someone has taken the time to make sturdy, beautiful clothes pins
I too have wonderful memories of hanging out the clothes and getting them back in before the storms.Remembering Mom out in the back yard, and her pocket apron, filled with clothespins! Her dropping some and we would make little people out of them, coloring faces and dressing them up like soldiers. Playing in the mud / dirt.
My brother and I would have puppet shows with our fingers, from the shadows of the sunlight running thought the sheets, and hiding, remembering.. so much fun when we were little, now it’s not the same, but the smell of the clean linens, brings the memories back!
It’s the smell when you bring the laundry inside! Nothing brings back summer memories like the smell of line-dried laundry.
In the winter, my mom would hang the laundry in the basement to dry. The basement was unfinished with just a cement floor. While she worked away at the wringer washing machine, the four of us kids would peddle around through the hanging sheets on our tricycles. How she managed to put up with that old machine and us is a mystery to this day.
Growing up in Germany, no one had a dryer. Laundry was hung out to dry even in the Winter, and to this day, I am not sure how they dried! I love hanging my laundry, and every time I do, I think of my Oma :). After she took everything down, she ironed every piece, even the underwear :).
I helped my Northern grandma and my Southern grandma peg clothes on the line and take down and fold. Oh happy days!
Nice!
memories of my Mom hanging cloths out while up NH (cloths for 7 children)
how nice they smelled when taken in
Oh, my GOD!!! did this bring back memories, of hanging out my was ,on my clothes k=line. I LOVED,LOVED , LOVED, using those pins.
My grandmother, who recently passed away, had a hand wringer washer in her back yard when I was child. She would hang the sheets on the line while me and my two cousins played. Her house was always a place that I felt safe and loved.
My favorite memory is hanging clothes in the backyard with my great grandmother. It was summer and we were visiting Michigan from Florida .I was thrilled to help and get alone talking time with her.
My mother and grandma always hung clothes out to dry. As a little girl I loved watching the bedsheets blow in the wind. Afterward when my mother would make my bed, the wonderful, fresh outdoor smell put this little girl asleep.
To this day I hang my sheets out on the line (which isn’t normal I know, but don’t care). My husband and I always seem to have a better night’s sleep on sheets/pillowcases when we take in the smell of the fresh outdoors.
My mother taught me the value of hanging out clothes at an early age. I just moved in to my new home, and this week I chopped down an oak tree to make room for my clothesline. I make old fashion clothes pin bags that look like dresses, sell them at crafts fairs, and donate the money to veterans’ charities. There is nothing better than the smell of clean sheets coming off the clothesline!
The very first day that I hang out laundry after a long,cold winter in Montana is the best laundry memory I have and will always have. It is always the PERFECT day! I make tea and eat lunch outside,hang out the laundry and usually do a little gardening. I usually cry when I’m hanging out the clothes that day because I feel SO grateful and blessed for the life I have. The sun feels so gooooood. Then, I send up a prayer of thanks. I review my life and how I got to where I am now. Yes m’am, grateful and blessed. I’m tearing up just thinking about it all. Funny how a everyday chore can have such significance,but this happens every year.
I always loved the way that sheets smelled after a day of drying on a clothesline in the wind. It seemed to bring sweeter dreams when sleeping on them that night. Now I am in a place in the country where I can dry them outside again. Life is good!
Nice giveaway! Line dry all but the wash and wear. Remember hanging the towels, because they took so long to dry, and sheets when I was young. The warmth of the sun and the smell of the breeze when folding. And burying your face in your pillow at night and smelling the freshness of outside. It was, and still is, fun work.
Growing up in Alaska, I always helped my mom hang laundry out. We even hung it out when it was below 0°F! Mom’s philosophy was that it would dry eventually. She was right — it did!
I loved hanging out laundry with my grandmother and my mom growing up! I am happy to have a clothesline now myself!
I’ve always loved using solar energy to dry our clothes. When I was a young mom I used cloth diapers and loved the way hanging them on the line not only dried them but also bleached them naturally.
Now I fill my laundry line with quilts that I have sewn. My laundry line has become a gallery of sorts where I can photograph my quilts and post pictures of them on Instagram.
Those beautifully made clothes pins are little works of art!
I live in the country and always hang my laundry out to dry! I love the fresh smell!
