The other day I happened upon the below comment and it moved me very much. I am forever amazed at how little I know about anything including how much is done for me and provided for me by Him but about which I remain unaware. I long for greater sensitivity and awareness if, for no other reason, than to be able to be grateful for that much more.
The grace of God is the love of God, love manifested in innumerable blessings, known and unknown to us. Human beings live on Earth in their shells, mostly unaware of all the privileges of life, and therefore ungrateful to the Giver of them. In order to see the grace of God, one must open one’s eyes, raising one’s head from the little world that one makes around oneself, and thus see above and below, right and left, before and behind, the grace of God reaching one from everywhere in abundance. Hazrat Inayat Khan
It seems like our view of things is always so much more narrow than we think. Even of the good stuff. We long for so much and there it is before us and within us and yet we still don’t see it.
May we yield gracefully in our lives as our Higher Selves - our inner bits that are Him and Nature and All - draw us into circumstances and possibilities that will allow us to become aware and grateful for all that there is. May we do all of this and still get dinner on the table night after night. That is the real trick. Expanding on and on into endless gratitude while still harvesting the squash in a timely fashion, sweeping the kitchen every morning, and pouring love into each child no matter what. It is striving to achieve the delicate balance of inner and outer, however, that is exactly the minute-by-minute challenge that propels us forward the most quickly.
May we all harvest and sweep and love beautifully in gratitude for all that there is.
From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie
I am sure that those of you who hang your laundry out to dry even in the winter are familiar with the problem I am about to mention.
Laundry hung out during the winter does not dry all that fast. On a warmish, breezy day, if you get it hung early enough, some of it may actually dry completely. Some of it won’t though. If, like me, you are combining washing your laundry by hand with homeschooling and baking all of your bread, you may find that on some days you don’t get it hung out all that early which just compounds the winter conditions. On other days, it is too cold for the laundry to dry anyway. The water in the fabric freezes and then it takes forever to dry. (One remedy for this particular problem is to go out and hit your laundry with a stick, knocking out the ice. Then much more of the water still remaining in the fabric has a chance to evaporate. I personally try to dry my laundry inside on days that are that cold as the wood burning stove would definitely be blazing away anyway.)
Anyway, at the ends of such half and half kinds of winter days in which the weather is half and half and the laundry itself is half dry and half not, I have a very hard time figuring out if any given item is just cold or if it is still damp. Do I hang it to dry some more or fold it and put it away? I probably comment on this every single time I bring the laundry in during the winter months.
About an hour ago, I set the floor dryer up by the wood burning stove in the kitchen and started to sort through the laundry I had just brought in. Carolyn, my 17 year old, was standing at the kitchen sink finishing up making the butter. I exclaimed for the millionth time, “Gosh, I just can’t tell if this shirt is cold or damp.”
She turned to me and said, “Rub it against your cheek. We just learned that in my pottery class. If you put a clay piece that is still damp in the kiln, it will explode. So you have to be very sure that it is completely dry. Our cheeks are more sensitive than our fingers so we learned to rub a piece against our cheek to make very sure that it is dry before firing it.”
“Oh. OK. That makes sense.”
So I tried it. I rubbed a few pieces of clothing against my cheek. They felt dry to my fingers and to my cheek. Hmmm … However, I was also aware that I could really feel the weave of the fabric against my cheek in a way that I couldn’t with my fingers. Interesting. Next I picked up a big shirt of my husband’s. I felt it with my fingers. Damp? Cold? Couldn’t tell. I rubbed it against my cheek and TA DA - it was clearly damp! I almost jumped it was so obviously damp against my cheek!
Wonderful. Now I have a method for determining damp/cold and another small yet niggling problem of daily life is solved. I am grateful for this simple (and completely portable!) solution and wanted to make note of it here and share it with any of you who struggle with this same difficulty with winter laundry. I am also grateful for the “associative property” of nature. Many solutions are there if we observe nature closely and then correctly apply what we learn to what appears to us as separate categories of life (but probably really aren’t).
Finally I want to say, “Thank you, Carolyn.” It obviously takes a family to raise a mother.
From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie
There are two particular sorts of sounds associated with hand washing our laundry I love. They are a kind of a slapping sound and a sweet whisper.
Set up for sound #1:
You fill the hot water and soap in your wash tub, soak the clothes, plunge the clothes until you are nearly breathless. You scrub them on the washboard and wring. You drop them into your first rinse bucket of more hot water and plunge. Wring. Drop them into your second rinse bucket and plunge. Wring extra well…
Sound #1:
… and toss those well-worked clothes with a wet, heavy satisfying slapping sound into a basket set out to catch the clean, clean, heavy clothes on their way out to be run through the wringer and then hung to dry. I just love that slapping sound. So satisfying. So indicative of patient work and the light dryness to come.
