Saturday, August 12, 2006

Dirty Laundry

The energy-efficient washing machine we just bought in January was broken for three weeks. What's more energy efficient than an energy efficient washing machine? Not washing your clothes at all, that's what. But, it didn't come to that, the machine still worked, just the timer was broken so you had to remember to nudge the dial every 10 minutes or so to get the machine to advance to the next cycle. I could never remember to do it, of course, so it was taking two hours to get a load of laundry washed which didn't leave enough time to hang everything on the clothes line and have them dry before dark.
I didn't realize how much I like to hang the clothes on the line until it wasn't an option. Now that the machine is fixed I'm loving the clothes line again. Especially days like today when the clothes you put out at 9:30 are dry by 1:30 and you can squeeze in a second load.
I know it's just laundry but there's nothing more satisfying than using energy from the sun and the wind to get something done. We're so out of touch with our environment, we're always working against it, turning on the AC when it's hot out, turning up the thermostat when it's cold. Rarely do we use nature as a means to an end, except when people are out sailing or if you happen to have solar panels on your house or a wind turbine in the yard. It's the illusive free lunch, so why are we all resisting it?

song: Dirty Laundry • artist: Don Henley

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Add to that the sterilizing and natural brightening qualities of the sunshine, not to mention the smell of that freshly dried bedding!

One of my favorite hanging-out memories is from when my 16-year-old son was in preschool. He had gone over to a friend's house one Saturday to play, and got something on his shirt. So, the friend's mom loaned him something to wear, then washed and dried my son's shirt along with the load she was doing. On the ride home, he told me that when he put his own shirt back on "it didn't have the nice smell like when you wash it, Mommy!"

Love your blog,

Cindy (at work)