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.