Skip to main content

Madness!!!

As a self-confessed lover of the hills hoist, I can only say that I am bemused by this story in the Sydney Morning Herald coming out the US.

The notion that drying one's washing in the sun and fresh air would constitute an act of civil disobedience is insane to me, especially if you factor in the whole kerfuffle concerning human-influenced global warming.

The article is well worth a read, and cites New York State, Vermont and New Hampshire as states which limit your ability to dry clothes outside. I particularly like that last line quoting Vermont Senator Richard McCormack: "I so love my country. But I look at [it] from time to time and say to myself, 'This place is insane'."

I would be interested to hear how people manage to dry their washing where you are, and if you live in any of the places mentioned, were you aware of these laws? I mean, do people just get on an ignore it and dry their clothes any way they like, or are people actually punished?

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
I can't believe this, Kris! Outdoor-dried laundry is so much nicer afterwards than laundry dried outside.

Here there's a long tradition of stringing washing across the communal back street. I'll try to get a picture sometime for pie 'n' mushies.
12 May 2008 at 17:21
 gmirage said…
Really? Clothes wouldn't smell so nicely when they aren't 'sun-dried!'

You know it well during winter.... ;-)
12 May 2008 at 20:39
Kris McCracken said…
The last place I lived was right in the city, and we had a little grotto for a yard. The 'line' was essentially hard up against the building next door. In winter, even on a sunny day you could get a load of towels out on the line at 8am and they would still be damp at 4:30pm.

On this rotary hills hoist now, the same towels are dry in 30 minutes! I am so in love with it I want to weep.

Even though I am by nature a law abiding man, I'd be reduced to criminality if I lived in Vermont.
12 May 2008 at 21:50
Jane Hards Photography said…
Well I know I'm a bit of a rebel(ok a lot of one), but surely hanging your wet clothes out to dry is not a rebellious act.That would be bonkers even for my mad little backward island.
13 May 2008 at 00:22
The D in D & T said…
One thing I really miss here (and I was talking about this with an Australian friend just the other day) is the hills hoist. Here in Athens, no one has a dryer - so clothes get hung on the veranda to dry. It pretty much sucks because not only are you limited to one load at a time (lack of drying space) but your clothes are always covered in a fine film of dust! Hate it!! I too would resort to criminal acts. Nothing beats towels warmed dry by the sun!
17 May 2008 at 00:27
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...
62 comments
Read more

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

This is the moon. Have I mentioned how much I adore the zoom on my camera? It's Theme Thursday you see, and after last week's limp effort, I have been thinking about how I might redeem myself. Then I clicked on the topic and discover that it was BUTTON. We've been hearing a lot about the moon in the past couple of weeks. Apparently some fellas went up there and played golf and what-not forty-odd years ago. The desire to get to the moon, however, was not simply about enhancing opportunities for Meg and Mog titles and skirting local planning by-laws in the construction of new and innovative golf courses. No, all of your Sputniks , "One small steps" and freeze dried ice cream was about one thing , and one thing only : MAD Now, I don't mean mad in terms of "bloke breaks record for number of scorpions he can get up his bum", no I mean MAD as in Mutual assured destruction . When I was a young man you see, there was a lot of talk about the type of m...
50 comments
Read more

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...
5 comments
Read more