United States. Every inch of it fruit orchard blossoms and happy chicken tractors near botanical gardens. But this is not so. We have a long way to go before our grand design can even break ground. Homesteading on a piece of rescued land means that most of what we are doing is entirely aspirational until we can get a house built. Building will take money we have yet to find. As we search for the cash and clear the land, planning seems to be one thing we can do nearly every day which doesn't tax our already thin resources. Visualizing the future and writing in the present tense is more fun than simply telling the truth. The truth costs a bunch more money, is a lot more work, and gets mud on your boots.
As we begin making real plans for our homestead farm there are at least a million decisions to make: the size of the house, the dimensions and spacing in the orchards, how many chicken tractors, etc. . . The broad strokes are easy. Each individual decision: not always so easy. Whatever you call it: "going green" or "sustainable design", or "getting back Grandma's house", means re-thinking everything we do or have done.
Adding a principle such as: only include things which serve more than one purpose, or: use the smallest amount of resources possible, or if Grandma didn't have it then we don't need it, all helps to whittle the big ideas down. A great many things we have had in our lives simply don't pass some of our well reasoned tests, and you can't simply follow the rules all of the time, especially if you are slightly hedonistic and into creature comforts. And then there are necessary exceptions to every rule. Rules can save a lot of money resources and, maybe more importantly, the precious space resource.
"Getting small" is a big goal of our farm project and also journey with no definitive end. Building minimally should mean making do with less. Building our home (smallish (at 945 square feet)), and planning space allocation sufficient for the necessities (and luxuries which seem necessary) means holding everything up to serious scrutiny. One thing which popped up immediately when talking about our kitchen layout, was where to put the dishwasher.
A dishwasher is a modern labor saving device and thought by many to be akin to having a washing machine or clothing dryer. Our first drawings placed the new dishwasher right next to the extra large multi-use sink, our dish cabinets were above the whole thing. Very efficient use of plumbing, wood, and man hours. This seemed one of those things which didn't fit our principles (especially the Grandma principle) but somehow we weren't going to simply give up because nobody would build without a dishwasher, just as nobody would build without a sink. The truth is: we never thought about leaving the dishwasher into our plans. But we've had time to think things over since then.
Like most of the consumer appliances made after World War Two: the clothing dryer, microwave, coffee machine, can opener, stereo, television, etc . . . the dishwasher was a modern convenience that seemed to free up time for the happy home-maker. Energy was cheap, life was busy, and there was plenty of money in suburban America. These new appliances became fixtures in every home because they not only served their intended purposes, they were also a status symbols reminding everyone that the owners of these fine appliances were as good as anyone else.
Nobody can question that the washing machine gave women better lives. And in the United States few questioned the need for the clothing dryer to site next too the washing machine even though the laundry hung on lines for free, and the clothing dryer didn't really save all that much labor. Industrial know how engineered cloth so that it performed better when put into a clothing dryer, making a clothing dryer into a thing which removed both hanging out laundry and ironing from the house wife's busy day. The dishwasher, like the clothing dryer, seemed another logical extension of the labor saving wonder, the washing machine. These all made the "little women's" life a little bit easier.
In the seventies, when the dishwasher became ubiquitous throughout the urban United States, women were being liberated and returning to work outside the home so the dishwasher made sense. But not all of the new labor saving consumer products made as much sense. The microwave oven is a sad little oven which cooks food which might better be prepared using nearly any other method. Still and all, we all have a microwave oven. The same goes for many conveniences. Consumer appliances will probably count for a large chunk of our farm home budget. But a dishwasher won't be one of the things we will invest our cash in.
A few weeks back our dishwasher blew a gasket and this event opened our eyes to the possibility of removing the dishwasher from our lives.