Set up to sound #2:
Oldest daughter and youngest daughter become hand washing laundry buddies. Together they plunge and splash while listening to Enya. Oldest daughter teaches youngest daughter songs they then sing together while washing some of the family laundry. Oldest daughter is good at directing the activity. Youngest daughter specializes in plunging with extraordinary energy and enthusiasm. Oldest daughter leaves town for several days. Within moments of her return home, youngest daughter rushes up to me and whispers in my ear,
Sound #2:
“Can Carolyn and I go hand wash some laundry together now?”
No matter how tired I may sometimes get from doing by hand what most Americans do by machine these days, I could never give up those sounds. They are too wonderful.
From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie
Many people who are deeply concerned with the deteriorating condition of the earth and are personally committed to changing their lives so as to have less of a negative impact upon that condition, also believe categorically that no thinking person should contribute more children to the overpopulation of humans already burdening the earth. They may relent that there are going to be people who have one or two children and perhaps that needs to be accepted. However, families like us who are riveted to the idea of living simply but who also have more than the regulation two children are considered to be, at best, anachronisms and, at worst, hypocrites.
I noticed the other day that recently my husband and I each separately happened to partially address this belief system in other forums, each in our own way. I thought I would just post our comments here one after the other for reference. I must add, though, that the deeper spiritual reasons which guided us in our choices with regards to “family planning” and which illuminate for us the vital issue of overpopulation remain unspoken by either of us in the comments copied below. I am not sure those reasons and insights are for public consumption so I will continue to leave them unspoken for now.
To start here is a comment I wrote in response to a question about using political pressure to reduce childbearing:
All approaches to this subject that do not have a spiritual understanding at their base are mental machinations only and not based in a broader reality. When you think about it, it is mental machinations and living unnatural lives that got us into the large scale mess we are in to begin with. To mandate (or wish we could mandate) one more way in which people should become even more unnatural is not really a solution to the problem of overpopulation, to my way of thinking. To suggest that persuading people to deny their instinct, their longing and their responsibility to the future of lovingly being a conduit for souls to come here is as incomplete a response as those who shout that overturning Roe v Wade is the principle way to slow abortion rates. It just ain’t so. It is coming at the problem from the wrong end, the symptom end.
To suggest that no soul/person would want to be here on earth 20 years from now is only a material analysis. From a comfort, physical body perspective that may become painfully true (and may become true even sooner than that - in fact is true for many right now) but on other levels it may not be true. Humans have created a mess here by thinking they know more than they do and ACTING on that to the detriment of all species. Yikes. It is possible that this way of thinking of having no children based on a turbulent future may be one more example of that.
An alternative position is to know that in the future the majority of people will be suffering and clueless. We have the option of having children naturally (and “naturally” here has a very deep meaning, not the common meaning of “typical” but a meaning more like “according to original design”) and raising them to have a kind of consciousness and skill set that will give them the opportunity to serve the suffering people they will find all around them. It is conceivable that that might be a life worth living.
It seems to me that a rule or rigid stance won’t help here but rather only a new condition can help. In other words, only consciousness, awareness, sensitivity, self-discipline, knowledge of more subtle realities, a willingness to be uncomfortable and so on can lead people to act responsibly in their own lives. Hopefully we can all find ways to encourage this in ourselves and each other. Rough words that shame people about acting naturally (when in fact the creation of babies is undertaken naturally!)will probably make them shut down and this goes in the opposite direction away from creating a condition of heightened awareness.
In my limited, individual experience there is always more to these complexities than meets the eye or the material analysis. We have to keep digging. We have to be willing to discover or uncover an entirely new approach. I have found that this definitely applies to the very important topic of childbearing within families and humanbearing on the planet in general.
In a forum discussing government regulation of real milk, real seeds and real farming practices, someone raised the issue with my husband of his daring to raise six children in our present world. He responded as follows:
I agree with you that presently overpopulation is a major problem. The 7 billion mark that will be upon us in 2012 will be a disaster for the earth.
However, I believe that the real problem here centers around man’s desire for control. People living in moderation and taking only what they need would allow the earth to comfortably sustain more rather than fewer people. In fact it is conceivable that people living in harmony and attuned to the natural path could work within natural systems to actually improve conditions for all life on the planet. Instead humanity has chosen to do its own thing and that is what has caused the overall problem.
Nature, in fact, wants vast reproduction and abundance and is set up for it. When a species overpopulates, there are natural systems in place that assure a return to balance. Human beings have applied great efforts to overriding such natural systems and so again this has caused a great many problems.
The problem as I see is that we don’t have a real authority figure and we are operating independently from the whole. We don’t truly believe in God and don’t put God in charge of our existence and yet we don’t follow our scientific discoveries to the letter of the law either.
