by Texas Homesteader ~

When we lived in the city I bought a *2-line extractable laundry line.  I loved that thing – it gave me up to 98 feet of drying!  RancherMan put a nail in a fence post so when I was doing laundry I’d bring out that extractable line & hang it on that nail.  The lines pulled all the way to a nearby tree where I’d hook the two lines on the branches.

But when we moved here to our piece of paradise there were no privacy fences, nor any trees in our back yard.  So we used a tether-ball pole as the anchor, and placed two decorative cast iron plant hooks on either side of the garage window.

But the tether-ball pole was…  I dunno – UGLY!  It served the purpose for several years but I wanted something a little more in step with our natural surroundings.  It was replaced recently and you know my battle cry:  Use Whatcha Got!  (Almost all our Homestead Hacks use that battle cry.)  Come see what we did.

And here’s our ugly clothesline pole… See, I told ya – UGLY!  Just a metal pole cemented into an old tire.  Not exactly fitting in with the whole natural-beauty view I was hoping for.

Cedar Tree Casualty

But now I’m excited to be getting rid of the ugly albatross.  First a little background: Recently we had to pull down a mammoth cedar tree in the barn pasture.  It was a sad day, that tree was so old and absolutely beautiful!  But the many consecutive years of drought we’ve been burdened with here in NE Texas has killed off many cedars.  This beautiful giant was one of the casualties.

But maybe there’s still a way it can serve us well.  RancherMan used a chainsaw to cut one of the huge limbs to a length of about 10-11 feet.  Then he rolled away the ugly tether-ball pole and dug a hole in its place that was 2-3 feet deep.

Installing Our New Laundry Pole

He placed our cedar pole into the hole and leveled it.  There was a bag of cement in the shed that was leftover from another project so he used about 1/2 the bag in this hole to further anchor the pole.  All that’s left to do is to let the cement cure for several days.

He installed the *retractable clothesline bracket on the front of the pole and a metal anchor cleat on the side.  Our clothesline originally had a place to wrap the line on the unit itself but we’ve had this one so long that it broke off years ago.  We typically wrap the line around this cleat to keep the heavy wet denim from allowing extra line to be pulled out.  After installing these pieces of hardware voila!

I love that we’ve finally lost the ugly cement-filled tire and steel tether-ball pole and replaced it with natural wood.  My new laundry pole has graceful curvy character and fits in quite nicely with our natural surroundings.

He even left a small stub on the side for me to hang my clothespin bag.  Thank you RancherMan – I love it!  By using materials we already had this clothesline cost us NOTHING!

~TxH~

This post categorized in              

How Grandma Would Do Things?

• Living Life Like Grandma
• Grandma-Approved Cleaning Techniques
• Is Grandma-Styled Cooking A Lost Art?
• Caring For Grandma’s Cast-Iron Cookware
• Stuck-On food? How To Easily Clean A Cast-Iron Skillet
• Using Grandma’s Vintage Corning Ware
• Why Doesn’t Junior Want Grandma’s Fine China?
• Living Deliberately & Naturally: Voluntary Simplicity
• Using It ALL – Eliminating Leftover Food

See All Our Frugality Posts

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