The Minnesota Farm Woman

Monday, washday; Tuesday, ironing; Wednesday, sewing; Thursday, marketing; Friday, cleaning; Saturday, baking; Sunday, rest.  I think I would have failed as a real Farm Woman of old. I do like to go marketing, which of course is now called shopping.  I can’t sew any better than I can bake bread.  I’m thankful that I don’t have to haul out a washtub or use a wringer washing machine but I do love to hang my clothes out on the line.  I call it “mindless activity” but it is really anything but mindless because my mind can wander to almost any subject while I’m out there. . I often plan menus, organize my week and come up with ideas for my blog as I’m sorting socks and hanging them on the line.  I love attaching one towel to another in a row, the breeze catching them and they begin to move and to snap.  On a sunny breezy day in the country, even the heaviest towel will dry in under an hour.  Less breeze means a longer drying time, but the clothes will still have that lovely outdoorsy scent that no fabric softener can match.  I hang out clothes until late fall when they start to freeze on the line. I start back in the spring as soon as the snow melts underneath the clothesline. In between, I begrudgingly use the clothes dryer.  My mom would hang clothes in the basement in the winter, before we got a clothes dryer. I remember that she sprinkled the clothes and then rolled them up, sometimes keeping them in the freezer so they wouldn’t mildew before she ironed them the next day. I think that sprinkling was done before steam irons were invented yet, as the hot iron on the wet clothes would create steam. Clothing was also made out of more natural materials that wrinkled easily.  I have an old clothes sprinkler, too, which looks like a giant salt shaker that Goliath would use for his lunch.  It’s only in my laundry room for decoration, thankfully, ironing is another household chore that I don’t do very often, if at all.  Hung properly on the line, and with enough breeze, clothes won’t wrinkle at all.   When we bought our property, there were a couple of old wringer washers in the trash pile.  My husband thought he should haul them to the dump, but I thought they could be made useful once again. They are now next to my clothesline outside the back door and filled with herbs, a reminder of bygone days on the farm.  I use the herbs in cooking almost every day and I love to touch them with my hands, releasing their scent on laundry days when I am hanging clothes on the line and watching my chickens pecking in the yard.  I guess I am a real Farm Woman after all.