I don’t know if every Wednesday is washday but on this particular Wednesday as we drove the country roads we spotted many wash lines filled with clothing drying in the wind. This area has a large population of both Amish and Mennonite folk.
ON A WINDY WASH DAY MORN
Soaked and scrubbed in a round tin tub
with homemade soap
up and down the ribs of a wooden washboard
by hands rubbed red & raw
on a windy wash day morn.
Stiffened with starch, squeezed
and wrung to a twisted laundry rope
then hung on lines to flap
back and forth and snap dry
on a windy wash day morn.
Laid on the lawn like paper cutouts
clean shirts and sheets, towels and skirts
smelling of sun and clouds and wind
wait to be ironed and worn and dirtied
again for another wash day morn.
~ Brenda Seabrooke, American poet and novelist
They really have some great pulley systems and other clothes hanging inventions to make the job more efficient.
Do you have a set day to do laundry?
I’m linking this post to Good Fences with TexWisGirl.
The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b. 
Beautiful pictures Ellen. I love washline pictures and have taken photos of them in Portugal – hanging from balconies and from Newfoundland where the wash drys horizontally in the wind! Funny how the drying pants look like little boys hanging on the line and the towels are hung sideways. All so different. I don’t have a particular wash day and seem to leave it till Saturdays like I always did when I was still working. I should get a better schedule I guess!
I love your photos here…My mother always washed on Monday…I have no set time or day..just when I see the hamper full…xo
Very colorful pictures that bring to mind sweet memories. Love the poem, too. Seems like every day is wash day!
What lovely colours the dresses are, so similar to those used in the Amish quilts.
Lovely photos of a special thing…hung laundry on the line. I wash just about everyday!
What is it about seeing wash all lined up on the line outside. So homey and comforting. My mom used to hang her laundry all the time. I still remember the smell and nothing in the bottles compares.
Quintessentially Amish washing line photos which i love!
I have to do laundry most days to stay ahead of the game!
Hello!:) Love these insightful photos, of the Amish way of drying clothes. Such neat and orderly rows of clothes!!
I admire these Pole for all they do and use. We used to dry our cloths on a line in the backyard before moving to town.
that’s so sweet!
i love to see amish clotheslines.
I love my clothesline and use it every day that I can. There’s a lot of laundry hanging out there! There’s something beautiful about a clothesline full of clean laundry.
I love seeing Amish clotheslines! I don’t have a set day for laundry – or any other household chore. My work schedule is restricting enough – I try to keep it more relaxed at home.
What a great selection of fences and laundry lines. I love the way clothes and bed sheets feel after being line dried.