Even though we are currently experiencing Indian Summer here on the hill, I know that Old Man Winter is lurking just around the corner. Yes it was beautiful on Halloween this year, but memories of my daughters Trick or Treating in snow linger in the back of my mind. It seems I get complacent during nice weather and tend to forget how it is all winter long. However, this year, I have been trying to plan and think ahead to the long, cold winter months when many of my sustainable practices have to change due to the weather.
The biggest change that the winter brings for me, is not being able to hang clothes outside to dry. Since I do this with a large majority of my laundry, winter presents a challenge when it comes to drying my clothes all indoors! In order not to just throw everything into the dryer, I have come up with the following solutions.
Since I normally use my shower curtain rod to hang wet clothes, I decided to add another shower curtain rod parallel to, but up higher than the one that holds the shower curtain. This has doubled my space to hang wet clothes. Since I put all my shirts on hangers to dry, this gives me double the space to hang them up to dry. These rods can also be used for large items such as table clothes, quilts or sheets.
The next problem I had to solve was for things like sweaters that need to be laid flat to dry. During summer, it is easy enough to lay a clean sheet or quilt on the ground and put things on that to dry in the sun. But with the onset of cold weather, the amount of sweaters being worn goes up and I quickly run out of drying space on the kitchen table. Plus we do like to eat there once in a while. So a quick trip to Amazon dot com helped solve my problem. They now make nifty little contraptions that can be laid over your tub and then folded back up when you are done. So after purchasing a couple, I had another problem solved.
Then came the real challenge. Pants, jeans, pillow cases and so on. Where was I going to dry them? They take up too much space on my shower curtain rods and were hard to move should anyone actually want to take a shower. I thought fleetingly about hanging a couple of clothes lines up in my living room, but I didn't think my husband would prefer that, so I ended up purchasing a very old fashioned drying rack. It is made out of stainless steel and works great! It is extremely light weight and I can move it around or fold it up and put it away. I can sit it in the bathtub if I have something that is dripping wet or put it in front of the heater, or just off to the side behind the sofa. On nice days, it can even be toted outside to the deck.
It holds anything and everything. Jeans to delicate hand washables. Come winter it will be a lifesaver when my husband comes home from work soaking wet from delivering gas in the snow or rain all day long. His previous solution was to hang his work coat on a dining room chair and put it in front of the heater and then spread the rest of his gear around the heater on the floor. Needless to say, this wasn't a great solution and my wooden chairs were taking a beating from it.
Now I can just put the rack in front of the heater and all his outerwear fits on it! Oh happy day. Plus when the grandkids come up, all their snow gear will be happily accomodated on this one rack. No more hats, mittens, coats and snow pants strewn all over my house!
So that just left one more problem to solve. Little things like plastic bags, socks and so on. Once again, Amazon came to my rescue. I found a nifty little plastic frame that comes complete with clothes pins and a hook for hanging. It fits right over my shower rod and has close to 2 dozen pins on it. So now all winter long I can continue to wash and re-use my freezer bags and I now have a place to hang them to dry.
With a little creativity, a little research, a little effort and a little money, I solved all my laundry problems. Living sustainably might take a little extra effort, but I just think of all the electricity and propane I am saving, which then translates into money saved, and the good I am doing for the earth and I am happy to exert the extra effort.
So, what clever solutions have you come up with to living sustainably throughout the winter months when it can become challenging?
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