I loved helping Mama and Mamaw hang the clothes, whites on the line in the sun, colors on the line in the shade, fresh from the old wringer washer(be careful, don’t step on the cord! they would say). I got my hand caught in that old wringer once…I’d been warned, but just HAD to try it. And they made their own laundry soap. The aroma of the wet clothes, and especially the dry clothes, was so clean, I just couldn’t wait to get into bed and smell the fresh sheets! As a matter of fact, I still make my own detergent and still hang the clothes on the line. Nothing like it! I’m almost 68 and wouldn’t do it any other way. And the good Lord always gives us at least one day of sunshine each week!
I loved helping Mama and Mamaw hang the clothes, fresh from the old wringer washer, in the sun or shade, depending on the color. The home made detergent made them smell so clean! I still make it today and still hang the clothes outside. I’m thankful the good Lord gives us at least one day of sunshine every week!
I was raised in Casper, Wyoming and as a child I remember my mom hanging laundry on the clothesline in our backyard. If you’ve ever been to Casper you know it is one of the windiest towns in the world!!!! So in my memory laundry – sheets, blue jeans, socks and shirts – were all blowing parallel to the ground and held to the line with many, many clothesline. In retrospect I guess they probably dried faster that way than they do today in a dryer!
I loved hanging my babies diapers on the line. A row of white flags waving in the wind. The sun would naturally bleach the diapers a brilliant white. Then, they’d be ready for my sweet little ones the next day.
I remember as a child my mom hanging the laundry on the clothesline, watching her skirts flowing in time with the clothes in the wind.
I remember my mom getting upset when, after hanging the clothes on the line, she would find twigs in the pockets of the pants from birds. Now I look back at that and laugh, but I’ve never experienced the problem myself. 🙂
Sixth grade – I would go out back with my basket of clothes and clothespins and hang the clothes out on the line. My ‘boyfriend’, who became my husband, would come through the alley, stand on his bike and talk to me over the fence while I used the wooden pens to hang the clothes. I never even knew there were plastic clothes pens until about 20 years later. Still use the wooden ones.
This is not memory for me I hang every thing out. My husband “a wielder” built a clothes line out of left over pipe & and use it every week. Why spend the money on electricity you can spend that money else where. And you have cloths that smell so good!!
My sister n brother n I spent our summers in Colorado with our grandparents. Hung out laundry, took it down, folded it, put it up and even had a pile for ironing. The wooden clothesline were in a special bag that we took out when we hung clothes and brought back in after all was taken down. Grandma didn’t want the wooden clothes pins to get wet or be out in the weather. Used the same wooden clothes pins to hang skirts n pants on hangers for the closet, too close chip bags, to hang items in our room on a string….oh what wonderful memories
My country clothesline was between an old tree and an even older tree stump. I loved hanging diapers and all other types of laundry belonging to a large family. It was my favorite chore. Bluebirds would nest in that ol’ stump. Snapping turtles would race to my apple tree for rotting ground fruit, using my clothesline as the finish line. Most of all, I could keep an eye on my 10 children as they explored their farm wonder land.
My mom always hung our clothes outside so when we got our first dryer I missed the smell of freshness. Hanging clothes outside always bring the fresh air inside with my clothes. I am lucky enough to have a clothes line and can still hang clothes and bedding outside. That’s saying something especially for Las Vegas.
I still use my vintage solar clothes dryer outside… and the portable ‘dryer’ by the wood-stove when the weather is in-climate.
One time my mom and I had hung out the laundry and we looked outside to see
my Beagle swinging on the clothes . This was her favorite thing to do .
Of course we had to watch her so she would not do this .
My very favorite memory of childhood was going to my grandmother’s in the summer and on laundry day, she taught me how to hang the sheets on the clothesline. As I got older it was my responsibility to go out alone and hang the sheets and bring them in when they were dry. That fresh clean smell of line-dried crisp sheets has made such an impact on me that several years ago my husband surprised me with my own clothesline so I could continue enjoying what my grandmother and mother taught me. It’s one of my simple joys of living!
Love using the long clothes line that went from our second story porch down to the tree on the ground. Of course it was a pulley system. In the winter we would put a bird feeder on and lower it half way. We loved watching the squirrels try to get to the feeder,hanging upside down and never quite making it.
I remember rushing to get the laundry off before a summer rain would blow in. The laundry props had to come down first before we could reach the garments flapping in the wind.
