Dot`sThoughts

My new clothesline-

Spent a couple days wondering how I was going to put up a new clothes line through the pulley that is connected near the top of an old telephone pole about 75 + feet from my back porch.

Years ago the people who owned the two lots next to my home had a telephone pole on their property where the electric co. connected the electricity from the poles on our street to their house ( actually just a square shack with a flat roof and a dirt floor- where they raised 5 children). Today the Town wouldn`t allow anyone to live that way, they would have condemned the shack. One day they had a fire which burnt down that old shack and we could even hear the bullets keep going off inside from the hot fire. Her husband at that time was a big hunter. Four of the 5 children had already married and left home, so they just had the youngest with them then. They bought a small trailer to live in for a short time. After the husband died, the wife got the old trailer moved and decided to sell the property and Walt and I bought it. That is how the tall pole was already on the property.

My clothesline is a long one. It crosses the 60 feet of the two lots, plus another almost 20 feet to the pulley on my back porch. So, I had to buy 160 feet of nylon twisted rope to reach from my porch , across the next 2 lots, to the top of the telephone pole and back to the pulley hooked on my back porch. Having a pulley line allows me to hang things without going off my porch. I ended up with only about 3 feet extra. I almost bought just 150 which wouldn`t have been enough. I never realized how much the price of clothes line had gone up. But it wouldn`t have cost much if I had a normal length to cover.

To get back to my problem- how do I get the new line through the high pole pulley? It was too dangerous having a son standing on the top rung ( where no one should ever stand) of an extension ladder that was just balancing onto a round pole. I still remember how scared I was when I watched my youngest son up there straightening the pulpy and running the other rope through the pulley while my husband was on the ground below. I remember running out to help hold that wiggling ladder. I never wanted to see that happening again.
I finally decided to try binding the ends of the old rotten rope with the end of the new rope- overlapping then for about 2 inches. I used my picture wire to bind the two ropes tight together. Then I started silently praying that God would help me hold both rope ends while I slowly walked towards the telephone pole. Luck was with me. I managed to hold both the old rope and the new rope tight enough to keep the rope from falling off the high pulley. The wire held strong and the old rope didn`t break again where it was so worn, so I was able to keep walking back towards the house - slowly letter the new rope loosen while pulling the old rope the opposite direction till the original end of the new rope was in one hand and near the other end of the new rope was in my other hand. If I thought the hard work was over, I had another think coming. I still had to hold both ends of the new rope tight to keep it on the pulley and at the same time I needed to string the rope through the pulley on the porch. I wised up and tied the bottom rope end onto a porch post, then I wound more picture wire around the end of the frayed rope end and pushed the end of this wire up and around the pulley and with the wire, I was able to get the new rope through the pulley. Then there is the metal contraption that is used when you need to tighten up the clothes line. You need to pull the end forward enough to open the other end where the ball bearings are in order to make the opening large enough to push the other rope end through it. Again I added another piece of wire around this rope end and pushed the wire through and with the wire was able to pull the rope through the ball bearing end of the tightener. This done , all that was left was to untie the other rope end and tie it to the other end of the rope tightener. Was wishing I had at least three hands while doing all this, but tying the ends to the porch post was like having a third hand. Again, I surprised myself that I now have a good working clothesline and my worst fears never happened. I never let either end of the ropes get loose enough to fall off the high pulley. Thanks you God , was my first thought once I was finished.
If I ever need to replace the rope again, I hope I remember how I did it this time.
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My under kitchen work to save heat this winter.

Did very little today. Just finished 2 loads of washing when one of my twins showed up and gave me a ride to lows where we picked up hot air pipe wrapping. Then my son crawled under the Kitchen and kitchen addition and wrapped all my heating pipes that went under there. He also used up all the extra insulations I still had from when I did my attic and the boys did my shop. He insulated all under the kitchen addition floor for me. A lot of work and took a few hours to do. All I did to help was keep pushing more insulation in to him. I might not need to use the electric heater in the addition this year. The original house has a full cellar, but just a 3 foot to 4 foot crawl space under the added on kitchen and the later added on kitchen addition. I have wanted this all done for years, but would never ask any of my kids to do it for me and was afraid I would`t be able to work the stapler over my head, or wrap the long pipes real tight with the bad shoulder. Thanks to my son Walt, it might cost me less to heat this winter and with the high price of fuel oil and electricity so high, ever little bit helps.

Labels: another picture shows the length of the clothesline and the tightener., One picture shows the two ropes wired together