EDIT: I’ve received enough help to get a washing machine now and will have it on Tuesday. Thanks for the suggestions though.
I’m not having much luck with my mutual aid request for a new washing machine. I’m finding it impossible to wash my clothes by hand. I have very little use of my left arm, as well as issues with my hands. I’m finding i just can’t wring the clothes out by hand, which means i can’t get the laundry disinfectant I have to use, out properly. They’re being left itchy and smelly. Does anyone have any good tips on dealing with this?
Ok, I had moderate success with trying out the method I mentioned in my other comment.
Step 1: is to wash the clothes (either in the sink or in a bucket, I have to wash my clothes in the shower), I usually just let them soak in hot/warm water for a while, sometimes they don’t even need to be agitated after this, the soaking does most of the work. (Personally I try to use as little detergent as possible because it is so hard to wring it out.)
Step 2: I got a dish drying rack and an old cutting board, I don’t have a rolling pin, so I used a wine bottle as a replacement, anything cylindrical and relatively heavy should work.
Step 3: I laid the clothes out on the dish rack as flat as I could manage, and tried just rolling and crushing the water out, just the weight of the tools and my arm was generally enough, I didn’t need to push hard, just leaned into a bit, I found pressing with the cutting board and then rolling with the wine bottle worked best. Then I flipped the piece of clothing and wringed it out again, sometimes needing to do this a couple of times.
Step 4: I rinsed the clothes and then repeated the process, it took me about 2-3 cycles of this to reduce the detergent to a level I was happy with, but if you might need more or less depending on how sensitive to that itchy detergent feel you are.
I wash only washing underwear today though, and each piece took me about 3-5 minutes to do with this method, so it is slow, and would probably not work for very large articles of clothing like a full dress or for bedsheets.
Additionally, I was on my knees the entire time because I was washing them using the shower, but if you have a laundry sink (or you could even use your kitchen sink really), then it would probably be a lot easier on your legs and feet.
I’m also worried that while I tried to come up with a method that wasn’t too physically taxing, it might still be an exhausting task, I’m feeling pretty tired after doing it, though that could be because I was on my knees and constantly needing to stand up to stretch them out.
I hope this can help a little bit, you’ll probably need to adjust things to suit your needs and limitations, but let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help!
When I was a kid and lived in poor rural Tennessee one trick was to get a mop bucket where you can squeeze the water out of the mop but just use that for the clothes.
Also the general method was to use the bathtub. Fill it with warm water and some detergent throw in the clothes agitate a little and let them soak. drain the water and fill with cold water agitate and drain. Sometimes do that three times or whatever.
Cool experiment! Washing clothes is generally exhausting, historically it’s one of the things people first outsource when they subjugate others. Laundry used to take alllllll fucking day.
This comment makes me think of all the people I went to uni with who got scurvy lol. Although I suppose if you don’t bake a rolling pin is not very useful.
A rolling pin was one of the first kitchen tools I bought in grad school because there wasn’t one in my dorm suite’s kitchen. In the last 7 years it has been used exactly zero times. Lmao
Why don’tcha use this as a reason to take some time to yourself and make some dumplings, or croissants if you’re feeling cheeky. Baking is very relaxing :3
It’s one of those Honky Cooking Items we don’t really use in our household, like the giant German cleaver my wife ignores in favour of the caidao, we just use a dowel instead.
Fair fair. I just have a smoothed and oiled wide dowel because handles break under high pressure but I can lean my full body on this.
Also caidaos are great (my fav knife for general cooking) but cleavers are for chopping which will chip the fine edge of a caidao. If you are vegan though you don’t really have a need to cleave through bones etc.
I feel like even a lot of carnists are alienated enough from their food that they don’t need to chop through bones regularly. Maybe to expose marrow for stock?
When I was on my “factory farming bad, meat needed” arc I did a lot of hunting and “ethical” butchers stuff. Might’ve skewed my idea of what meat eating people eat.
In the west, most people just get cuts from the grocery store or maybe the butcher shop. Some hunters butcher their own stuff, but most around me just take the whole carcass to a butcher to process for them so they don’t have to do the “icky part”.
Honestly ive found smaller cleavers to be pretty great for the hefty roots. The rutabagas, celeri root, etc., especially when they’re big. Also for garlic cause I just place all the cloves and crush them at once instead of one at a time (yes I know I use “too much” garlic, no I won’t stop, it is the perfect food).
I mean, the caidao will serve this function perfectly. It’s basically just a thinner cleaver that’s better at all tasks other than going through bone.
Yeah, I have a tiny kitchen, so I don’t really bake at all, I don’t have the room, I did have a rolling pin at one point though, I just can’t remember where it went. I don’t think I’ve got scurvy, but my dentist did recommend I have less lemon since the acid is bad for your teeth, so…maybe?
And it’s actually a weird coincidence that I have a bottle of wine at all, I don’t normally drink wine, but I was making a recipe earlier this week that needed wine in it, otherwise I don’t think I would’ve had a replacement at all. Barely used it in the recipe (it asked for a full bottle, which would’ve tasted awful), so I’m glad I found a use for it beyond that.