DIY Washing Machine

Our landlord has recently threatened that if the washing machine breaks, she is going to take as long as legally allowed to install the new one. This has got me thinking about how I would wash my clothes without a washing machine.

There's always the sink method, the slosh in the bathtub method, or the stirring around in a bucket option, but I decided to check out the web to see what other ideas were out there.

I was wondering how people washed their clothes before the invention of the washing machine. It turns out, to my surprise, that washing machines have actually been around for a long time. There were manually cranked washing machines in the 19th century. The idea was to turn a handle and agitate the clothes by jiggling them around in a wood or copper barrel. With some of these models, there was a place for a coal fire underneath the barrel to heat the water. In others, you heated water on a stove and poured it in.

Getting the water out, what our modern spin drying at the end of the cycle accomplishes, was done with a "wringer." The wringer looks like 2 rolling pins stacked on top of each other. You turn a handle and flatten your wet laundry through the 2 rollers to squeeze out the water. Where does the water fall? I can't tell from any of the pictures I've looked at, but I hope it falls back down into the barrel!

When electricity came around, manufacturers started making similar washers that you could plug in. I imagine the main advantage of an electric version was that it heated the water for you. And with motors getting into the equation, you didn't have to turn the barrel by hand.

If you want to see a collection of antique washing machines, you can check out the Lee Maxwell Washing Machine Museum. Mr. Maxwell's got some beauties:



"Wringer Washers" were manufactured until the 1980s. Many sources, such as Lehman's Country Life, make the case that a solidly built wringer washer would be more advantageous to you than the washer you have now. Wringers use less water and are more efficient. The reason why is the way you wash clothes in a wringer. You use the same water for various loads by separating your laundry and starting with the cleanest loads first. You save the super dirty clothes for the last load. The wringer washer is actually faster than the washing machine cycle of today, so you can get all these loads done in one swoop.

Of course, since they haven't been made for a while, it is kind of hard to find a wringer washer. Long term, it would be very cool to purchase one and take it for a spin. But if my landlord pulls the plug, I'll have clothes that need to be washed immediately. There will be a need for a quick, efficient solution.

One idea kept popping up all over the blogs:

Plunger In a Bucket

It's a simple idea - Take a big bucket with a lid and cut a hole in the top. Put a clean plunger in the hole and plunge your clothes around with soap and water. Bam.

I like it! But what about the wringing? There's got to be a way to make your own wringer. As I mentioned, it just looks like 2 rolling pins, so how hard could it be to build? You would need some sort of connecting piece and a crank. I'm not very handy, but I have a feeling a friendly neighbor or acquaintance somewhere would know what to do.

I like the simplicity of Plunger Bucket. You could do it while you watched TV! It sounds a little physical, but so what? You're burning a few calories.

After all the stuff I've learned about washing machines, I would secretly be a little excited now if the washer broke.

Dandelion Fritters Success

Loosely following a recipe idea from Kimberly Gallagher of Learning Herbs, today I made dandelion fritters. The roommates were a little skeptical at first, but after giving them a try, we all agreed they were a tasty treat.

Step one was to gather some dandelion flowers. We had plenty in the front yard.









Next I mixed the petals only (no greens) into a basic batter - 1 cup of flour, an egg, milk, and honey. It doesn't get much easier than that.

I put them in a skillet with some vegetable oil and fried them up pancake style. Then I sprinkled sugar over the finished product. I think powdered sugar would be delicious if you have it handy.

An alternative that Kimberly suggests is to dip the individual flowers in the batter and then fry. This would give you very cool, bite-sized fritters. I opted to mix all my petals evenly for consistency and make larger fritters, but either way would work.

And there you go. Yum!

Edible Weeds in Your Yard: Sow Thistle

Thistles are plants that look like they want to eat you. But the good news is you can eat them.





Chances are when checking out your weeds, you refer to sow thistle as "the scary, ugly one." The thistles as a group have a menacing appearance. The leaves are spiky-shaped and often sharp with prickles or thorns at maturity.

The young leaves, however, can be picked and cooked up for a tasty sidedish. You can cook the older leaves, but it takes longer. And if they've become prickly and you have to knock all the prickles off, then it's typically more effort than it's worth. My backyard has some big thistles growing in it, which I will eventually throw in a pot.

If you ever got lost on a hike and didn't have any more food, it would be nice to identify a nearby thistle and set to cooking. So how to identify? The sow thistle has been annoying lawn owners as long as we've had grass, so most of us instinctively know what it looks like - even if we don't know what it's called. But the thistles that make the greatest impression on us are the mature, scarier ones. It's helpful to be able to ID the tastier young plants.

Fortunately, baby thistles resemble the dandelion, the most common and well-known weed. Dandelions and sow thistles both produce little yellow flower poofs. The trick is: dandelions produce a single yellow flower. Sow thistles produce multiple yellow flowers. The dandelion structure is also very ordered. The leaves form a circular, organized base and the flower sticks up from the center. The sow thistle is the drunk uncle of the dandelion. It's rougher around the edges and less symmetrical. It overgrows. It flops here and there. It gets ugly.

But how does it taste? Green Deane claims that it's delicious with some olive oil, spices, and a little grated cheese.



I hope to draw my own conclusions soon and report back!

Green Deane - The Weed Guru

This handsome man is an expert on identifying and cooking with weeds. He is also the distinguished host of Eat The Weeds, "the most watched foraging channel on youtube."

He will show you how to find your weed, harvest it, prepare it for cooking, and then give you a recipe to try. The Martha Stewart of survival!

Green Deane has made 111 episodes about eating weeds. One hundred and eleven. Who knew there were even that many weeds? The guy is a genius. And he has a sweet beard.

Edible Weeds in Your Yard: Mallow

If there was ever a famine in Los Angeles, we could survive on mallow and skunk meat. The common mallow, or malva parviflora, is also known as "cheeseweed," because the leaves resemble a wheel of cheese. This makes it very easy to identify, and then to eat.

It is supposed to be really nutritious, but the taste is a little odd. It's apparently been used for a long time in Israel as a substitute for grape leaves, or cooked in a 'mallow and rice' dish in Turkey.

But what if you put it in a burrito? When I first found out mallow was edible, I went out to the backyard and harvested a bunch of it. I experimented by mixing it with spinach and other veggies in my eggs. And it doesn't taste bad.

There are some definite plus sides to eating mallow. It's free. It stays fresh way longer than greens from the grocery store. And it's super good for you, if the internet is to be believed. But I don't think I'll ever crave mallow the way I crave spinach or red leaf lettuce. It tastes a little foreign.

Would I feel differently if I had eaten it as a child? I'm not sure. Maybe it just goes better with Middle Eastern recipes. I could also see it fitting in well in Indian food.

Another internet rumor is that you can make shampoo with it. I haven't tried this one yet. It would be a fun experiment, but I'd probably have to be in dire straits to not mind my hair smelling like leafy greens.

Edible Weeds in Your Yard: Dandelions

I've recently discovered many of the weeds in my lawn that I've been spending hours crouched on the ground fighting with, are in fact, edible. And sometimes delicious.

Since it's Fat Tuesday, which in Ireland is known as Pancake Tuesday, you may be interested to know that you can put nutritious dandelion flower petals in your pancakes. Most people know or remember from kindergarten that you can eat dandelion flowers and greens. The greens are bitter, so they are best paired with other things in a salad. I saw them on sale at Albertson's, but I have plenty of them in my front yard. The flowers can be mixed into pancake batter or made into fritters, as this awesome lady explains .