Now that we're fully moved into our "mountain cottage," we have a few adjustments to make, most of which will cost money. For instance, we have a clothes washer. We do not have a dryer. Well, in a sense we have a dryer because there's one at our condo, which we are about to put on the market, and the appliances all stay. In an emergency, we can dry our clothes there. But that's a one hour round trip, and when the condo sells, it might be considered tacky for us to drop in on the new owners and ask if we can dry our clothes. Maybe we could put that in the contract. Or, maybe not.
So, when we have freshly-washed clothes to dry, we wait until it's sunny outside and hang our laundry on a clothes line. With clothes pins. The old-fashioned way. With a long, forked stick to hold up the line when the load gets heavy. There's nothing like the fresh smell of clothes dried in the sun on a line. Brings back memories of my childhood. The clothes are a little stiff because they haven't been fluffed in a dryer. I tried to make that work outdoors by clipping a few of those softener sheets between undies, but it didn't seem to help. The clothes were still pretty stiff. I used one of my socks to tap a nail in the wall where my long-suffering wife, Lisa, wanted to hang a picture.
I guess one of the bigger adjustments came when we realized that, on occasion, while our clothes were drying on the line, insects would take up residence in our jeans and t-shirts. For instance, Lisa had a big, black spider emerge from her unmentionables one morning. I was in Newberry, but I heard her rather salty commentary.
And for me, I must say I discovered something that works better than caffeine in the morning. A katydid in my Fruit of the Looms worked way better than coffee.
We're researching dryers.
