Clothespins

I've been hanging laundry on the line for well over 7 years.  It might be close to ten years now, I can't really remember, but I do know that only in the past year or so have my problems with clothespins started.  Some how, some way they disappear on me

I don't know what it is, maybe it's some birds think they are a tasty looking item or maybe the squarels think that the clothespins will hold them over if they run out of acorns during the winter.  In all honesty I think that it might have something to do with Noah and his "drive by laundry snatching", which he does occasionally and has taught to his two younger brothers (who don't do it as often, but have been known to do it).  lol 

And what might this "drive by laundry snatching" be and how does it contribute to my losing clothespins? 

Well, Noah rides under one of my clothes lines on his bike, tractor, legs, or what ever other means of transportation he uses and right when he gets under the laundry he reaches up, grabs the laundry pulls and rides on, sending clothes one way, clothespins another and the line "singing like a bowstring as soon as the arrow leaves the bow".

What does he do with the clothes that he has pulled off the line?  If I am standing there he throws it at me, if there's a basket within the region of his running he drops it in there and if neither are aviable he drops it on the ground. 

Why does he do it?  Just for the fun of it, to see if he can grab the laundry, get it off the line, and not break stride.

Oh, to not have to worry about dirty laundry (as he would wear it dirty with no problems if he had to).  Oh, to not have to worry about work (as his jobs are completed within minutes of finishing a meal).  Oh, to be young again.  lol

At least I know I have a good chance of find the clothespins on the ground around the line, but it does call for extra work and I can't always guarantee that I will find them all.  Atleast I get a good laugh every time I see Noah's "drive by laundry snatching".

I have warned him though that the next time he does it he's hanging the laundry by himself and you now what?  It's worked so far, he's not taken any laundry off the line the last couple days and my pins have not gone missing.  If only the rain would stop and I could hang the laundry again.  lol

Swede Farm Happenings

Well, it's that wonderful day of the week where the oldest children and adults of the Carlson family run around doing their best to have everything ready for market by 6, so that no one has to stay up late. :D

The cars are loaded, the cheese is done, the chocolate milk is ready to go, yogurt is ready and waiting to be sold (its plain this week), and all that needs to be done is the milk and looks like we will all be in bed at a decent time this week. :D

Now besides the dairy....

Both our main washer and dryer are still not working. We have had the repair men out to look at both of them--Washer yesterday and the dryer today. It looks like they are going to have to replace our dryer (what fun! Not!) and the washer will still be out of commission for the next week or two. At least I have the backup washer, even if it is a top loader and can only do half the load my front loader can do. And as long as the weather holds out in the glories fashion I will be good for hanging laundry on the line (Which I LOVE doing!!).

All thou, in the past week I have learned that there is a plus to a dryer in the house or a dryer at the laundry mat--There's no mud on the ground in either building!! I have also learned that when the washer AND dryer are broken at the same time you learn about all the things you have hidden in the back of your closet. :D Seeing as most of what I have found in the back of mine is pink I'm surprised that it is even there, but I am glad that for some weird reason I saved them. lol


Today is simply a beautiful day, I wish the hammock hadn't broken last year or I would be out there reading instead of typing up this post. (Let me tell you, it hurt when it broke!)


Our family is super busy right now, even though it's that time of year that's our "break". I started school with the younger three minus Seth. All three of them have decided that over the "school break" they have become oh so smart, thinking that they all know what they need to know. *rolls eyes* Now if I only taught history of crafts they would be oh, so happy. lol


Mom and dad have been in town a lot with my Grandfather, and Drs. Appointments to make sure baby girl #8 is good and healthy!


I did something I didn't think I would ever really be doing...I offered to make some business calls for mom concerning selling some of our doelings. There are couple things kinds of funny about this...1) I HATE making phone calls, and 2) I'm making calls about selling goats. lol


And lastly, it's that time of year when we are quickly approaching "that wonderful month in which Houston is overrun with cows and cowboys and half our family looks forward to showing goats while the other half look forward to showing rabbits at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo". Again I am trying to figure out to be there even without showing any of our goats, because yet again we missed the deadline for entering. (I hate the livestock!! Their deadline timing boarders on ridiculous!!)

Well, that's all for today at Swede Farm, everyone out there have a wonderful weekend!! :D

Uggg!

Have I ever mentioned what it does to our family when the washer or dryer go out? Have I ever mentioned that my family almost always has at least one back-up if not two of each appliance?

Yes, we always have at least one back-up washer and a back-up dryer--The clothes line.  And when the washer or dryer go out, the back up is amazing.  It never ceases to amaze me how the laundry can pile up with in 24-48 hours of either appliances being broken!

