Today was our day to work outdoors around the homestead – my husband was busy chopping wood (we heat our house using our woodstove and there’s a storm predicted for tomorrow), cleaning up after chickens and rabbits, and cleaning out the garage. The whole time he has three little helpers following him around who think he’s the greatest dad in the whole world because he can split a log with an axe, find a worm under the rabbit cages and fix a car, all in one day!

While he was busy with three shadows, I had plenty of time to finish many chores around the house since the baby slept a good amount of time today! One of my favorite chores on days like this is hanging laundry outside to dry.

Wait, what? What’s wrong with your dryer? Absolutely nothing. While I was pregnant with my fourth child, I figured it would be a lot of fun to hang clothes outside on a line in order to entertain both myself and the kids while getting something done. We loved it, but once the baby came this was one of the easiest things to put aside due to lack of time and energy.

Then we got the next electric bill. The only thing we had changed in-between the two billing cycles was going back to using the electric dryer full time. Our bill had gone up by 35%! Suddenly it was worth it to me to go back to hanging our clothes. My husband had also noticed his clothes went back to smelling like a dryer sheet, rather than smelling like the sun.

So why write about this chore? Well, I’ve found it’s one of my favorite ways to get back to our homesteading mindset. There’s something very relaxing about the rhythm of hanging clothes, pinning them to the line, folding them outside, all the while in the sun and wind, the kids playing in the background and running through the sheets and towels, hearing the crack of wood being split on the other side of our lot and chickens pecking at stray clothespins that have fallen. One of my sons has taken on the chore of carrying the clothespin bucket to the line each time I come out with a basket of clothes to hang. The oldest son thinks that I am personally offending him if I try to carry the clothes back into the house myself, without allowing him to do it for me.

I love the relaxed feeling that seems to drift over me as I’m hanging up the clothes outside. A while back I read about a practice that I’ve adopted with this – praying for each individual as I hang up his or her clothes. So this ends up being a quieting time for my own soul, as well as a needed chore. With each item of clothing, I think isn’t that soul-quiet what we’re all searching for? That’s the reason for our own search for our homesteading life…

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 3:37 am and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.