August 23, 2022 (Tues)

8.23.22 Tuesday

Mouse Trapline Tally:  4

(Total to-date for this year!)

Woke up to 52 degrees, fog and a little drizzle this morning.  But NOTHING could dampen my personal victory from last night...I conquered my fears of the off-grid washing machine!

I know, in and of itself, it really doesn't look very scary, right? I get that.  It was more the intimidation of all the moving parts that had to work together to make it happen.  And the "unknown", there's that...

Trust me, it beats doing laundry by hand, for sure.  I've done that out at mining camp with a washboard, a squishy thing that looks like a giant plunger, and a wash tub.  What a job!  So to everyone who can casually throw clothes into the washer and dryer and trust that they'll come out clean, here is the process I had to go through:

1. Gas up and start the generator.

2. Turn on the well pump.

3. Hook a hose up to a hydrant under the kitchen sink, drag it back to the pantry, put the nozzle on the end of it.

4. Insert detergent, clothes, put in the appropriate amount of water into the wash tub.

5. Wash clothes twice at 15 minutes each.

6. Drain the water, put in new water to rinse for about six minutes.

7. Repeat #6 at least once to make sure all soap is out of the clothes.

8. Open the spin side and put in a small amount of the clothes.

9. Hit the spin cycle for about five minutes.

10  Hang up on wooden drying racks to encourage the clothes to dry the rest of the way.  This can happen in the pantry or next to the wood stove.

Amazingly, the little washer seemed to do a pretty good job!  The bad news it takes about 50 minutes for the entire process and I was only able to do two small loads.  (I hate to run the generator for more than a couple of hours unless I have to, to conserve gas.)  I've got several more loads to do to get caught up for the last two weeks.  The good news is I don't have to do them all by hand and we have clean underwear and socks!  Woo-hoo!  I'll take that as a score! 😏