The gasket thing was not expensive, but it took three days for the part to come in (exactly one day longer than our dishes could pile up). We were forced to wash our dishes by hand at a time when life was a bit too busy to add another chore to the schedule. Both my wife and I grew up in an era when people sat down to dinner and then washed up afterwards. We both agreed that we hated doing the dishes every night as kids and would have to bite the bullet to get the job done. We didn't have one of those dish strainers which sat on the kitchen counter of our youth, so we put out a few kitchen towels flat on the counter-top and got started. Then, after the part arrived we restored dishwasher services and the strangest thing happened: we never loaded the dishwasher again.
We found that the dishwasher didn't really do all that much labor saving, but did cost more than it was worth. We also found that doing the dishes by hand was a benefit to our lives in many ways.
Nobody can question that the washing machine gave women better lives. And in the United States few questioned the need for the clothing dryer to site next too the washing machine even though the laundry hung on lines for free, and the clothing dryer didn't really save all that much labor. Industrial know how engineered cloth so that it performed better when put into a clothing dryer, making a clothing dryer into a thing which removed both hanging out laundry and ironing from the house wife's busy day. The dishwasher, like the clothing dryer, seemed another logical extension of the labor saving wonder, the washing machine. These all made the "little women's" life a little bit easier.
In the seventies, when the dishwasher became ubiquitous throughout the urban United States, women were being liberated and returning to work outside the home so the dishwasher made sense. But not all of the new labor saving consumer products made as much sense. The microwave oven is a sad little oven which cooks food which might better be prepared using nearly any other method. Still and all, we all have a microwave oven. The same goes for many conveniences. Consumer appliances will probably count for a large chunk of our farm home budget. But a dishwasher won't be one of the things we will invest our cash in.
A few weeks back our dishwasher blew a gasket and this event opened our eyes to the possibility of removing the dishwasher from our lives.
The gasket thing was not expensive, but it took three days for the part to come in (exactly one day longer than our dishes could pile up). We were forced to wash our dishes by hand at a time when life was a bit too busy to add another chore to the schedule. Both my wife and I grew up in an era when people sat down to dinner and then washed up afterwards. We both agreed that we hated doing the dishes every night as kids and would have to bite the bullet to get the job done. We didn't have one of those dish strainers which sat on the kitchen counter of our youth, so we put out a few kitchen towels flat on the counter-top and got started. Then, after the part arrived we restored dishwasher services and the strangest thing happened: we never loaded the dishwasher again.
We found that the dishwasher didn't really do all that much labor saving, but did cost more than it was worth. We also found that doing the dishes by hand was a benefit to our lives in many ways.
Washing by hand was warm water in a cold Oregon winter. We got the dishes cleaner (as well as the kitchen surrounding the sink, counters, and stove), and lowered our electricity bill (carbon footprint) and probably our water bill a little bit. But after thinking about it, we got so much more out of the process than simply better hygiene. We got closer to the aesthetic (minimalism) home life we hope for as we move toward farm life. And also we are doing something simple which our Grand Mothers would appreciate. We went out and bought a cheapo dish strainer and wash the dishes by hand after every meal.
Since making the decision to ditch the dishwasher we have found that many related decisions are also changed such as: if we don't entertain sixteen people, and the dishes don't stack up in a dishwasher waiting for machine efficient fullness, then we won't need the sixteen place settings and forty glasses and cups. So now the dishwasher space planned for the new home, the thirty precious linear inches of cabinet in a kitchen which is too small, will be reclaimed to become a much more useful cabinet to hold home canned goods or canning pots. We can plan for less, do more with the less we have, and perhaps live a little better.
I lived in the UK for 5 years and never once lived in a flat with either a dishwasher OR a clothes dryer! I've moved back to Canada now and live in a shared house with 5 others, no dishwasher in the house and never a dirty dish sitting around getting crusty! There IS a clothes dryer, but I am so used to hanging the clothes now, I like the routine. Hanging my clothes makes the little consumer in me happy as it gets too see all my favourite clothes all clean and lined up.
ReplyDeleteI'm happy your dishwasher broke! All the bending required to fill and empty it were just adding more back straining which you'll get plenty of on the farm already.
Have a good one!
We're happy the thing broke as well. Thanks for the comment. D
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