Roses and Clotheslines

My David Austen roses are blooming. The scent comes through the open windows on gorgeous days like today. The rose alley leading to what passes for a gazebo around here had become completely impassable, so I went out with the clippers and brought two aprons-ful of roses in.

Our tomato and pepper plants arrived today, so we'll be scattering those around the "guilds" in the next day or so: Gypsy peppers, a couple of varieties of jalapenos, red and gold cherry tomatoes, several different varieties of Roma including a stripe, and one heirloom tomato (Tiffen Mennonite, a pink tomato).

Still no peep from the squashes. John got the hardy kiwis in. Remaining are the second fig tree, the elderberries, and a few errant currants. Try saying that five times fast.

Being outdoors so much makes me want my clothesline back, really badly. Our old one has become completely engulfed by the dogwood tree and the laurel hedge. Even cutting them both back, it's in the shade. Which makes me nuts, because it's a really good one that goes for something like $150 now.

The people who owned this house before me (20+ years ago) planted so many trees too close to each other, too close to the house, too close to the clothesline. We've been cutting down trees ever since we bought the place, sadly.

I can't bring myself to cut down the dogwood outside my kitchen window, the one engulfing my clothesline. I look forward to its pink blossoms every spring, and there's nothing wrong with the tree. The clothesline's just on the wrong side of it.

So we're trying to figure out where to install a temporary retractable one, and when things become a little more settled in the yard, move the old clothesline to a better location. That will be a job; it's really concreted in there.

My mom didn't hang laundry out that much. I remember when I was really little she did, but as soon as we had a dryer that was that. And later, we lived in so many places where clotheslines were illegal--I spent most of my adolescence very near to the writer of this piece, who is secretly hanging out laundry on an illegal clothesline. Illegal clotheslines. The concept blows me away. The illegal line-dryer frets about the stiffness of clothes, but in my experience you just bring in towels still slightly damp and fluff them in the dryer a couple of minutes. Clothes soften up almost as soon as you wear them, and if you iron them, they lose their stiffness entirely.

We could cut more than 3% of our nationwide energy consumption just by hanging laundry in the sunny months of the year. Do you know what that makes line-drying? PATRIOTIC. That's what.

Memorial Day is for remembering our war dead. The best way you can remember the dead from this current war, besides writing and phoning your congressmember to end this nonsense, is to cut your energy use. Clotheslines are a start.