Airing My Laundry

Just yesterday, the weather couldn’t decide whether it should snow or sleet or just look bleak.  It did seem set on being cold, so I took the occasion of a typical spring day in the eastern plains to hang my laundry to dry in the garden. That is I hung the laundry in the basement next to where all of the seedlings are nestled under the grow lights while it snowed outside. Ahhh, nature!

You may be wondering why I’m drying my clothes on a line anyway. That’s simple enough to explain. The outlet for the dryer doesn’t have the proper amperage.  We’re having an electrician come out to look at this and along with the odd electrical absences in the house. Until then, we’re line drying exclusively.

To be honest, it has been my intention to begin line drying the laundry, at least in part, at our new house. Living in an arid environment most clothes will dry quickly on a line, using less power and smelling pretty nice too. We don't have an air conditioner or swamp cooler either, and it seems silly to heat up the house this summer when there's perfectly good warm air blowing outside. I'm not opposed to dryers. There are certain things like towels that ought to be fluffed in a dryer. Other things like cotton t-shirts and slacks need a dryer to knock out wrinkles, but don’t need a full cycle to dry. Anything I’m going to put under an iron, can certainly dry on the line. I think ironing is relaxing, so I like to do it if I have the time. The same is true of line drying.

Up to now my only impediment to line drying has been suburban home owners association (HOA) restrictions against hanging clothes outside. My card-carrying-HOA-former-neighbors could get by without mowing their back lawns for an entire summer, despite the fact my deck overlooked their homage to Grey Gardens, but I couldn’t hang sheets in my yard for a few hours every Saturday. I have listened to the neighbors' unsupervised children screaming and squealing as though they were being murdered in the street night after night, but God forbid one of my hand towels might blow into their yard to ruin their quiet enjoyment.

I think I'm a tolerant and cooperative neighbor. I've never received a form letter from the  HOA telling me to clean up my act. I will turn off the annoying porch light without any questions and take my yapping dog inside because my neighbors are right to point out he's irritating. I can listen for a long time to engine's revving and subwolfers booming. I can look past the neighbors' weedy backyard and brand new tomato red siding. I'll even pull the weeds that are encroaching and wave to the children who scream in the streets during cocktail hour.  

Since it's not hard to be a good neighbor, I wonder what someone did that drove the HOA over the top to ban practical things like clothes lines, home based businesses and goats. Certainly, my high volume laundry and goat sitting service could be disruptive to the neighborhood, but how is quiet enjoyment and property appreciation is injured by laundry hanging behind a privacy fence, a goat that is in a secure pen and a business that is not spilling out into the driveway.

I also wonder what kinds of neighbors need more rules and less civil conversation. Whatever happened to the humility of asking for permission or to assuming other people may have a reasonable explanation or to admitting when one makes a mistake? Whatever happened to allowing for the fact people make mistakes? My point is that it doesn't help to get so ensconced in rules that we can't show others any forbearance.

Needless to say, I’m happy that my rural situation has given me neighbors whose artfully placed lawn trucks are far enough away as to be quaint and whose chickens are louder than their children.  Sadly, we still aren't zoned for goats. We have one neighbor who is close enough as to recognize my dainties hanging on the line, but I’ve got enough good sense to put those under a sheet. If said lingerie blows away, they’ll more likely be eaten by a deer (or more likely, a chupahuahua) before anyone finds them.

For now, we're only a deer fence away from having a home for my cold hardy seedlings and for a proper clothes line. Given that it always snows in May, I’ll probably still be using the garden under the stairs for a while. I hope the neighbors don't mind what happens when the spring thaw brings 200 thread count sheets.