Clothesline

The "same-old" here: I'm trapping pocket gophers and spraying weeds.  So not much to write about.  Tonight the horses did pull the garden hose out of my raspberry bushes as I was watering them.  I let the water run while I attended to another chore and when I got back, instead of having the plants watered, the horses pulled the hose onto the lawn and the water ran there and made a large puddle.  Argh! 


After years of using a sagging clothesline, during the end of May and the beginning of June, I finally built a new clothesline with help from Tammy and then my uncle Curt.

Here is how my clothesline used to look.  The clothesline wire can hardly been seen in the photos, but trust me, the wires sagged a lot as you can see that the posts are not standing upright.  Leaning against the building are the new clothesline posts.

 

I dug out and replaced the old posts.  This hole is big because I found a large wire in the dirt by the post.  I followed the wire and dug and dug - and dug - and I was able to pull up out of the ground a heavy piece of iron.  I guess it used to act as an anchor to hold the post up in place.  At some unknown time it was replaced by a wire attached to the wall near the post (as can be seen in the previous photo).

With Tammy's help we removed the old clothesline and posts, and then put in new posts.  We put some cement around each post to:

1. help hold the posts upright, 
2. protect the posts from rot as they didn't appear to be treated, and
3. provide a ring around the posts to prevent the grass from growing against the posts and make mowing the lawn around the posts easier.

Even with the cement, I still attached a wire from each post to the nearby building to help hold the posts upright.

Tammy left after the posts were done, but before the cross-arms were attached.  No problem.  My uncles arrived a few days later and my uncle Curt helped me install the cross-arms and the rest of the clothesline.

The cross-arms on the old clothesline were six feet across so I cut these cross-arms to be the same length.  In hindsight I could have left the cross-arm boards as eight feet.  The clothesline posts could have supported the longer length.  I lengthened the clothesline and felt that would give me enough room to hang several large loads of laundry at the same time.  It does, but more is sometimes better and it wouldn't have hurt to have two extra lines the longer cross-arm length would have allowed.

I replaced the wire with clothesline rope.  With my uncles Curt and Larry's help we got the lines real tight.

As you can see, with the wet clothes hanging on the line, no sagging.

Another item checked off my "to-do" list.