The Miraculous, Solar Powered, Laundry Drying Apparatus!

When I first married my husband, we lived in an apartment. When we moved overseas, still, apartment living. While I have always used a clothes horse for my clothing as an adult, we didn't have a clothes line until we bought this house and installed one. I grew up however, with all of our clothes being dried on a line, and remember the smell of freshly dried sheets. You can see our umbrella line to the left there surrounded by our container potatoes. I am able to dry all of our clothing for a family of six on this. Cost me $30 for the stand and $5 for some concrete mix to sink it into.

As I've gotten older, our country has moved from things like line drying, all in the name of convenience. I mean, you can even get your liquor through a drive thru. Really? So things like line drying are becoming obsolete cause apparently ain't nobody got time for dat. Really though let me tell you what's so awesome about drying your clothing without a dryer. I do realize that not everyone has their own property, but you can even dry on a balcony or patio if you buy a $20 clothing horse or two. We use them in the winter to dry things that I don't want to put in the dryer.

The bennies:

1) Your clothes will last longer. seriously. This isn't just a ploy. They really will. Every time I dry something, I have to clean out the lint trap. Know why? That damned dryer is slowly breaking down my clothes. When your clothing doesn't break down like that, producing lint, it not only lasts longer (which saves you money) but will look better for longer too.

2) Your clothes don't shrink. Cause don't tell me you haven't smalled up your clothes in the dryer. We've all done it. You have that great shirt. Perfect color, perfect fit, you put it in the dryer and suddenly the tunic that hit you perfectly at your hips is now making you look like you're trying to bring the 80's cropped shirts back. And somehow that mother got four inches wider to boot. It defies science for real.

3) No wrinkles. I love when I make my bed and there's no wrinkles. And I'm telling you I am NOT about to iron my damned sheets. I'm just not that OCD. But I love it when I crawl into bed, the sheets are nice and crisp, they have that great sun dried smell and there are NO wrinkles. I sleep so much better! The rest of your clothes won't' need ironing either. And I know what you're thinking. "Yeah, but my towels are all crunchy, and scratchy and who wants to be lacerated by their laundry after a shower?" Well throw them in the dryer with a wet washcloth for 10 minutes and they'll be fine. I promise. :) Still cheaper than using your dryer all the time.

4) Your socks won't stick to the back of your pants making you look like a fool. Ok, so maybe I've not had that happen in real life, at least, I've caught the sock before putting on the pants, but I have had my skirts stick with static to my pantyhose. Thankfully these days, I'm lucky if I put on shoes and socks and not just my hippy sandals, but for real, for those of you that still wear real people clothing and not stay at home mom clothing, this will work much better than smelly ass hairspray. Cause only the cheap stuff works on static cling and it stinks.

5). Free bleach. Dood, your whites will never be whiter. I can bleach our cloth nappies in just one day in the sun. Socks? White as can be. Some things like the washcloths my hubby uses after spending 12 hours climbing around and in those big ass locomotives he fixes at work, yeah, those might take a few times in the sun, but you can even get those white again (or at least a dull gray).

6). Its free. And we all love free right? I mean, if there's a free sample at the store, it doesn't matter if it's something you won't use, people still take them. This is a gift that just keeps on giving. According to science, most of us use about 10% of the electric we use just on our clothes dryer.

7) You're loving on Mother Nature more, and really we need more love on this planet don't we? So cuddle right up to Mother Nature and line dry your clothing.