Saturday, September 27, 2008

Mis Huevos Están Tibios

I set up a clothesline in the backyard on Friday. We stopped by the store on the way home and got a very thin nylon rope and we tied it between the old TV antenna and yard light. We hung up the first load (towels) around 5 p.m. and then went out to eat. We got home around 8 p.m. and the towels were still wet. Lame. I had to leave them overnight. I woke up around 10 a.m. and they were still damp. We flipped them over and let them finish drying while another load washed. They were finally dry by the time the whites finished washing, and I hung up that load while K took a nap. This load dried a little more quickly, only about two hours (which would be a total pain in the ass normally because we typically wait to wash clothes until we're completely out and then do five or six big loads all at once, especially since even with 48 feet of rope I only have room for one load at a time. It would take us three days to wash the laundry at this rate.

Of course then I tested the dryer and it no longer caused the clothes to stink, so we went back to using it for the last load. The clothes we hung outside all smelled a little funny anyway. Yes, Courtney and Mickey, I'm a bad person, but I'm not switching to line drying my laundry. If it makes you feel better, I try not to dry them all the way because it tends to make things shrink if you do.

But while I was taking down the whites today I could hear the flock of wild turkeys that live near our house calling from the stand of pine trees out behind the pond past where my chicken pens are. One of my hens has gone broody, but without a rooster her maternal instinct was being wasted (and I was worried she'd starve herself sitting on a clutch that never hatched), so I bought some hatching eggs from a lady in north Georgia and put eight of the eggs under her (and fed the ones I didn't realize she'd been stealing from the other hen for more than a week to the dogs). The rest of the eggs (I had about 30 in all) went into the incubator the next day after it had time to heat up and level out at the correct temperature. Around the middle of next month I should have a batch of squeaky fuzzballs hopping around in the Styrofoam heat box in my guest bedroom. Hopefully the little black araucana hen will get a few of her own as well, although sadly, none will look anything like her. They should all have tails, although if I'm lucky there'll be a few cochins in the batch with their feathery feet.

K told me that because it's good to play classical music for the fetus's neural development that I should find something to play for the eggs I'm incubating (the hen can sing to her own damn eggs). I did a little searching online and found this. Tell me if you like it.

3 comments:

Julie said...

I don't think you should feel bad about the clothesline. You are using your dryer responsibly... doing large loads one right after the next. Also, I think Mickey forgets that not all people are as tiny as he & Courtney. The rest of us have bigger clothes, requiring more loads and longer drying times. Or in his case, taking more space on the line.

Mickey said...

Dude, we have a ten-foot-wide railing and a closet to hang our clothes to dry in. Yeah, if it's humid out, it takes a full twenty four hours for them to dry. If there's even the slightest breeze, though, or direct sunshine, everything can be dry in two hours.

It's not even a sacrifice of convenience if you plan ahead.

Thanks for trying, at least.

Courtney said...

When it's sunny and breezy outside, it takes way less time for my clothes to dry than when I use the dryer. I just let them dry naturally, pop them in the dryer for 10 minutes or so to soften them up and get the wrinkles out, and the outcome is exactly the same as if I had used the dryer for an hour. Oh, except that it uses way less energy, everything has a nice fresh air smell, and it makes my clothes last a lot longer because there's no excessive heat to warp the fabric.

It's a no-brainer, really. Scoff if you must, but line-drying is one of the reasons our electricity bill is $30 per month.