Only saw my darling grandmother once, since she was from Australia I didn’t get to be with her often. When I was five she came over for a visit for a month. I would cherish the time she would do laundry as I would stand and hand her the cloth pins. I would slowly take the time to hand her each pin as she was telling me about her childhood. The wind would always be gently blowing and she would tell me that the angels are talking and that is why the clothes on the line are dancing in the wind !! Those were special times I so cherish.
8 yrs ago, we lost our home due to my husbands heart attack @ only 50 yrs old. We moved up to a friends 100 yr old cabin on the Grand Mesa in Colorado. We had very little materially & it was not an easy time in our lives. But there was a very old clothesline on the place w/weathered wood holding it up. How I enjoyed hanging clothes & the old lace tablecloth on that line! It lifted me & I have some beautiful pixs & memories from it. Thanks for the reminder❣️ (I have a whole board on Pinterest inspired by it – clothesline couture)
When I was little I use to put all the clothes pins in the cloth bag hanging on the line, we use to play a game of clothespins in the milk bottles, there were five of us kids so Mom was pretty busy hanging clothes everyday….Miss those days….
But there are airplanes…… I loved to hang sheets, towels and jeans out on the line. But NOT my underwear…. two husbands and my dad all think I am nuts, but my undies are not going outside. It does not matter if there are towels on the lines in front and in back…. airplanes might fly by and I do NOT want to display my undies for public view.
I recently hurt my back in a horse riding accident and when the medical folks arrived, I would not let them cut off my overalls until there was a sheet over me. My husband just laughed and said “Underwear, Clotheslines and Airplanes”.
I love hanging clothes on the line on a cool windy morning and when you take them off they smell so fresh and clean. I think I sleep better when I get in between those freshly line dried sheets.
I hang most everything on the line except for underwear and sox. They go in the dryer.
And I need new clothes pins, mine are getting pretty old.
I also use clothes pins to clip the chip bags closed.
It’s been interesting reading the clothespin stories.
My grandma always hung her sheets, pillow cases, towels and wash cloths on the line.
When she went on to Heaven, I would help my granddaddy out by doing some cleaning,
cooking and laundry. Hanging her sheets and pillowcases on the line one morning, I could faintly smell her perfume. She always wore Avon Topaz. When the line was dry and I was folding the pillowcases I found out why her sheets and especially the pillowcases smelled so good. Grandma had tucked in a couple sachets of Topaz. I was amazed that after the wash and air drying I was able to still smell her. It gave me comfort. I left the little worn sachets in the pillowcases and put them on Grandaddy’s bed that very night.
The next morning he commented that through the night he could smell grandma’s perfume. He said that was his first full night of sleep since she had passed 13 days earlier. Until he passed away a year later, I would always slip a little topaz sachet in his pillow case. Never did he know about those sachets. A secret that only the clothesline and I shared. And now 17 years later, when I am hanging pillow cases on the clothes line I will pick up a little drift of her perfume. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
I believe that is just my Grandma’s way of letting me know she still is with me in spirit.
Memory? Heck I use them daily.
Once a week to hang my sheets out to dry in the ocean breeze. And daily use is sometimes about closing a food bag.
Or clipping music to a music stand for outdoor concerts. Or guiding a stem towards a support stick for garden plants.
I would help my mom hang bed sheets, tee shirts and my brothers underwear on our clothesline in the warm sun to dry. We had a clothespin bag and I would hand her the pins but I snuck a couple in my pocket so I could attach them with a playing card to the back of my bike. Multipurpose clothes pins!!
Crunchy hard towels!
We lived in Houston when I was a child, I remember running thru the wet clothes to cool off, my Granny Smith would laugh and just hang back up any thing we knocked off.
While living with my grandparents, I helped with the laundry. My grandmother still used a wringer washer, and we hung the clothes on the line. She did a load of my grandfather’s overalls one winter day. When she was done, she asked me to hang them on the line. When I said, “But it’s winter!”, my grandfather laughed and said, “Haven’t you ever heard of freeze dried?” He still makes me chuckle.
Growing up on a farm, in midwest Ks. every Monday and Thursday were wash day, and most of the clothes were hung on one of two clothes lines. Loved the fresh smell and them, and there was a crispness about them. Even today, I am fortunate to live on a farm, and I still hand out my clothes whenever possible. Everytime I do, I think of my Mum, and wonder, how many hundreds of baskets of clothes, from us eight kids, and Dad’s, did she hang out, on those clothes lines.
I loved hanging laundry out on the line when I was home with young children. It always smelled wonderful and it made me feel like I was getting something done! lol I’d really like to start hanging laundry out again.