It never crossed my mind

I amuse myself a lot these days by doing things I never thought about before.

I had my little boring routine in Holton, Kansas, and it served me well since I had no one else in the house to worry about or work around. I cleaned when I wanted, I washed and dried my one or two loads of clothes each week, cooked and baked when I felt moved, slept as long as I desired. It was perfect for one person.

Today, I hung clothes out in the rain. The fact that I actually hang clothes on a huge, rotating station in the back garden ['yard' for you yankees] is something that never crossed my mind in Holton. I just put the clothes in the washer and then the dryer and then put them away like everybody else, I assume. But here, I rarely use the dryer--mostly because not much is that urgent to be dried plus the dryer is in the shed ['garage' for you yankees] because laundry rooms don't usually have outlets for dryers, so it's not exactly convenient. But, since I'm a lady of leisure now, I really don't mind hanging clothes out. The slower pace of life allows for the time it takes and they get that 'fresh' smell to them.

And now I shall explain why I'm not crazy because I hang clothes in the rain.

Rain here is much finer than any I have ever encountered in the States, whether it was Georgia or Kansas. It is so fine that, most of the time, it doesn't even make raindrop puddles in the pond or any sound at all on the plastic sunroom roof. The patio deck being wet is a dead give away, but sometimes, I only know it's raining because I look up at the trees and see it falling against the dark shades of the leaves and I'm amazed at how much rain is really falling without notice. So I find that, even with the rain coming down, the clothes will get dry in a few hours.

We do have stormy rain with pelting drops on the odd occasion, but that is usually at night. And thunderstorms are very rare here. I'm told it's all because of the mountain being between us and the ocean, but I will just take their word for that.