Sheep Mom's AdventuresRaising Shetland Sheep off the grid

There are pros and cons of living where we live. One of the “cons” is LAUNDRY. I hate it.

The reason I hate it is this. I have to take it to a laundro-mat. We DO have a washing machine, but, it only works on cold. It also has a broken knob, which requires us to turn it with a wrench. Then I have to hunt up an extension cord to run it. The next issue is, WHERE to hang the clothes, especially in winter. Our house is tiny. A drying rack is REALLY in the way. Therefore I only use our washing machine in emergencies.

I have, in the past, hung laundry out to dry on a clothes line outside. The problem with this was, THE DOGS. They, or I should say Webster (which we don’t have anymore), liked to make sport of the clothes line and would pull off the clothes, and pull down the clothes line. We just never hung it back up. Also, it gets very windy up here, and in the summer, DUST blows with the wind, and on the clothes.

Laundry in the winter is really a challenge. Most of our friends with families our size (2 adults, 2 kids) do laundry everyday. So you can imagine how high the dirty clothes pile would be IF you couldn’t do it everyday. It would look something like this:

Garfield in his "bedroom"

Yah, it’s scary. Pray for me. The good thing about it is it’s a favorite sleeping spot for the cats.

I have to load as much as I can in 2 large garbage bags (because that is all the snowmobile trailor can hold) and take it down the mountain to the Town Tub Coin-Op laundry.

On my way for washing day

This laundro-mat and I are old friends, or rather, enemies. There are good days and bad days. The good days are the ones where the large front loading machines are available. I can cram 1 large garbage bag full in those, sometimes more. And a good day is when all the dryers work. The bad days are when the parking lot is so crowded I have to park somewhere on the street. The bad day continues when the large capacity front loaders are full and I have to resort to the regular machines. Do you know how many of these I have to use? Too many. Just the other day I had to use a regular machine, or should I say 4 regular machines to do ONE load. I loaded it up, poured the detergent on , put my quarters in, pressed start and….NOTHING. I switch machines, it happens again, and again. The fourth time’s a charm.

And then there are the dryers. I get suspicious when it’s really crowded and there are dryers NOT being used. There must be a reason for it so I wait till a WORKING dryer is available. On the non crowded days I have a system. I put the clothes in and 1 quarter and start the dryer. If it starts up, I’m good. Then I add more quarters. This has served me well until the other day. The dryers pulled a new one on me. I did my ritual and left to run errands. I try not to spend much time there if I can help it. I came back to claim my clothes and found they were still wet. Apparently the heating element was out. I made a note of that machine’s number so I wouldn’t be bit by that again. The next time, I avoided THAT machine and used another. I did my ritual and left. I came back and it happened AGAIN. So I have added a new thing to my ritual. After the machine starts, I wait awhile and open it to see if it is warm. Then I’m free to go. No dryer is going to outsmart me (I hope).

Space on the snowmobile trailer is limited. The ride back up from laundry day is usually weighted down with clothes, gas cans, propane tank (for Ondra’s chicken coop) and groceries. Needless to say, I can’t keep up with the laundry in the winter. But the cats don’t mind!

Ready for home

Until next time….