I'm Drying in the Rain
It's the weekend, the moment of washing clothes that will be needed during the week. Correction, of washing and drying. Therein lies the problem.
I don't have a dryer. Normally, I wash the clothes, take it out, and hang it outside to dry. During the mostly dry months that's not usually a problem. The problem begins now. The eternal rains are upon us. That means I hang the clothes in the cellar to dry. There's no problem with that - if I don't mind waiting three or four days for it to dry. The problem comes on the weekends, when my husband's clothes needs to be dry for early Monday morning.
Then, we scramble. Or, rather, try to. The clothes comes out of the washer and to the kitchen. We light the fire. We hang the clothes in front of the wood stove to dry. There are points where clothes dries faster and points where it dries slower. So, I rotate. When one piece is dry, another piece from another section is put there, and a piece from the basket is placed where that one was. The problem is the fire would need to be lit for a day and a night to dry an entire basket of clothes in one sitting.
And we have to be careful how we place the clothing in front of the stove. I have a green sweater that has an orange-brown spot inside one shoulder. Thankfully, the burn didn't pass through to the front. But some clothing has been ruined that way. My husband suggests stretching a pole between two chairs over the stove to dry clothing overnight. I demur. Our four furry delincuents are capable of jumping on the chairs, playing with the pole, and knocking down clothes on the stove top. We would have barbecued clothes with innocent looks on the side.
So why don't we buy a dryer? Because of the eternal problem of cost. The cost of buying it, the cost of installing it, the cost of running it. In the end, it's an appliance that can smooth our daily life, but it's not absolutely necessary. If we can wait a few hours or a couple of days for a piece of clothing to dry, we don't see a reason for a dryer.
Of course, that's my line of reasoning, until it rains for an entire week and I need two loads of clothes dried yesterday.
I don't have a dryer. Normally, I wash the clothes, take it out, and hang it outside to dry. During the mostly dry months that's not usually a problem. The problem begins now. The eternal rains are upon us. That means I hang the clothes in the cellar to dry. There's no problem with that - if I don't mind waiting three or four days for it to dry. The problem comes on the weekends, when my husband's clothes needs to be dry for early Monday morning.
Then, we scramble. Or, rather, try to. The clothes comes out of the washer and to the kitchen. We light the fire. We hang the clothes in front of the wood stove to dry. There are points where clothes dries faster and points where it dries slower. So, I rotate. When one piece is dry, another piece from another section is put there, and a piece from the basket is placed where that one was. The problem is the fire would need to be lit for a day and a night to dry an entire basket of clothes in one sitting.
And we have to be careful how we place the clothing in front of the stove. I have a green sweater that has an orange-brown spot inside one shoulder. Thankfully, the burn didn't pass through to the front. But some clothing has been ruined that way. My husband suggests stretching a pole between two chairs over the stove to dry clothing overnight. I demur. Our four furry delincuents are capable of jumping on the chairs, playing with the pole, and knocking down clothes on the stove top. We would have barbecued clothes with innocent looks on the side.
So why don't we buy a dryer? Because of the eternal problem of cost. The cost of buying it, the cost of installing it, the cost of running it. In the end, it's an appliance that can smooth our daily life, but it's not absolutely necessary. If we can wait a few hours or a couple of days for a piece of clothing to dry, we don't see a reason for a dryer.
Of course, that's my line of reasoning, until it rains for an entire week and I need two loads of clothes dried yesterday.
I do not have a dryer either. I do use a section of a room and sometimes the patio. We can take stuff to the laundry mat. I have also used part of the electric radiator, not recommended. Rick covered the control part which ruined the radiator.
ReplyDeleteWe have also used an electric radiator. But only when something was needed NOW because the meter flies when it's turned on.
ReplyDelete