For example, science tells us that in nature only the best of a species is allowed to reproduce.
Members of each species go to great lengths to win reproduction rights. As a homesteader I can tell you that people with livestock always breed the best of their herds to the best of their herds. Yet with humans these days, the ones with success, education, privilege, abundant food, health care and so on (i.e. the elite, the people “who rise to the top”) choose not to reproduce or to reproduce at below replacement rate at best. Therefore it is often (not always but often) the poverty stricken and uneducated people who are the ones growing the population. Often the uneducated and poor are malnourished and suffer from chemical toxicities that impair their genetic makeup. So what is happening to the human stock then?
As a whole, we humans are not relying on God, nature or science in this matter of reproduction and population limits. Rather we are just dong what we want. In fact, we are going directly against the system that God and nature have set up for reproduction and population control which necessarily means that our species is going the wrong way. I know it is a popular view here [where this comment was posted] and in the overall progressive community that birth control is irrefutably a good thing but then where are all the progressives going to come from in the future? And beyond that, what situations are all of the higher developed humans going to be born into?
So for these reasons, my wife and I (both of whom have Masters degrees and a variety of other things that are supposedly important) have used a different system than the one currently employed by virtually everyone we know. We surrendered our choice to the God that is within us to determine how many children we would have and have let nature run its course. We have also set the intention to keep an open invitation for higher developed souls to come into our family and we have spent the majority of our resources in providing a rich environment for them to grow up in. I cannot fully go into the benefits of this approach but my wife and I both feel that we have been greatly rewarded from approaching our family size in this way.
There is one more thing that I want to add. Everything we humans have done from polluting the world with phytoestrogens and other pollutants to having the collective human consciousness become filled with the thought that ‘having babies is bad’ indicates the likelihood that there will be a future in which having children - especially healthy ones - will be difficult. As everything is cyclical, there will be a time in the future when conceiving and giving birth will perhaps be a much more rare occurrence than it is now. People will perhaps look back on these attitudes and approaches to having children with an anguished wonder.
Differences between “family planning” as it is usually talked of and “Divine family planning” as is pretty much never talked of are very large issues. Becoming willing to expand the definition of living naturally and doing whatever it takes to enact that expanded definition of natural living into one’s very own life is a very large issue. The discord that arises from the set of beliefs with which humans typically analyze their world as opposed to the spiritual realities that actually govern this world is an even larger issue. In comparison to these very large issues, our comments are minimal at best and yet I thought I would share them here in case they might spur fresh thinking. For instance, I was particularly struck by my husband’s observation that we are setting up future generations to have great difficulties with trying to normalize childbearing. As such, I pray for all of us now and especially pray for future generations who will have much to deal with on all fronts, including the essential one of childbearing.
From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie
About a week or more ago, my boys did a father-enforced deep clean on their rooms and finished switching out their summer clothes for winter clothes. This resulted in a sparkling room for them but a rather large pile of laundry for me.
When laundry day dawned (for it is still a weather-based activity for us), I was dismayed at the formidable mountain of laundry waiting for little ole hand washing me to tackle. My husband responded by pointing out that we still have our old washing machine in the basement. He thought it would be a good idea to hook it up, use it to wash all of the extra laundry this one time, but just stand there through its cycles to stop the machine as it started to flood.
Now that was a very logical, thoughtful suggestion. But you know what? I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. Even though hand washing our laundry takes so much time (and would especially take so much time in this circumstance) and I get absolutely starving from doing it (!) and I am usually in pain for a couple of days afterward (I am plagued by loosey-goosey joints), I just couldn’t go back to using a machine even in the face of an unusually large pile of laundry. I just couldn’t.
I said, “Thank you but … well, I would know that those clothes aren’t really clean.” (He understood what I said and, I think, understood what I couldn’t quite say.)
OK. Yes, it was partly that I guess. But, honestly, it was much more than that. There is something about doing laundry this way. I don’t know if I can quite put it into words. It is the elemental simplicity of it. It is the sound of the water and the rhythm of the movements. It is the quiet attention you can pay to each piece of clothing and each beloved family member to whom it belongs. It is the feeling of connection with brothers and sisters all over the world who wash their clothing in a similar manner. It is working together with enthusiastic children and strong, broad shouldered husbands to accomplish this necessary task of daily living. It is laughter and water and prayer all rolled up into one “mundane” activity.
What else can I say? I think that it is the naturalness of it. Yes, that’s it. The naturalness of it. Hand washing the laundry and hanging it up to dry feels congruent. It feels right. It feels … well, natural.
A slapdash, machine-made, apparent efficiency cannot make up for laughter and water and prayer and naturalness. All the machine really does is move clothing mindlessly from one pile to another. Hand washing the laundry, on the other hand, always holds the potential to increase awareness, build muscles and character, and extend love. It fits into a natural day like the in fabulous quilt above. See the block showing hand washing laundry? It is all of a piece.
