Thursday, July 7, 2011

The Ladies (And Other Stuff)









Little by little, I have been collecting daylilies. But in a decisively unlikely way (for me). As a keeper of lists, manager of inventories, collector of data - I haven't a clue of the varieties. And so, I just appreciate them. For the simple shows they put on every day. I feel so lucky that I have the space and the sun to continue my collecting. Inventoried or not.

File under random:

I am starting acupuncture today.

I have been making big batches of jasmine refrigerator iced tea. You should, too.

I just joined Barefoot Bucha. Our local Community-Supported-Kombucha share with flavors like Elderflower, Mint and Ginger.

I've been pulled into The Hunger Games series for additional summer reading.

I am babysitting a pig, a brood of chickens, a cat named Licorice, a dog named Desi and a fish named Louis this weekend.

My quest to get away from chemicals, plastics and paper products continues - Re-Nest has a very thorough list on homemade house cleaners. I have to admit, I balked at vinegar for kitchen cleaning, but tried it a while back during a spring cleaning frenzy. I just filled up the sink with hot water and added 1 cup of vinegar and I swear, it removed dirt and grease better than my old standby Method all-purpose cleaner. I use it all over the house now and sometimes add essential oils like lemongrass and lavender (combined), tea tree or peppermint.

And I am trying to expand friendlier practices in the laundry room right now. I hope to sew some dryer sachets with Sugar Hollow-grown lavender and want to make some wool dryer balls from my wool stash. And adding vinegar to particularly challenging wash loads is a great disinfectant, de-stinker and detergent booster.

My next item on the wish-list is a good laundry drying line. I described my ultimate one to Corey - based on what people used in my childhood neighborhood on Long Island. It was a pulley line - so you could stand on your back stoop, hang some laundry and zip it out further over the back lawn and repeat. The summer sound of those squeaking laundry lines is a time capsule of nostalgia for me. He kind of laughed at this particular vision for a clothes line, though. So I will continue to pursue it until I become mildly annoying. Or just do it myself.

3 comments:

Rohrerbot said...

Yes...laundry lines are very important! Beautiful flower shots! It's amazing at all the things we do....right now...I'm doing laundry, drinking coffee, and reading posts....best part of my day!

Becky said...

LOVE my new clothesline. Only took me years of babbling near my husband to get it finished.

Also LOVE vinegar for everything around the house. I've been using it to clean just about everything around the house since Edie was born, but only started using it in my laundry a few years ago when I couldn't get the smell out of my towels and read how vinegar could help. Since then, I've ditched the fabric softener and gone to dryer balls and put vinegar in with every load.

Patience_Crabstick said...

Love those laundry balls. I will definitely have to make some. I know I saw a retracting clothesline like you describe somewhere. The best source in town for odd gadgets is Martin Hardware on Preston although I'm pretty sure the line I saw was in a catalog.

My dryer was broken for a month so for us it was all clothesline all the time, which, with five people in the house, was a tragedy on rainy days.