The clothesline is up! The clothesline is up!

Long ago, when we first moved into this house, my Aunt Pat gave us a housewarming gift of a clothesline. I was especially excited to install it so I could 1) save a lot of energy by drying my clothes out of doors for free. 2) sleep in sheets that were dried outside. There is nothing better.

However, in order to install my clothesline I had to dig a hole and put 3 inches of gravel in, and mix and pour concrete, and make sure this plastic sleeve was level and then take a dowel or a stick and make a hole in the wet concrete and it was a lot of things I never have done.

So it took me a year and a few months to work up to doing all those things. Luckily, the bat box required hole digging and concrete mixing and pouring too. So I could kill two projects at once. And digging the hole and mixing and pouring the concrete turned out to be easy. Before you could say "Jack Whillakers" I was done.
That blue lid with the rock on it was covering the hole for the clothesline. I dug both holes one week, then came back the next week to finish the project. When I uncovered the hole to put the concrete in, there were slugs making their way around the edge of the hole! Ugh.

What I like about this clothesline is the plastic sleeve I set in the concrete is permanent, but the clothesline itself can be picked up and stored elsewhere. I think this is a fabulous idea. As much as I like clotheslines, it's nice to not have to see one all the time. Also, by not leaving it out in the rain it doesn't get dirty as quickly.

I triumphantly hung my first loads of laundry and came back a few hours later to find this:
But after that setback, things have been going well. I especially like I can do three loads of laundry, put them all on the line and come back a few hours later to bring them in. No waiting for the dryer to be finished for me.