I never, ever would have guessed this on my own. Only doing the work, paying attention to the actual experience, and submitting to the discipline of it showed me. I am truly grateful for myself personally, and am so glad that the children will grow up with more naturalness in their lives. Functioning a bit more naturally will come naturally to them. I view that as a good thing.
From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie
My husband and I were raised with pretty much the same attitudes as any other middle class Americans. Yet somehow, we ended up here. Where is here? Well, we are out in the country with six children, an assortment of rare breed dairy cows and goats, chickens, a garden and so on. Here also includes baking in an outdoor wood-fired earth oven, taking showers in an outdoor bamboo shower (during the summer!), hand washing our laundry (all year), making all of our food from scratch, building all of our outbuildings from scratch and so on. Furthermore, here includes homeschooling, heartfelt meditation, ongoing scriptural studies and daily relationship building in a very intimate family setting. And, honestly, it feels like we have only just gotten started.
So how did we end up here? We ended up here because my husband and I share a passion for answering the question “What does it mean to live a natural life?”
What does that even mean … a natural life?
Discovering answers to this question endlessly fascinates us here. It challenges us, inspires us and constantly reshapes our thoughts and actions. Let’s see, living a natural life surely includes eating locally grown, organic produce and learning to tough out humid summers without air conditioning. Right? What else? It surely includes being willing to use our hands to carry out the tasks of daily living and living with far fewer possessions than is the norm. Yes. What else? We think it seems to include stepping away from cities and disengaging from a wide range of urban attitudes and dependencies. Definitely yes. But still - what is all of this? Does living a natural life go beyond lifestyle concerns and economic choices? Why do so many people crave “a natural life” and yet not know how to create one? And how did our passion for this question get us here?
What we have realized after years of considering these questions is that living a natural life means living according to the Original Design. It means that we live contentedly (obediently even) within the supports and guidelines of “natural laws.” It means that we are willing to scrap virtually everything we have been led to believe is true or necessary for a successful life and aude sapere - dare to think - for ourselves. Dare to think fearlessly, creatively, In harmony with each other, by looking within for answers, and, most of all, in faith.
There is an Original Design for humans and human life on this sweet, green Earth. We only have to keep editing and editing and editing out what we humans invented over millennium until we find what the Creator designed for us and in us in the first place. Pretty much everything works better according to original plans and instructions, yes? This is no less true of human beings. And this is rather less a statement about technology than it is about inner attitudes and ways of acting.
Being passionate about something brings an inherent discipline and responsibility with it. As I read this morning:
Anything you don’t give your life to is not worth doing. Swami Vivekananda said, “Give me men of passion.” Passion does not mean sexual passion; it means a passionate nature, that if I do this, I must do it perfectly. I must do it as well as I can. I must do it now. And promises do not constitute work. He who wants to give must give now. Youth: A Time of Promise and for Effort, vol. 2, p.157 P. Rajagopalachari
Our passion for this ongoing process of discovering what a natural life can be has brought us such a deep feeling of well being and has provided so much “grist for the mill” for our growth that we have for some time now felt a likewise passion for sharing what we are discovering with the many other uncomfortable people who also crave a natural life. It is for this reason that we write extensively on our Pockets of the Future blog and share photos, videos and information there and on our POTF web site. We are pleased that so many people are finding these resources useful for expanding and re-shaping their lives. But we are restless to do more.
As such, my husband and I are very pleased to announce the launch of our family-based publishing business - Bamboo Grove Press. Through Bamboo Grove Press, we will have the means to share much more of what we have been blessed with and what we have discovered during our own transformation. We will be able to share our delight in family life, our complete dependence upon a spiritual perspective, and the fruit of skill building in many areas. I am happy to say that we will be publishing books for children as well as for adults. (We even have a game in mind but we will see how that goes.) We will just generally be leaving as complete a paper trail as possible so that the many people who will be increasingly craving a natural life themselves will be able to have companions in their homes on their book shelves. While remolding oneself and one’s family life into a life that is more natural brings ease and contentment, it is nevertheless a profound transformation to undergo during otherwise hostile and uncertain times. Companions, friends, associates can help so much. We want to be that, to the extent that we are able, for brothers and sisters now and in the future.
Hand washing laundry is as ancient a practice as wearing clothes made of fabric. Furthermore, and perhaps very surprising to Americans who generally only know about washing machines and will travel miles to use one if necessary, millions of people all over the world still wash their clothing by hand.
While using water is a constant across time and cultures, other aspects vary. Agitating or bending and twisting the fabric to help loosen dirt is accomplished in ways as varied as rubbing and twisting, beating against a rock, beating the fabric with a wooden bat, or using a washboard. Additions that help the water work more effectively have ranged over time from fermented urine (used extensively by the Romans; it was the ammonia salts in it that helped whiten togas) to soaproot to handmade laundry soap to modern day chemical based detergents.
