I got rid of my geese a week and half ago. I had 11 geese and more

males than females. My neighbor, Leona, swapped them for horseback riding lessons for Timmy. I don't miss the goose poop in the yard and all the honking that went on outside my bedroom window at night, but I will miss having the goose eggs for baking and dying the large shells for Easter.

I have been seeing dedicated women hanging out their sheets and blankets to air-dry on their clotheslines. Seeing clothes hung out to dry is becoming a thing of the past in this part of the world. Lots of the world still dry their clothes on lines outside, but most people around here use dryers, as so many work full-time and are too busy to haul their laundry outside to dry.

I never had a clothes dryer until my last child was 4 years old. I hung clothes to dry on lines strung across the dining room and in the hallway upstairs. My babies wore cloth diapers and I had clotheshorses by the wood stove to dry the diapers on. I usually had two babies in diapers at the same time.

I remember my neighbor coming to visit me after I had a new baby. I had diapers and towels piled by the couch and on the table and my neighbor asked where the new baby was. I nodded to a little lump on the couch. The baby was tucked in a corner with all the diapers surrounding her that my neighbor couldn't see her.

When I lived in an apartment in Massachusetts I hung my laundry to dry on lines strung up in an alleyway. My neighbor, Claire, who lived beneath me, had hung laundry out to dry for years. She would re-hang my laundry if I didn't have the items in 'proper' order. Proper order according to Claire was diapers in a row, towels, blouses, pants, all hung by categories.

Claire also insisted that I use only peg clothespins and not the kind that clipped on. I never knew that there was a proper way to hang laundry, but I tried my best to comply with her obsession with order on the clothesline. Almost every day, Claire was rearranging my hanging laundry, as it usually wasn't up to her standards. I didn't mind it too much as re-hanging my laundry was one of the rare times she left her apartment.

When I lived in Ireland, everyone hung their laundry outside or in their

houses. My neighbor Bridie, looked forward to the days when the sun would shine and the breezes came in off the ocean and the laundry would be dry before noon. Bridie called these days, "Powder dry days." It was a good day as I could lay my baby on the ground while I hung up the laundry and enjoyed the warm sun and breeze.

I am looking forward to some powder dry days this spring. I don't think I'll be hauling lots of laundry to hang out on the clothesline but I hope to get the sheets and blankets hung out. With the geese gone, I don't have to worry about them pulling the blankets off with their beaks and pooping on them. I don't miss the goose eggs that much.

Sheila Donnelly can be reached at 434-2233 or by e-mail at :mailto:newsroom@austindailyherald.com