Well it's the laundry comedy going on here! Last Saturday the front loader decided it was time for it not to work. Great the last thing we needed right then, but hey we have a back up washer so no biggie right? Well, the back-up washer is a top loader in which it uses at least double the water that our front loader uses and it drains a lot faster than our front loader, meaning there is not enough time for all the water to drain and we had the outlet pip overflowing. So what did we do? Well, I spent my days sitting on the washer waiting for it to drain and when it gets to the drain I stop it every few minutes to give it time for all the water to drain out. It works great, except I do nothing all day but sit on the washer, rotating laundry, folding laundry, and reading my bible. :D

Now for the dryer, Monday the dryer decided not only to not dry my clothes within three hours, but to eat the laundry as well. No I am not joking. Somehow, some way 95% of the laundry that goes into the dryer is coming out with holes in it. It took us an entire day to figure it out, there is a little catch at the top that the laundry was getting caught on and every time it came lose it would ripe a hole in it. Great, now I have clothes that resemble Swiss cheese!

To solve both problems of the dryer not drying and it eating our laundry we decided to go with the back up--The clothesline. In the weather that we were having it was great the clothes we drying faster than then those in the dryer and they were still intact, until today--It's raining!!

I guess it's time to go to back up number two or three. #2 No laundry for the day or option #3 hang it in the bathroom. Hmmm.....I think I will just pray it stops raining! lol

Ummmm.....

I've been trying to think of things to post about and can come up with nothing, so I think I will just ramble for the sake of a post! (I can't believe I just said that!)

It's amazing what little things you never thing about, but going without a washer seems like a little thing until you have to do so. For some people it's no big deal and honestly if I were living by myself it would not be that big of a problem, I would just run to the laundry mat once a week and be fine. But in our family if we did that then we would be there all day spending oodles of money and then spend all of the next day folding it and putting it away.

Last Friday night mom found a washer on Craig's list. It looked to be the perfect washer, there was only one problem! It was over two hours away! So, mom called and talked with them we were really getting to the point where we NEEDED a washer, almost two days without doing laundry in our house can cause some major problems! After talking with them they offered to bring the washer to market for her. :D

So, I am now trying my best to catch up, make sure everyone has clean clothes; all diapers are washed so that everyone is happy. But I am also trying to hang as much as possible on the line. I LOVE the smell of line dried clothes, and down here were it is so humid most of the year we have a small window of time when we can do that. We can usually do it for about a month in the spring and a month in the fall. But with this wonderful weather that we have been having the time of line drying clothes has gone far longer than I can remember it ever going. Normally I am done with line drying by the beginning of May and here I am at the beginning of June and enjoying every minute of it, even if it does cause more work for me. :D

Now, I am praying that our front loader gets fixed SUPER fast and that the time of line drying last even longer. :D

Two Things

I have two things to mention before I head out the door with Linnea and Noah for the Woodlands market.

1) Our backup washer is broken! Laundry is backing up at an alarming rate, we are stuck without our main washer while the new part comes in and I think I might scream if we go one more day without washing laundry! (Just in case you missed it this pas week my mom was talking about our new jobs and mine was laundry)

2) What is up with the weather?!? Here it is two days left until June and it's feeling like March. Not like I am complaining, I love it!! But I am wondering what's gong on. :D Oh, well I'll enjoy it while I can and stop complaining.

Have an enjoyable Saturday and Sunday!

Laundry Woes

This post could also be called "I Hate Top Loaders!!"

Having a large family we do our fair share of laundry in a day. I have had people tell me that we do more laundry in a day then they do in a week. So, you can imagine the amount of work that our washer and dryer have to do. :D

Normally we don't have any problems with our dryers. As long as we keep them clean they are steady machines and work almost nonstop with no problems at all.

Now our washers are a totally different story, or used to be. It used to be that we would have the one main working washer and then two backups (yes, two!). Whenever the main washer went down, we would pull it out, put in a replacement and wait for Sears to come out and repair the main washer. When the backup would break it would be off on its way to scrap land, due to the fact that we were normally the third owner of it and it had seen better days. :D

Over two years ago we got a new washer, because our old one had died and with our warranty Sears had to replace it. We got the top of the line as good as it gets and as large as it gets front loader. It seemed at the time that we were always calling out sears to fix something on our old front loader and we thought that the same thing would happen with this, but at least we would get on top of laundry while it was working.

Well, not with this one! With over two years of owning it, this Friday will be the first time Sears has had to come out and work on it. Now, we have had minor problems with it, but nothing that Linnea or any one of us other girls could not fix. We are counting our blessings that way at least. :D

But as we wait for Friday to come around I sit here trying my best to stay on top of laundry with a top loader that holds less than half the load of my front loader and wounding what we ever did before we got the top loader! I can't wait until it's fixed and hopefully I will be able to stay caught up!

But, just to let you know---I HATE top loading washing machines and I CAN'T wait until our front loader is fixed!! lol