Regardless of which method people are using to hand wash their laundry, I know that no matter when I am hand washing my family’s laundry, people all over the world are also hand washing theirs. My imagination wanders to the various cultures I know something about. I wonder about the lives of all the people squatting down over water and soap, working, working, working to get their clothes clean. I think about their hand movements. I think about how they often are washing together in groups. I think about how their children are hanging about or helping or playing. Images go through my mind and prayers go through my heart. I feel a deep sense of connectedness to brothers and sisters all over this fair green planet, all using her resources of water and sun and time to clean away the grime of every day life. With practiced movements and ceaseless conversations about the shared sufferings and shared celebrations of community life, people everywhere use their minds and hands to accomplish the sublime task of getting just a little bit cleaner.
Two Sundays ago, I spent a couple of hours going through videos on YouTube that show people from around the world hand washing their laundry. I really enjoyed watching all of them and I learned a great deal from them as well. A few particular images were before my mind’s eye the last time I did our laundry. Those images kept me company and added a deep resonance to my somewhat arduous task. I could hear the laughter from far away and feel the tears and only wonder at the grace of the movements. Down below are links to a few of the videos I discovered. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did and for those of you who wash your laundry by hand already, I hope you feel your sense of connection expand greatly. After all, we are all trying to get clean and Nature, as always, provides the necessities.
From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie
The Ukraine - such vigorous use of a washboard!
Nicaragua and Brazil - The image of the girl laughing in the one from Nicaragua stays with me.
Various locations in Africa -
This one from Bangledesh pulls at the heart strings -
The Philippines -
Here are some from China. Notice how nicely the little girl does her share of the work in the first video -
And, finally, here are several from India. Notice the very beautiful hand movements you can see in so many of them -
And this last one from India with a mother and child playing together -
Like many of the “living simply” tasks I am learning to do around the homestead, I find that hand washing laundry is done at a pace and with a physical rhythm that encourages contemplation. Also because water is involved, I find that my thoughts really flow. One of the trains of thought that has come to me through several washing sessions has to do with the myriad ways that hand washing laundry is similar to homeschooling. While homeschooling is much more common now than it used to be, hand washing laundry is not yet common again here in the United States. As a matter of fact, I have seen a number of people who engage in homeschooling decrying those who also engage in hand washing laundry. This is kind of interesting because most folks nowadays would decry both with no thought of distinguishing between the two. So stepping back a bit, what can I say from experience are some of the similarities between hand washing laundry and homeschooling?
1. Both activities require that you re-arrange your life in ways that run counter to the dictates of the modern materials/money economy. Interestingly, since these are both age old activities, practicing them at this point in history requires bold thinking, self-discipline and a creative approach to problem solving.
2. Both are giant steps towards self-sufficiency. All benefits that accrue from becoming more self sufficient in one’s daily activities flow from both hand washing laundry and homeschooling.
3. With both, you build skills that you will never forget and would never otherwise learn. Once you know how to teach a child to read or how to wash their dress to sparkling cleanness with your very own hands, you will always know how to do those things and will be able to do them anywhere, any time.
4. Both homeschooling and hand washing laundry create the space to pray about and devote yourself in service to the needs of others. As such both are, therefore, character building and have tremendous potential to deepen the bonds between family members as well as members of the community.
5. Both hand washing laundry and homeschooling are greatly enhanced if approached from a “teamwork” perspective. If the family works as a team to clean clothes or as a team to discover what it even means to be “educated” and works as a team to become truly educated together, then adventure, beauty, love and Divine inspiration may be your constant supports as you undertake either of these daily activities of life.
6. Carried out with awareness, both homeschooling and hand washing laundry demand fewer natural resources than conventional approaches to either education or laundering.
7. Hand washing laundry and homeschooling are both pathways to discovery and connection. People undertake both all over the world so a brotherly feeling of connection is waiting there to be experienced. I will write more about this aspect in another post. Furthermore, simple truths have been hidden away gradually and, at times, willfully by those promulgating the conventional approaches. How many people know now that you can get clothes much cleaner on your own than by using washing machines? How many people know now that a loving parent can teach their children how to read? How many people know now that artificial chemicals and so-called fragrances are the opposite of clean? How many people know now that education is best conducted in an atmosphere of wonder and love? Peeling away conventional attitudes and approaches to both laundering and educating can lead to delightful and unanticipated discoveries.
