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THE LAND — NOVEMBER 13/NOVEMBER 20, 2020
Blowin’ in the wind: Mom’s clothesline had many functions When I think of things I Mom would often tell us have had to do without in girls to bring the clothes in my adult life, a clothesline off the line. It seemed such would rank high on the list a daunting task, but it was of things I wish I had back. my first experience with the futuristic notion of “offA clothesline is like a line” as a kid. chocolate cake; you don’t think anything of it when By the time she was finit’s there, but after it’s gone ished with wash day, I’m TABLE TALK you panic a little, then wonpretty sure Mom felt like der what you are going to By Karen Schwaller she had run herself through do now. the wringer. And she still had supper to make. As a kid, our very long Without a microwave. triple-decker clothesline dried a ton of clothes for a family of nine. Mom’s My sister and I became our high homemade clothespin apron held the school badminton champions from our thousands of clothespins it took to constant volleying back and forth over hang a department store’s clothing the clothesline. It helped us dream of section out in the farm breeze (which Wimbledon participation, kept us out wasn’t always pleasant). of Mom’s hair, served as boundary markers for other backyard games and I’m pretty sure that when I was a even was the skeleton for a good fort. child I drew pictures of Mom with clothespins in her mouth, because I A clothesline can put the ‘fun’ in saw her that way so much. But with ‘functional.’ my artistic prowess, I’m also sure the When I had a family of my own, we teacher must have wondered if my had a clothesline and I used it often as mother should pay a visit an orthothe children were growing up. This dontist.
time it was my job to lug the clothes out of the basement and out to the clothesline. The line worked like a dream with a good south breeze and earned its place among laundry day royalty … and it also made me look like I may have needed to visit the orthodontist. It used to be so satisfying to hang the diapers out. The sunshine kept them as white as you could keep diapers, and just the thought of saving so much money on the disposable kind kept me okay with washing and folding them. The trade-off was that nose hairs are now just a memory for us after the bleach and ammonia assaulted them every week in our tiny house. Occasionally, when the south breeze wouldn’t try to blow our cats away, folding jeans turned into hand-to-hand combat, and our towels had better posture than we did. Now and again as I would hang out the sheets or clothing, we would be visited by bird doo-doo fairies. You know them — they would keep your wash day on their calendar and proved most boastful of their regularity, which was spot-on when they found themselves directly aligned with whatever was on the clothesline. I’m not a fan of having to wash something I’ve just washed. I have loaded my fair share of
manure-covered clothing into the washing machine (as hog farm families do) — even without bird doo-doo fairies adding to my angst. It’s hard to stay ahead of that game when the manure falls out of the sky, too. A clothesline today is a window to the past … to an era when people had more time and less money to spend on the laundry. It was both exhausting and exhilarating to hang a clothesline full of clothes, and just as much so when it came time to remove them, fold it all and put it away. And yet, it was one of my favorite sights out of our kitchen window. Full lines meant we had been blessed with a family, that we all had clothes to wear, and also kept me active enough to avoid always having to wear those stretchy pants I normally would reserve for Thanksgiving Day. Our old clothesline no longer exists, and a clothesline doesn’t work where we live today because the south winds would pummel our newly-washed clothes full of gravel road dust. Pity, really, that those punctual and loose bird fairies probably also had to relocate. Karen Schwaller brings “Table Talk” to The Land from her home near Milford, Iowa. She can be reached at kschwaller@evertek.net. v
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FSA elections are underway The U.S. Department of Agriculture has mailed ballots for the Farm Service Agency county committee elections to eligible farmers and ranchers across the country. To be counted, ballots must be returned to the local FSA county office or postmarked by Dec. 7. County committee members help FSA make important decisions on its commodity support programs, conservation programs, indemnity and disaster programs, and emergency programs and eligibility. Each committee has three to 11 elected members who serve three-year terms of office, and at least one seat is up for election each year. Newly elected committee members will take office Jan. 1, 2021..
Producers must participate or cooperate in an FSA program to be eligible to vote in the county committee election. A cooperating producer is someone who has provided information about their farming or ranching operation(s) but may not have applied or received FSA program benefits. Also, producers who supervise and conduct the farming operations of an entire farm, but are not of legal voting age, may be eligible to vote. This article was submitted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. v
