One week ago today, spring arrived in Michigan or we all thought for the zillionith time! The boys woke up and charged the patio door as usual, demanded to get dressed and head outside to play, nothing new for us. The day continues, I duck in and out of the house getting chores accomplished. On a whim, I drag the clothes line pole out of the tiny shed on the side of house and hang the laundry out to dry. Play in the sandbox turns into games around the clothes pole and folding clothes turns into various craziness. Over all it was a great day!
The children fall asleep in my bed later that evening, I sneak around and put the slightly crunchy laundry away while bouncing a newborn in my action baby carrier. The smell of the laundry was hypnotic, it was like spring was plastered all of the clothes. As the evening wears on I begin to think, could we live without using our dryer? What would that say us on our electric bill? I was intrigued!
Google helped me discover that our gas dryer costs about $0.12 per, hour to run. Our family of 5 does about 9 hours dryer running time per week, 4 of those hours are for cloth diapers. It is almost laughable at the tiny amount we would save by switching to using natural sunlight to dry clothes. But is there a bigger reason to switch? What would our impact on the environment be? Could we take something as simple as drying clothes outside and create a learning experience for our children?
I believe we can!
Our family has unplugged themselves from the tv, sure the television is fun to watch, it allows me to stick the boys in front of it and get things done, but does not create a family bond or nurture our relationship as a family. The tv detox period was rough and I think the dryer detox period will feel about the same.
Drying our clothes outside has taken some adjustment to get used to. Each day the boys and I read about the weather for the day. We attempt to plan how many loads we can wash, dry and put away within our given plans for the day. Some days, the weather is bad and we skip laundry that day. Other days like this past weekend, the sun was shining and it was warm and we accomplished 2 loads outside.
Still my big question remains to be answered, what impact on the environment are we doing by using dryers. Yes, its kind of a dumb question, but if every person made a small lifestyle change could we make a our environment better for the next generations?
(Insert really cute pictures of boy playing outside next to laundry drying, my plan to capture those images today, did not happen because of rain, check back soon)
If you are interested in buying a clothes line pole here is a source to buy it from:
http://www.amazon.com/Household-Essentials-12-Line-Outdoor-Umbrella-Style/dp/B000BO96W8/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1430843452&sr=8-8&keywords=clothes+line+pole
No comments:
Post a Comment