8. We are hardwired to find satisfaction in primary labor, i.e. the kind of work that is directly related to survival and real, natural life. Our economic engine is predicated upon us turning our backs on our true natures. It forcefully keeps us lulled in a state of perpetual forgetfulness about our true abilities and our higher purpose. However, I can say from vivid personal experience that taking the time to become reacquainted with the primary labors of life brings peaceful satisfaction brimming to the surface and spilling over into smiles, affectionate touches and contented sighs. The sight of honestly clean clothes ruffling in a breeze, the sound of milk hitting the milk pail, the experience of a child’s understanding blooming before your eyes are experiences that are wonderfully fresh and yet deeply remembered. There really is no substitute. The more of these activities you can include in your daily life, the more satisfied and confident you may feel.
9. Both hand washing laundry and homeschooling increase flexibility and expand your range of choices. Now if a person’s goal is to engage in secondary labor (i.e. most jobs which are sort of made up and have nothing to do with creating food or clothes or shelter), to earn ever more money, to increase prestige and to have more things, then - no - neither hand washing laundry nor home educating are the way to go because they dramatically decrease the flexibility needed for those sorts of endeavors. However, if living a natural, unassuming, deeply intimate, conserving sort of life is your goal then both hand washing laundry and homeschooling expand your options considerably. You can wash clothes based upon the weather. You can wash inside or outside. You can work alone or with others. You can decide how much elbow grease to put into a particular stain or pair of work jeans or not. You can use equipment or not. You can make small adjustments throughout the process because you are consciously a part of the entire process. It is the same with homeschooling. You can choose educational goals, content, scheduling, exact location… everything. You get to choose everything based upon your style as teacher, the propensities and learning styles of the students, budget, other daily tasks that must be accomplished, spiritual goals or not and so on. As any of these conditions change, you are free to change with them because while doing it yourself is more work, doing it yourself comes largely free of institutional rigidity and hindrances. You are flexible and free to respond to inspiration.
10. One of the most startling similarities between hand washing laundry and homeschooling is the wildly successful outcome that comes from giving individual attention. With both activities, individual attention is perhaps the greatest key to success. Examining each item of clothing in the bright light of the sun, assessing what sort of treatment it needs and then supplying said treatment is the key to keeping everything in the best possible condition and making it last the longest. Prayerfully considering the needs and aptitudes of each child and then stretching as a parent/teacher to meet those needs and aptitudes goes further in making it possible for each child to become what they should become than anything else. Simple systems carried out with modest resources generally encourage the magnifying glass of the human mind to be pointed towards the needful. Improved outcomes nearly always follow.
Honestly, I find striving to live simply a gold mine of ideas, discoveries, insights, and opportunities. This seems to be true no matter what the “living simply” activity is (and is one of the biggest secrets of our times I might add). In any case, it is certainly true with both hand washing laundry and homeschooling. May we all boldly and yet humbly step away from institutional thinking and discover what we can through the profitable use of our own hearts, minds and hands.
From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie
We have been hand washing all of our laundry for about six weeks now and it is going pretty well. We are still fine tuning how we do things but we do have enough of an effective system going to share what we have learned so far.
Equipment: For our wash tubs, we are using two large Rubbermaid bins. We use these simply because we already had them. Having used them all this time, however, I can say that we are looking forward to getting some real wash tubs some day - preferably ones on legs. Anyway, we use the two large Rubbermaid storage bins for washing and scrubbing (which my husband set up on cinder blocks for me to help spare my back) and we use two 5 gallon paint/food storage plastic pails with bale handles for the two rinses. You can get these at hardware stores. We find them to be a perfect size and the handle is really helpful for hauling the water away to dump on select garden locations.
For agitating the wash and rinse water, we are very happy using the Rapid Washer from Lehman’s. It works much, much better than a regular hardware store plunger as it moves much more water with each plunge and it fits perfectly into the 5 gallon pails. You occasionally need to use a mallet to pound the handle back down into the metal head of the plunger.
For scrubbing, we are using a glass washboard also purchased from Lehman’s. They note that the glass washboards last the longest and that they are by far their best seller so I went for one of those. I have always been “stain removal” challenged. I don’t like using chemicals and I have never found anything that really works all that well at removing stains anyway so I just sort of gave up ages ago. Using a bar of soap, water, a washboard and elbow grease, however, is like magic. Honestly! So many stains just disappear before your very eyes. I have read others comment upon the fact that items they would have otherwise thrown away were saved through the ministrations of a washboard and a few minutes of vigorous effort. The washboard at the bottom left of the photo is the one we use. (I might mention here that brass washboards are used primarily as musical instruments, in case you were wondering.)
Wringing as much water as possible out of each item shortens drying time dramatically. I read many comments here and there on the web about women wrecking their hands and wrists from years of wringing out clothes. Well, one of my wrists is already wrecked so official equipment was called for. I bought this wringer which Lehman’s sells but got it here instead for about $70 less. Apparently these wringers are used at car washes so you can find them for sale through various businesses other than just Amish ones.
