Friday, October 10, 2008

My birthday wish came true


I've always had a fierce love for laundry hanging on a line, snapping in the breeze. My great grandma used to babysit us and she actually let us play in the laundry. Well, not the just washed stuff, but she would hang up sheets and blankets and we'd play for hours.

Fast forward to my newlywed years. My DH and I rented our first "house" that came complete with a laundry line in the yard. It was a square affair and dippy and crooked and it was just mostly a pain, but I did use it. Then, we moved into our next house that was built in the '50s and it had the more traditional T-posts with lines strung between. That house saw plenty of cloth diapers and baby stuff added to the usual 2 loads a week. Our next house also had a laundry line, but it ran in the midst of cedar trees. I'm sure when they were planted, no one ever thought they'd grow so wide. I implored my DH to dig them up and move the posts, but alas, he wasn't ever able to do that. He did put up some new wire between trees which worked nicely.

After 13 years of marriage, we finally bought our first house. It had everything on my list of wants/needs except the clothes line. DH promised he'd put one in for me. Every year for any gift giving holiday, I asked for a clothes line. Dozens of holidays have come and gone and this year, in honor of my birthday, I bought myself the cadillac of clothes lines, the Breeze Catcher 140.

It has all the best features: tons of hanging space (holds 3 full loads of clothes), spins with the minimum of breeze (we have plenty of that), folds down like an umbrella and if need be, can be removed from the ground and stored during the winter. OH, and it's rust proof.

The only trouble we had is that it's so windy here, that we ended up cementing it into the ground (after we had it inside the recommended cement block). And, that's really no trouble at all. They even sell the pipe that goes into the cement, in case you ever want to move the system and re-install it somewhere else.

All in all, truly one of the best gifts ever!

1 comment:

Amy said...

I have a collapsable clothesline similar to yours and I love it. It saves me so much money in propane!