Lavamos las ropas

In another one of those milestones that requires a yelp of joy we hooked up our washing machine on Saturday morning.

With the sheetrock work complete we didn't loose a minute before priming the walls of the small cubby space where the machine sits. Nancy and I hauled the thing up from the basement with the crucial aid of a lifting strap that distributes the weight of the object being carried evenly between two people and allows the body to lift the weight safely.

Once we had the machine in place, our dear friend Mary (visiting from Portland, OR) and I spent a little while removing the barrel stabilizers, hooking up the water lines, installing the drain hose and firing 'er up. The directions say to run the first load without clothes, so we did, but as soon as it was complete we started doing laundry in earnest. I joked with Nance that finally we don't have to wait three months to do our laundry on Cape Cod, which is a bit of an exaggeration, but its true that we have gone long spells between doing loads of laundry and end up bringing it with us on visits to Nancy's family's place on the Cape.

Where's the dryer, you might ask?

We've hung our laundry either outside or in the yurt to dry for years and saw no reason to start now. Besides which, dryers use a lot of energy, contribute to wearing out clothes, and in a tightly built house such as ours serve as a contraption for blowing hot air outside. Actually that's true in any house, but we need to think carefully about when air is being moved in or out of the house and if that is being balanced in some way.

In the warmer months we hang our laundry in what we refer to as the sugar shack--our covered outside structure we use for all sorts of stuff. We have a clothes line that runs through the rafter ties. Its easy to reach and keeps the drying laundry out of the direct sun. We'll work out something eventually for hanging laundry inside. I've got some ideas for that.