I am still using (infinitesimally) small quantities at a time of Charlie’s soap for washing. I use so little at a time now that I think my remaining supply will last for another six months at least. However, when the bottom of the container is finally in sight, I will start making my own laundry soap. As for the bar soap to use for removing stains, I still don’t have a good bar I like yet. I will grab a bar of Dr. Bronner’s or something the next chance I get. Someday I intend to make my own laundry bar soap. Someday…
Method: To fill the bins and pails in our outdoor laundry room, my husband rigged up a hose that goes from the utility sink in the basement through a hole in a window screen and out to the outdoor laundry room. I am very grateful to be able to wash everything with warm water that I am neither heating myself nor hauling. It is not always easy running up and down the basement steps to turn the water on and off in a timely fashion but, hey, the children perform that task admirably. So our method is as follows:
1. Fill one bin about a third of the way (too full and we get soaked when plunging). Fill the other bin just six inches deep or so and place the washboard at one end and the bar of soap at the other. Fill the 5 gallon pails about halfway. Put maybe a 1/4 tsp. of Charlie’s soap in and swish it around so that it is well mixed.
2. Sort the laundry to be washed by color, heaviness and dirtiness. Put the cleanest, lightest clothes into the wash water first. Plunge a bit and let soak a little if there is time. Then plunge vigorously for two to three minutes. I have read that you should agitate the clothes and water for 10 minutes, but I just don’t strength enough in me to do that frankly. If any item is stained, toss it into the washboard bin.
3. Squeeze the clothes out and toss into the first rinse pail. Agitate enthusiastically for 25 plunges or so. Squeeze out thoroughly and toss into second rinse pail and repeat. Wring out and toss into a basket of clothes waiting to go through the wringer. Rinsing at least twice is a big deal and the key to success to ending up with sparkling clean laundry. Sometimes we have to rinse certain items more times than twice. We always try to find a balance between clean rinse water, water conservation and reasonable time investment.
4. Work through any clothes that have been tossed into the washboard bin. Rub a very small amount of soap onto any stains or dirty areas and rub vigorously on the washboard. Rinse and toss into first rinse pail. I want to emphasize the hint to not use too much bar soap for this exercise. Rinsing out excess soap is trying and wasteful.
5. Put all items through the wringer. It helps to wring things out in some kind of order so that you can keep the wringer at the same setting. You want it as tight as you can get it for thin things like dish towels and shirts and so on. But you loosen it to wring out things like thick bath towels or jeans or jackets. I have learned to put many items through the wringer two or three times in a row to get them really quite dry. If you fold the item in half, it not only effectively increases the pressure and effectiveness of the wringer, it has the effect of pressing the item. We are now lining up three dish towels together at a time, folding them in half and putting them through the wringer all at once several times. They come out looking ironed and they dry on the line in a hurry. This is a good place in the whole laundry process to experiment to discover more effective methods Cheaper By the Dozen style.
6. Hang everything to dry and feel more satisfied from doing a load of wash than you ever thought possible.
7. Definitely include all family members in this weekly event. Children gain strength and precision. Husband’s feel good lending their broad shoulders. Bonding ensues. Teamwork issues are spotted and ironed out. And then everyone gets to feel incredibly satisfied surveying the family laundry tidily hung from the lines and gently flapping in the breeze.
8. Once the hand done, real soap-cleaned, individually wrung, sun-dried laundry is brought inside on a regular basis, you may notice two positive effects in your home. The first is that everyone will make darn sure that these heroically cleaned clothes are put away double time. The second is that family members may automatically start generating less laundry due to the subtle, natural process known variously as the awareness raising, consciousness expanding, gratitude generating affects of hard work.
To spend some leisurely time with us as we do our laundry together outside, sit back and watch the following videos. Oh, and on the fifth video my husband shares some great thoughts about the moderation that arises naturally from working within natural systems and resources. I really appreciate what he has to say there.
From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie
Years and years ago, I read a brief article in Countryside magazine written by a woman who washed her laundry by hand. She explained that her wringer washer was set up outside next to a creek and she rhapsodized about washing clothes to the melodies of bird song. The image created in my mind by her writing and experience has stayed with me to this day. Washing clothes outside by hand seemed so refreshing and satisfying, by her report, and I secretly wanted to experience this for myself.
Quite a few years later - oh about four years ago or so - our washing machine broke. I very timidly showed my husband the wringer washer in Lehman’s and wondered aloud about replacing our washer with that? He very spontaneously and energetically let me know that the idea was nuts and the next day we went together to find a nice, normal, serviceable, inexpensive washing machine. In the years that followed which included moving and setting up our first homestead, I was grateful to him for making that call because there was already just so much work to do. However, my very odd secret wish to wash our laundry by hand outside never went totally away. However I didn’t have time to think about it so it didn’t matter.
A few years passed which saw us move again and set up this homestead. No end to the work. Yikes. So tired. Yikes. And then a few months ago, I stumbled upon several wonderful blogs such as Lentils and Rice, Ante Family Agrarians, A Process Driven Wife. These headed-towards-off-the-grid living ladies were all starting to wash their laundry by hand! Interesting. Here, for instance, is the Laundry Adventures category at Lentils and Rice. I think I discovered all of this when she was at about here and Kris Ante was about here. They both had nice simple explanations about how they were doing their laundry, together with clear photographs and rave reviews about the results of their labors. My husband happened to be sitting in the room while I read through these posts (and I should mention here that we had just had our washing machine flood the basement due to human error, if I recall correctly). I said, “Oh look, these woman are washing their laundry by hand with plungers and buckets.” He glanced at the photos, jumped to his feet and said, “You wanna try it?” “Well, uh, it just so happens that I do,” I replied barely keeping up with him as he dashed down to the basement to grab empty containers, a plunger and the laundry bin.
My husband’s enthusiastic approach to doing our first load of hand washing was to dump everything in the laundry basket into the wash water. Ahem … some running of colors ensued which gave rise to his clever invention of dying shirts with good old Virginia clay. I will have to post about that sometime because he turned his very nice, but now red streaked, Lands End shirt a gorgeous color. It looks great on him. Anyway, we washed and we hung to dry and it was fun. We agreed to try again another day.
A day or two later we tried another load. This time time rather too many clothes were dumped in all at once and that created its own sort of difficulty. I clearly needed to take this task in hand and study out how to do it the most effectively. We got through that load, however, and I went off to do a little more research on hand washing protocol. Right around this time, our washing machine again flooded the basement only with no human error involved. To this day, we have no idea why it flooded. There was a washing machine left here in this house which we had used for quite a while. My husband took out our old machine and hooked up the “left here” machine. To our astonishment (read that as anguished astonishment because the clean up involved was no laughing matter), this machine also flooded the basement. Several inches of water covered almost the entire basement floor. We have no idea why.
It appeared that what started out as sort of a lark quickly became an activity we were sort of pushed into doing full time. No money, no washing machines, plenty of dirty clothes, and several blog posts full of hand washing inspiration added up to officially becoming a hand washing family. Paul and I shook our heads and simply got organized. Hand washing the family laundry was obviously here to stay.
For various reasons, we had to sell our little Toyota at this time. That was kind of a hard decision to make but one of the things we decided to do with the proceeds was purchase official hand washing equipment. Doing the laundry for eight people on a farm is not a lightweight chore and I was going to need all the help I could get. I will share what I got and where I got it in a separate post.
We have washed all of our laundry by hand for about six weeks now I guess. Almost all of it has been done outside in what I call our “outdoor laundry room.” It was kind of tough for me at first because it was so physically grueling. My joints are far too loose. All the pounding and other repetitive motions did a number on my joints plus bending over so much did a number on my back. I hate feeling too weak to accomplish an essential task so I looked forward to gaining strength and a positive rhythm with time. I just hung in there.
I am pleased to say that actually we have all gained strength and a nice rhythm from doing the laundry together outside. The children can and do help a lot. Some of them can even do quite a bit of it on their own. Sometimes my husband helps and that is really great. The other day he and I worked together outside for a long while, plunging and rinsing and wringing and hanging. It was so pleasant to be out in the sunshine and bird song working together quietly on a mutually shared task. Very beautiful. A very natural way to spend time. And the quiet was lovely.
The latest development is that he and I took our trusty old pick-up truck to town today and bought a half ton of gravel. The “floor” of the laundry room was getting too muddy and I have wanted to put gravel down in several other key spots, like in front of the hen house, for a long while so off we went. Our ten year old has been steadily shoveling out the gravel for hours now so we have a utilitarian floor covering for our outdoor laundry room as well as a margin of safety in front of hen house, milking barn and gates.
Our next development will be to shift laundry operations to the basement when it gets too cold outside. We get the hot water for doing our laundry from the faucet down there anyway. And we have a second wood burning stove Paul is going to hook up so that it will be warm and toasty for both the laundress and the drying clothes. We have yet to figure out a way to install the wringer down there. We will have to see how that aspect works out.
Robin Brashear of Prepare and Pray fame told me that they lived near Amish families when they lived in Wisconsin a while back. It was apparently not uncommon for them to build laundry rooms off the side of their houses with water, a drain and a wood burning stove. It gets mighty, mighty cold there in the winter so they found a way to do their laundry with the same methods but under shelter. So while it does not get quite that cold here usually, we will be doing something similar in the basement.
I have several more posts to go about this topic of hand washing laundry so I will see you there!
From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,
Leslie
